Issues of digitalization of civic participation in developing countries: “Government as a platform” in Latin America

Abstract

This article examines “government as a platform” as based on civic participation in the context of digitalization of public administration in developing countries, concretely for the example of Latin American countries. The main thesis of the study is the following: the institution of participation is the basis for constructing “government as a platform” due to deep foundations of Web 3.0 technology, which encourage participation and have a collaborative nature. The author focuses on factors for classifying countries “developing.” These factors are both positive and negative: level of urbanization, Internet penetration, and globalization are positive factors, while the economic factor, political factor, level of corruption, and existing political culture are negative. Latin American countries were selected as empirical cases as falling under the criteria as developing countries, and as a region in which one can find both highly developed countries in terms of digitalization and lagging behind in terms of applying digital technologies to public administration and public policy. The author concludes that “government as a platform,” the design of which is based on civic participation, is attractive for developing countries of Latin America because it can help overcome such problems as corruption and social and political exclusion, can increase the level of democratization, and can make political culture more civil and proactive.