Government Performance In Protecting Public Values During Pandemic: Citizen Evaluation

Effective protection of public values such as life, health, property, personal data and privacy, lawful rights and interests, environment, and cultural heritage is one of the core government objectives. Attaining this objective is especially important at the time of crisis when the resources of other actors, citizens and businesses, that could be used to protect public values, are limited. The article presents the citizens evaluation of government performance on protecting public values during the pandemic period. The empirical data was collected through a representative sociological survey aimed at evaluating performance of state regulatory enforcement activities conducted in 35 Russian regions in February-March 2021. The survey results were compared to the outcomes of similar surveys carried out in 2018, 2019, and 2020. The article demonstrates that in 2021 the average perception of public values safety accounted for 35.9 percent. Though this level is somewhat higher than in 2020 (32.9 percent) it cannot be deemed satisfactory since most respondents (50.2 percent) still find the level of public values safety insufficient. More active use of ICT during coronavirus pandemic resulted in higher frequency of risks related to personal data treatment and privacy protection. As a result, the perceived level of these values safety has decreased. While the total frequency of risks to public values has grown, the percentage of respondents applying for protection to government regulatory enforcement bodies has decreased due to enforced restrictions. The effectiveness of public regulatory enforcement bodies in handling such applications has not changed significantly. The survey results demonstrate that citizens perceptions of public values safety largely depend on trust to government regulatory enforcement bodies, personal experience in facing risks and applying to government regulatory enforcement bodies for protection, as well as on social and demographic characteristics of respondents. However, the article demonstrates that neither mass media nor Internet resources have any significant impact on citizens perceptions of public values safety. Hence, this indicator may be recommended for evaluating the impact of government regulatory enforcement and inspection activities performance.