Advances in E-Governance

Theory and Application of Technological Initiatives

Anthony Trotta

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781498701181
• eBook ISBN: 9781351722315
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

E-Governance as a field of study is relatively new when considered within the broader historical context of US democracy. The advent of the modern Internet in the early 1990s yielded new technologies that began to shift citizen expectations of how government can -- and in many cases should -- govern. Though innovations continue to emerge at a rapid pace, these technologies may be used to reinforce long-held deliberative democracy principles, including transparency, accountability and flexibility. Advances in E-Governance offers a comprehensive exploration of the role that technological innovation plays in facilitating government action and citizen participation.

In this timely book, author Anthony Trotta differentiates e-governance from e-government and examines the increasingly important role social media and crowdsourcing have come to play in our democracy, and the interactions between technology, polling, voting, and outcomes. Including practical cases ranging from DMV registration to online tax filing and markers of successful implementation, Advances in E-Governance carefully addresses how the adoption and expansion of electronic platforms align with new government paradigms and looks to future trends in this rapidly expanding field.

1 Introduction

E-Government and E-Governance

E-Governance as a field of study is relatively new within the historical context of the United States’ deliberative democracy. The advent of the Internet by the early 1990s yielded a plethora of newly emerging technologies that began shifting citizen expectations regarding how government can and should govern. The rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) that continued to proliferate since then caused a steady increase in the expectations of citizens regarding the government’s usage of these innovations. Modern innovations made available during the E-Governance Era reinforce many traditional deliberative democracy principles, such as transparency, accountability and flexibility. As such, the focus of this work is to better understand the role that technological innovation plays in facilitating government actions within a deliberative democracy. The technological innovations available within the E-Governance Era can greatly contribute to strengthening the deliberative democracy framework by creating meaningful opportunities for citizens to participate with government. For example, advancements in technology can create an opportunity for citizens to participate in any number of interactive events that are capable of affecting changes to the political system. The value of deliberative democracy is partly based on the development and usage of tools that facilitate meaningful participation allowing for the public to affect verifiable system changes. The power of deliberative activities to shape system change is paramount to ensure that government outcomes and processes are deemed legitimate by the citizens that participate in, and are affected by, outcomes of such interactive events.

Technology provides opportunities for government in the modern era to promote the use of innovative means to fulfill its responsibilities within the context of deliberative democracy. Newly emerging innovations can be used by the public sector to meet citizens’ expectations regarding democratic governance in the E-Governance Era. A key component in this dynamic is the ability of digital deliberative means to support citizen participation. Technology expectations regarding functionality are based on a wide array of citizen concerns, such as whether the innovations will serve to reliably accomplish goals in a secure fashion while also providing a higher degree of convenience. In this sense, as technological advancements proliferate throughout the whole of society, the government is expected to utilize applicable innovations in the facilitation of governance when viable. It is important to acknowledge that there may also be impediments to participation through deliberative means that stem from the digital divide. Thus the modern deliberative democracy framework should incorporate both traditional and digital means to support the diversity of citizen preferences in participation.

The evolutionary nature of the U.S. government is reflected in part through the usage of technological innovation to ensure the fulfillment of expectations for citizen participation in a deliberative democracy. Electronic means available in the E-Governance Era can play an influential role in facilitating citizen participation within the context of the deliberative democracy framework. There are a number of innovative means available to modern government that can work to fortify deliberative expectations by providing citizens the ability to operate through digital platforms that support interactions associated with social media networks, crowdsourcing, suggestion boxes, citizen review panels, deliberative polls, types of public meetings and voting. Inherent within these deliberative expectations is that participation by citizens can be deemed most meaningful when interactions result in verifiable impacts to the political system at some point after the conclusion of the process. The E-Governance Era is representative of a time in which traditional designs are often coupled with modernized innovations to facilitate deliberative democracy that expands the scope of the participatory framework. The digital means can be utilized concurrently with traditional means to ensure that the deliberative framework can accommodate a wide variety of citizen preferences for participation. The decision to apply these means may be the result of citizen expectations demanding a change, the acceptance of a given technology on a broader societal scale, the notion that applying technology will better facilitate government fulfillment of duties or an attempt by the public sector to be innovative. Whatever the impetus, be it a societal demand based on citizen preferences or government intention to innovate, digital means can bridge classic principles of deliberative democracy with modern technology to support citizen-government interactions designed to impact the political system.

