Public participation has been gaining weight in policymaking and, with the increasing pressure for effective global environmental governance, further attention has been dedicated to it. Such trend has been accompanied by a growing pervasiveness of the Internet and related technologies. Several are the studies dedicated to online public participation in national contexts, but few have been exploring the role of online solutions for public participation at a global scale. The following master’s thesis is therefore dedicated to exploring the research question “How may the integration of online solutions in participatory practices influence public participation in global environmental governance?”
The research is centred in a case study – the initiative World Wide Views, a global initiative dedicated to public participation in international policymaking. For the characterisation of the initiative individual face-to-face interviews with experts who designed and manage World Wide Views were conducted. Also, individual online-based interviews with experts across the globe, who implemented the initiative at national level, contributed for broadening the description of the initiative. A multi-person interview with the initiative managers, structured as a future workshop, provided a space for the conceptualisation of online solutions intended to address weaknesses of the initiative. The extensive data collected was primarily subject to a pre-analysis using SWOT as an analytical framework. Then, the integration of a particular online solution in World Wide Views was analysed using a theoretical framework proposed by Gene Rowe and Lynn J. Frewer.
The analyses have demonstrated that weaknesses especially associated to a standard methodological framework of the initiative can be addressed with a certain online solution. However, it was also revealed that the integration of online solutions in global participatory processes ought to, in particular, account for resource accessibility because of the limited access to Internet infrastructure across the world, and, structured decision-making due to online facilitation barriers. Furthermore, this study contributed for pushing forward research in the field by raising the veil over the potential of combined integration of digital solutions, the possible transformation of participatory practices with the inclusion of online solutions and the expansion of the North-South divide in participation in international policymaking due to online participation hurdles.