Policy Center for the New South Policy Paper , 2024
Based on observable facts, this policy paper explores some of the lessacknowledged yet critically... more Based on observable facts, this policy paper explores some of the lessacknowledged yet critically important ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) may affect the public sector and its role. Our focus is on those areas where AI's influence might be understated currently, but where it has substantial implications for future government policies and actions. We identify four main areas of impact that could redefine the public sector role, require new answers from it, or both. These areas are the emergence of a new language-based digital divide, jobs displacement in the public administration, disruptions in revenue mobilization, and declining government responsiveness. This discussion not only identifies critical areas but also underscores the importance of transcending conventional approaches in tackling them. As we examine these challenges, we shed light on their significance, seeking to inform policymakers and stakeholders about the nuanced ways in which AI may quietly, yet profoundly, alter the public sector landscape.
Some rights reserved This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contribu... more Some rights reserved This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Nothing herein shall constitute or be considered to be a limitation upon or waiver of the privileges and immunities of The World Bank, all of which are specifically reserved.
The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encoura... more The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.
This thesis starts with a simple research question, asking why parliaments that share the same le... more This thesis starts with a simple research question, asking why parliaments that share the same level of functions and competencies produce different results in terms of the level of development of their websites. The research is divided into three stages: comparative website analysis, quantitative analysis and case studies. Looking at 93 state Legislatures in Brazil, Spain and the United States, each of the stages of the research presents findings that contribute to the literature on e-democracy and open government. The comparative website analysis shows a varying degree of development amongst state Legislature websites. This heterogeneous level of development is contrasted with a common denominator amongst most websites: while the majority of efforts are towards the provision of Legislative information, the prospects for participation and deliberation are extremely limited. Standing out against these rather predictable results, findings also suggest that certain institutional trait...
The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encoura... more The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.
The objective of this strategic framework is to mainstream citizen engagement in World Bank Group... more The objective of this strategic framework is to mainstream citizen engagement in World Bank Group-supported policies, programs, projects, and advisory services and analytics to improve their development results and within the scope of these operations, contribute to building sustainable national systems for citizen engagement with governments and the private sector. Progress toward this objective will be assessed using indicators included in program, project, and corporate results frameworks.
This paper reviews evidence on the use of 23 information and communication technology (ICT) platf... more This paper reviews evidence on the use of 23 information and communication technology (ICT) platforms to project citizen voice to improve public service delivery. This meta-analysis focuses on empirical studies of initiatives in the global South, highlighting both citizen uptake ('yelp') and the degree to which public service providers respond to expressions of citizen voice ('teeth'). The conceptual framework further distinguishes between two trajectories for ICT-enabled citizen voice: Upwards accountability occurs when users provide feedback directly to decision-makers in real time, allowing policy-makers and program managers to identify and address service delivery problems-but at their discretion. Downwards accountability, in contrast, occurs either through real time user feedback or less immediate forms of collective civic action that publicly call on service providers to become more accountable and depends less exclusively on decision-makers' discretion about whether or not to act on the information provided. This distinction between the ways in which ICT platforms mediate the relationship between citizens and service providers allows for a precise analytical focus on how different dimensions of such platforms contribute to public sector responsiveness. These cases suggest that while ICT platforms have been relevant in increasing policymakers' and senior managers' capacity to respond, most of them have yet to influence their willingness to do so.
Some rights reserved This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank Group with external co... more Some rights reserved This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank Group with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank Group, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank Group does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Nothing herein shall constitute or be considered to be a limitation upon or waiver of the privileges and immunities of the World Bank Group, all of which are specifically reserved.
