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Trust is an important element in building an information society, however, the increasingly widespread dissemination and use of technology is now accompanied by the influence of negative factors and fears related to the insecurity of certain data transmission channels and much discussed by cyberattacks, government pressure on civilian structures, and also uncertainty about the rules and communication standards of a new type. The article presents the results of an empirical study of the attitude of St. Petersburg residents to the use of digital technologies and identifies the level of trust in the Internet and interpersonal communication. A survey of 600 respondents was conducted in May 2019 (a sample representative of the population of St. Petersburg over 18 years old, the sampling error does not exceed 4 %, the confidence level was 95 %). According to the results, the prevalence of Internet users among the respondents was revealed, as well as an increase in trust in new technologies among younger groups of the population. The article presents the detailed results of the study dedicated to user experience in the field of online learning. The analysis of social inclusion in online learning has also demonstrated the relevance of these technological solutions in the group up to 35 years old. At the same time, assessments of personal experience were divided almost equally into positive and negative between residents of St. Petersburg. Based on the factor model, 3 components were identified that make up the category of cyber-social trust: institutional trust in organizations operating on the Internet; transactional trust in interacting with other online actors (primarily to the state); information trust regarding the completeness, quality and reliability of information (information services).

Currently, non-democracies are showing a significant interest in e-participation tools, i.e. in various online mechanisms for citizen participation in public policy, such as epetitions and e-consultations. Such instruments can be found in a vast range of countries from the post-Soviet space to the Middle East. This leads to new interpretations of the role ICT play in regime dynamics, and describes the peculiarities of contemporary authoritarianism. While the Internet has long been considered a liberation technology, it is currently viewed as providing stability of the authoritarian regime. In these circumstances, e-participation is becoming another pseudo-democratic institution, adapted as a tool for authoritarian consolidation. Although the number of works aimed at understanding this phenomenon is increasing, the research agenda is far from being complete. This paper, first, summarizes what we know and do not know about e-participation in authoritarian contexts, and second, outlines several prospects for further research. In this regards, the author considers e-participation as a policy, institution and process. As a policy, e-participation is the result of the global innovation diffusion and policy learning. The most likely recipient of this innovation among non-democracies is a regime dependent upon internal and external legitimation, as well as having sufficient state potential for reforms. Quite often, e-participation becomes a window-dressing for a repressive Internet-policy and does not go beyond websites. At the same time, e-participation can become a full-fledged institution of authoritarian consolidation, performing the same functions as other institutions, such as information gathering and monitoring the elites. For this, online mechanisms must have a certain institutional design and manipulation menu. It eventually helps dictators to channel Internet protests into the spaces that are fully controlled by the government. E-participation in non-democracies as a process remains an underexplored issue. The evidence prove that the use of such mechanisms indeed makes citizens consider the government to be more legitimate. However, it is to be further explained who, why and with what result is engaged into non-democratic e-participation. The author argues that a stronger integration between comparative authoritarianism and e-participation studies would be beneficial for both areas of research. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17072/2218-1067-2018-3-50-66

Although trust is considered a crucial driver of online human behavior, its conceptualization often poses a challenge to scholars, due to the multidimensional nature of the phenomenon and the variety of online contexts in which trust manifests itself. While many studies have been performed to reveal the dimensions of trust in certain online domains, little has been done to build a holistic model that describes trust relations across the domains. This study aims to address this by building an empirical multifactor model of cybersocial trust. Using data obtained via the public opinion survey in St. Petersburg, Russia, and exploratory factor analysis, we have revealed six key factors of online trust, each reflecting different forms of interactions with people, organizations, or institutions. Implications of this multidimensional model and further steps for research are also discussed.

Legitimacy is a vital source of stability in authoritarian political systems, and non-democracies are developing various tools to sustain it. The Internet is said to be one such tool, offering a variety of legitimizing effects, but the main discussion in this paper is around the referent object and the type of legitimation. This study attempts to explore how the diffusion of online tools is associated with different legitimation strategies of authoritarian countries, as measured by the Varieties of Democracy project. The analysis suggests that IT – tools diffusion is strongly and positively correlated with the rational-legal and performance types of legitimation. While the data is subject to variation, the results support an earlier claim that the proliferation of online tools is legitimation-driven and is applied to specific forms of legitimacy. This initial analysis will be further developed by including legitimation strategies into the causal Internet diffusion models.

Deliberation research is now undergoing two emerging trends: deliberation is shifting from offline to online, as well as from an inherently democratic concept to the one applicable to less competitive regimes (He & Warren, 2011). The goal of this article is to study the peculiarities of deliberative practices in hybrid regimes, taking online discourse on the Russian anti-sanctions policy as a case. We use the Habermasian concept of basic validity claims to assess deliberation quality through the lens of argumentation and interactivity. Our findings suggest that deliberative practices can exist in non-competitive contexts and non-institutionalized digital spaces, in the form of intersubjective solidarities resulting from the everyday political talk among ordinary citizens. Such deliberations can be counted as argumentative discourses, although in a special, casual way—unlike the procedural rule-based debates. Generally, as in established liberal democracies, deliberation in Russia tends to attract like-minded participants. While the argumentative quality does not seem to vary across the discussion threads sample, the level of deliberative interactivity is higher on pro-government media, accompanied with the higher level of incivility. On the other hand, discourses on independent media are distinctively against the government policy of food destruction. The democratic value of such deliberations is unclear and might depend on the political allegiance and ownership of the media. Though some discourses can be considered democratic, their impact on decision-making remains minimal, which is a key constraint of deliberation.

