Authorized Authorized

DELIVERING SERVICES
171
Digital technologies too
often fail to empower
citizens
As discussed, digital technologies can be effective even
in weak government bureaucracies in some areas—
notably through digital identification, streamlining
routine tasks, and citizen feedback for certain services
that citizens have the incentive and capacity to monitor.
But in general, to have an impact, e-government
requires effective leadership by politicians and policy
makers—to make the necessary changes to government
rules and management practices, to overcome
resistance from vested interests, and to respond to citizen
feedback on service quality. Strengthening government
capability requires a willing government. The
question, then, is whether digital technologies can
encourage good leadership by empowering citizens to
hold policy makers and providers accountable.
Mechanisms for empowering citizens include
• Free and fair elections in government systems in
which leaders are chosen in elections—ensuring
that all legitimate votes can be cast and counted so
that the poor in particular are not excluded from
participating
• More informed voting—informing voters to increase
electoral participation and reducing information
asymmetries so that votes can be more accurately
based on the performance of politicians
• Citizen voice and collective action—empowering citizens
to individually and collectively mobilize to pressure
policy makers and providers to improve services.
Emerging evidence suggests that digital technologies
have made elections freer and fairer by improving
voter registration and reducing errors in voting,
and by better monitoring them to curb electoral fraud
and violence. These technologies have also helped citizens
vote out corrupt politicians, if the information
comes from a credible source. But significant barriers
to more informed voting remain, and digital technologies,
by giving elites new ways of manipulating
information to their advantage in election campaigns,
can also disempower the poor. These disparities can
be countered if traditional media bridge the digital
divide, but such a role may be limited to providing
information that is more salient and newsworthy,
such as corruption scandals, rather than service delivery
failures. Digital technologies, particularly social
media, have galvanized citizen protests, but except
where governments are willing and able, they have
not sustained collective action and citizen voice to
improve service delivery (table 3.2).
Freer and fairer elections
Is the growth of digital technologies spreading democratic
ideals around the world, as many believe? 46
Democracy has indeed spread across the world, but
so have election irregularities. 47 As the number of
developing country democracies more than doubled
from 1990 to 2012, the proportion of elections that
were “free and fair” halved from almost 80 percent
to under 40 percent over the same period (figure 3.14,
panel a). In a free election, the electoral rules and their
implementation leading up to an election enable all
adult citizens to be registered, to exercise their right
to vote, and to join political parties and to campaign
Table 3.2 The impact of digital technology on citizen empowerment: A scorecard
Channel
Impact of
technology
Main problem
to address
Do digital technologies solve the problem?
Free and fair
elections
H
Lack of information;
high transaction
costs
• Yes, monitoring reduces errors and fraud
in voting
More informed
voting
M
Information
asymmetries
• Yes, for blatant abuses of office; no, for less
newsworthy public service failures
• Increase ability of elites to manipulate information
Greater citizen
voice
L
Collective action
failures
• Effective only when governments are already
willing to listen to citizens
• Must be complemented by offline mobilization by
civil society groups
Source: WDR 2016 team.
Note: Channels are arranged by degree of technology impact. L = low; M = medium; H = high.