Keywords

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

7.1 Introduction

Citizen engagement in decision-making processes is recognized as an urgent need by governments and international organizations (OECD 2001), but many European Union (EU) citizens feel that their concerns and opinions are not being listened to or acted upon (EC 2010). Against this backdrop EU and its member states have started several e-Participation initiatives at both national and local level (Momentum 2009). Additionally, during the last years there is a lot of discussion on Government 2.0. According to O’Reilly (2009) it is all about using e-Government as platform surrounded by Web 2.0 technologies allowing thus the creation of innovative, citizen-oriented services, sometimes even by the citizens themselves. E-Participation could therefore be regarded as one of Government 2.0 aspects. By using Web 2.0 technologies in e-Participation initiatives the hopes are to increase participation and to improve the democratic practices (Chang and Kannan 2008; PACE 2008; Tambouris et al. 2012). Whereas the use of computers as support for decision-making is nothing new, the advances made in technology, accompanied by an accumulated knowledge in the fields of decision theory, cognitive science and information science, have made it possible to use ICTs in “more expansive ‘advisory’ roles to the decision making” (Saunders-Newton and Scott 2001). E-Participatory Budgeting (e-PB) is one of these initiatives which are applied at municipal level and it is said to be of great promise for enhancing direct decision- making processes.

e-PB is the next step of Participatory Budgeting (PB) projects. PB can be defined as “a direct, voluntary and universal democracy where people debate and decide on public budgets and policy” (Global Campaign on Urban Governance 2004), but for e-PB there is no commonly accepted definition. The terms “e-PB”, “online PB” and “digital PB” are used by researchers and exist in municipal documents (Peixoto 2008; United Kingdom’s Participatory Budgeting Unit 2007). For the purpose of this study we give the following definition of e-PB which is mainly based on the terminology used by United Kingdom’s PB Unit (UK PB Unit) and Peixoto (2008): e-Participatory budgeting is the use of ICTs in the democratic decision-making processes on the priorities and spending for a defined public budget to reinforce accountability at local and regional level by adding value and not replacing the traditional face-to-face Participatory Budgeting processes.

In believing that ICTs and especially Web 2.0 technologies have the potential to increase citizen participation we need to investigate how we make these projects successful. Consequently, it is important to study the experience that comes from cases where PB and especially e-PB have been implemented in order to guide future implementations. According to Codagnone and Wimmer (2007) research that belongs under the umbrella of e-Participation, citizen engagement and democratic processes theme should focus on the development of an e-Participation public value measurement framework during the years 2009–2015. Since e-PB is under this umbrella, with this study we believe that we will contribute towards this direction. Recent studies on deliberation systems implementation (Rose and Sæbø 2010) and on PB/e-PB (Paganelli and Giuli 2010; Paganelli and Pecchi 2013; Scherer and Wimmer 2012) show that research efforts in the field are moving towards the identification of models and guidance regarding e-PB implementations. Their study, as well as the plethora of case studies and recommendations, imply the need to clearly summarize and determine on what makes e-PB projects successful. As research on PB covers already a great aspect of issues it remains to investigate if e-PB differs from PB in terms of project success and where to pay attention when we will try implement e-PB projects in the future.

Therefore this study aims to find out which are the success factors (SFs) for implementing e-PB projects. We investigate this by identifying SFs in existing literature and by undertaking case studies in three Swedish municipalities that are running e-PB projects. In this paper we regard the success as engagement and increased participation. “Engagement” according to the definition of Caddy et al. (2007), is the ultimate objective of the “Social Accountability” initiatives relevant to the decision making processes. We also adopt Cooke-Davies (2002) perspective of project success (distinguishing it from project management success) and success factors (in contrast to the concept of success criteria): “project success measured against the overall objectives of the project” and success factors “those inputs to the management system that lead directly or indirectly to the success of the project” (Cooke-Davies 2002).

