Publication: Effects of the Internet on Participation: Study of a Public Policy Referendum in Brazil
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Published
2016-03-17
ISSN
1933-1681
Date
2016-08-08
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Abstract
Does online voting mobilize citizens who otherwise would not participate? During the annual participatory budgeting vote in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil—the world's largest—Internet voters were asked whether they would have participated had there not been an online voting option (i-voting). The study documents an 8.2 percent increase in total turnout with the introduction of i-voting. In support of the mobilization hypothesis, unique survey data show that i-voting is mainly used by new participants rather than just for convenience by those who were already mobilized. The study also finds that age, gender, income, education, and social media usage are significant predictors of being online-only voters. However, technology appears more likely to engage people who are younger, male, of higher income and educational attainment, and more frequent social media users.
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Publication Effects of the Internet on Participation(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2015-02)Does online voting mobilize citizens who otherwise would not participate? During the annual participatory budgeting vote in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil -- the world's largest -- Internet voters were asked whether they would have participated had there not been an online voting option (i-voting). The study documents an 8.2 percent increase in total turn-out with the introduction of i-voting. In support of the mobilization hypothesis, unique survey data show that i-voting is mainly used by new participants rather than just for convenience by those who were already mobilized. The study also finds that age, gender, income, education, and social media usage are significant predictors of being online-only voters. 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The paper examines four civic technology models: online voting for participatory budgeting in Brazil, online local problem reporting in the United Kingdom, crowdsourced constitution drafting in Iceland, and online petitioning across 132 countries. In every case, the assumed links in the participation chain broke down because of the platform’s institutional features and the surrounding political process. These results show that understanding how inequality is created requires examination of all stages of participation, as well as the resulting policy response. The assumption that inequalities in participation will always lead to the same inequalities in outcomes is not borne out in practice.Publication The Effect of Government Responsiveness on Future Political Participation(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-02-26)What effect does government responsiveness have on political participation? Since the 1940s political scientists have used attitudinal measures of perceived efficacy to explain participation. More recent work has focused on underlying genetic factors that condition citizen engagement. The authors develop a ‘calculus of participation’ that incorporates objective efficacy, the extent to which an individual’s participation actually has an impact, and test the model against behavioral data from FixMyStreet.com (n=399,364). The authors find that a successful first experience using FixMyStreet.com (e.g., reporting a pothole and having it fixed) is associated with a 54 percent increase in the probability of an individual submitting a second report. The authors also show that the experience of government responsiveness to the first report submitted has predictive power over all future report submissions. The findings highlight the importance of government responsiveness for fostering an active citizenry, while demonstrating the value of incidentally collected data to examine participatory behavior at the individual level.Publication Voice and Punishment(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-05)An online survey experiment spanning 50 countries finds sizable improvements in tax morale when (a) the salience of anti-corruption efforts is increased and (b) citizens are allowed to voice their expenditure preferences to the government. These results hold very broadly across a uniquely large and diverse sample of respondents from all continents. The findings are consistent with theories emphasizing the role of democratic accountability, as well as of perceptions of legitimacy and "retributive justice," in generating voluntary tax compliance. Implications and avenues for further research are discussed.Publication Trickle Down Tax Morale(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-01)Studies have encouraged pro-social behavior by experimentally manipulating people's views of what others like them tend to do (descriptive norms). These studies positively change behaviors, including charitable giving, littering, organ donation, and tax compliance. This paper argues that these results may be explained by a tendency to reciprocate positive actions and avoid being taken advantage of. The descriptive norm account predicts that positively describing the behavior of ordinary people will be most effective at increasing citizens’ willingness to pay taxes, and messages describing the behavior of other groups should be less effective. 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