Crowdsourcing: a new tool for policy-making?

TL;DR

This paper explores the evolving role of crowdsourcing as a policy-making tool, analyzing its applications, potential, and implications across different stages of the policy process.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive examination of crowdsourcing's use in policy-making, highlighting underexplored forms and future directions.

Findings

Crowdsourcing is increasingly used in policy processes.

Different forms of crowdsourcing have varied applications.

Potential for crowdsourcing to influence policy stages.

Abstract

Crowdsourcing is rapidly evolving and applied in situations where ideas, labour, opinion or expertise of large groups of people are used. Crowdsourcing is now used in various policy-making initiatives; however, this use has usually focused on open collaboration platforms and specific stages of the policy process, such as agenda-setting and policy evaluations. Other forms of crowdsourcing have been neglected in policy-making, with a few exceptions. This article examines crowdsourcing as a tool for policy-making, and explores the nuances of the technology and its use and implications for different stages of the policy process. The article addresses questions surrounding the role of crowdsourcing and whether it can be considered as a policy tool or as a technological enabler and investigates the current trends and future directions of crowdsourcing. Keywords: Crowdsourcing, Public Policy, Policy Instrument, Policy Tool, Policy Process, Policy Cycle, Open Collaboration, Virtual Labour Markets, Tournaments, Competition.