A roadmap for e-participation and open government: empirical evidence from the Western Balkans

This paper describes why and how a conceptual frameworkfor e-participationand open governmenthas been developed and applied to six aspirant EU countries in the Western Balkans. It provides a rationale and background, and then examines the main academic and other relevant sources used. This is followed by an overview of the conceptual frameworkand a description of its main elements. Finally, the paper examines international data on e-participationcovering the Western Balkan countries, uses this to examine the results of applying the conceptual frameworkin each country, and then provides conclusions and recommendations.