Coproduction of Government Services and the New Information Technology: Investigating the Distributional Biases

This article investigates how communications advances affect citizens' ability to participate in coproduction of government services. The authors analyze service requests made to the City of Boston during a one-year period from 2010 to 2011 and, using geospatial analysis and negative binomial r...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Public administration review 2013-09, Vol.73 (5), p.687-701
Main Authors: Clark, Benjamin Y., Brudney, Jeffrey L., Jang, Sung-Gheel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access
Boston, Massachusetts
Call centers
Censuses
Cities
Citizen Participation
Digital divide
Ethnic Groups
Government services
Hispanics
Information technology
Internet
Local government
Municipal government
Neighborhoods
New technology
Population education
Public administration
Public services
Racial differences
Regression analysis
Services
Smartphones
Spatial analysis
Statistical models
Studies
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Summary:This article investigates how communications advances affect citizens' ability to participate in coproduction of government services. The authors analyze service requests made to the City of Boston during a one-year period from 2010 to 2011 and, using geospatial analysis and negative binomial regression, investigate possible disparities by race, education, and income in making service requests. The findings reveal little concern that 311 systems (non-emergency call centers) may benefit one racial group over another; however, there is some indication that Hispanics may use these systems less as requests move from call centers to the Internet and smartphones. Consistent with prior research, the findings show that poorer neighborhoods are less likely to take advantage of 311 service, with the notable exception of smartphone utilization. The implications for citizen participation in coproduction and bridging the digital divide are discussed.
ISSN:0033-3352
1540-6210
DOI:10.1111/puar.12092