Title: News and Briefs

Authors: Valentina Trikounaki; Eleni-Revekka Staiou

Addresses: Laboratory of New Technologies in Communication, Education and the Mass Media, University of Athens, Greece. ' Laboratory of New Technologies in Communication, Education and the Mass Media, University of Athens, Greece

Abstract: Four developments are outlined. 1) The US White House|s new online petitioning tool, called We the People, has been released on WhiteHouse.gov. 2) The UK-based mySociety organisation has been developing useful online tools to address real-world everyday-life problems in UK since 2003. The newest mySociety online tool, FixMyTransport, allows passengers to report issues on any public transport in the UK – train, bus, underground, tram, or coach. 3) Participatory budgeting, a democratic process in which community members directly debate and decide on how to spend part of a public budget, aims at giving people real decision-making power over real money. New York City Council Members have announced that, starting from October 2011, they will use participatory budgeting to allocate some of their capital discretionary funds. 4) In September 2011, the Brazilian government has issued an action plan for improving open government. The announcement came following the kick-off of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative, an effort that Brazil co-chairs with the USA.

Keywords: online petitions; online petitioning; public transport; participatory budgeting; open government; Brazil; USA; United States; UK; United Kingdom; e-governance; electronic governance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEG.2011.043842

International Journal of Electronic Governance, 2011 Vol.4 No.3, pp.273 - 274

Published online: 23 Nov 2011 *

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