As political life moves online, it is important to know whether online political participation ex... more As political life moves online, it is important to know whether online political participation excludes certain groups. Using a dataset of 3.9 million signers of online petitions in 132 countries, we examine the descriptive success (number of successful petitions) and substantive success (topic of successful petitions) of women and men. Women's participation is higher than expected in the 'thin' action of petition signing, but consistently lower in the 'thick' action of petition creation. We do not find a link between lower female thick participation and female descriptive success. In terms of substantive success, we find successful petitions reflect female users' priorities more closely than men's, independent of the petition initiator's gender. These results hold both platform-wide and within most countries in the dataset. We show that these results occur due to the low level of petition success (1.2%) on the platform, which increases the importance of thin forms of participation.
Does non-partisan voter mobilization affect the popular vote? We use vote records from a state-le... more Does non-partisan voter mobilization affect the popular vote? We use vote records from a state-level participatory budgeting vote in Brazil-the world's largest-to assess the impact of voter mobilization messaging on turnout and support for public investments. The government provided records as to how each ballot was cast and designed the tabulation process so that votes could be matched to treatment assignment without compromising the secrecy of the ballot. Citizens (n=43,384) were randomly assigned to receive non-partisan email and text messages designed to encourage voting. We document an impressive 4.7 percentage point increase in online voting in our treatment group. However, we found no effect of messaging on vote choice; voters in the treatment and control groups shared the same sectoral preferences and showed no difference in the average cost of public investment projects they supported. These results suggest non-partisan Get Out the Vote campaigns can increase citizen participation without skewing the outcome.
Do online and offline voters differ in terms of what they vote for? The growth of Internet voting... more Do online and offline voters differ in terms of what they vote for? The growth of Internet voting in recent years has opened up new channels of participation. Whether or not political outcomes change as a consequence of these new voting channels is an open question. Here we analyze all the votes cast both offline (n=5.7 million) and online (n=1.3 million) and compare the actual vote choices in a public policy referendum, the world's largest participatory budgeting process, in Rio Grande do Sul in June 2014. In addition to examining aggregate outcomes, we also conduct two exit polls to better understand the demographic profiles of online and offline voters. We find that vote choices of online and offline voters are no different, even though our data suggest important demographic differences between the two groups of voters.
The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encoura... more The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. Policy Research Working Paper 8797 Traditionally, governments seek to mobilize tax revenues by expanding their enforcement of existing tax regimes and facilitating tax payments. However, enforcement and facilitation can be costly and produce diminishing marginal returns if citizens are unwilling to pay their taxes. This paper addresses gaps in knowledge about tax compliance, by asking a basic question: what explains why citizens and businesses comply with tax rules? To answer this question, the paper shows how the voluntary adoption of two different types of participatory governance institutions influences municipal tax collection in Brazil. Municipalities that voluntarily adopt participatory institutions collect significantly higher levels of taxes than similar municipalities without these institutions. The paper provides evidence that moves scholarship on tax compliance beyond enforcement and facilitation paradigms, while offering a better assessment of the role of local democratic institutions for government performance and tax compliance.
What effect does bureaucratic responsiveness have on citizen participation? Since the 1940s attit... more What effect does bureaucratic responsiveness have on citizen participation? Since the 1940s attitudinal measures of perceived efficacy have been used to explain participation. More recent work has focused on underlying genetic factors that condition participation. We 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). We find that a successful first experience using FixMyStreet.com is associated with a 57 percent increase in the probability of an individual submitting a second report. We also show that the experience of bureaucratic responsiveness to the first report submitted has predictive power over all future report submissions. The findings highlight the importance of responsiveness for fostering an active citizenry, while demonstrating the value of incidentally collected data to examine participatory behavior at the individual level.
UCLA law review. University of California, Los Angeles. School of Law
By looking at the nature of data that may be disclosed by governments, Harlan Yu and David Robins... more By looking at the nature of data that may be disclosed by governments, Harlan Yu and David Robinson provide an analytical framework that evinces the ambiguities underlying the term “open government data.” While agreeing with their core analysis, I contend that the authors ignore the enabling conditions under which transparency may lead to accountability, notably the publicity and political agency conditions. I argue that the authors also overlook the role of participatory mechanisms as an essential element in unlocking the potential for open data to produce better government decisions and policies. Finally, I conduct an empirical analysis of the publicity and political agency conditions in countries that have launched open data efforts, highlighting the challenges associated with open data as a path to accountability.