Sweden is an interesting unit of analysis because it has a long-standing tradition of citizen engagement in decision-making processes (The official site of Sweden 2014). Additionally, the Internet use in the country is one of the highest in EU (Seybert 2011) and the use of ICTs is included in the political agenda for innovative ways of participation (Coleman and Gotze 2001).

The remaining of the paper is organized as follows: The second section describes the methods used. Then, we describe the three municipalities under study. A presentation of the results (literature study and case study) follows. Thereafter, the results are discussed and conclusions are drawn.

7.2 Research Approach

Two different research methods were used in the study: literature review and case study .

The state and local authorities in their effort to intervene and create a comprehensive reform to society are particularly interested in case studies and especially on how to evaluate interventions and policies to be able to take actions (Yin and Davis 2007). Among others, such actions include engaging citizens and the public at large in meaningful roles (Yin and Davis 2007). The importance of a rigorous case study as well the need for more and of better quality case study research is highlighted by many researchers, e.g., on Gibbert et al.’s work (2008) and Flyvbjerg (2006). These reasons were a motivation for us to use case study.

Case study as a research method is usually used when we try to answer a question of “how” regarding a contemporary set of “events” over which the investigator has little or no control (Yin 2009). In our case the contemporary set of “events” includes “events” strongly connected to the implementation of e-PB projects. Since we try to give an answer to the question of how e-PB projects are implemented and how we could make them successful, case study method was considered appropriate. Using case study, we were able to describe and explain the phenomenon of pioneering e-PB projects in Sweden. Since case study as a method relies on multiple sources of evidence it ensures triangulation. Moreover, such a method benefits from the prior development of theoretical propositions to guide data collection and analysis (Yin 2009). Therefore, case study was considered to be a suitable method after the literature review we conducted. Based on the literature review we developed propositions. The propositions were used as a guide during our data collection. We collected data from various sources in the swedish municipalities under study. Our data analysis was also based on the propositions.

The type of case study design we followed is based on Yin’s (2009) 2 × 2 matrix and corresponds to the type of multiple case design. The argument for this design is that we were interested to study e-PB projects and we did so by looking at three case-municipalities. In general, we adopted the traditional view on case study as a methodological choice (Yin 2009; Yin and Davis 2007; Creswell 2012) in contrast to Stake’s point of view who considers case study as a choice of what is to be studied (Stake 2000).

7.2.1 Literature Review

The literature study of this paper includes scientific papers and documents published by municipalities, research centers and national and international associations and organizations. For this study the authors used two search engines: Google Scholar and ELIN@Örebro. Google Scholar has become a powerful online citation analysis tool during the last years (Kousha et al. 2010) and ELIN@Örebro is an electronic library which includes 14 academic databasesFootnote 1 and several thousands of journals in our field. In order to cover as many relevant papers as possible, the literature review included research on both e-PB and PB (not specifically using ICT). The selection of key words is based on the definitions and the scientific field that e-PB belongs to and they were used in isolation as well as in combinations: “Participatory Budget”, “Budgeting”, “online”, “digital”, “citizens”, “engagement”, “decision-making”, “processes”, “projects”, “case studies”, “eParticipation”, “local governance”. The selection criteria of papers and reports were firstly based on title and abstract. We also assessed the origin of the papers where first priority was given to scientific documents. However, because there has not been a lot of research in the field of e-PB, research documents published by research centers and well known international socioeconomic organizations were also included (e.g.: EU, UN and OECD).

The search of the literature study finished when there were repetitions in the search results, i.e., when we had reached a level of saturation. This means that when the same success factors appeared again and again the searching came to an end.

7.2.2 Case Study

Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKL) has created a network to coordinate the efforts of Swedish municipalities to launch PB projects. By the time of interviews taken there were only three municipalities that were implementing PB and e-PB projects : Örebro, Uddevalla and Haninge. Örebro did not use advanced technologies in the decision making process and preferred to use them in a future run. However, because they had this in mind, we regarded their insights fruitful and their case worthy to study as well.

