Digitalization of local government and its features in European countries

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Author: Alexander Cherkasov

DOI: 10.21128/1812-7126-2024-1-90-109

Keywords: digitalization; municipal government; public authorities; information and communication technologies; digital platforms; digital services; e-government; local democracy

Abstract

In European countries major changes are taking place in the information sphere, contributing to the emergence of new forms of communication between public authorities and the population, including at the local level, which is closest to citizens. Most municipalities in European countries are actively promoting digitalization and developing their websites, taking into account expanding technological capabilities and the growing expectations of citizens. Thanks to digitalization, the latter can participate in local public debates and use municipal services while remaining within their personal space. The most important direction in modernization of local government is the creation of digital platforms through which citizens acquire the opportunity to express their opinions and participate in consultations regarding proposed public decisions. Digitalization ultimately rationalizes political participation and reduces the distance between the population and public authorities. By removing unnecessary intermediaries in relations between them, it helps overcome alienation between society and the state. Citizens now can solve many of their problems electronically without having to appear at the relevant authorities. They can monitor the activities of local politicians and officials on a regular basis via the Internet, helping to increase the transparency of these activities. While being a tool for the development of local democracy and the modernization of municipal government, digitalization at the same time entails certain “unintended negative side effects,” including the exclusion from digital communications of that part of the population which is not able to use these communications due to poor health, various age restrictions, or innate technophobia. The process of digitalization of local government is also hampered by the lack of financial resources of municipalities and by insufficient demand for online innovations both from the population and from that part of the municipal bureaucracy which inherently fears novelty and perceives the prospect of computerization of the administrative process as a direct threat of job loss.

About the author: Alexander Cherkasov – Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.) in Law, Associate Professor, Chief Research Fellow, Human Rights Department, Institute of State and Law, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.

Citation: Cherkasov A. (2024) Tsifrovizatsiya mestnogo upravleniya i ee osobennosti v evropeyskikh stranakh [Digitalization of local government and its features in European countries]. Sravnitel’noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 90–109. (In Russian).

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