When Should Government Be Spending Resources on Increasing Citizen Engagement

The recent (circa 2010) push to focus on "engagement", be it on the part of customers, employees, or citizens has hit the big time. Everyone is talking it and using it in dozens of different and almost entirely undefined ways, as if it's meaning and value is clear.

As is government. Citizen engagement is linked to all kinds of things in government, from open government, to gov2.0, to government transparency, and if you read articles on the web, you'd think it is the holy grail -- desirable for its own sake.

And therein lies the problem, or problems. First without a defnition of what it means, we'll never know why we are doing it, and once again, it comes down to a simple questions: Why is government seeking to engage citizens?

In what way does increasing citizen engagement actually make governing better? How does citizen engagement benefit the citizens of a jurisdiction?

No Easy Answers

There's no easy answers, in particular because we are not seeing clear, delineated citizen behaviors that would exemplify increased "engagement".

For example, if you look at the literature (the lay literature), you find engagement operationally defined as:

• Amount of time spent on a government website
• Number of likes or friends, or followers on a government Facebook Page
• The number of comments on a government blog

NONE of these has any direct and demonstrable links to better government, or benefits for citizens. It's not surprising because the idea of citizen engagement, while having been around for a long time, is now being fueled by the obsession with social media, and the "interactions" that are alleged to occur there. Driven by marketing, and sales people, including companies that make large amounts of money selling "engagement solutions" to government, things have moved ahead.

And The Missing Why

As is common when governments act, they lose the WHY (they aren't alone when it comes to the use of shiny new toys and concepts). The behaviors suggest that governments fail to link the notion of "citizen" engagement to the basic reasons why governments exist. They fail to link engagement to benefits.

WIthout the why, and when tools are used for their own sake, countless dollars are lost, and it's more evident in government because unlike the private sector, there's no obvious "scoreboard" for the non-political arms of government.

Let's Throw Out The Buzz Phrase: Citizen Engagement

Let's remove the phrase, citizen engagement for the moment. SInce by and large it has no shared precise meaning, let's talk about the importance of dialogue between government and citizens, the importance of a populace that is interested in its democratic process.

We want (as in government wants) to stay "in touch" with the people in its jurisdiction. It's the only way to find a middle ground to maximize government's value to all citizens. And, citizens should have the option to communicate meaningfully with their governments, to have a chance to develop a sense that they might be able to make a difference (even though a single citizen's voice amongst millions belies the influence available).

So, yes, we need some focus groups. We need the ability to bring together members of a community to hear their opinions on issues. Mind you the mechanisms for this have been in place for a long time, and governments have been holding public meetings for decades.

As for technological means of communication -- Facebook, Blogs, Websites, and so on, are they really providing meaningful communication between citizen and government? You'll have to decide, but I think it would be rare for a citizen who took the time to write something online on a government Facebook page, to actually receive a personal, relevant and satisfying response from the real decision-makers.

And Then There's Democracy

One argument, and a good theoretical one, is that a lack of "citizen engagement" in the political process is a threat to democracy. And in many ways it probably is. We NEED citizens to be engaged in at least, voting. And better, in understanding the issues governments face. No question.

But given the abysmal turnout rates at the polls, will attempts by government to "engage" citizens have any effect at all when it comes to creating a populace of informed and keen voters? Doubtful. Why? Because the problems and root causes of why so many people have been turned off of the "vote" and the political process, have nothing to do with the lack of past Facebook pages, or Twitter accounts, or anything of the sort.

No amount of seeking to increase "online engagement" from citizens will make much of a dent in this, because there's no attempts to fix the root causes.

Available Information About Citizen Engagement In The Public Sector