The third and final chapter, referring to "Dynamic Themes" , contains five articles on specific i... more The third and final chapter, referring to "Dynamic Themes" , contains five articles on specific issues related to PB processes. Cesár Muñoz proposes a reading roadmap to interpret the Participatory Budgets with children and young people, using several case studies. Any of the experiments highlighted allows us to understand that the great potential of these processes is not in the youth's participation in the decision on public resources, but especially on the educational and vocational dimension to citizenship that is generated by these initiatives. Rafael Sampaio and Tiago Peixoto propose an interesting reflection on what they called "false dilemmas and real complexities" associated with the use of ICTs in participatory processes. It is a stimulating and disturbing article that challenges us constantly on the potential and limitations of new technologies in mobilising citizens to submit proposals for debate and deliberation on projects within the dynamics of PBs. Pedro Pontual clearly takes a political approach of Participatory Budgets and the potential of these processes for the promotion of a democratic pedagogy in contemporary societies. The author contextualises the PB as an instrument that enables the direct participation of citizens in shaping public policy, and thus helps institutions reinvent and modernise the democratic regime. The privileged thematic focus of this article is precisely the PB as a school of citizenship that positively stimulates governments and the governed to create new democratic institutional realities and new models for living in society. The article by Cristina Miret and Joan Bou offers us a reflection on the difficult but necessary relationship between gender and the processes of participatory budgeting. The authors based this work on the comparative study of various experiments analysed in Spain, Uruguay and the Dominican Republic. The results show that the gender differences found in conventional political circles reproduce themselves in areas of participation for PBs. The authors conclude, however, that this is not fatal but a starting point that can be reversed, and that there are examples of interesting experiences that put the gender issue on the agenda of the participatory process. Patricia Leiva concludes this book with a very unique approach to the PB. The author focuses her work on the analysis of the psychosocial dimension of these initiatives. This article therefore seeks to contribute to the development of a theoretical framework of psychological empowerment from Participatory Budgets. The results of two case studies allow us to conclude that the population that participates actively strengthens itself, breaking the feeling of defencelessness and consequent political apathy.
The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encoura... more The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.
In this project, we analyzed whether mobile phone-based surveys are a feasible and cost-effective... more In this project, we analyzed whether mobile phone-based surveys are a feasible and cost-effective approach for gathering statistically representative information in four low-income countries (Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe). Specifically, we focused on three primary research questions. First, can the mobile phone survey platform reach a nationally representative sample? Second, to what extent does linguistic fractionalization affect the ability to produce a representative sample? Third, how effectively does monetary compensation impact survey completion patterns? We find that samples from countries with higher mobile penetration rates more closely resembled the actual population. After weighting on demographic variables, sample imprecision was a challenge in the two lower feasibility countries (Ethiopia and Mozambique) with a sampling error of +/-5 to 7 percent, while Zimbabwe's estimates were more precise (sampling error of +/-2.8 percent). Surveys performed reasonably well in reaching poor demographics, especially in Afghanistan and Zimbabwe. Rural women were consistently under-represented in the country samples, especially in Afghanistan and Ethiopia. Countries' linguistic fractionalization may influence the ability to obtain nationally representative samples, although a material effect was difficult to discern through penetration rates and market composition. Although the experimentation design of the incentive compensation plan was compromised in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, it seems that offering compensation for survey completion mitigated attrition rates in several of the pilot countries while not reducing overall costs. These effects varied across countries and cultural settings.
This paper is a product of the World Bank's Digital Engagement Evaluation Team (DEET) at the Worl... more This paper is a product of the World Bank's Digital Engagement Evaluation Team (DEET) at the World Bank's Governance Global Practice. The Digital Engagement Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about issues at the intersection of technology and citizen engagement. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.
