Od kilku dekad, nie tylko w Wielkiej Brytanii, obserwować można spadające zainteresowanie obywateli uczestnictwem w polityce i symptomy kryzysu demokracji przedstawicielskiej. Za jeden ze sposobów przeciwdziałania temu zjawisku uważa się wykorzystanie nowych technologii. Z jednej strony ich upowszechnienie umożliwia obywatelom szeroki dostęp do informacji, z drugiej rozszerza oferowane im możliwości udziału i wpływania na decyzje polityczne. Celem artykułu jest omówienie i analiza polityki kolejnych brytyjskich rządów dotyczącej wykorzystania Internetu do budowania skuteczniejszych kanałów komunikacji na poziomie lokalnym w Anglii i wzmocnienia demokracji. Wykorzystane metody badawcze to przede wszystkim analiza dokumentów oraz źródeł wtórnych. Szczególna uwaga została skupiona na analizie regulacji dotyczących wprowadzenia i rozwoju na poziomie lokalnym jednego z najpopularniejszych mechanizmów e-demokracji w Wielkiej Brytanii, który doczekał się regulacji ustawowej – elektronicznych petycji.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the public administration mechanisms of electronic petitions (e-petitions), scientific and theoretical justification of recommendations to Ukrainian authorities on their improvement. The paper analyzes the approaches to defining the essence of the concepts of individual and collective e-petitions. The mechanisms of e-appeals (e-petitions) at the national and local levels have been studied. A comparison of the mechanisms of formation and submission of e-petitions in the Ukrainian legislation has been made. It is proposed to improve the interaction of national and local levels by redirecting petitions from local authorities to national executive bodies. The main shortcomings of the existing mechanism of public administration of e-petitions at the national level have been identified. In the process of analyzing the shortcomings of the organizational and legal mechanism, foreign experience and its possibility use in Ukraine were taken into account. Considering the identified shortcomings should further increase the level of civil society involvement in public administration of public affairs and, as a consequence, accelerate the democratization of Ukrainian society and Ukraine as a full member of the European community. In order to assess the level of availability of the electronic individual petitions tool, a study of the official web resources of central and local executive bodies was conducted and ways to improve the practical implementation of the e-petition tool in order to increase its accessibility were identified. The main identified shortcomings are: staffing issues (personnel quality); accessibility and transparency of e-democracy tools for citizens; lack of a unified approach to the implementation of e-appeals (petitions); lack of bottom-up redirection mechanisms; low civil society awareness of public authorities’ responsibilities and powers; lack of mechanisms for imperative execution of e-petitions, etc. Based on the analysis of international experience of implementation of e-appeals (e-petitions), the ways to improve national legislation have been proposed and the recommendations for central authorities, local governments and civil society organizations have been developed to improve the organizational and legal mechanism of public administration of e-democracy tools (electronic individual and collective petitions). The main ones are as follows: amendments to a number of legislative acts, including the conceptual and strategic level; taking into account the imperative implementation of e-petitions; actualization of the issue of administrative and criminal liability for non-compliance with the requirements of the legislation regarding the implementation of e-petitions.