影響政府回應的提案因素－以公共政策網路參與平臺為例

Abstract

太陽花學運後，政府為了因應社會對於公民直接追求公共參與的壓力且更了解網路民意，設置「公共政策網路參與平台」（又稱Join平台）。其中，「提點子」此一功能，即公民可自行研擬提案，通過提案門檻後，政府就必須在一定時間回應，為我國第一次嘗試此種電子連署機制的設計。近來縱有少數研究選擇以「提點子」機制為研究對象，少有同時檢驗民眾端提案與政府端回應關聯之討論。本研究除探討Join平台上政府的回應情形，並進一步解釋民眾提案的哪些屬性因素會影響政府回應的積極程度，藉此了解賦權給公民的「提點子」機制，是否真能被納入行政機關的決策過程中，影響公共政策的結果。 本研究利用公共政策網路參與平台上的公開資訊，整理自2015年9月至2018年12月間，政府已正式回應的提案資料，共計156案。本研究發現，「提點子」機制的運作，多可讓民眾即時獲得相關政策資訊，且能促進官民協力溝通，甚至改變政策方向。然而，多數機關未能達到60天的回應時限，且在現有機制下，較難進行深入的討論，部分機關可能擔心提案有違法疑慮，則以自行解釋的方式處理，甚至有部分參採內容並非徵詢外部團體意見後做成。此外，涉及法律案或法規命令修訂的提案，多數類型的回應程度較低。但像是涉及行政規則修訂的提案，若間接影響大眾權益時，機關會傾向徵詢外部團體意見而非自行解釋。 在模型解釋的部分，本研究發現提案的語意特徵並非影響政府回應的主要因素。在提案的議題特徵中，涉及跨機關較多的複雜議題，政府在形式與實質回應程度較高，顯示各部會在此機制下較願意與民眾互動並協力處理提案，至於如涉及執政黨處理能力較佳的提案，在實質回應上並無達到顯著，是否能推測政府未能有效處理該類議題，或是不注重平台的運作，有待未來研究討論。就提案的內容特徵中，政府可能因為提案愈具體且論證來源較多元而提高其回應程度。當提案關注程度愈高，政府參採程度愈高，但其餘變項未達顯著，顯示政府可能未能顧及此類議題的討論過程。最後，本研究發現，隨著平台的演進，政府逐漸提高其實質回應程度，但回應速度卻因此降低，是否會影響民眾的信任程度，有待後續研究討論。 本研究建議，未來在制度設計上，可規範機關延長期間的要件，並要求各機關更新後續辦理情形，且須多加運用資通訊工具，讓民眾即時參與討論。未來研究可深入探討部分個案，或是分析機關運作時的困境。

After the Sunflower student movement in 2014, governments launched the Join Platform to encourage people to propose creative policies through the e-petition. The e-petition on Join Platform, the first try in governments, requests governments to response in two months after the proposals pass the threshold of 5,000 people. Past researchers mainly focused on e-mails about personal complaints to governments or e-forums consulting public opinions rather than the e-petition. Although prior researchers have discussed the importance of e-petitions, they have not yet studied the factors explaining how governments respond to citizen’s online petitions. This study aims to examine how do governments react to e-petitions and to what extent do they incorporate citizen’s proposals into the public decision-making process and thus change policy results. This paper uses open archival data on Join Platform and collects 156 cases that have passed the threshold and governments have already responded from September 2015 to December 2018. Results show that the e-petition on join platform can provide some information to citizens, promote communication between governments and citizens and even change the policies. On the other hand, most ministries can’t achieve response limit of 60 days and can’t deeply discuss the proposals during the process. Some ministries considering a few proposals illegal explained cases by themselves. Besides, some ministries still adopted the opinions they have decided after consulting comments from other groups. Proposals concerning laws and regulations amendment got lower degree of government response because of in-depth discussions. In addition, ministries tended to consult other groups on directions indirectly influencing public interest rather than explain by themselves. This paper also shows the linguistic characters weren’t the main factor to influence the response. About the topics feature, when the issues have involved more ministries, the degree of formal and substantial response would be higher. This result shows that ministries were willing to interact with people in the e-petition of Join Platform. As the proposals DPP may better deal with, the results of substantial response aren’t significant. Whether the results show DPP couldn’t deal with these issues or didn’t emphasize on the e-petition needs to be explained by other evidence. Besides, governments may increase the degree of response when the contents of proposals are more solid or include different data sources. When people paid more attention to some proposals, government would possibly change the policies. However, this result shows that government may not emphasize on the discussion. Last but not least, as the e-petition in Join platform has been operating, the government has gradually been increasing the degree of substantial response but slowing down speed of response. Whether the phenomenon would influence people’s trust depends on future researchers to explain. This paper suggests that governments should amend the rules to avoid some agencies procrastinating randomly and require some ministries update contents immediately. Furthermore, the governments can motivate people to discuss the public policies by using ICT tools and broaden the public participation to avoid similar proposals. Future researchers can analyze some cases to realize the process or discuss some problems that governments may face when they respond to people.