We gathered background information for each case from the project documentation as well as from interviews. The documents could be municipal documents, presentations used to promote the projects, leaflets and brochures. Moreover, at the point the study was conducted we had access to web pages relevant to the project, blogs or online discussion forums.

In order to get an overall picture of the projects (the beginning, the end, the challenges, success factors and so forth) we decided to interview the project leaders and their assistants, four in total. The interviews were semi-structured, lasted between 50 and 100 min, conducted in English language and concerned the following themes: the investment budget, duration of PB projects, stakeholders, processes, problems, success factors, and visions for the future about e-PB projects. The interviews were conducted by personal meetings between the first author and the project leaders. Notes and recordings were kept during each interview with the consent of all the interviewees. The questions were sent to the interviewees in advance, and served as a ground for discussion.

7.2.3 Analysis

For the analysis of the data, each document derived from the literature review was studied thoroughly and what was considered to be a success factor was kept in a list. There were cases where a success factor was mentioned directly in the text but in the most cases success factors were implicit. Each document revealed a list of factors. Thereafter, the similar factors were grouped as they are presented and described in Table 7.2. Based on these factors we ended up with 19 propositions for PB/e-PB project success.

For the analysis of interview data we used OECD’s and World Bank’s Institute study about social accountability (Caddy et al. 2007) as analytical tool. This study examines social accountability of initiatives in 40 countries according to their ultimate objective, which in the case of PB and e-PB initiatives was “engagement” (Caddy et al. 2007). Therefore the results categorized according to the parameters mentioned in that study. As it is mentioned in introduction section success was considered as engagement and increased participation.

7.3 Introduction to the Cases

Örebro municipality

In Örebro, it was the city’s executive committee (CEC) that decided to run an e-PB project. Under city’s executive committee there are steering groups. The decision for the subject was made “traffic and environment” and it came from the steering group called “democracy and civil society” after discussions with the PB project group. The CEC had to confirm that proposal. After that, the project group was responsible to plan, find out how to run the project and finally how to implement it. The target group was students of the second grade of high school (three schools took part). Student involvement in the project started with a meeting in the Town Hall where the project was described to the students. Then students had to work on their proposals as part of their course syllabus and they had a time frame. Under the period during which the students had to prepare their proposals they could ring or send e-mails to the members of the project group to ask them questions and receive assistance about the cost estimates of their suggestions. Students presented their proposals and voted internally in their schools. After each school had ended up with one proposal, all students were gathered again in the Town Hall in order to vote. The students decided on how to vote and each student could vote on one of the three proposals. The winning proposal received two-thirds of the votes.

Haninge municipality

Based on the SKL (Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions) suggestion, Haninge municipality decided to run an e-PB project. The “democracy group” of the municipality (with representatives of the all political parties) decided to start the project. The subject of the proposal was the city’s park. The democracy group assigned the project to an external consultant who was to become the project leader. In order to plan the project, the she invited many different organizations from civil society to get ideas. One theatrical group and a youth organization responded. Citizens did not decide on how they would like participate. Politicians had already made a time frame for the PB project and the project leader had to work and plan according to that. At first there was a communication campaign. Citizens started to get involved by the time they had to send their proposals. Before the deadline for submissions an open event took place where citizens could get informed, ask questions and participate in workshops. 101 proposals were received. Thereafter they were grouped into 21 groups that were announced on project’s web page. Citizens could get informed, ask questions, log in and discuss on the proposals as well as vote on line. In the last day Internet access points were available in public places were citizens voted online with the assistance of civil servants.

