Think I might have found the missing link for my thesis today. I found some articles from political science discussing public involvement, and one of them had a neat framework that can be used to decide what type(s) of participation is appropriate for different stakeholder groups, and also how to decide who should be considered a stakeholder in a particular case. E-government literature does discuss levels of participation, but not as in-depth as these articles.
The first article I browsed was actually from 1969, and is supposedly the most influential in the field of public involvement. It represents levels of participation as an 8-rung ladder, where the lower levels are (according to the author) worthless. the most interesting thing about it is how political it is, leaning towards the political left in a way that would not have been approved by journal editors today.
