Towards a network government? A critical analysis of current assessment methods for e-government

Contemporary public administrations have become increasingly more complex, having to cordinate actions with emerging actors in the public and the private spheres. In this scenario the modern ICTs have begun to be seen as an ideal vehicle to resolve some of the problems of public administration. We argue that there is a clear need to explore the extent to which public administrations are undergoing a process of transformation towards a netowork government linked to the systematic incorporation of ICTs in their basic activities. Through critically analysing a selection of e-government evaluation reports, we conclude that research should be carried out if we are to build a solid government assessment framework based on network-like organisation characteristics

Peace and War with Endogenous State Capacity

We explore how peace or war can occur in the presence of commitment problems. These problems can be reduced by institutions of good governance or, alternatively, state capacity which (i) can be considered a collective good and (ii) can be improved through investments. We show how the likelihood of a peace agreement depends on the level of state capacity and on investments in state capacity made by adversaries. In accordance with existing evidence but contrary to various theories of conflict, we find that income levels unambiguously increase the chance of peace. Among other issues, we discuss the critical role of external actors in encouraging or discouraging commitment and in developing good governance institutions.Institutions; Conflict; Governance

E-democracy: exploring the current stage of e-government

Governments around the world have been pressured to implement e-Government programs in order to improve the government-citizen dialogue. The authors of this article review prior literature on such efforts to find if they lead to increased democratic participation ("e-Democracy") for the affected citizens, with a focus on the key concepts of transparency, openness, and engagement. The authors find that such efforts are a starting point toward e-Democracy, but the journey is far from complete

Activismo ciudadano y acontecimientos políticos en la transformación de la esfera pública digital en españa: del sms ¡pásalo! a Podemos

This paper discusses digital communication, activism and political system in Spain from a critical-historical perspective. The results of combined empirical and analytical research indicate that a critical digital public sphere emerged in 2004 affecting the evolution of the political sphere to this day. Traditional parties had a slow and instrumental approach to the digital realm. Conversely, cyber-activism unfolded new options of political action, both in the short and long term, transforming the bipartisan system.El artículo aborda la comunicación digital, el activismo y el sistema político en España desde una perspectiva crítica-histórica. Los resultados de una investigación empírica y analítica indican que en 2004 surgió una esfera pública digital crítica que afectó la evolución de la esfera política hasta hoy. Los partidos tradicionales se acercaron al entorno digital de manera lenta e instrumental. En cambio, el ciberactivismo abrió nuevas opciones de acción política, a corto y largo plazo, transformando el sistema bipartidista

From skepticism to mutual support: towards a structural change in the relations between participatory budgeting and the information and communication technologies?

Until three years ago, ICT Technologies represented a main “subordinate clause” within the “grammar” of Participatory Budgeting (PB), the tool made famous by the experience of Porto Alegre and today expanded to more than 1400 cities across the planet. In fact, PB – born to enhance deliberation and exchanges among citizens and local institutions – has long looked at ICTS as a sort of “pollution factor” which could be useful to foster transparency and to support the spreading of information but could also lead to a lowering in quality of public discussion, turning its “instantaneity” into “immediatism,” and its “time-saving accessibility” into “reductionism” and laziness in facing the complexity of public decision-making through citizens’ participation. At the same time, ICTs often regarded Participatory Budgeting as a tool that was too-complex and too-charged with ideology to cooperate with. But in the last three years, the barriers which prevented ICTs and Participatory Budgeting to establish a constructive dialogue started to shrink thanks to several experiences which demonstrated that technologies can help overcome some “cognitive injustices” if not just used as a means to “make simpler” the organization of participatory processes and to bring “larger numbers” of intervenients to the process. In fact, ICTs could be valorized as a space adding “diversity” to the processes and increasing outreach capacity. Paradoxically, the experiences helping to overcome the mutual skepticism between ICTs and PB did not come from the centre of the Global North, but were implemented in peripheral or semiperipheral countries (Democratic Republic of Congo, Brazil, Dominican Republic and Portugal in Europe), sometimes in cities where the “digital divide” is still high (at least in terms of Internet connections) and a significant part of the population lives in informal settlements and/or areas with low indicators of “connection.” Somehow, these experiences were able to demystify the “scary monolithicism” of ICTs, showing that some instruments (like mobile phones, and especially the use of SMS text messaging) could grant a higher degree of connectivity, diffusion and accountability, while other dimensions (which could risk jeopardizing social inclusion) could be minimized through creativity. The paper tries to depict a possible panorama of collaboration for the near future, starting from descriptions of some of the above mentioned “turning-point” experiences – both in the Global North as well as in the Global South

Developing a European Polity: the case for governance on the Internet at the European Level

