At MIT GOV/LAB, we study what motivates governments to respond to citizen needs and how to make the interface between citizens and government more effective. Governments, especially in developing contexts, can be trapped in low-trust, low-capacity situations where the government may have limited capacity to deliver services which in turn reduces citizen trust. Low citizen trust further impacts the governments’ ability to deliver public services. The current projects study the motivations and attitudes of government officials to understand how intrinsic and environmental factors can affect their behaviors for improved responsiveness, better service delivery, and willingness to reform.

• Digital public services. This project is a part of a collaboration with Busara, where we study the various ways that the Kenyan government implements digital public services. We explore the partnerships that the Kenya government engages in to make digital public services happen as well as the experiences of users of digital or in-person public services and ask whether these efforts help to increase trust in government and improve citizen relations with government.
• Understanding the role of technology in bureaucratic work. In this project, we study the impact of technology’s role on governance in Sierra Leone’s public health bureaucracies. Specifically, we explore the use of the healthcare software, DHIS2, in Sierra Leone to understand how technology affects information collection, decision-making, and bureaucratic work.  
• When clients exit: the role of brokers in public service provision. Faculty Associate Tesalia Rizzo’s dissertation research in Mexico was conducted in partnership with Observatorio de Desarrollo Regional y Promoción Social (ODP), a local civil society organization working on participatory governance. The study makes use of detailed surveys conducted in 150 villages in the state of Yucatan that capture, among other things, what citizens perceived were the most serious problems communities face.In a follow-up study conducted by Daniel Hidalgo, Tesalia Rizzo and Lily Tsai, we surveyed over 500 village and municipality authorities in Yucatan. To understand whether local authorities agree with citizen priorities, we asked officials the same questions we posed citizens.
• Personnel politics: how politics in bureaucrat hiring impacts local governance. Faculty Affiliate Guillermo Toral’s dissertation research explores how politicians strategically use patronage systems, and how these strategies shape local governance in the context of Brazilian municipal governments. Using administrative micro-level datasets, surveys, and in-depth interviews, he studies the local politics around hiring.

Image: City hall in Yucatán, Mexico. Credits: Tesalia Rizzo.