Participação cidadã na ponta dos dedos? Aplicativos móveis para a interação entre governos e cidadania nos tempos do Governo Aberto (2017 – 2019)

Abstract

In a context of growing disengagement from formal politics and disaffection toward public life, information and communication technologies —particularly mobile telephony— are presented as potential tools for strengthening the relationship between governments and citizens. This article analyzes the supply of mobile applications aimed at this interaction in five Latin American countries: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Mexico. Based on the characterization of 133 applications, the main types, the actors involved in their production, and the levels of citizen participation they enable are identified. The results show that the supply is predominantly aligned with the e-government paradigm rather than with that of open government, which is characterized by active citizen participation and collaboration in decision-making. The analysis identifies three tensions: between the levels of information and reporting that predominate in the applications analyzed and the higher levels of participation and co-decision that open government principles demand; between what the applications technically enable and the institutional response capacity that should sustain them, revealing the organizational —and not merely technological— dimension of these processes; and between the dependence on infrastructure and services provided by transnational technology corporations and the principles of technological sovereignty, open data, and free software. In doing so, the article contributes to the discussion on the role of digital technologies in promoting citizen participation in Latin America.