Policy Center for the New South Policy Paper , 2024
Based on observable facts, this policy paper explores some of the lessacknowledged yet critically... more Based on observable facts, this policy paper explores some of the lessacknowledged yet critically important ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) may affect the public sector and its role. Our focus is on those areas where AI's influence might be understated currently, but where it has substantial implications for future government policies and actions. We identify four main areas of impact that could redefine the public sector role, require new answers from it, or both. These areas are the emergence of a new language-based digital divide, jobs displacement in the public administration, disruptions in revenue mobilization, and declining government responsiveness. This discussion not only identifies critical areas but also underscores the importance of transcending conventional approaches in tackling them. As we examine these challenges, we shed light on their significance, seeking to inform policymakers and stakeholders about the nuanced ways in which AI may quietly, yet profoundly, alter the public sector landscape.
Some rights reserved This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contribu... more Some rights reserved This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Nothing herein shall constitute or be considered to be a limitation upon or waiver of the privileges and immunities of The World Bank, all of which are specifically reserved.
The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encoura... more The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.
This thesis starts with a simple research question, asking why parliaments that share the same le... more This thesis starts with a simple research question, asking why parliaments that share the same level of functions and competencies produce different results in terms of the level of development of their websites. The research is divided into three stages: comparative website analysis, quantitative analysis and case studies. Looking at 93 state Legislatures in Brazil, Spain and the United States, each of the stages of the research presents findings that contribute to the literature on e-democracy and open government. The comparative website analysis shows a varying degree of development amongst state Legislature websites. This heterogeneous level of development is contrasted with a common denominator amongst most websites: while the majority of efforts are towards the provision of Legislative information, the prospects for participation and deliberation are extremely limited. Standing out against these rather predictable results, findings also suggest that certain institutional trait...
The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encoura... more The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.
The objective of this strategic framework is to mainstream citizen engagement in World Bank Group... more The objective of this strategic framework is to mainstream citizen engagement in World Bank Group-supported policies, programs, projects, and advisory services and analytics to improve their development results and within the scope of these operations, contribute to building sustainable national systems for citizen engagement with governments and the private sector. Progress toward this objective will be assessed using indicators included in program, project, and corporate results frameworks.
This paper reviews evidence on the use of 23 information and communication technology (ICT) platf... more This paper reviews evidence on the use of 23 information and communication technology (ICT) platforms to project citizen voice to improve public service delivery. This meta-analysis focuses on empirical studies of initiatives in the global South, highlighting both citizen uptake ('yelp') and the degree to which public service providers respond to expressions of citizen voice ('teeth'). The conceptual framework further distinguishes between two trajectories for ICT-enabled citizen voice: Upwards accountability occurs when users provide feedback directly to decision-makers in real time, allowing policy-makers and program managers to identify and address service delivery problems-but at their discretion. Downwards accountability, in contrast, occurs either through real time user feedback or less immediate forms of collective civic action that publicly call on service providers to become more accountable and depends less exclusively on decision-makers' discretion about whether or not to act on the information provided. This distinction between the ways in which ICT platforms mediate the relationship between citizens and service providers allows for a precise analytical focus on how different dimensions of such platforms contribute to public sector responsiveness. These cases suggest that while ICT platforms have been relevant in increasing policymakers' and senior managers' capacity to respond, most of them have yet to influence their willingness to do so.
Some rights reserved This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank Group with external co... more Some rights reserved This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank Group with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank Group, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank Group does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Nothing herein shall constitute or be considered to be a limitation upon or waiver of the privileges and immunities of the World Bank Group, all of which are specifically reserved.
