Introduction
There have been some suggestions in different jurisdictions in Canada and other countries recommending that the definitions we are seeing emerge as a result of the applications of Information and Communications Technologies in Government (ICTs), and the way the terms are being described, that is e-government, e-governance and e-democracy, should no longer be used, nor should definitions for these new constructs be attempted. This approach is subject to debate and exploration rather than outright rejection of any definitions. A case can be made that it is through the development of terminology that a subject matter can be evolved.
Putting the "e" on services, such as e-health, e-participation, e-voting, e-environment or e-weather, for example, serves as a guide to the wider subject matter of e-government and e-governance, that can, in time, be imprinted on the public mind. More importantly, the use of terms such as e-government, e-governance and e-democracy, leads to the creation of an identifiable discipline. This then widens the development of the subject beyond the parameters of simply government boundaries to the larger spheres of civil society, associations, unions, the business community, international organizations and the academic world.
Governments are not in the business of creating fads.
A moving away from definitions of what government is doing in the "e" world only leads to a lessening of accountability of the activities in which any government is engaged. In society, it is the identifying of concepts through words and phrases that leads to cohesion and order. Subject matters create an ambience between stakeholders throughout the society. For example, "public transportation" or "environmental" issues are phrases understood by citizens who then relate them in their minds to the mass movements of our times. This is the way e-government must go. To move away from this identification that has been communicated through government websites, at the political level and in the media, can only lead to confusion.
Attempts to redefine e-government, e-governance and e-democracy, would only create a disservice to the public. We need to keep the current framework so that society knows the goal that government is trying to achieve. In time, technologies will change the way society shapes itself and this will lead to a widening of this subject matter into new spheres. At that point a new nomenclature will arise reflecting the change articulated in future generations. But this new nomenclature will only be an extension of the discipline that began to evolve in the late twentieth century. The danger in this time of modernity is the urge to move with the latest "craze" or "fad". It is the job of governments to maintain stability at times of great change in which we are now living. Part of this stability is being forward thinking while keeping rooted in acceptable principles and processes. Government, governance and democracy have been with us for a long while. By adding the "e" to these words we maintain a stream of thought and a conceptual framework with which the public can relate. Governments are not in the business of creating fads.
For these reasons, this article seeks to explore the concepts of e-government and e-governance and to separate out how these two terms differ and how workable they are in our new digital environments. As will be seen many international organizations have come to accept these terms, and they, and other respected thinkers and authors, are contributing to this important process of change.
This article looks at the nature of government and governance. Particular focus, and much of the article, is devoted to how one approaches these terms in the context of public administration. This article then ties them together in the context of the emerging "e" environments. The purpose here is to create clarity in relation to these terms precisely because e-government and e-governance have been used so interchangeably. Such clarity could lead to a greater depth of exploration of the subject matter and assist in the development of the internal process of government, and the impacts these processes and subsequent delivery mechanisms are having on individual citizens and groups overall (governance).
E-democracy and online consultations are dealt with in the last part of this article, as e-democracy is actually the natural extension of e-governance. In pre-Internet times interactions between governments and targeted institutions, groups and society were an important part of policy development. Now, with these new tools, more citizens and stakeholders can be embraced into the process. However, this is not going to be an easy progression and many changes (in both the government and society at large) will need to occur before any major engagements take place.
Research of the activities of many governments around the world, and of international organizations, shows that much is to be done to move into this new form of governance. Governments on the whole are aware of the changing expectations of their citizenry, and the desire by especially not for profit groups, and emerging e-democracy groups, to have a say in the evolution of government policy. This is a serious governance issue that many governments are now facing. How governments deal with this could very well determine future relationships between government and the citizenry.
This article is an exploration of the issues and a contribution to the growing debate on the future of e-governance. William Sheridan, Policy Analyst Informetrica Inc. Canada, and a Research Fellow for the Commonwealth Centre for e-Governance contributed significantly in the preparation of this article.
e-Government vs. e-Governance
The terms "government" and "governance" are currently in widespread use, sometimes interchangeably. It is important to develop a distinction between the two. Thus, this article explores both the overlap as well as the conceptual distinctions that these two concepts embody, because there are different implications for electronic versions of each.
