Information Openness of the State in the Context of Digital Transformation: a Sociological Analysis

For a legal and democratic state, the issue of openness of government is paramount. To study the problems of implementation and prospects for the introduction of information systems for monitoring and controlling the activities of authorities in modern Russia in 2021–2022, an empirical sociological study was conducted using questionnaire survey and expert interview methods. The method of data collection is a questionnaire survey of citizens of the Russian Federation aged 18–60 years (N = 2 256) living in Russia. Heads of state and executive authorities, heads of commercial organizations, and representatives of the academic community were invited as experts. The main problems identified today are the following: unwillingness of authorities to be subject to control; closeness of information about the activities of authorities; high corruption; lack of interest among citizens; underdevelopment of civil society; bureaucracy of authorities, low level of education and upbringing of the population; lack of an understandable digital platform; imperfection of legislation, digitalization for the sake of digitalization; low security of personal data; low level of proficiency in Internet technologies; lack of interest among citizens. Therefore, it is necessary to develop civil society institutions further, increase government transparency, conduct systematic activities to improve the quality of work of civil servants responsible for citizens' appeals, train digital transformation managers and, of course, apply digital solutions to increase transparency and efficiency of government activities with regular quality assessment and rating.