The Effect of Bureaucratic Responsiveness on Citizen Participation

Fredrik M. Sjoberg Tiago Peixoto World Bank World Bank Jonathan Mellon Nuffield College, University of Oxford , United Kingdom The Effect of Bureaucratic Responsiveness on Citizen Participation Fredrik M. Sjoberg is a Abstract : What effect does bureaucratic responsiveness have on citizen participation? Since the 1940s, attitudinal political scientist who studies political participation and governance. In his work, measures of perceived efficacy have been used to explain participation. The authors develop a “calculus of he uses advanced empirical methods, participation” that incorporates objective efficacy—the extent to which an individual ’ s participation actually has including experimental methods. He an impact—and test the model against behavioral data from the online application Fix My Street (n = 399,364). has worked for the World Bank since 2013. He also has experience with the A successful first experience using Fix My Street is associated with a 57 percent increase in the probability of an European Union and the United Nations individual submitting a second report, and the experience of bureaucratic responsiveness to the first report submitted Development Programme. He has has predictive power over all future report submissions. The findings highlight the importance of responsiveness for held postdoctoral appointments at Columbia University and New York University. fostering an active citizenry while demonstrating the value of incidentally collected data to examine participatory E-mail: [email protected] behavior at the individual level. Jonathan Mellon is a research fellow Practitioner Points at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, working on the British • For practitioners aiming to promote uptake in participatory processes, the research shows that genuine Election Study. He is also a senior data responsiveness to citizens’ input encourages greater participation. scientist with the World Bank, works on • Beyond responding, practitioners should seek to design processes that clearly highlight to individuals the the BBC ’ s election night forecasts, and has worked as a data scientist with the actual impact of their participation so that their perceived efficacy increases. Organization for Security and Co-operation • Practitioners using digital platforms in participatory processes should take advantage of the data that in Europe and the Carter Center. He was these systems generate to better understand participants’ behavior (e.g., which factors increase repeated awarded his doctorate in political sociology from the University of Oxford. His research participation). interests include electoral behavior, cross- national participation, developing tools for cholars have often advocated for a stronger socialization (Tam Cho 1999), genetic factors (Fowler, working with big data in social science, and social network analysis. recognition of the public ’ s role in public Baker, and Dawes 2008 ), incentives (Rosenstone and E-mail: [email protected] S administration (Bingham, Nabatchi, and Hansen 1993 ), social dynamics (Gerber, Green, and O ’ Leary 2005 ; Nabatchi 2010 ; Radin, Cooper, Larimer 2008 ), or institutional design (Blais 2006 ; Tiago Peixoto is a senior governance specialist at the World Bank and team lead and McCool 1989 ), including conceptualizing the Smets and Van Ham 2013 ). In this article, we focus for the Digital Engagement Evaluation provision of public services as a coproduction between on the role of efficacy and bureaucratic responsiveness Team. His research interests are at the users and providers (Needham 2008 ; Osborne and in explaining participation. The literature on efficacy intersection of technology, participatory governance, and public sector management Strokosch 2013 ). Simultaneously, a number of authors has suggested that the extent to which citizens feel reforms. have highlighted the importance of government that government is responsive to them affects their E-mail: [email protected] responsiveness to citizens’ engagement (Cooper, Bryer, participation (Abramson and Aldrich 1982 ; Finkel and Meek 2006 ; Halvorsen 2003 ; Stivers 1994 ). 1985 ). So far the literature has focused primarily on Practitioners should aim to design participation in the relationship between subjective perceptions of ways that outcomes are meaningful to members of the efficacy and citizens’ levels of participation. Previous public (Bryson et al. 2013 ; Fung 2015 ; Kim and Lee research has generally not questioned whether it 2012 ), demonstrating that participation ultimately is merely these subjective perceptions of external leads to the improvement of public services (Peixoto efficacy that matter or whether a citizen ’ s objective and Fox 2016 ; Wang and Van Wart 2007). Yet if efficacy—how much he or she can actually affect participation and government responsiveness are government—is relevant as well. Political scientists Public Administration Review, Vol. 77, Iss. 3, pp. 340–351. closely related issues, to date, no systematic assessment have traditionally made a distinction between a sense © 2017 by The American Society for has been carried out on the effects of government of external efficacy, the belief that government will Public Administration. responsiveness on citizens’ propensity to participate. be responsive to attempts to influence it, and a sense DOI: 10.1111/puar.12697. of internal efficacy, the belief that one is competent [The copyright line for this article was changed on 11 August 2017 after original A wide range of theories have been put forward to to understand politics and therefore participate in online publication.] explain why some participate while others do not: politics (Craig 1979 ). We consider both of these 340 This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modiﬁ cations or adaptations are made. traditional categories as subsets of subjective efficacy. The concept platform Fix My Street (United Kingdom), which has records of of “objective efficacy” used throughout the article refers not to the more than 300,000 acts of participation. Because this is the first time belief that one can make a difference but instead to whether an these data have been used in scholarly work, we describe them in individual actually can make a difference. detail. In the Analysis section, we estimate the effect of bureaucratic responsiveness—objective efficacy—on continued participation in The effect of objective efficacy on participation is difficult to the platform using regression modeling. We conclude by highlighting examine in the context of traditional forms of participation the implications for future research and policy work. such as voting, as the consensus is that one individual ’ s vote is almost certain to make no difference to the outcome of the Efﬁ cacy, Bureaucratic Responsiveness, and Participation election (Bendor et al. 2011 ; Green and Shapiro 1994 ). From this Does political efficacy increase participation? This would appear to perspective, the impact of efficacy on voting is essentially a study be a question that was answered some time ago, with Finkel ( 1985 ) of deluded voters. On the other hand, other forms of participation, showing the causal effects of efficacy on political participation particularly at a more local level, can have a more direct impact and earlier studies showing a strong cross-sectional relationship on the way government is run. Local governments can listen and between efficacy and participation (Campbell et al. 1960 ). However, react directly to the concerns of individual voters. Indeed, some these studies focus on the sense of efficacy—a subjective feeling— scholars have argued that all public service provision includes some rather than the actual extent to which an individual citizen can coproduction between producers and consumers (Garn et al. 1976 ). make a difference. To distinguish a sense of political efficacy from subjective political efficacy, we refer to a citizen ’ s actual (rather than The participatory democracy (i.e., nonelectoral) literature has perceived) ability to make a difference as his or her objective efficacy frequently assumed that levels of participation are intrinsically (contrasted with subjective efficacy). linked to system responsiveness: the more responsive government is, the more likely citizens are to participate. For instance, looking While it might seem obvious that greater objective efficacy would at democratic innovations such as Neighborhood Councils in increase participation, the extensive literature on the paradox of Chicago and Panchayats in West Bengal, Fung and Wright suggest voting provides a strong counterpoint. On the one hand, substantial that the sustained levels of engagement seen in these initiatives are proportions of voters consistently turn out to vote in elections related to citizens’ degree of “empowerment,” that is, their capacity despite there being an extremely small probability of a single vote to effectively influence government actions that are relevant to mattering (Green and Shapiro 1994 ). On the other hand, studies them (Fung and Wright 2001 ). Similarly, participatory budgeting of turnout have suggested that increased closeness of a race predicts scholars often argue that citizens’ willingness to participate is largely somewhat higher turnout (Blais 2000

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