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Blockchain and a Problem of Procedural Justice of Public Choice

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Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 858))

Abstract

In public policy theory there is a problem of just procedure which could be used in obtaining a fair result in decision. Blockchain as a network of distributed registers is often positioned as an institution ensuring the fairness of decisions by voting on the basis of a consensual procedure. Consensus is achieved in the blockchain interactions through various algorithms (Proof of Work, Proof of Stake, Byzantine Fault Tolerance, Modified Federated Byzantine Agreement) that provide different rules for a procedural justice. Current political theory distinguishes between pure, perfect and imperfect procedural justice. The article analyzes the political ontology of the pure procedural justice of blockchain-technology. This ontology relies not on the legal nature of interaction in the network, but on the technical and social immediacy of trust, cooperation and co-production. The empirical basis of the study is the analysis of cases of using blockchain-voting on the platform of “Active Citizen” (Moscow).

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The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported with a grant from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant 18-011-00756 A “Study of citizens participation and building digital government”).

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Correspondence to Leonid Smorgunov .

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Smorgunov, L. (2018). Blockchain and a Problem of Procedural Justice of Public Choice. In: Alexandrov, D., Boukhanovsky, A., Chugunov, A., Kabanov, Y., Koltsova, O. (eds) Digital Transformation and Global Society. DTGS 2018. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 858. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02843-5_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02843-5_2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02842-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02843-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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