Способствует ли электронное участие повышению качества предоставления общественных благ на муниципальном уровне? На примере ремонта дорог

Городские исследования и практики. 2023. Т. 8. № 1. С. 46–60.

Arkatov D.

What is the impact of E-Participation on quality of public administration? The modern literature on public participation suggests two basic perspectives. Some researchers and practitioners are pretty skeptical about public participation, indicating that democratic and bureaucratic processes inherently go against each other. They insist that when citizens are brought to policy making and implementation there is going to be only waste of budgetary money.

            On the other hand, there are signs that public participation can bring significant benefits for both elected and appointed officials. Thus, for example, it may alleviate asymmetry of information and compensate for the lack of expertise of bureaucracy, improving the quality of policy outcomes. In E-Participation literature, researchers pay little to no attention to improvements of governance quality and mostly focus on trust and engagement issues.

            In Russia, the number of E-Participation platforms has been growing consistently. The most popular mode of interaction is e-complaints, where citizens can inform governments about road quality issues, trash, not functioning lighting and others. In this paper we attempt to test theoretical propositions through analyzing e-complaints portals in Russia. We employ quasi-experimental strategy by assessing how e-complaints portals affected local road quality. We find consistent evidence that they help upkeep the roads or improve their condition. Furthermore, the effect is cumulative and increases with each year of exposure to the platforms.

Keywords: качество управления, гражданское участие, государственное управление, public participation, общественные блага, local public goods, quality of governance, электронное участие, e-Participation, Public Administration