Uddevalla municipality

Uddevalla initiative did not start from SKL, but was a part of an EU funded project called “Meeting point citizens” (MSM). The municipality asked the youth council (YC) to participate in the project from the planning phase. The YC decided the age of the students, the details of the process and how they wanted to vote. The YC made the decisions but the project group was in continuous cooperation with it. A political committee accepted their proposals. The project group sent a letter to every teacher with examples on how to work with this project in their schoolwork. The members of the youth council visited each school, informed and discussed with the students, and thereafter an opening meeting and press release was held. In another meeting students could come with their proposals. The whole project group was present and available to answer students’ questions. The students submitted their proposals via e-mail. 21 proposals were received and the similar ones were grouped. In a following meeting those who had handed in the similar proposals were asked if they agreed to make them one and if they would be comfortable to work together. They had 2 weeks to refine their proposals. An exhibition of the final proposals took place for one and a half week. The students voted online. The results were announced on the Internet and a press release took place.

Table 7.1 presents a summary of case study characteristics.

Table 7.1 Summary of case study characteristics (the budgets are in SEK (Swedish Kronor))
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7.4 Success Factors

The search on the online data bases described above generated 29 documentsFootnote 2. The literature review of these documents revealed 11 success factors for the implementation of e-PB in a municipality. These are factors classified into three groups. The first group consists of factors that are related to people, the second group consists of factors relevant to politics and the third group includes technology related factors (Table 7.2).

Table 7.2 Success factors according to the literature
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Experience

P1: The experience the local government and citizens have in decision-making processes and especially in PB is positively related to e-PB project success. P2: Citizens’ experience in discussing local issues online using a community portal or social networks is positively related to e-PB project success.

Time

Firstly, time refers to the time of planning phase. Secondly, it can be the time the citizens start to get involved in the process. Thirdly, it can be the time needed for the development and testing of the software tools and finally it can be what we can call the big “window frame” for the voting process (the time between the announcement of the final proposals and the voting). Therefore, we propose: P3: The earlier the planning phase starts the better for the e-PB/PB project success. P4: The earlier the citizens start getting involved in the process the better for the e-PB/PB project success. P5: The sufficient time devoted for the development and testing of the software tools is positively related to e-PB project success. P6: The big “window frame” for the voting process is negatively related to e-PB/PB project success.

Evaluation

After the end of an e-PB it is important to take the feedback from the people involved to the process and mainly the citizens. It creates trust and ensures transparency. P7: Evaluation of the project is positively related to PB/e-PB project success. P8: Publishing both the results from the decision making process and the results of the evaluation is positively related to PB/e-PB project success.

Communication campaign

P9: The use of multiple channels and different ways of communication is positively related to e-PB/PB project success. Events and development activities such as workshops both attract people and help them learning about the decision-making process. Online availability of greater and deeper information was mentioned also many times in bibliography.

Local government’s perception of democracy and political/administrative system

The way each government perceives the concept of democracy affects the implementation of PB. Also, the political/administrative structure of a municipality plays an important role because bureaucracy, the multiple levels of committees and the way they are organized involve risks such as delay and corruption. P10: Bureaucracy and the multiple levels of committees involved in the projects are negatively related to e-PB/PB project success.

Vision, objectives, and goals

This factor refers to the formulation of clear objectives and goals as well as to the existence of a clear vision about what local government wants to succeed with e-PB and if it is shared by all the different stakeholders. P11: The existence of clear objectives, goals and vision shared commonly by all stakeholders is positively related to e-PB/PB project success.

Rules

Setting clear rules prevents frustration among participants. These rules should specify procedural aspects, rights and duties of participants. Clear rules are very important when technology and online tools are used in the process. Moderation and specific rules in the discussion forum are also necessary for the implementation of e-PB. P12: Setting clear rules for each different stage of the process especially when ICTs are used is positively related to e-PB/PB project success.

Commitment

This factor refers to commitment building among the different stakeholders: politicians, public servants, project leaders, citizens etc. It can be commitment (1) to the provision of the funding; (2) to offer clear information to the citizens; (3) for consultation provision; (4) to participation in the decision-making processes. P13: Stakeholders’ level of commitment to the project is positively related to PB/e-PB project success.

