Electronic Government

Description:

Electronic Government – E-Government or Digital-Government – is a means of making governments more efficient and focused on citizens’ needs through improved Internet technology. Since the desired interaction is a two-way one, E-Government is also an important means that citizens and businesses can use to better communicate their opinions, concerns, and suggestions to governmental agencies and officials.

Electronic governance is viewed as a political process aiming to reforming local and national governance, by achieving cross-boundary integration, increasing government efficiency and accountability, and reducing taxpayers’ cost burden. As stressed on many official websites, E-Governance does not equate to transposing forms from their paper format to e-format. Rather than that, E-Governance is first about replacing redundant systems with efficient customer service for the citizens of our more and more wired world. Second, E-Governance’s role is to foster increased implication of citizens in choosing the governmental products and services which will better serve people. In other words, E-Governance should be seen as an essential tool to reaching a more participatory form of democratic debate in the rulemaking process.

Enablers:

1. Political will – Governments’ ability to pass laws and regulations is essential for setting the legal frame of E-Government and for its uniform implementation nation-wide.

2. Information Technology capabilities – continuing IT development, exponential growth of the number of users, and more friendlier interfaces enable E-Government to reach an increased part of population.

3. Involvement of IT companies – IT hardware and software companies perceive E-Government as enterprise architecture; as a consequence, they seek partnerships with governments for integrated solutions. (See the IBM Institute for Electronic Government).

4. People’s need for democracy – as citizens’ distrust in politicians and traditional forms of governance deepens E-Government becomes, for ordinary people, a means of direct involvement in democratic processes by making their voice heard.

Inhibitors

1. Resistance to change – government institutions need structural transformation on their way from bureaucratic organizations to efficient nodes of the E-Government network; it will take strong and sustainable leadership to reshape institutions and to change public servants’ mentality. On the other hand, some resistance is expected from citizens (certain age groups, people who value personal contact).

2. Multitude of initiatives – broader access to governance for increased number of citizens would generate many and sometimes contradictory initiatives; the process of choosing the ones that suit a majority will be time consuming and could transform into endless debates.

3. Lack of collaboration among agencies – government agencies will tend to act separately, following their own interests and sometimes competing against each other, hence delaying the shaping of a uniform E-Government system.