Conceptual clarification
Professor Donald F. Kettl's recent book, The Transformation of Governance, on the historical analysis of American public administration provides some good discussion on government and governance. Government is an institutional superstructure that society uses to translate politics into policies and legislation. Governance is the outcome of the interaction of government, the public service, and citizens throughout the political process, policy development, program design, and service delivery.
Governments are specialized institutions that contribute to governance. Representative governments seek and receive citizen support, but they also need the active cooperation of their public servants. Governance is the outcome of politics, policies, and programs. This paper will focus on the distinction between government and governance, particularly as manifest in e-government and e-governance. The aforementioned table summarizes the characteristics of both conventional and electronic government and governance that Kettl has identified in his research. Within the category of Government in the table below, are included both program design and service delivery.
Easy accessibility and outreach determine the nature of 'governance' against 'government'.
(www.newpointgroup.com/e-gov.gif)
Electronic networks
The spread of electronic mail and the World Wide Web has been quite dramatic over the last decade. E-mail allows instantaneous global communications for anyone with a connection to the Internet. E-mail has been the killer application of this decade but the rapid growth of spams in the last few years is creating administrative headaches for public and private sector organizations alike. There are numerous technological solutions for e-mail spam. However, many governments are also considering legislation to stem the proliferation of messages flooding all our e-mail boxes. Spam is currently an important governance issue as it does effect the way public can answer back to government agencies and departments.
The World Wide Web enables global document and image distribution, again for anyone with a connection to the Internet. Before widespread use of either e-mail or the Internet, Christopher Hood developed a model of government (in his book Tools of Government published in1983) that demonstrated that most government work actually consisted of information processing . Not surprisingly then, governments have taken to electronic networks in a big way, proclaiming better service delivery, and continuing cost declines as their rationale.
The e-Governance Cycle
(www.ecommerce.or.th/e-guide/ec-cycle-s.gif)
Political activism has also moved onto the Internet, as public interest groups, community organizations, voluntary organizations, and special interest groups use the electronic network to propagate their messages and help coordinate their activities. These endeavours are also largely information-based, and are now being described as "community informatics" by Michael Gurstein . The use of the Internet by thousands of individuals and groups around the world for political activism and a tool to influence the electoral system and government policy has become an important part of the e-democracy equation.
The institution of government involves a narrower range of considerations than the wider functions of governance. What follows is an elaboration on the six characteristics of government from aforementioned table.
The concept of a superstructure comes from mechanical engineering and refers to the structural skeleton of a building or a ship. The term was borrowed by 19th century political economists to serve as a metaphor for the institutional framework of society. Their use of this metaphor was meant to convey the concepts of dominance, orderliness, and permanence. The public acceptance of these concepts helps governments to rule.
| GOVERNMENT | GOVERNANCE |
| superstructure | functionality |
| decisions | processes |
| rules | goals |
| rules | performance |
| implementation | coordination |
| outputs | outcomes |
| e-Government | e-Governance |
| electronic service delivery | electronic consultation |
| electronic workflow | electronic controllership |
| electronic voting | electronic engagement |
| electronic productivity | networked societal guidance |
Governments are formally constituted, and are situated at the top of the political food-chain. They are bureaucratically organized, and usually constitutionally legitimated. Sociologist Max Weber proposed that this constitutional legitimacy gave governments a monopoly in terms of societal control. Most social scientists agree, but the veracity of this observation is questionable, though it is self-evident that society cannot operate without governments.
What being at the top of the political food-chain means for governments is that they serve as both the highest forum for policy making within their jurisdictions, and as the final court of appeal within their jurisdictions for dissenters to those policies. Most of the work of governments however consists of actually implementing policies through programs that deliver services.
As the social infrastructure has grown increasingly complex and risky throughout the modern era, governments have adopted more and more responsibilities. Systems for public health, environmental management, transportation regulation, telecommunications planning, and social services have all been put in place. Both operational standards and conflicts of interest have required that the governmental superstructure actually be consolidated to enable program effectiveness.
The government's position of societal superstructure creates an ironic dilemma for it. On the one hand, technical requirements for regulation are obvious to those who participate in operating any part of the social infrastructure. For example, this ranges all the way from the presence of traffic rules to the need for planning of transportation system upgrading and expansion.