Issues of European governance are currently at the fore of the debate on Europe’sfuture. Deliberations on the White Paper, which has recently been released (July 25,2001), have been encouraging and have reaffirmed the status of governance at theEuropean level to be a worthwhile subject of discussion. European politicaldevelopments, in the widest and deepest senses, have both necessitated andaccelerated this debate. However, the fact remains that Europe’s citizens still considera well-defined European polity to be a distant, and sometimes undesirable, aim.What is evidently missing from the Governance White Paper is a clearly definedpolicy regarding the impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Itis not enough to say that eGovernment is a priority issue for eEurope. Europeangovernance in this context is about a more democratic and accountable set ofEuropean institutions, and one way of encouraging this is to bring the citizen closer tothe multiple levels of decision-making institutions. ICT can have a key role to play inthis instance, and this paper will discuss the possible future of electronicdemocratization processes in the European institutions, as opposed to theestablishment of ‘electronic democracy’.Three roles for ICT will be extracted from the current debates upon electronicdemocratisation:•Networks (of people and institutions),•Responsiveness (to participation), and•Dissemination (of information).Whilst the technology can be seen as supportive, there is also the tendency to relyupon the technology to solve problems of inefficient government – and thus provide ageneral response to the increasingly perceived ‘democratic deficit’. The paper willstart to describe the link between technologically-mediated innovations in politicalpractice and the impact these have on the process of democracy in the EuropeanUnion.The paper will state that attempts to improve efficiency in current administrations donot go far enough in helping with the development of governance at the Europeanlevel. If development of the European political space is seen as desirable, then the roleof ICT is one that should be carefully considered as an potential enabler and not apanacea.Fora such as those facilitated by new ICT provide an attractive way to unite Europeanactors. These fora have the likely effect of not only reducing the democratic deficitthrough more defined information channels, but also have the potential to encouragegreater involvement. This in turn, may lead to legitimation of the European polity.How this is to be done in the context of a unique European framework is still notclearly defined, and whilst the democratic deficit is clearly a problem for Europeaninstitutions, the broader question of the nature of the European Union (super-state orintergovernmental organization) is still not entirely answered.research and development ;

Updating democracy studies: outline of a research program

Technologies carry politics since they embed values. It is therefore surprising that mainstream political and legal theory have taken the issue so lightly. Compared to what has been going on over the past few decades in the other branches of practical thought, namely ethics, economics and the law, political theory lags behind. Yet the current emphasis on Internet politics that polarizes the apologists holding the web to overcome the one-to-many architecture of opinion-building in traditional representative democracy, and the critics that warn cyber-optimism entails authoritarian technocracy has acted as a wake up call. This paper sets the problem – “What is it about ICTs, as opposed to previous technical devices, that impact on politics and determine uncertainty about democratic matters?” – into the broad context of practical philosophy, by offering a conceptual map of clusters of micro-problems and concrete examples relating to “e-democracy”. The point is to highlight when and why the hyphen of e-democracy has a conjunctive or a disjunctive function, in respect to stocktaking from past experiences and settled democratic theories. My claim is that there is considerable scope to analyse how and why online politics fails or succeeds. The field needs both further empirical and theoretical work

Electronic Governance and Service Delivery in Selected Ministries in Ebonyi State

This research is entitled, ‘Electronic Governance and Service Delivery in Selected Ministries in Ebonyi State.’ The main objective of this study is to find out the extent electronic governance facilitates service delivery in Ebonyi State Bureaucracies. In specific terms, the objective of this study is to: Find out the extent the adoption of electronic governance aids record keeping/tracking of events in Ebonyi State Bureaucracies/Ministries; Examine the extent the adoption of electronic governance encourages accountability and transparency in Ebonyi State Bureaucracies/Ministries and Determine the extent the adoption of electronic governance encourages quality service delivery in implementing the projects and programmes of Ebonyi State Bureaucracies/Ministries.The theory adopted in this research is the Theory of Innovation and Diffusion propounded by Everett Rogers (1957). This theory tries to elucidate the implication of Technology/ Internet in the various spheres of life in the contemporary society.The research design adopted is a descriptive survey design. The instrument used in generating data in the study is questionnaire. The following are some of the main findings made in the study:Electronic government makes an impact on the knowledge of the society as well as on the literate level of the society.Electronic governance is very beneficial to the people who have electricity.The adoption of electronic governance in running the affairs of the ministries brings about effective service delivery in the state. It helps in defining and re-defining the current vision and mission of the government. The adoption of electronic governance curtails the level of corruption and encourages accountability and transparency in governance since it is a mechanism for carrying out proper internal and external auditing in government.The adoption of electronic government in Bureaucracies helps in facilitating the formulation of strategies for project and programme implementation in the states. The research has the following recommendation: The government of Ebonyi State should adopt therefore electronic governance in order to institutionalize in the state for real budget tracking in the state. Government should adopt the use of electronic governance in the state since it brings about significant improvement in governance through accountability and transparency; detects and prevents poor service delivery, curtails unnecessary waste, as well as arbitrary and captious behavior in Bureaucracies. Government should employ both qualitative and quantitative manpower who are experienced in the electronic governance in the Bureaucracies so that the programmes and projects of the government will always be effectively and efficiently carried out

The Effects on Policy of the Composition of the ICT Public Policy Network in Swaziland

The composition, relationships, alliances, power structures, norms and bureaucracies in policy networks affect not only the policymaking process but also the policies that result. This article reports on a study which analysed the dynamics of the ICT policymaking network in a developing country, Swaziland. The study uses a policy network analysis (PNA) approach to analyse the Swaziland national ICT policy network. The findings of the study show that government recruited mainly conformist actors into the policy network so as to meet set deadlines, and that policymaking was dominated by political agendas and strong foreign intervention, while side-lining key local policy actors