Naufal Virindra is an Indonesian civil servant working on the Indonesian Civil Service Commission (KASN RI). He is currently studying at the Global Master of E-Government and Public Management, Department of Public Administration, College of Social Sciences, Yonsei University, South Korea.

  • The problem: The digital divide is one of the biggest obstacles to promoting a digital co-production policy between the government and its citizens.
  • Why it matters: Promoting digital co-production policy and improving digital inclusion are integral to enhancing citizens' intention to participate and collaborate.
  • The solution: Promote digitalisation in the co-production policy, and at the same time, reduce the chance of a digital divide among its citizens.

Citizen participation is significant in a bureaucratic world. It has a role as a mechanism of checks and balances so that the bureaucracy does not work arbitrarily. It ensures that the government is being watched, and influences the government on generating public-preference policymaking to improve trust in the government. Academically speaking, citizen participation could bring benefits to the government and themselves. It helps the government improve the public's trust, construct a strategic coalition with the people, and obtain legitimacy from the people to bypass litigation expenses, and produce a better quality of policymaking [1]. It also brings benefits to the citizen; a citizen can have a role in influencing the bureaucracy, and has the ability to become a better civil activist to obtain some power over the policy process in government, and help the government improve the quality of policymaking [1].

Citizen intention in co-production heavily relies on how the government communicates with its people.

Context

When citizen participation mainly affects the government in the policymaking process, the co-production encourages citizens to participate in the implementation process of the policy, not only in making it [6]. Citizens can co-produce public services with government assistance, working closely with the government to implement programmes, and advising the government on a better direction [6]. It is a term to describe a relationship between institution personnel and a group of individuals that requires a direct and active contribution from citizens to the work of the institution [2]. The idea of co-production is that citizens are not viewed as passive objects of safety policies but rather as active co-producers of these policies [2].

What should happen

Citizen intention in co-production heavily relies on how the government communicates with its people. Research conducted in the United States provides evidence that people exposed to positive information understand the policy better than the ones exposed to negative information [4]. It also showcases findings that show a higher degree of policy understanding can improve the intention to participate in co-production [4]. These findings mean that when people are exposed to proper government performance information and understand it holistically, they will be more interested in engaging and collaborating with the government through co-production.

Improving citizens' intention to engage in co-production is quite tricky. A government must develop an innovative method of using available resources to trigger the public's intention to work closely with them on providing adequate public services. In a case study of the Netherlands, the government utilises a website platform called Police Investigations (Politieonderzoeken.nl) to engage citizens in solving serious crimes [2]. A survey conducted in 2008 to assess the co-production platform shows that it benefits people by giving them 24/7 information, and they can access it whenever they choose. For another example, the Dutch government developed a platform called Citizens Net between 2008-2013. It is a co-production system consisting of information about citizens' databases and a platform to send messages to a large group of citizens [2].

In the South Korean case, Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) created a web-based system called Chunmansangsang Oasis in 2006 that invites citizens to participate in designing particular policies with the government [3]. Dutch and South Korean case studies with web-based co-production platforms might effectively increase the intention of people to participate in the co-production process. However, those platforms are heavily relying on internet connectivity. Both governments must ensure that people are covered with the same access to hardware (computer/smartphones), infrastructure access (internet), and skills access (digital literacy), to prevent a digital divide amidst the effort to engage citizens in the co-production process. The digital divide in hardware, infrastructure, and skills access might hamper the government's effort to increase the public intention level in co-production [5]. Therefore, digital inclusion in hardware, infrastructure, and skills access must be taken into account to improve the intention in co-production.

Main takeaway

Utilisation of the web-based platform in digital co-production and promoting digital inclusion to reduce the chance of a digital divide in hardware, infrastructure, and skills access are integral processes. Digital co-production benefits from the web-based platform to improve citizens' intention in the collaboration process while using websites requires computers, smartphones, the internet, and the ability to use them. It is significant for the government to balance the effort of improving intention in the co-production process with promoting digitalization (websites and application use), and at the same time reducing the chance of a digital divide among its citizens (distributing phones/computers, internet subsidy, and providing training to people).

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