Decentralized Information Platforms in Public Governance: Reconstruction of the Modern Democracy or Comfort Blinding?

Abstract

The paper offers the author’s vision of the political and organizational problem of using modern blockchain-based platform solutions in public governance. The aim is substantiating potential of decentralized information platforms as a new tool of public governance to promote conscious participation of people in public politics and democracy. Based on the study of the experience of the UK, Estonia, India, and Ukraine in platform governance, the author asserts that the modern world practice of using centralized digital platforms is conditioned by the comfort for citizens as the main value, thereby replacing the real democratic values. The paper offers an original comparison of 15 key parameters of platforms and author’s comparison of decentralized platforms with two other main forms of providing public administrative services by criteria as functionality, security, and cost. Unlike promising decentralized platforms, government centralized platforms are a mechanism for removing citizens from conscious governance by their states.