The provision of E-Government and E-Governance definitions is helpful in identifying expectations inherent within these innovative designs, which can guide the implementation of these conceptions in modern government. Both conceptual designs reflect the evolutionary nature of democracy in which government is expected to promote flexible adjustments to processes and structures based on demands stemming from the political arena. Without consistent efforts on behalf of the public sector to incrementally incorporate technological innovation though a whole-of-government approach, the deliberative democracy framework would be wholly antiquated and lacking in the diversity of participatory means that is paramount to the integrity of the system. Since the E-Governance Era began over 25 years ago in the early 1990s, there have been countless advancements in technology, showing great potential in allowing for both government and citizens to better fulfill the promise of deliberative democracy. It is important to provide some introductory discussion regarding what constitutes E-Government and E-Governance before providing an in-depth look at how these conceptualizations manifest in modern government within the context of deliberative democracy.

The available literature provides an array of definitions contributing to cultivating a rich understanding of E-Government and related functions. Those listed here serve as only a few such examples provided for illustrative purposes to help create a foundation of understanding of ICTs use in government toward this end. Carter and Bélanger (2005, p. 1) explained that “E-Government is the use of information technology to enable and improve the efficiency of government services provided to citizens, employees, business and agencies.” Bannister and Connolly (2012, p. 1) defined E-Government as a “use of ICTs in and by governments and public administrations,” since government began to embrace the application of the “Internet and the World-Wide-Web in the 1990s.” Haque and Pathrannarakul (2013, p. 25) stated that “E-Government is the systemic use of ICTs to support the functions that a government performs for its constituents, typically the provision of information and services. E-Government is the use of ICT to transform the traditional government by making it accessible, transparent, effective, and accountable.” Moon (2002, p. 426) highlighted the following strategies associated with E-Government initiatives, which activities can be based on: “(1) simple information dissemination (one-way communication); (2) two-way communication (request and response); (3) service and financial transactions; (4) integration (horizontal and vertical integration); and (5) political participation.” Moon (2002) also made an important distinction regarding E-Government methods in that “the adoption of e-government practices may not follow a true linear progression.” Moon (2002) adds that “it is also possible that government can pursue various components of e-government simultaneously.” Here, the framework for E-Government is capable of supporting multiple types of communication flows and facilitates a wide array of expectations associated with democratic interactions ranging from service delivery to citizen participation. In addition, the application of E-Government initiatives allows for a transition that is neither mutually exclusive nor conceptually restrictive during the public sector’s usage of such means. West (2004, p. 17) provided the following stages of E-Government as it relates to an agency’s interactive behavior with citizens:

1 The billboard stage

2 The partial-service-delivery stage

3 The portal stage, with fully executable and integrated service delivery

4 Interactive democracy with public outreach and accountability enhancing features

Generally, E-Government is considered to include efforts on behalf of the public sector to apply ICTs for the purposes of delivering services and disseminating information to the public. However, Moon’s and West’s final stages of E-Government each set the foundation for conceptually deeper governance issues, which further integrates more complex attributes associated with democracy derived from participatory interactions between citizens and government. Navarra and Cornford (2012) argued that the reach of E-Government can exceed being used only to enhance the citizen-consumer service delivery transactions through the application of ICTs. Navarra and Cornford (2012, p. 37) argued that “e-government initiatives can be constitutive of new forms of governmental legitimacy, with ICT supporting new backward, forward, and lateral mechanisms to reshape political power to further democratic ideals.” Navarra and Cornford (2012) explained that state efforts to utilize ICTs to deliver services to the public can be supplemented with designs focused on including citizen-consumers in dialogue activities, such the development of public policy. Navarra and Cornford (2012) noted that ICTs can be applied to E-Government for improving the facilitation of bureaucratic transactions, such as delivering services to the citizen-consumer and to accomplish E-Governance goals intended to promote a more legitimate government by providing designs that encourage citizen participation to affect changes to political system functions such as public policy development. For Marche and McNiven (2003), there is a distinction between E-Government transaction-level interactions, associated with service delivery and basic information dissemination, and E-Governance deliberations designed to promote citizen–government interactions with the intention of affecting changes to the political system. This conceptual demarcation paves the way for cultivating an understanding for E-Governance, sometimes referred to as E-Democracy, which is representative of public sector designs applying ICTs in accordance with broader interactive expectations associated with deliberative democracy.