Online platforms

P14: Testing the online platforms before the use is positively related to e-PB project success. P15: E-voting and active online discussion forums are positively related to e-PB project success. P16: User-friendly and at the same time simple interface is positively related to e-PB project success. P17: Software that ensures data protection is positively related to e-PB project success. Some indicators of success when online software is used are the number of users registered on the forum, hits on the web site, hits connected directly to the forum, and voters’ turnout.

Accessibility

This factor refers both to citizens’ access to the Internet but also to their ability to use it. The provision of Internet access points by municipalities enhances their participation on the processes of e-PB. P18: Online accessibility is positively related to e-PB project success.

Integration of online process with the traditional ones

Only citizens’ online participation is not considered success for an e-PB. Face-to-face procedures are regarded necessary prerequisite for e-PB. P19: Integration of online process with the traditional ones is positively related to e-PB project success.

7.4.1 Success Factors in Practice

Having developed 19 propositions based on previous research on success factors we will now use them for discussing the findings of the case studies:

As these municipalities were the pioneers in PB and e-PB projects in Sweden, they had a few experiences in decision-making—but in Uddevalla they had implemented projects for citizens’ engagement founded by EU before. The target groups in Örebro and Uddevalla had little experience of online discussions about local issues since they consisted of students exclusively (local issues and politics are usually not of that much interest of teenagers). On the other hand Haninge’s target group was really broad, so, according to the project leader, there were citizens that were used to having online discussions about social and political issues, however, not only limited to local issues.

The planning phase of the PB project was really long in Örebro municipality (approximatelly a year). As a result, the project team was well prepared about what they were going to do, who they wanted to involve and how they could handle the result of their involvement. Therefore, they were able to explain the process to the students in a clear way in order for all of them to have the same vision. On the other hand in Haninge, because the initiative came from the politicians, they first decided the time frame and then left the thinking about the planning and implementation to the project leader. This fact had a negative impact on her work. Furthermore, the project leader was hired part time:

I found it also difficult to be an outsider because I work part-time; I’m not based on the council all the time and it is difficult to understand when I’m there only twice a week.

Additionally, the civil servants who would be involved in the project were not asked if they would be able to handle the additional workload within the time frame:

… the politicians made this decision but they didn’t ask the civil servants first if it is a good idea, so for the civil servant it is suddenly to have all this additional work. Also some things have being rushed because of the time frame.

Uddevalla case shows that when a PB project is part of a larger project about citizens’ engagement then it is easiest to start planning and running it:

…this is the difference between us and the other two municipalities because they joined the network because they were curious about what is this, but we had a project plan in the bottom, so they were match. And this was good because we could start immediately when/by the time we joined the network.

In all the three cases an evaluation of project results was conducted and the results announced on Internet and in the press. This created transparency, satisfied the students and the citizens who had worked on the proposals and created the feeling that citizens’ voices are listened to.

Regarding communication campaign , in Haninge the importance of a continuous communication campaign with different means and events is made visible. In Haninge they focused on how to make citizens submit proposals and not so much on making them discuss and vote. There was a gap in communication campaign from 7th of February the last day of proposals submission and 1st of April the launch of online discussion forum. In Uddevalla a good communication campaign was considered very important for the success of the project; so, they focused on using multiple channels for that purpose. However, trying to make students vote on the final proposals by sending e-mails was considered a wrong choice of communication tool since the students rarely used schools’ email accounts. Another drawback was the lack of an online discussion forum and the failure to make the facebook group and the blog active:

But there was a big group of students that they didn’t even know about the opportunity they had to vote. Because they do not check regularly their e-mails…There were very few comments on the facebook group. In the blog there were some comments, not a lot.

As for local government’s perception of democracy and political-administrative system slight differences were noticed among the cases as well. Haninge’s politicians approach to democratic processes was of the kind “we decided you have to implement”:

It was the politicians who decided. The group is called ‘demokratiföreningen’, it is a strategy group or committee … they decided that they want to run a PB project… I got employed to do the job once they had decided to do it.