However, individuals and groups within society evaluate governmental compliance requirements in terms of their own situations (i.e., their own particular needs and wants). The reason politics has been defined as "the art of compromise" is that governments often face the need to resolve discrepancies between people's desires to achieve their own ends and infrastructure requirements for operational effectiveness.
Decisions
United States President Harry Truman's maxim that "The buck stops here" summarized quite nicely the point that governments must take decisions to authorize actions. There are a multitude of situations that require government decisions, and a variety of types of decisions that governments can render. Both the longevity and the implications of government decisions have become progressively less certain as the aforementioned uncertainty and risk in society have grown.
National decisions will involve policies and/or programs that have society-wide impacts. In these cases the possibility of regional differences may require that negotiations be undertaken with local governments or groups so that program delivery can be customized to different circumstances. International decisions, either bilateral or multilateral, may require even more perseverance and diplomacy than those that are confined to a government's national sovereignty.
Decisions that are confined to a particular policy, program, department, region, or group, will usually be easier to frame, negotiate, and finalize. To the extent that considerations are more narrowly circumscribed, the issues, the implications, and the consequences will likely also be more manageable. The caveat to this judgment is "all things being equal". Unfortunately the unexpected can occur, when a previously insignificant occurrence suddenly acquires disproportionate importance "out of the blue", often because of a change in its political salience. Even for these situations there are now coping skills.
Joint decisions that need to be agreed between various levels of jurisdiction (i.e., national, regional, municipal, etc.) can also be particularly tricky to arrive at. Different levels of government usually guard their assigned powers and responsibilities, and are often concerned that joint decisions will be treated by other governments as an excuse or opportunity to encroach on the rightful domains of their negotiating partners. If however, a government is for any reason reluctant to take a decision it knows is necessary, it may be more than willing to use a joint agreement.
Partnerships between governments and other individuals or groups in civil society, are the newest version of collaborative decisions. Governments may lack the money, personnel, or expertise to implement decisions they desire, or they may face constitutional limits regarding what they can impose without the consent of the governed. These kinds of government decisions are becoming the fastest-growing type in today's policy environment. Examples of input from outside government are these Reports, which look at the information policy aspects of e-government. These studies present intellectual content that could assist in e-government policy and program development.
Public interfaces of good governance.
(www.info.gov.hk/.../chi/images/)
Rules
The quintessential feature by which the sociologist Max Weber characterized government bureaucracy, was the existence of formal rules for all procedures. For Weber, the development of these rules was the hallmark of modernity. Prior to the modern era, governments had been organized either on the basis of traditional deference, or a leader's charismatic persuasiveness. These alternatives may have served their purposes in their times, but both were arbitrary and unreliable in the modern environment that required rationality. Although some bureaucratic rules have recently been subject to reconsideration, most of the major rules remain in place. An important section of these rules concerns personnel staffing, that is to say: recruitment, hiring, promotion, discipline, and firing. To overcome nepotism and favoritism, these five procedures were given rules based on credentials and performance. The result is that over the years governments were staffed with far more qualified people than before these type of rules came into effect. Better-qualified staff however, has not always produced better policies. A more recent rule is that requiring "evidence-based policy-making". This is actually just contemporary wording for an older rule, namely that "good reasons" had to be given for decisions. As often as not though, the previous "good reasons" were either ideological (the public services' ethnic, or economic, or religious beliefs), or political (the opinions of organizational superiors, elected members, special interests, etc.). Now that the mass media reports on government shortcomings more readily, (and more often erroneously and in sensationalist terms with hidden agendas attached) attempts are being made to forward policies with the "evidence" that real needs exist requiring appropriate government actions.
Now that knowledge workers are expected to master multi-tasking, governments seem to be trying to re-invent the "special generalist"
Another important section of government rules concerns provisions to limit partisan political interference in program design and delivery. The audiences for which government programs are properly intended are categories of persons, not the favoring or disfavoring of specific individuals. Since there have been repeated violation of these rules when the opportunity appears to arise to do so undetected, a series of ever more stringent protocols have been put in place to limit these possibilities. There is less patronage and interference as a result, although some critics still claim corruption.