As political life moves online, it is important to know whether online political participation ex... more As political life moves online, it is important to know whether online political participation excludes certain groups. Using a dataset of 3.9 million signers of online petitions in 132 countries, we examine the descriptive success (number of successful petitions) and substantive success (topic of successful petitions) of women and men. Women's participation is higher than expected in the 'thin' action of petition signing, but consistently lower in the 'thick' action of petition creation. We do not find a link between lower female thick participation and female descriptive success. In terms of substantive success, we find successful petitions reflect female users' priorities more closely than men's, independent of the petition initiator's gender. These results hold both platform-wide and within most countries in the dataset. We show that these results occur due to the low level of petition success (1.2%) on the platform, which increases the importance of thin forms of participation.
Does non-partisan voter mobilization affect the popular vote? We use vote records from a state-le... more Does non-partisan voter mobilization affect the popular vote? We use vote records from a state-level participatory budgeting vote in Brazil-the world's largest-to assess the impact of voter mobilization messaging on turnout and support for public investments. The government provided records as to how each ballot was cast and designed the tabulation process so that votes could be matched to treatment assignment without compromising the secrecy of the ballot. Citizens (n=43,384) were randomly assigned to receive non-partisan email and text messages designed to encourage voting. We document an impressive 4.7 percentage point increase in online voting in our treatment group. However, we found no effect of messaging on vote choice; voters in the treatment and control groups shared the same sectoral preferences and showed no difference in the average cost of public investment projects they supported. These results suggest non-partisan Get Out the Vote campaigns can increase citizen participation without skewing the outcome.
Do online and offline voters differ in terms of what they vote for? The growth of Internet voting... more Do online and offline voters differ in terms of what they vote for? The growth of Internet voting in recent years has opened up new channels of participation. Whether or not political outcomes change as a consequence of these new voting channels is an open question. Here we analyze all the votes cast both offline (n=5.7 million) and online (n=1.3 million) and compare the actual vote choices in a public policy referendum, the world's largest participatory budgeting process, in Rio Grande do Sul in June 2014. In addition to examining aggregate outcomes, we also conduct two exit polls to better understand the demographic profiles of online and offline voters. We find that vote choices of online and offline voters are no different, even though our data suggest important demographic differences between the two groups of voters.
The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encoura... more The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. Policy Research Working Paper 8797 Traditionally, governments seek to mobilize tax revenues by expanding their enforcement of existing tax regimes and facilitating tax payments. However, enforcement and facilitation can be costly and produce diminishing marginal returns if citizens are unwilling to pay their taxes. This paper addresses gaps in knowledge about tax compliance, by asking a basic question: what explains why citizens and businesses comply with tax rules? To answer this question, the paper shows how the voluntary adoption of two different types of participatory governance institutions influences municipal tax collection in Brazil. Municipalities that voluntarily adopt participatory institutions collect significantly higher levels of taxes than similar municipalities without these institutions. The paper provides evidence that moves scholarship on tax compliance beyond enforcement and facilitation paradigms, while offering a better assessment of the role of local democratic institutions for government performance and tax compliance.
What effect does bureaucratic responsiveness have on citizen participation? Since the 1940s attit... more What effect does bureaucratic responsiveness have on citizen participation? Since the 1940s attitudinal measures of perceived efficacy have been used to explain participation. More recent work has focused on underlying genetic factors that condition participation. We 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). We find that a successful first experience using FixMyStreet.com is associated with a 57 percent increase in the probability of an individual submitting a second report. We also show that the experience of bureaucratic responsiveness to the first report submitted has predictive power over all future report submissions. The findings highlight the importance of responsiveness for fostering an active citizenry, while demonstrating the value of incidentally collected data to examine participatory behavior at the individual level.
UCLA law review. University of California, Los Angeles. School of Law
By looking at the nature of data that may be disclosed by governments, Harlan Yu and David Robins... more By looking at the nature of data that may be disclosed by governments, Harlan Yu and David Robinson provide an analytical framework that evinces the ambiguities underlying the term “open government data.” While agreeing with their core analysis, I contend that the authors ignore the enabling conditions under which transparency may lead to accountability, notably the publicity and political agency conditions. I argue that the authors also overlook the role of participatory mechanisms as an essential element in unlocking the potential for open data to produce better government decisions and policies. Finally, I conduct an empirical analysis of the publicity and political agency conditions in countries that have launched open data efforts, highlighting the challenges associated with open data as a path to accountability.
