Citizen participation as a tool for creating an effective e-Governance system in Iraq

Abstract

In a resource abundant environment, the people of Iraq have no right in the governance system. Thus, Iraq faces significant challenges in E-governance. In order to enhance E-governance and transparency in Iraq there is a need for creating an E-governance system that can motivate citizen participation in governance in the long-run.

Citizen participation is not effective, similar to the case of many other resource-rich countries in the Middle East and Africa. Since 2003, the Iraqi government has tried to tackle transparency, open governance, e-elections and e-governance; however, it failed. The failure may be attributed to different factors but the most crucial and influential one is lack of citizen participation. If people nurture E-governance, their collective effort will support government’s effort in building a strong E-governance system. The main question for this study is; how can citizen participation contribute in nurturing E-governance in the case of Iraq?

This study outlines the role of effective citizen participation in creating E-governance in Iraq; this is a quantitative study Primary data collected from 100 participants was analyzed for this purpose. This study is composed of three main parts; the first part highlights theoretical perspective of Egovernance in Iraq, and citizen participation. The second part focuses on discussing the data on egovernance. The final session of this study deals with the findings, and conclusions.