Rules that are the bane of every bureaucrat's existence are those for assessment and evaluation. What things are done, what things are not permitted, how things are done, how things are not to be done, when things can or cannot be done, where things can or cannot be done, even why things can or cannot be done, are all subject to assessment (estimation of consequences) and evaluation (estimation of effectiveness). Actions that are harmless or even acceptable in some respects may be unacceptable in general because of contravention of some narrow rule. This is undoubtedly the source of the accusation that governments are "hide-bound".
As rules have proliferated so has the possibility of conflicts between rules. Judgment is required on which rule (or rules) apply in a situation, and how strictly to abide by their provisions. People can either "hide behind the rules" or use them to innovate - and they do.
Roles
One of Weber's meta-rules was that the powers and prerogatives of bureaucratic office were attached to the role in the organization, not to the person occupying the position. The rationale for this seemed obvious when Weber explained it (organizational procedures should be impersonal to avoid favoritism), but in practice it has turned out to be much harder to actually ensure. Initially the preference for the "personal touch" was attributed to the persistence of traditional or charismatic attitudes.
Not until the third generation of organizational studies did social scientists realize that any initiative taken by anyone within the bureaucracy still required the exercise of some display of leadership, whether limited or extensive. But once the quality of leadership surfaces, the personal component becomes as important as the professional component. The sociologist Max Weber must now be re-interpreted to mean that leadership action should not be based exclusively or predominantly on personality, but should rather blend professional competence and personal attributes to the extent needed to ensure followership.This complicates the rule of roles considerably. When candidates are being considered for recruitment, hiring, evaluation, or promotion, what is the appropriate trade-off between personal qualities and professional qualifications? What if a less professionally qualified candidate with a better personal touch inspires better performance from his or her colleagues than a more qualified but less personable candidate? Urban legends allude to this dilemma quite frequently. Nevertheless, personnel management within the public sector still does not always formally recognize any such problem.
Another irony of the roles rule is that many candidates who are recruited on the basis of specific credentials and expertise are subsequently not assigned work that matches their qualifications. In the days of empire, the British public service was notorious for the view that a university graduate with whatever degree was a good candidate for any assignment, regardless of task requirements. The theory was that a degree was really a certificate in flexible thinking, so the appointed persons could simply manage their groups and assign technical tasks to subordinates (an eminently "civilized" arrangement).
Now that knowledge workers are expected to master multi-tasking, governments seem to be trying to re-invent the "special generalist" (or is it the "general specialist"?). Once again however, newly acquired knowledge about the psychology of work shows why this "one size does all" approach is short-sighted. Effective work at particular tasks requires a rhythm of both schedule and duration - there is a certain "concentration" needed to do a good job. Lack of concentration can result in both poor performance and increased burnout.
Implementation
Many proposals within governments have simply gathered dust on the shelf rather than becoming the basis for programs or services. Auditors often find examples of this situation and criticize the practice as a waste of money. When posteriori evaluations are conducted the reasons most often cited are either "lack of political will" or "lack of sufficient resources". In Systems Analysis a methodological rule has developed concerning project completion that could just as fruitfully be applied to Policy Analysis: Every solution must include a migration path (how to get from here to there). The rule of thumb is that any solution without a migration path is no solution at all. One of the hallmarks of a quality solution is the identification of a number of alternate paths for the necessary migration. The major challenge that governments have with implementation is the risk of project failure and/or cost overruns. Since governments are publicly accountable for their choices, their main performance criterion is dependability. In response to this concern governments have recently developed Risk Management tools consisting of risk assessment check-lists and risk insurance provisions. In some cases however, the result has been to make government decision-makers even more cautious and less innovative.
Outputs
Because program evaluation is one of the major concerns of government activity, focus has steadily shifted to measures of output to gauge both efficiency and productivity. There are a variety of outputs that governments measure. One is case-load: the number of assignments per person, the length of time to completion, and the type of results produced, are standard types of measures. This is a version of labor productivity.
