Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to develop a novel approach to e-participation, which is based on “passive crowdsourcing” by government agencies, exploiting the extensive political content continuously created in numerous Web 2.0 social media (e.g. political blogs and microblogs, news sharing sites and online forums) by citizens without government stimulation, to understand better their needs, issues, opinions, proposals and arguments concerning a particular domain of government activity or public policy. Design/methodology/approach – This approach is developed and elaborated through cooperation with potential users experienced in the design of public policies from three countries (Austria, Greece and the UK), using a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques: co-operative development of application scenarios, questionnaire surveys, focus groups and workshops and, finally, in-depth interviews. Findings – A process model for the application of the proposed passive crowdsourcing approach has been developed, which is quite different from the one of the usual active crowdsourcing. Based on it, the functional architecture of the required supporting information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructure has been formulated, and then its technological architecture has been designed, addressing the conflicting requirements: low response time and, at the same time, provision of sufficiently “fresh” content for policymakers. Practical implications – Taking into account that traditionally government agencies monitor what the press writes about them, our research provides a basis for extending efficiently these activities in the new electronic media world (e.g. newspapers websites, blogs and microblogs, online forums, etc.) to understand better the needs, issues, opinions, arguments and proposals raised by the society with respect to important domains of government activity and public policies. Social implications – The proposed approach provides a new channel for the “voice” of the society to be directly communicated to the government so that the latter can design its policies and activities based on the social needs and realities and not on oversimplified models and stereotypes. Originality/value – Our paper proposes a novel approach to e-participation, which exploits the Web 2.0 social media – but in a quite different way from previous approaches – for conducting “passive crowdsourcing”, and elaborates it: it develops an application process model for it and also an ICT infrastructure for supporting it, which are quite different from the ones of the existing “active crowdsourcing” approaches.

Abstract
While the first generation of e-participation has been based on official e-participation spaces owned and operated by government, the second one is oriented towards exploiting the highly popular web 2.0 social media for performing ‘crowd-sourcing’ of policy-related knowledge, opinions and ideas from citizens, through posting relevant policy-related content to some social media and then retrieving and processing citizens’ interactions with it. Recently, the idea of a third generation of e-participation has been proposed, which is based on a more ‘passive’ form of crowd-sourcing in social media, through automated passive search by government agencies for content on a public policy under discussion, that has been created in a large number of predefined relevant web 2.0 sources (e.g. political blogs, news websites, facebookand twitter accounts) by citizens freely, without any direct stimulation by government, retrieval and sophisticated processing of this content. In this paper we analyze and elaborate this idea, based on cooperation with potential users experienced in the design of public policies, through a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques. Initially, the main roles required for the practical application of this concept are identified, and then the functional requirements of each of them are determined. Finally, based on these functional requirements the architecture of a central platform supporting the application of this concept is designed.

Abstract
The emergence of web 2.0 social media enables the gradual emergence of a second generation of e-participation characterized by more citizens’ control, in which government agencies post content (e.g. short or longer text, images, video) to various social media and then analyze citizens’ interactions with it (e.g. views, likes/dislikes, comments, etc.). In this paper we propose an even more citizens controlled third generation of e-participation exploiting web 2.0 social media as well, but in a different manner. It is based on the search by government agencies for content on a public policy under formulation, which has been created in a large set of web 2.0 sources (e.g. blogs and microblogs, news sharing sites, online forums) by citizens freely, without any initiation, stimulation or moderation through government postings. This content undergoes advanced processing in order to extract from it arguments, opinions, issues and proposals on the particular policy, identify their sentiments (positive or negative), and finally summarize and visualize them. This approach allows the exploitation of the vast amount of user-generated content created in numerous web 2.0 social media for supporting governments to understand better the needs, wishes and beliefs of citizens, and create better and more socially rooted policies.

Abstract
The LEX-IS project (its full title being ‘Enabling Participation of the Youth in the Public Debate of Legislation’ among Parliaments, Citizens and Businesses in the European Union) is part of the ‘eParticipation’ Preparatory Action of the European Commission (Commission of the European Communities, 2006) aims for contributing to these issues. Its main objective is to improve the legislative process and output in the National Parliaments by enhancing public participation in the preparatory stages (legislation proposal formation stage and public debate of draft legislation), with special emphasis on the youth, using advanced ICT-based tools and methodologies, such as ontologies, metadata, argumentation support, facilitation and visualization methods, process management approaches.

Abstract
Argumentation systems and ontologies have the potential to support and enhance the participation of citizens in the development of effective and acceptable legislation concerning the complex and multidimensional problems that modern societies face. However, this potential has only to a very small extent been explored and realized. In this direction this paper describes an investigation of this potential, which is performed as part of the EU funded project LEX-IS. The main objective of LEX-IS is to improve the legislation process in the National Parliaments through enhanced public participation in the preparatory stages (legislation proposal formation and public debate of draft legislation) with the use of state-of-the-art ICT-tools and methodologies. This paper introduces four scenarios of public participation in above mentioned preparatory legislation processes thereby exploring the support of argumentation systems and ontologies. Along the scenarios, peculiarities of these two preparatory and highly significant stages of a legislation process are discussed, and results of existing relevant research are reflected. The basic features, advantages and disadvantages of each scenario are shown, and the LEX-IS design is sketched.

Abstract
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can play an important role in facilitating the involvement of citizens and enterprises in the development of legislation and in managing the increasing complexity of the legislative processes. In this direction the main objective of the EU funded project LEX-IS is to improve the legislative process in National Parliaments through enhancing public participation in the preparatory stages (legislation proposal formation and public debate of draft legislation) with the use of state-of-the-art ICT-tools and methodologies. The main goals of the project are: a) development of tools for managing the complex legal frameworks and structures, b) development and use of ontologies and metadata schemas for the semantic annotation of legal elements (e.g. directives, laws, decrees, etc.), c) modelling of the draft formation and public consultation process using standard process management approaches such as BPMN to support direct integration in common workflow management systems and d) provision of tools for the active participation of citizens, businesses and non-governmental organizations in the above stages of the legislation process d) using argumentation support systems and web-based annotation facilities (ontology, semantic web services, Web 2.0, etc.) to the legal drafts. Using the above technologies the project aims to contribute to engaging citizens online, with special emphasis on the younger ones; bridging the growing gap between citizens and the state, represented by National Parliaments; improving the legislation process and its outcomes; and promoting e-Participation awareness.