Does E-Participation help to improve local public goods provision: road mending in Russia

Abstract

What is the impact of e-participation on quality of public administration? The literature on public participation suggests two basic perspectives. Some researchers and practitioners are skeptical about public participation, indicating that democratic and bureaucratic processes inherently conflict with each other. They insist that when individuals are brought into policy making and implementation there is going to be a waste of funds.

On the other hand, there are signs that public participation can bring significant benefits for elected and appointed officials. It may, for example, alleviate the asymmetry of information and com pensate for the lack of expertise in the bureaucracy, improving the quality of policy outcomes. In the e-participation literature, re searchers pay little to no atten tion 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 residents can inform governments about issues such as road quality, trash collection, and lighting. In this paper we test theoretical propositions through analyzing e-complaint 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 the upkeep of roads or improve their condition. Furthermore, the effect is cumulative and increases with each year of exposure to the platforms.