Abstract:

The e-participation that emerges due to the development of information and communication technologies encourages citizens to be involved in participating and negotiating decision-making processes and contributes to the interaction between citizens and the administration. In addition, citizens can participate in decisions related to management through e-participation practices. Thus, with these applications, a transparent and participatory management understanding becomes easier. In this context, the official websites of public institutions play an important role in the relations between central and local governments and citizens and in the provision of public services. As local public administration, the municipalities and the websites they offer are also highlighted in the implementation of the e-participation processes. The purpose of this research is to identify the e-participation services offered on the websites of the metropolitan municipalities, which represent a large portion of local governments. In this context, the availability of the e-logging content on the respective websites is assessed. The data was obtained by examining the web sites of the majority municipalities with the method of content analysis. 18 criteria developed based on literature have been used to measure the performance of e-participation. The research has shown that the information and communication mechanisms in the services offered to citizens on the official websites of the major city municipalities are in the forefront. In addition, in the ranking of their websites according to the criteria of e-participation assessment, Istanbul and Izmir Metropolitan Municipalities were ranked in the first two places. However, it has been found that the major city websites are not on a sufficient level in terms of participating applications. In the result section, it is discussed the innovations brought by the technology related to the websites of the major municipalities and the recommendations for the expansion of online participation services.

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