Legitimating Government Decisions: Opportunities and Limitations of Persuasive Communication
The deliberative turn in public administration has contributed to the active spread of various forms of citizen participation in the development of government decisions. The consequence of the citizens’ involvement in management processes was the growth of their interest in obtaining high-quality information about the management problem. To satisfy this request, the state is forced to make adjustments to its policy of information support of state decisions, to include not only information and manipulation tools, but also persuasive communication. This article assesses the possibilities and limitations of building persuasive communication by the state based on full-fledged argumentation, scientific arguments and evidence. The data of a focused interview of civil servants and the scientific and expert community, conducted on the basis of a specially developed questionnaire, are used. It is shown that in connection with the growth of scientific knowledge authority, the state is increasingly resorting to such an instrument of legitimizing state decisions as creating images of government bodies actively cooperating with the scientific and expert community, relying on scientific research and objective evidence in developing state policy. However, the real effect of such an instrument in our country turns out to be lower than expected due to mass perception of the decision-making process as behind the scenes, closed, focused on the selfish interests of the elite strata. It is proved that a number of conditions are necessary to create a model of persuasive communication based on the principles of openness, objectivity and evidence. Firstly, the political and administrative elite should demonstrate a real interest in “overturning” evidence-based politics into the public space, in pursuing an open information policy. Secondly, the scientific and expert community should refrain as much as possible from their value preferences in the analysis of the management situation and use valid evidence-based policy tools. Thirdly, while recognizing the importance of using evidence-based policy tools in the public space of persuasive communication, one should take into account the need to adapt them to the characteristics of mass perception.