Government Effectiveness from a Citizen View: Linking Public Participation and Information Sources

Abstract

Recently, evaluations of government effectiveness gained a lot of scholarly attention and developed into a major research area in public and performance management research. This study builds on the rather new approach away from analyzing mere macroeconomic government performance indicators towards addressing the issue on a rather perceptional, citizen-based level. By combining the concepts of deliberative democracy and open government with media and communication theories (media richness, media malaise and virtuous circle), we argue that different forms of (i) getting engaged in decision-making processes and (ii) receiving public information can determine individually perceived government performance. Subsequently, interaction terms are established in order to analyze (iii) whether political participation possibilities can be linked to the consultation of different sources of information and in turn play a decisive role in influencing government effectiveness. Using data from the World Value Survey, multilevel regression estimates delivered significant outcomes for both interaction and main effects indicating that individual information source usage and patterns of political participation depend on each other and consequently affect levels of perceived government effectiveness.