In what is now being touted as the "knowledge" driven society, in which the "knowledge worker" is paramount, it is important to put this new paradigm into a conceptual framework. Since most government outputs consist of knowledge work, equipment use is another output measure. Use of a desk-top or mainframe computer, types of software applications applied to an assignment, duration of computer use, and the kind of data transformation produced, are all logged. This is a version of equipment productivity, whereby an assessment can be made as to whether or not adequate technology is in use, and if it is being used competently. Wider measures include the size of the staff, personnel turnover, the average duration of assignments, the ratio of supervisors to workers, and the aggregate rate of assignment completion. All of these measures give an indication of the rate of activity, so that comparisons can be done between similar workers or similar units. Pay scales and promotion prospects are often designed to reward improvements in these rates. What is much more difficult to record, measure, or evaluate is the effectiveness of the government employees' activities. Part of the problem centers on what measures of effectiveness are appropriate. Should the major emphasis be on inputs, that is to say, size of staff, qualifications of staff, salaries paid, and equipment available? Or should the focus be on throughputs, which include hours worked, supervision needed, equipment used, and supplies consumed? Then again, perhaps outputs themselves are the best measures, such as tasks accomplished, cases completed, decisions taken, and actions initiated. There are rationales for, and defenders of each of these alternatives, and what one measures determines the results one gets.
What experience has demonstrated is that the only method of measurement which does consistently produce improvement is that which assesses the entire value-chain within the organization, from inputs, including throughputs, to outputs. Although efficiencies can be gained for particular activities, many of these have already been achieved. The most room for improvement now is with the flow of tasks and assignments between people. The rate of output from groups has previously been slowed by poor transfer procedures between those collaborating on an assignment. As we will see below, e-government addresses this situation.
The characteristics of Governance
The function of governance involves a broader range of considerations than the structures of government. What follows is an elaboration of some of the characteristics of governance as illustrated earlier.
Functionality
Governance is distinct from government in that it concerns longer-term processes rather than immediate decisions. Governance is a set of continuous processes that usually evolve slowly with use rather than change dramatically (as with a change of government). There are three categories of processes to cover the interactions between the government, the public service, and the citizenry. The engagement process covers the interaction between citizens and government; the consultation process covers the interaction between public servants and citizens; and the implementation process covers the interaction between the government and the public service. The result of the governance focus on processes instead of decisions is that the primary concern is goals rather than rules. In the perspective of governance what is important is the objective rather than the rules of behaviour for achieving it. Various levels or locales of jurisdiction may pursue the same goals with distinct instruments, different priorities, and alternate agendas. This is often both unsurprising and inevitable - even those "singing from the same hymn-book" may do so in a different key, to a different accompanying instrument. The goals of governance cannot really be achieved by micro-management, because there are no means of detailed enforcement. In contra-distinction to the formal roles within government, governance processes are oriented to performance. Specific tasks are not necessarily assigned to specific roles because the point is for everyone to "pitch in" and work toward the common goal. The main concern is the purpose of the various governance processes, and numerous people in various roles can provide an assortment of contributions depending on their circumstances. Governance takes the larger view of social objectives, so it involves the coordination of efforts rather than the implementation of specific programs. How it all fits together is more important than exactly who does what to whom by which means. This is the systemic perspective as opposed to a focus on the individual practice, or player, or process. The "bottom line" for governance is outcomes rather than the outputs of government. One dramatic way of illustrating this point is to word it as follows: whereas the point of government outputs is the effort expended, the point of governance outcomes is the effects produced. One of the reasons people are often impatient with governments is because, despite the reports of great efforts expended, the results produced (the outcomes) are often unacceptable from the point of view of the citizenry. People who want to "re-invent government" are hoping that those in government will adopt a new focus on outcomes to replace outputs.
Source: Anonymous
Kiosks and interface points for access.