The third and final chapter, referring to "Dynamic Themes" , contains five articles on specific i... more The third and final chapter, referring to "Dynamic Themes" , contains five articles on specific issues related to PB processes. Cesár Muñoz proposes a reading roadmap to interpret the Participatory Budgets with children and young people, using several case studies. Any of the experiments highlighted allows us to understand that the great potential of these processes is not in the youth's participation in the decision on public resources, but especially on the educational and vocational dimension to citizenship that is generated by these initiatives. Rafael Sampaio and Tiago Peixoto propose an interesting reflection on what they called "false dilemmas and real complexities" associated with the use of ICTs in participatory processes. It is a stimulating and disturbing article that challenges us constantly on the potential and limitations of new technologies in mobilising citizens to submit proposals for debate and deliberation on projects within the dynamics of PBs. Pedro Pontual clearly takes a political approach of Participatory Budgets and the potential of these processes for the promotion of a democratic pedagogy in contemporary societies. The author contextualises the PB as an instrument that enables the direct participation of citizens in shaping public policy, and thus helps institutions reinvent and modernise the democratic regime. The privileged thematic focus of this article is precisely the PB as a school of citizenship that positively stimulates governments and the governed to create new democratic institutional realities and new models for living in society. The article by Cristina Miret and Joan Bou offers us a reflection on the difficult but necessary relationship between gender and the processes of participatory budgeting. The authors based this work on the comparative study of various experiments analysed in Spain, Uruguay and the Dominican Republic. The results show that the gender differences found in conventional political circles reproduce themselves in areas of participation for PBs. The authors conclude, however, that this is not fatal but a starting point that can be reversed, and that there are examples of interesting experiences that put the gender issue on the agenda of the participatory process. Patricia Leiva concludes this book with a very unique approach to the PB. The author focuses her work on the analysis of the psychosocial dimension of these initiatives. This article therefore seeks to contribute to the development of a theoretical framework of psychological empowerment from Participatory Budgets. The results of two case studies allow us to conclude that the population that participates actively strengthens itself, breaking the feeling of defencelessness and consequent political apathy.
The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encoura... more The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.
In this project, we analyzed whether mobile phone-based surveys are a feasible and cost-effective... more In this project, we analyzed whether mobile phone-based surveys are a feasible and cost-effective approach for gathering statistically representative information in four low-income countries (Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe). Specifically, we focused on three primary research questions. First, can the mobile phone survey platform reach a nationally representative sample? Second, to what extent does linguistic fractionalization affect the ability to produce a representative sample? Third, how effectively does monetary compensation impact survey completion patterns? We find that samples from countries with higher mobile penetration rates more closely resembled the actual population. After weighting on demographic variables, sample imprecision was a challenge in the two lower feasibility countries (Ethiopia and Mozambique) with a sampling error of +/-5 to 7 percent, while Zimbabwe's estimates were more precise (sampling error of +/-2.8 percent). Surveys performed reasonably well in reaching poor demographics, especially in Afghanistan and Zimbabwe. Rural women were consistently under-represented in the country samples, especially in Afghanistan and Ethiopia. Countries' linguistic fractionalization may influence the ability to obtain nationally representative samples, although a material effect was difficult to discern through penetration rates and market composition. Although the experimentation design of the incentive compensation plan was compromised in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, it seems that offering compensation for survey completion mitigated attrition rates in several of the pilot countries while not reducing overall costs. These effects varied across countries and cultural settings.
This paper is a product of the World Bank's Digital Engagement Evaluation Team (DEET) at the Worl... more This paper is a product of the World Bank's Digital Engagement Evaluation Team (DEET) at the World Bank's Governance Global Practice. The Digital Engagement Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about issues at the intersection of technology and citizen engagement. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.
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