The question if the Open Government Partnership (OGP), launched in 2011, has any impact on policies and institutions in its member-states, remains open. Despite several case studies revealing modest achievements of OGP to improve governance, little research has been done so far to explore this puzzle in general, using statistical means. Addressing this gap, this pilot study analyzes the impact of OGP membership on the quality of governance. Using policy feedback theory and Bayesian Structural Equation Modeling (BSEM), we have discovered that OGP might have an indirect influence on the governance quality via the development of civic participation, government transparency and feedback mechanisms.

As research on smart governments continues to attract interest, the concept of smartness seems to be growing in scope and complexity. This paper uses the scientometrics analysis to examine literature on smart cities and governance and situate the research conducted on this topic. Results suggest that research on smartness is interdisciplinary and, although spread across a variety of domains, it remains scant on topics such as e-participation and e-governance. The findings shed light on the importance of on-going examinations of smartness at the theoretical and conceptual levels for practical research endeavors.

The article discusses the problems of power asymmetry and political dynamics in the era of Big Data, assessing the impact Big Data may have on power relations and political regimes. While the issues of political ethics of the data turn are mostly discussed in relation to democracies, little attention has been given to hybrid regimes and autocracies, some of which are actively introducing Big Data policies. We argue that although the effects of Big Data on politics are ambivalent, it can become a powerful instrument of authoritarian resilience through ICT-facilitated repression, legitimation and cooptation. The ability of autocracies to become data-driven depends on their capacity, control powers and policies. We further analyze the state of the Big Data policy in Russia. Although the country may become a case of data-driven authoritarianism, it will be the result of the current discursive and political competition among actors. The ethical critique of Big Data should then be based on the empirical findings of Big Data use by non-democracies.

Part 7: Evaluation; International audience; The paper explores the patterns and factors of e-governance development in ineffective institutional settings. Although it is assumed that most of e-projects in such countries failed, we argue that in some contexts such initiatives can survive in the hostile environment and achieve relatively positive results, leading to limited institutional changes. We adapt the pockets of effectiveness framework in order to analyze the Our Petersburg portal (St. Petersburg, Russia). Our findings suggest that such electronic “pockets” may emerge as a deliberate policy of the political elite in an attempt to make institutions work properly. The key factors of such projects’ success relate to agency, namely the political patronage and control, policy entrepreneurship, as well as organization autonomy and the power of the initiative.

The study is devoted to the development of open government data (OGD) policy in Russia, its regions and cities. We argue that although OGD are a potential driver of citizen participation and smart city innovations, these effects can be interfered with by political, institutional, socio-economic (structural) factors, as well as by agency. We use a mixed quantitative—qualitative methodology, and data gathered within the Infometer project, to unveil the determinants of OGD success and failure. Our findings suggest that although some general patterns can be traced, agency as a motivation to innovate plays a crucial role.

Part 3: Implementations; International audience; The paper presents the results of research on factors explaining the level of e-petitioning in Russian regions. The main goal is to reveal socio-economic, technological and institutional problems the regions face, and hence to embed the Russian case into the broad research agenda on online engagement. We concentrate on the federal e-petitions portal – Russian Public Initiative – and use the automated monitoring system to analyse subnational dynamics of online petitions submissions and voting on the aggregate level. The data are used to quantitatively assess the drivers and obstacles for e-participation. Our findings suggest that more active e-petition portal usage in regions is associated with higher socio-economic and technological development, as well as with democratic institutions and better e-government policy. One of the main obstacles to active use of the portal is its institutional design that at the moment provides regions with different opportunities and reinforces participation divides. Future steps, implications for automated monitoring system and some policy recommendations are also discussed.

This paper presents the opportunities, advantages and limitations of e-participation portals automated monitoring system (AMS) in social and political research. The system was initially developed in 2013 to analyse petitioning and voting dynamics of the Russian e-petitions portal – the Russian Public Initiative – and then was further expanded. In the paper the architecture and working principles of the system are described. It is argued and exemplified that the data collected automatically from e-petition portals can be used to advance research in several areas: media and PR effects on political participation, issue salience, as well as factors of voting behavior and online political engagement.

The paper aims at revealing factors influencing the development of e-government in the Russian regions. Based mainly on the innovation diffusion concept we run quantitative analysis, testing the significance of political, technological, socio-economic and administrative variables. Our study shows that the diffusion of e-government itself was to a large extent the result of a vertical influence of the federal government, however, disproportions of e-government performance can better be explained by internal characteristics of the regions. We argue that the key predictors for a more mature e-government are relatively democratic political regime, technological advancement, bureaucracy effective-ness and investment in ICT. The explanatory model could best be expanded by case studies focused on agency rather than the structure.