ABSTRACT
This chapter is an introduction to the book. It starts off with a background of public participation and establishes e-participation as an extension of public participation using information and communication technology. The importance of e-participation is discussed, and a brief of the United Nations’ e-participation surveys of its member countries leads to the research questions that are undertaken for study in this book. Very few studies in the past have explored the factors of e-participation at a cross-country level and conducted a quantitative analysis as comprehensively as in this book. The last section of this chapter details the layout of the book with an overview of the next chapters.
