Government responsiveness boosts citizen reporting

Based on Mark T. Buntaine, Daniel L. Nielson, and Jacob T. Skaggs. 2021. “Escaping the Disengagement Dilemma: Two Field Experiments on Motivating Citizens to Report on Public Services,” BJPS.

Good governance relies on citizen input to improve public services - but if citizens do not believe officials will respond, governments can face a disengagement dilemma.

The Policy Problem

Citizens have important information about the delivery of public services that could help governments improve these services. But in places where citizens expect little of their government, citizens don’t always share this information. As a result, governments that want to improve public service management need to find effective ways to create and sustain citizen engagement. We study this problem in the context of solid waste management in Kampala, Uganda where most waste is openly burned, which contributes to severe air pollution.

Key Findings and Proposed Solutions

  • Local governments must respond to specific citizen concerns if they want to harness the information that citizens have about public service delivery.

  • New technologies offer ways to engage citizens, and to increase the nimbleness of government responsiveness to citizen concerns.

  • Increased citizen engagement in public service monitoring has the potential to help local governments improve their public service delivery.