Processes
Some experts and writers contend that many knowledge workers within governments are resistant to assignments to "manage processes" rather than to deal with "substantive issues". But since government is not a single-issue or a single-instance exercise, on-going processes are what governance is all about. What the source of the aversion seems to be is that the processes are often standardized in such a routinized way that they become exceedingly boring very quickly.The consequence however, is that flexibility is slowly squeezed out of governing processes as rules are proliferated to cover more and more eventualities. The assumption is that this will protect those in positions of responsibility from being held accountable (and punishable) for anything that can be construed as politically discreditable. This is where the concept of governance could provide some positive guidance to the institutions of government. If governing processes were directed by flexible guidelines rather than minute rules, and if those on the front line were permitted to respond to unforeseeable particulars in a creative way, the larger aim of policy and program improvement may be more favourably achieved. To anticipate a little, the rationale for governing processes would be better to emphasize outcomes over outputs, even within government.The Engagement Process consists of citizens and interest groups interacting with government representatives. Elections are one example of this, and lobbying legislators is another. More recently there have been increased attempts to engage citizens in a policy dialogue with government members on specific issues (i.e., proposals for new laws, or policy frameworks, etc.). In these attempts there have been some encouraging successes, and some discouraging failures. One lesson learned from all of these experiences is that a "free-for-all" approach will not work - effective citizen engagement requires that the process be managed to maintain focus and momentum.
An example of an e-governance outreach and awareness creation.
The Implementation Process concerns the transformation of laws and policies into procedures and programs. Organizational process re-engineering could automate much of this work, and reduce the personnel requirements considerably. What would be needed however, would be more reliance on electronic methods.
The Consultation Process involves direct contact between the public service, and citizens and interest groups. In the case of interest groups, they have sought and gained access to bureaucrats for decades. What is changing is that individual citizens and community groups are now beginning to obtain similar access even if in limited numbers at this point in time. This process helps citizens to actually shape regulations, in a small way. As will be seen in sections below, and in the Final Report of this series, results are very limited to date. The process of on-line consultations is very much a top-down process controlled by public sector organizations.
Goals
Because governance focuses on goals rather than rules it does not mean that the situation is any easier to understand or deal with. Goals are often based on values, and in today's diverse society, value consensus can be difficult to find or build. Instead, just as there are conflicts of values, so there are conflicts of goals. Nobel Prize winning economist Kenneth Arrow's famous theorem showed that there is no rational way to calculate majority support amongst conflicting goals and groups. Policy analysts and media commentators often refer to a mythological political entity called "Public Opinion" to build or demolish arguments, but citizens' views are far more likely to be distributed across a variety of dimensions such that grouping would bring together completely different people on disparate issues. People can be economic liberals, cultural radicals, and religious traditionalists, or any other combination, all at once. Nevertheless, those who want to shape social goals must be prepared to commit the time and effort in governance processes. Participating in governance to shape social goals can be very time-consuming.
One of the reasons more people do not do it is that they have jobs, families, and leisure activities, all of which usually take priority. One of the reasons interest groups do sustain their efforts to shape social goals is that they select those issues and policy areas where their interests are directly involved. Whether their objectives are economic, cultural, ideological or personal, citizens who do engage themselves regard it as worth their while to "sit at the table" and to persist in their efforts to achieve what they want. Even if electoral districts were approximately the same size so that "one person-one vote" could be realized, those who are unequally endowed with resources are more likely to be able to afford to devote the time between elections to continuing the political pursuit of their goals. That is why electronic opportunities to promote social goals are now getting increased attention - e-participation could lower costs and increase convenience.
The characteristics of e-Government
Governments are the societal superstructure for politics, policies, and programs. So what does digitizing that superstructure and putting it online do to the quantity and quality of government?
Electronic Service Delivery
Governments can query, inform, and transact with the public over electronic networks. Since the public began to use the Internet for leisure and business, governments have been progressively migrating their service delivery onto electronic platforms. In the early days of the Internet this was justified as a great source of cost-savings.Many programs that involved information outreach were experiencing cost escalation as publishing, printing, and distribution costs continued to rise. Instead of cutting such efforts entirely during the period of down-sizing, the "webification solution" allowed documents to be posted on the World Wide Web with savings of as much as 75% of previous costs. The shortcoming of this solution was the "digital divide" - only those with Internet connections could access the digitized documents. If most of the distribution went to government departments, other governments, businesses, or professionals, they already had or could readily acquire an Internet connection. Others less fortunate (lack of funds or lack of available interconnection points) began to claim they were being discriminated against. Hence began government sponsorship of attempts to expand access and/or provide it for free (via freenets or community portals), such as the widely successful Community Access Program in Canada, and similar programs in other countries. These programs are clear attempts to provide opportunities to engage all of the citizenry in the nation into the benefits of cyberspace through efforts to bridge the digital divide.