This is in contrast to Uddevalla where the decisive role was transferred to the students from the planning to implementation phase:

they came/were included very early in the process, before we had any regular plans for the project. So they have been a part of it from the very beginning.

Also, the initiative of e-PB started from the local government while in the other two municipalities it was SKL’s initiative (Bottom-up vs top down-approach). The PB process in Örebro showed that the local government took all the students’ points of view into account and that politicians wanted to understand students and participate more with discussion in the processes:

…we want and the politicians want to be involved in the process… Their role in the meeting is actually to listen to. Off course they give their point of view but most of all to listen and see how the citizens thinking.

In Örebro the rules of the whole process reveal a well-organized decision-making process . They ensured engagement and at the same time freedom to the students to decide on how they wanted to decide:

From our side, the project, we said you are free to have a process as you want it. What we want is just one proposal from each school. How will you do that it is up to you.

However, in the final voting this freedom led students to actually vote for their school and not for the proposal. In Haninge, due to the fact that the project leader worked part time and sometimes at a distance, she did most of the work for the project by her own. However, her presence in the municipality’s offices would ensure regular co-operation with the other members of the project team and separation of duties. Also, the case study of Haninge showed that for the success of a project it is important that the project team has a clear understanding of what is going to happen and to share the same vision as well:

But they really didn’t have any clear idea, they said slightly different things.

The case of Uddevalla shows that when a PB project is part of a larger project about citizen engagement then the general objectives are already defined and can become even more specific. Therefore, Uddevalla was able to go one step further and be able to quantify PB project objectives:

And we had a goal the number of the proposals will be some- thing about between 10 and 20 and we had 21.

Notably, the importance of quantifiable goals for an e-PB was not mentioned as a success factor in the literature that was reviewed.

Regarding to commitment, Uddevalla managed to engage the students during all the phases of the project: not only in planning, formation and submission of the proposals but also during the implementation phase. Furthermore, as it was pointed out by all the interviewees—but not mentioned in literature—was that in order to build citizens commitment politicians’ presence during meetings is necessary. Moreover, they realized that more often face-to-face meetings increase citizens’ commitment.

In Örebro the use of ICTs in the project was almost non-existent. Internet (e-mails) and telephone were used only to ask questions about the process and to submit proposals and not as a way to discuss or decide. However, the project leader is very positive to the idea of an online tool for discussions and voting for the next project. She mentioned, though, the importance of tools as supplements to face-to- face processes. In the case of Uddevalla the use of new technologies to include more people was regarded absolutely necessary. Project leaders believed that online discussion forums and e-Petitions increase citizens’ participation. Their future vision is to include citizens and not only students in the process. They are already working at the neighborhood-level asking citizens to mention local problems. The thought is to create a list of what can be done, to allocate a budget and ask the people to prioritize the list. The challenge, however, is that in the current system the municipality cannot distinguish residents from different city neighborhoods. Therefore, project leaders believe that an e-identification system would contribute to the success of e-PB. In this way online participation will be enhanced by enabling the identification of the different target groups according to their areas.

Table 7.3 shows whether the case studies are in accordance with the propositions derived from literature study and therefore which of them meet the success criteria.

Table 7.3 Summary of case stud y findings
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More importantly, besides the factors above the interviews revealed five other factors that affect the implementation of e-PB (Table 7.4). The first one is the amount of investment budget compared to the municipality’s total investment budget. Allocation of small budgets minimizes the risk of failure. For example in Uddevalla, despite funding from EU, they preferred to keep the investment budget very small. Örebro followed the same strategy:

Table 7.4 Additional success factors noticed in the case studies
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You can criticize that this amount of money is nothing, it is very small…it has never done in Sweden before, we can’t really go to another municipality and see how did you do it, so it is better to start in a small level to be safer, that was why we worked with it.

