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Introduction
E-democracy is the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to foster interaction between citizens, elected representatives and other democratic stakeholders such as political parties, civil society organisations (CSOs), etc. E-democracy has been identified as having the potential to address the pervasive estrangement between citizens and representatives by creating new forms of engagement, deliberation and collaboration in the political process to make democratic processes more inclusive and transparent (Coleman and Gotze, 2001; OECD, 2003b; Ayo et al. , 2008; Shirazi et al. , 2010).
Countries are leveraging on ICT tools to foster new relationships between citizens and the State to alleviate the crisis of democratic legitimacy which manifests in public mistrust of the government, low level of public participation in civic life and public cynicism towards political institutions and governance (Chen et al. , 2006). There have been several cases of e-participation projects initiated by different actors around the world but the issue of sustainability, among others, remains a difficult task (Panagiotopoulos and Al-Debei, 2012; Saebo et al. , 2008). Researchers have noted that examples of good practice in e-democracy implementation are extremely rare (Blumler and Coleman, 2001; Hoff et al ., 2003). Despite the importance of e-democracy and its numerous practices around the world, most governments, particularly in the developing countries, lack detailed and well-established strategic framework for e-democracy implementation, realisation, sustainability and citizens' acceptance.
Most government bodies only have e-democracy as an objective in their e-government strategy. Few countries have established plan that detailed the approach, tools, technology and policies for e-democracy implementation. These have led to failure and replication of efforts on implementation of participatory e-democracy as a result of numerous cases of e-participation projects initiated by different actors in different contexts (Panagiotopoulos and Al-Debei). It is, therefore, important for governments to have e-democracy strategy that is clear and understandable. It is on this basis that this study aims at proposing a credible framework for a sustainable citizen's e-participation in public decision making process.
To develop a strategic framework for e-democracy implementation, a qualitative analysis of e-democracy/e-government frameworks, models and strategies existing in literature using Grounded Theory Method (GTM) (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) was conducted. The investigation focused on the e-democracy strategies and practices of countries among the top 20...