Blockchain and E-Participation: New Affordances and Challenges for Digital Political Participation

IF 1.7 Q2 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Journal of Public Affairs Pub Date : 2025-10-27 DOI:10.1002/pa.70087

Maxat Kassen

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

E-participation has been regarded by e-government practitioners and researchers around the world as an ultimate strategic goal of many innovative public service delivery models. However, one of the objective obstacles in advancing the concept in such political reforms was the fact that the public sector has always resorted to centralization of information management workflows in advancing related e-government policies and platforms, rendering all related transactions top-down by nature. Thus, the public sector has always been a conceptual initiator, decision maker, and implementer of these innovations in quite a directive manner. In this regard, this article aims to understand how blockchain technology changes the status quo in promoting adoption models for e-participation services, elaborating on new democratic opportunities that make digital governance more participative and collaborative in an intrinsically decentralized and distributed way, as well as discussing new affordances and risks that can actually undermine digital participation and paradoxically enhance existing political inequalities in modern society.

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b区块链和电子参与：数字政治参与的新支持和挑战

电子参与已被世界各地的电子政务从业者和研究人员视为许多创新公共服务提供模式的最终战略目标。然而，在这种政治改革中推进这一概念的客观障碍之一是，公共部门在推进相关的电子政务政策和平台时，总是采取信息管理工作流程的集中化，使得所有相关的交易都具有自上而下的性质。因此，公共部门一直是这些创新的概念发起者、决策者和实施者。在这方面，本文旨在了解区块链技术如何改变现状，促进电子参与服务的采用模式，阐述新的民主机会，使数字治理以本质上分散和分布式的方式更具参与性和协作性，并讨论实际上可能破坏数字参与并矛盾地加剧现代社会中现有政治不平等的新能力和风险。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Public Affairs PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION-

CiteScore

7.10

自引率

3.80%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Journal of Public Affairs provides an international forum for refereed papers, case studies and reviews on the latest developments, practice and thinking in government relations, public affairs, and political marketing. The Journal is guided by the twin objectives of publishing submissions of the utmost relevance to the day-to-day practice of communication specialists, and promoting the highest standards of intellectual rigour.