Civic Technology and Data for Good

Abstract

Governments have long dealt with the issue of engaging their constituents in the process of governance, and e-participation efforts have been a part of this effort. Almost all of these efforts have been controlled by government. Civic technology and data4good, fueled by the movement toward open government and open civic data, represent a sea change in this relationship. A similar movement is data for good, which uses volunteer data scientists to address social problems using advanced analytics and large datasets. Working through a variety of organizations, they apply the power of data to problems. This chapter will explore these possibilities and outline a set of scenarios that might be possible. The chapter has four parts. The first part looks at citizen participation in broad brush, with special attention to e-participation. The next two sections look at civic technology and data4good. The final section looks at the possible changes that these two embryonic movements can have on the structure of participation in government and to the nature of public management.