Crowdsourcing and regulatory reviews: A new way of challenging red tape in British government?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lodge, Martin; Wegrich, Kai
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Hertie School
• 刊物名称: REGULATION & GOVERNANCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1748-5983
• DOI: 10.1111/rego.12048
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 30-46
• 关键词: information-technology; PUBLIC-PARTICIPATION; e-rulemaking; IMPACT; POLICY

摘要

Much has been said about the appeal of digital government devices to enhance consultation on rulemaking. This paper explores the most ambitious attempt by the UK central government so far to draw on crowdsourcing to consult and act on regulatory reform, the Red Tape Challenge. We find that the results of this exercise do not represent any major change to traditional challenges to consultation processes. Instead, we suggest that the extensive institutional arrangements for crowdsourcing were hardly significant in informing actual policy responses: neither the tone of the crowdsourced comments, the direction of the majority views, nor specific comments were seen to matter. Instead, it was processes within the executive that shaped the overall governmental responses to this initiative. The findings, therefore, provoke wider debates about the use of social media in rulemaking and consultation exercises.