ICT and Citizen Efficacy: The Role of Civic Technology in Facilitating Government Accountability and Citizen Confidence
This paper examines whether civic technology ICTs provide an effective method for enhancing the political efficacy of citizens and their perceived accountability of governments. Using a survey-based methodology, a quantitative analysis was conducted of th
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ySociety, London, UK [email protected]
Abstract. This paper examines whether civic technology ICTs provide an effec‐ tive method for enhancing the political efficacy of citizens and their perceived accountability of governments. Using a survey-based methodology, a quantitative analysis was conducted of the users of civic action sites in the UK, Kenya, South Africa and USA. The key question examined is whether the particularized or citizen-audit actions that these sites facilitate have a spill-over effect in altering the level to which citizens believe they are able to hold government to account. The results suggest that citizen efficacy and perceptions of government account‐ ability are enhanced. Stark differences in user demographics between territories demonstrate a wide spectrum of civic technology usage, however, with common confidence in the efficacy of the ICT. The findings suggest that publication and user-facilitation of government information through the medium of civic tech‐ nology in developed and developing countries increases feelings of external effi‐ cacy and government accountability. Keywords: ICT · Civic technology · Digital democracy · Efficacy
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Introduction
The proliferation of civic technologies, a form of non-profit ICT, around the globe has gained pace since the advent of early civic participatory websites in the early 2000’s, with significant funding being allocated to the NGO sector for the development and implementation of such sites, and with improvements in connectivity and access to hardware occurring in many developing countries. Civic technology is defined as a nonprofit technology that seeks to empower and engage citizens through the facilitation of information exchange between citizen and government, leading to greater governmental transparency and accountability. Often included under the umbrella of ‘e-gov’ studies, it stands apart from traditional concepts of e-government in its creation and maintenance by non-profit organisations. The purpose of such civic technologies is primarily to empower citizens through enabling some form of civic or political participation and in facilitating the flow of official information, whether that be on a specific policy subject, a specific citizen complaint, or information on parliamentary proceedings. This study examined whether civic technologies are having an impact upon those individuals that © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2016 Published by Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016. All Rights Reserved F.J. Mata and A. Pont (Eds.): WITFOR 2016, IFIP AICT 481, pp. 213–222, 2016. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-44447-5_20
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use them, specifically, whether using civic technologies to access information instigates, or alters, the personal efficacy and belief of user-citizens in their ability to hold their governments to account. Research into the medium-long term impacts of civic technol‐ ogies upon citizen attitudes is scarce, in part due to the small scale of organisations running these sites, in part due to their youth, a
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