Digital era governance

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The first idea of a digital administrative law was born in Italy in 1978 by Giovanni Duni and was developed in 1991 with the name teleadministration. [1]

Contents

In the public administration debate about New Public Management (NPM), the concept of digital era governance (or DEG) is claimed by Patrick Dunleavy, Helen Margetts and their co-authors as replacing NPM since around 2000–05. [2] DEG has three key elements: reintegration (bringing issues back into government control, like US airport security after 9/11); needs-based holism (reorganizing government around distinct client groups); and digitization (fully exploiting the potential of digital storage and Internet communications to transform governance). Digital era governance implies that public sector organizations are facing new challenges and rapidly changing information technologies and information systems. [2]

Since the popularization of the theory, it has been applied and enriched through the empirical works, such as the case study done on Brunei's Information Department. [3] The case study demonstrated that digital dividends that can be secured through the effective application of new technology in the digital governance process.

Management approaches for digital era governance

To create a better government by means of ICT, public sector organizations cannot rely on their traditional methods. [4] Firstly, traditional public services often are fragmented, duplicative, and inconsistent across government. [4] Secondly, silo-like organizational management then leads to more individual government offices that are less effective regarding the creation of public values. [4] A reorientation towards more innovative approaches is necessary. The mere implementation of technological instruments however does not necessarily require a change of management. For an improved government it is necessary to go from traditional management approaches towards innovative approaches.

Collaborative management

One approach is a highly collaborative way of managing future policy implementations such as the development of proactive public services. Such proactive services require little to no action by the users and eliminate the “burden and confusion for citizens and businesses, who can now obtain services without dealing with bureaucracy”. [5] [4] This new course of action on the one hand entails a significant transformation of government practices while on the other hand proactive or new services (e.g., automated assistants) might rely on third parties who are leveraging government information. This shift from government-provided towards third party services represents a distinct approach and forces public management to transfer some of their control by forming policy knowledge and resource networks. [4] [5]

Problem oriented governance

Another approach refers to a change of mindset. [6] This means that management should consider the transformation from service-oriented governance towards problem-oriented governance which is an “approach to policy design and implementation that emphasizes the need for organizations to adapt their form and functioning to the nature of the public problems they seek to address”. [6] This will create a more holistic and efficient way of tackling citizens’ needs and future technological advances. [6] Since the digital era management challenges are also about harmonizing “delivery-first, user-centric, agile work models while also satisfying, or alternatively, challenging, onerous hierarchical accountability requirements”, [7] public sector organizations require fundamental change of the inflexible culture of bureaucratic organizations, [8] e.g., by establishing cross-functional problem-oriented teams. [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Public administration Implementation of government policy


Public administration is the implementation of public policy, administration of government establishment, management of non-profit establishment and also an academic discipline that studies this implementation and prepares civil servants specially for administrative purpose for working in the government and non profit sector. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" whose fundamental goal is to "advance management and policies so that government can function." Some of the various definitions which have been offered for the term are: "the management of public programs"; the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day"; and "the study of government decision making, the analysis of the policies themselves, the various inputs that have produced them, and the inputs necessary to produce alternative policies." The word public administration is the combination of two words—public and administration. In every sphere of social, economic and political life there is administration which means that for the proper functioning of the organization or institution it must be properly ruled or managed and from this concept emerges the idea of administration.

Governance is all the processes of interactions be they through the laws, norms, power or language of an organized society over a social system. It is done by the government of a state, by a market, or by a network. It is the decision-making among the actors involved in a collective problem that leads to the creation, reinforcement, or reproduction of social norms and institutions". In lay terms, it could be described as the political processes that exist in and between formal institutions.

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New Public Management (NPM) is an approach to running public service organizations that is used in government and public service institutions and agencies, at both sub-national and national levels. The term was first introduced by academics in the UK and Australia to describe approaches that were developed during the 1980s as part of an effort to make the public service more "businesslike" and to improve its efficiency by using private sector management models.

Electronic governance or e-governance is the application of information technology for delivering government services, exchange of information, communication transactions, integration of various stand-alone systems between government to citizen (G2C), government-to-business (G2B), government-to-government (G2G), government-to-employees (G2E) as well as back-office processes and interactions within the entire government framework. Through e-governance, government services are made available to citizens through IT. The three main target groups that can be distinguished in governance concepts are government, citizens, and businesses/interest groups. In e-governance, there are no distinct boundaries, finance and support.

Capacity building Process by which individuals or organizations improve their capability to produce, perform or deploy

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Jisc UK non-profit providing expertise in digital technology for higher education institutions

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Patrick Dunleavy

Patrick John Dunleavy, is Emeritus Professor of Political Science and Public Policy within the Government Department of the London School of Economics (LSE). He was also Co-Director of Democratic Audit and Chair of the LSE Public Policy Group. In addition Dunleavy is an ANZSOG Institute for Governance Centenary Chair at the University of Canberra, Australia.

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Anthony Cheung Hong Kong politician and academic

Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, GBS, JP is a Hong Kong politician and academic. He was the Secretary for Transport and Housing from 2012 to 2017 and 5th President of the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd). He was one of the few government officials coming from a pro-democracy background.

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Institute for Development of Freedom of Information

The Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) - is a Georgian non-governmental organization which tends to support the development of an informed and empowered society for democratic governance. IDFI promotes human rights and good governance by raising civic awareness through sound informational reports, research and recommendations; Advocates for initiating & implementing reforms of policies, laws and practices to enhance democratic governance.

Information culture

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Helen Margetts Political scientist, University of Oxford

Helen Zerlina Margetts, is Professor of Internet and Society at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), University of Oxford and from 2011 to 2018 was Director of the OII. She is currently Director of the Public Policy Programme at The Alan Turing Institute. She is a political scientist specialising in digital era governance and politics, and has published over a hundred books, journal articles and research reports in this field.

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References

  1. Duni, G. (1978). L’utilizzabilità delle tecniche elettroniche nell’emanazione degli atti e nei procedimenti amministrativi. Spunto per una teoria dell’atto amministrativo emanato nella forma elettronica. Riv. amm.
  2. 1 2 Dunleavy, P., Margetts, H., Tinkler, J., & Bastow, S. (2006). Digital era governance: IT corporations, the state, and e-government. Oxford University Press.
  3. Omar, A. M. (2020). Digital Era Governance and Social Media: The Case of Information Department Brunei. In Employing Recent Technologies for Improved Digital Governance (pp. 19-35). IGI Global.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 OECD (2020). "Embracing innovation in government global trends 2020" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-11-26.
  5. 1 2 Kattel, R. (2020). "Collaborative innovation and human-machine networks" (PDF). Public Management Review. 22 (11): 1652–1673. doi:10.1080/14719037.2019.1645873. S2CID   202329946.
  6. 1 2 3 Mayne, Quinton; de Jong, Jorrit; Fernandez-Monge, Fernando (2019-11-08). "State Capabilities for Problem-Oriented Governance". Perspectives on Public Management and Governance. 3 (1): 33–44. doi:10.1093/ppmgov/gvz023. ISSN   2398-4910.
  7. Clarke, Amanda (2019-11-22). "Digital government units: what are they, and what do they mean for digital era public management renewal?". International Public Management Journal. 23 (3): 358–379. doi:10.1080/10967494.2019.1686447. ISSN   1096-7494. S2CID   213995905.
  8. Mergel, Ines; Ganapati, Sukumar; Whitford, Andrew B. (2020-05-18). "Agile: A New Way of Governing". Public Administration Review. 81 (1): 161–165. doi:10.1111/puar.13202. ISSN   0033-3352. S2CID   219439672.