OPEN GOVERNMENT AS A STRATEGY TO PROMOTE CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN KAZAKHSTAN

Abstract

Over the last decade, Kazakhstan has implemented numerous open government initiatives to promote transparency, civic participation, accountability etc. One of the fundamental pillars of open government is citizens’ participation which ensures the involvement of citizens in decision making, providing feedback etc. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of open government portals, i.e, E-government portal (www.egov.kz) and Open Akimat to explore the level of citizens’ engagement on these government portals focusing on the case of Astana. Citizen Participation is defined as the active involvement of citizens in government decision-making processes, including raising concerns, providing feedback, and engaging in governance through both online and offline means. Qualitative research method has been used for the evaluation purpose, which consists of surveys of Astana residents and content analysis of the government web portals. The surveys with Astana residents provide the ground realities of the level of citizens engagement with the open government portals and the content analysis sheds light on the up to date data regarding the citizens’ engagement on portals. The study explores the difficulties faced by citizens regarding their engagement, their awareness level about government portals and potential recommendations on how the government can improve citizens’ participation further. The results of our study reveal that although many citizens in Astana are aware of the existence of open government platforms, actual participation remains low. People generally do not engage actively on the web portals because of technical difficulties, lack of government responsiveness, and concerns about data security. Despite the presence of multiple digital platforms aimed at increasing transparency and civic involvement, citizens feel that these platforms are not user-friendly, and their input often goes unnoticed. The findings suggest that improving accessibility, responsiveness, incentives, and awareness efforts is crucial for fostering meaningful citizen engagement.