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Platform Level Bureaucracy and Social Inclusion

Project description

Digital bureaucracy and social inclusion

As public services move online, the nature of citizen interaction with bureaucracy is changing. Digital platforms can reshape both the discretion of street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) and the experience of users, with potential barriers related to gender, age or ethnicity. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the PERSON project studies how digital platforms affect bureaucratic encounters in Canada, Italy and the Netherlands. It will examine how SLBs exercise discretion when services are accessed online and whether digital interactions amplify or reduce inequalities. By comparing platforms across different levels of public sector digitisation, PERSON aims to develop guidelines for designing inclusive digital services that ensure fair and equitable access for all.

Objective

PERSON - Platform Level Bureaucracy and Social Inclusion

PERSON analyses what happens to the bureaucratic encounter and to street level bureaucrats’ (SLBs) discretion when access to service becomes digital. Studying the use of three platforms for accessing Job Centres activated in Italy (DID Platform), Canada (Québec.ca Platform), and the Netherlands (UWV Platform), PERSON investigates the way in which digital bureaucratic encounters affect SLBs’ discretion and aims to develop guidelines for an inclusive public platform design, overcoming barriers related to gender, age, and ethnicity.
The core idea revolves around how digital practices change not only the way SLBs use their discretion, but also the very nature of the bureaucratic encounter between users and SLBs, consequently, it appears necessary to investigate the relationship between these two actors, mediated by digital public platforms.
The research will be conducted in three countries with three different levels of digitisation of the public sector, through the implementation of creative and replicable tools for digital qualitative research (Digital Subsystem Technique; Vignette Techinque for Internet Based Research).
PERSON wants to understand whether the digital bureaucratic encounter amplifies or reduces the effects of the characteristics of the actors (SLBs and users) on the actual access to the public service. The final objective is to develop guidelines to design an inclusive platform for the public sector by comparing similar platforms in three different digitisation contexts.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01

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Coordinator

ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA
Net EU contribution
€ 341 683,08
Address
VIA ZAMBONI 33
40126 Bologna
Italy
Region
Nord-Est Emilia-Romagna Bologna
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
No data

Partners (1)