Initially I was going to ignore this news item, but having run into it again here, I had second thoughts. After all, it raises an interesting question. The gist of the matter is this:
Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev is not happy that the country’s civil servants are computer illiterate:
“They either should learn or, as they say, goodbye,” President Dmitry Medvedev said. “We don’t hire people who can’t read and write. Computer literacy today is the same”…Computer literacy should be part of job evaluations
He has a point. This is 2008, and an effective organization, to say nothing about a large bureaucracy, could improve its efficiency by relying on IT products. Having said that, here is a statement by Medvedev that had me wondering
…if the government carried out more of its work online, it would increase transparency and make corruption more difficult to hide.
But would it? (For previous discussions on Medevedev’s anticorruption initiative, see here and here). That’s a genuinely interesting empirical question worthy of further investigation. On the surface of it, I agree - more governmental documents posted online and made available for public access ought to increase transparency and promote accountability, because journalists and members of civil society would make hiding corruption difficult (indeed, that was one of the suggestions I made here in a letter to The Economist regarding EU funds for EURO 2012).
And yet, something is amiss.
Computer literacy is a necessary component for greater transparency that will aid in the fight against corruption, but it is not sufficient for an effective anticorruption platform. If journalists and civil society groups are not free to use these documents against corrupt public officials (chinovniki) due to physical intimidation or they exercise self-censorship for fear of reprisals, then the effect of computer literacy on corruption will be minimal.
Medvedev ought to be applauded for taking this position - and especially if he follows up on this - but it will take more than increased computer literacy if Russia is to decrease the prevalence of corruption in its society.
As but one example, see how Bulgaria has approached a similar problem.