The second factor is the final proposals. Creative and innovative ideas tend to stimulate citizens interest and make them willing to vote and work for the implementation of the proposals. For example, in order to stimulate students to propose something innovative and attractive for the rest to vote on, Örebro municipality chose to offer very few examples of proposals:

we didn’t want to give them too many examples of this because we want be open-minded … we want them to have sort of creative, and freedom at the same time.

Moreover, including civil servants from different departments in the project group, proved to be a good work practice as it offered flexibility. Therefore, the final proposals were attractive and this resulted in higher turnout and engagement in the implementation phase.

The third new factor revealed by the cases was the target group spectrum. If it is small, it is easier to reach it and to involve the people behind it. In Örebro and Uddevalla they focused on small groups. The fact that they included students as target groups ensured high involvement in the process and high levels of engagement as students had to work on the proposals as part of their schoolwork. Haninge, on the other hand, had no previous experience of PB and aimed at every citizen. Hence, project leaders concluded that they should have focused on a smaller, more specific target group for easier reach.

The fourth factor is the thematic areas (subjects) where the investment is to be made. This factor affects the choice of the target group, the ways the project team will work and communicate with the group, and also helps citizens to have a focus and an orientation on what they propose. For instance, in Örebro where the subject was traffic and environment students focused on proposing specific ideas finally they decided to reconstruct an area close to the city river (responding to the subject “environment”).

Finally, civil society’s involvement is regarded crucial for e-PB because it leads to creative ideas for proposals and contributes to social web networking. Despite the fact that the result in Haninge municipality was not the desirable one, what they kept from the e-PB project experience is the civil society’s involvement:

I already had a plan and they gave me some ideas on how to make it better but I wasn’t really able to change many things (time limit).

7.5 Conclusions

This study investigated what the success factors are for implementing e-PB projects . We investigated this by identifying factors in existing literature and by undertaking case studies in three Swedish municipalities running e-PB projects. From the literature study we found 11 factors related to people, politics and technology and from our case studies we found 5 additional factors. Those relate to: size of budget, size and spectrum of participating groups, design of proposals, thematic area of the budget and civil society’s involvement. In this way we have increased the understanding of what make e-PB projects work.

Regarding the “e” in e-PB we have come to three conclusions. Firstly, while it would be expected that Örebro would be lagging behind the other two municipalities in terms of success, as it is the municipality that represents the traditional implementation of PB projects, this study showed that traditional PB projects can be successful. Moreover, this study showed that when ICTs are used, they should be leveraged by the beginning of the project. This ensures better planning and enough time for testing the tools. This is one of the reasons, why despite both Haninge and Uddevalla municipality implemented e-PB projects, in Haninge the project was not successful. Furthermore, the great challenge regarding e- PB projects seems to be citizen engagement in decision-making processes. Therefore, ICTs without continuous communication campaigns, user-friendly interfaces, as well as the conduction of physical presence assemblies at the same time, cannot guarantee success of the project. Furthermore, when the target group is small it is easiest to be reached and convinced to use the ICTs throughout the process.

We believe that this study is of interest for both research and practice. As for practice, since the list of factors can lead to the formulation of guidelines for successful implementation and for research, since the factors can be used for the creation of models and theories regarding e-PB project implementation.

We characterized our cases based on our data that among others included the objective opinions of our interviewees and maybe this is a limitation of our study. Moreover, an important issue that has been addressed by many researchers is how success can be measured. This study could be an interesting starting point for future research efforts trying to quantify or measure the success of similar projects based on the success factors we mention here. Check lists and evaluation forms could be created based on this study and thereafter they could be tested in practice, in a larger number of similar projects.

Furthermore, as communications in the public sector are changing, an interesting suggestion for future work could also include use of social media as a way of citizen input instead of or as complementary to a well-defined and structured process regarding e-PB implementation.

It might now seem that “e” in e-PB has a supplementary contribution to the success of participatory budgeting projects but we have to consider how technological evolutions will transform future societies and how substantial this “e” will finally become. This is a reason why we encourage researchers to focus on it in order to be prepared for the future.