Graham, Amos, and Plumptre (2003, p. 1) distinguished government from governance by noting that the latter is focused on “how governments and other social organizations interact, how they relate to citizens, and how decisions are taken in a complex world. Thus governance is a process whereby societies or organizations make their important decisions, determine whom they involve in the process and how they render account.” This conceptualization is applicable to E-Governance, which is reflective of technologically based interactions between citizens and government ultimately intended to affect changes to the political system. E-Governance by its nature indicates that the public sector utilizes technological advancements associated with ICTs that are supportive of political actors’ pursuit of goal achievement, including those focused on achieving change derived though participatory events. Kalsi and Kiran (2015, p. 170) explained that ICTs are “recognized as the engine for growth and a source of energy for the social and economic empowerment of any country. Today, governments are empowering masses through ICT as it can prove to be effective short-cut to higher levels of equity in the emerging global digital networked information economy.” The usage of technology as a vehicle for change includes the important role that ICTs play in facilitating citizen–government interactions associated with deliberative democracy. Clearly, paramount among these technologies is the Internet. Gibson (2001, p. 562) said that “for many observers, the emergence of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as the World Wide Web (WWW) and e-mail has revived hopes for so-called electronic or ‘e-democracy’—a polity whereby interactive media promotes a wider base of citizen participation.” Kakabadse, Kakabadse, and Kouzmin (2003, p. 47) noted that E-Democracy is reflective of a “capacity of the new communications environment to enhance the degree and quality of public participation in government.” They expanded on this notion by explaining that citizens with access to the Internet and applicable ICTs may utilize these in concert to participate in opportunities such as those allowing them “to vote electronically in elections, referendums, and plebiscites” (2003, p. 47). Solop (2001, p. 289) observed that “digital democracy refers to the integration of Internet technologies into the functions of government and the apparatus of democracy, i.e. making governmental information accessible through web sites; online political mobilization; and, now, Internet voting.” Here, the Internet is considered to assume a primary role in E-Governance designs that are focused on enhancing the means available for citizens to participate with government in the hopes of enacting changes to the system.

Chadwick and May (2003, p. 276) discussed that E-Democracy interactions can be based on a “managerial” perspective in which ICTs are used to affect incremental change to services provided to the public to ensure delivery will be “made more ‘efficient,’ where ‘efficiency’ means increased speed of delivery combined with a reduction in costs.” Chadwick and May (2003, p. 278) expanded further on this type of interaction by noting that “the state will place information in accessible forums and the onus is on the user to access it. The audience members are seen a passive recipients, rather than interlocutors.” In this sense, technology is utilized to affect incremental changes to the political system largely focused on improving the means through which government performs specific tasks (i.e., delivery of public services, dissemination of information) for the citizen-recipient. Chadwick (2003) explained that E-Democracy interactions can also be categorized as “consultative” or “deliberative.” Chadwick (2003, p. 449) pointed out that the former “principally stresses the vertical flows of state-citizen communication,” while the latter “conceives of a more complex, horizontal, and multidirectional interactivity.” Chadwick (2003, p. 448) added that consultative interactions in an E-Democracy applies ICTs to “facilitate the communication of citizen opinion to government” and the resulting knowledge gained from discourse can be used by a government to determine how “to provide better policy and administration.” Chadwick (2003) recognized the role of the state in developing and facilitating E-Democracy means supporting citizen–government deliberations with the understanding that there will be a multitude of sources in the political system capable of facilitating discursive interactions from a variety of origin points. For Chadwick (2003, p. 449) the deliberative aspects of E-Democracy “contains a recognition that knowledge is discursive, contingent, and changeable; that it emerges through interaction.” Here, participation between citizens and government is guided by the nature of discourse in which gaining access to information is derived through interaction. Agrawal, Sethi, and Mittal (2015) acknowledged that although the terms E-Government and E-Governance are often used interchangeably, there are subtle differences regarding the scope and nature of their application in the political system. They expanded on this idea by noting that “e-governance embraces e-democracy, e-voting, e-justice, e-education, e-healthcare and so on, whereas e-government uses ICT to promote efficient, cost-effective and convenient government services, allowing greater public access to information” (2015, p. 35). Marche and McNiven (2003) observed that various forms of “electronically mediated interaction” may affect public policy development, citizen–government participation dynamics, lobbying processes, the role of traditional power structures associated with information sharing, online efforts to promote transparency and accountability and expectations for the inclusion of online communities in a deliberative democracy. In sum, E-Government applies technology solely for providing services or disseminating information, which lacks the multidimensio...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• About the Author
• 1. Introduction: E-Government and E-Governance
• 2. E-Governance Era: Paradigm Shifts and Megatrends, Janus Face of Technology, Digital Divide and the Hype Curve/Hype Cycle
• 3. Technology Models and Societal Preferences: Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Diffusion of Innovation (DOI), and Web Trust
• 4. Scientific Knowledge, Technocrats and the Role of the Expert
• 5. Open Innovation, Advancements in Technological Innovation and the Impact of Modern Networks on Participation
• 6. Deliberative Democracy and Citizen Participation
• 7. Modern Deliberative Democracy Means and Web 2.0 Technology: Social Media and Crowdsourcing
• 8. Modern Deliberative Democracy Means and Web 2.0 Technology: Suggestion Boxes, Deliberative Mini-Publics, Citizen Review Panels, Deliberative Polls and Public Meetings
• 9. E-Governance, Deliberative Democracy and Voting Processes: Part One
• 10. E-Governance, Deliberative Democracy and Voting Processes: Part Two
• Index