Goverment Driven e-Participation : The Case of "Urna de Cristal in the Colombian Context

Abstract: This thesis studies government driven e-participation in the context of Colombia using the case of “Urna de Cristal” (Crystal Ballot box). Making use of three theoretical models it intends to answer the main research question that is: How does the government driven tool of “Urna de Cristal” relate to the concepts of participatory democracy, e-empowerment and sustainable e-participation? This research collects mainly qualitative data, collected from government representatives, civil society organizations and citizens. The findings show that “Urna de Cristal” only reaches to the level of e-engaging in Macintosh model of levels of e-participation. It is not fully sustainable according to the seven-phase model proposed by Islam (2008) since there is a special need to work on the last three phases of sustainable e-participation, which refer to promotion, participation and post-implementation analysis. The fact the “Urna de Cristal” is not e-empowering leads the analyses towards the limitations that block the e-empowerment process. From this analysis it is seen that the Government of Colombia is doing a lot to overcome the existing limitations but it is a challenging task that requires a lot of time and resources since there are entrenched limitations, coming from different stakeholders and that comprise a specific context, structures and mentalities.  Findings also show that “Urna de Cristal” is not likely to survive long after the next election (2018) because it is it is an initiative that was proposed in the electorate campaign of Juan Manuel Santos, hence an alternative design is suggested.