Conclusion
As stated at the beginning of this article, it will be important for government to continue to use the nomenclature of e-government, e-governance and e-democracy for a number of reasons. This is a growing subject matter and it is essential that governments create harmony and consistency in any evolutions being undertaken. The growth of ICTs and programs, implementing old and new technologies, requires a continuous stream that can be understood by the public. This point becomes evident when assessing and comparing the six milestones of government and the six milestones of e-governance, as set out earlier in this paper. These pillars of public administration, evolved and articulated over the past three to four centuries, have created a professional and modern public service. This evolution has come about through careful debate, trial and error and implementation. Change as has been needed as public service organizations around the world grew to cope with the challenges of the modern world. Public Administration as a discipline is recognized and accepted in academic and public sector institutions worldwide.
The pillars of e-government and e-governance are now being defined and considered as the natural extensions of the sound methodologies of how government organizations should be run. It is recognized that while the rapid evolution of new technologies have created challenges for all governments, sound administrative principles are the order of the day. It is not a question of throwing out all that public sector has developed over the past hundreds of years but rather taking the tried and true principles of public administration and applying them to the "e" world. Governments by nature are conservative organizations and slow to adapt to change. In the private sector slowness in adapting to change can be disastrous for a company who may have to close up shop because of poor administration, bad administrative practices, errors in judgment about changes within their company, or misreading of the public mood. Companies are very much subject to the winds of change.
Governments are the reverse. Governments are the stable point in a society. It doesn't matter how much cynicism might come from certain quarters of the media or the public at large - governments do not dissolve. Political parties are subject to mood swings and changing loyalties in the public but, in all strong democracies, it is a change of political parties that become the "elected" government. The public administration continues and does not go away because a new political party takes office. This does not mean that accountability, trust and openness with the government are not important. What is the most important fact is that government is perceived, and continues to be perceived, as the bedrock of society. This is another good reason why the transition to e-government, e-governance and e-democracy is a smooth one, but does not send a message that somehow government as we have known it is now gone and a new order has emerged.
It is another argument as to why the nomenclature must be kept so that changing needs and expectations (coming from the public) are presented in a recognizable way.
The purpose is not to send a message that somehow government has changed in a radical or fundamental way. Such changes only come when societies have revolutions (and even these are philosophical in nature as to what government should be) or when there are deep discussions and debate in society over the years to change the nature of government. Thus, the important principles articulated in this article are put forth as a means and a method to which governments can go forth into meeting the new challenges of the digital world while being rooted in the strengths of its past.
Government and governance are both about getting the consent and cooperation of the governed. But whereas government is the formal apparatus for this objective, governance is the outcome as experienced by those on the receiving end.
E-government can be a more productive version of government in general, if it is well implemented and managed. E-governance can evolve into participatory governance if it is well supported and architected. What stands in the way of good e-government and e-governance is establishment resistance from many who do not wish to change the status quo, and public cynicism, the latter being a much larger issue above and beyond e-government and e-democracy. Given the way that technology developments are currently shaping public expectations however, citizens will continue to expect more as new states of technologies evolve.
The transition to participatory governance will probably be slower, messier and costlier than it need be, but democracy always has been somewhat chaotic.
Policy Documents:
e-Governance & Development Cluster of UNDP Bangladesh has published a bulletin "e-Focus-weekly e-Governance & Development Insights". The e-Focus series represents an analytical brie
f of overarching issues related to information and communication technologies for sustainable human development in Bangladesh context. This series aims at furthering the development dialogue around these issues and fostering locally viable solutions for these uniquely local challenges. Two contents are highlighted in the bulletin. The first one represents access to relevant information can often make the difference between fostering a vibrant, sustainable economy and dealing with a struggling human populace. This article highlights the possible roles the government can play in Bangladesh context to provide such access. Second article takes a look at some of the interventions relating to Telecentres in Bangladesh and some of the important lessons learned by telecentres around the world.
