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THE RILEY REPORT – February 2004
from Thomas B. Riley (Tom@Rileyis.com)
www.rileyis.com
Following is the Riley Report for February
2004. Please feel free to pass this on as you see fit. If you wish to use any or part of the Report in an offline publication please acknowledge the author or contact the author if to be fully republished offline. If you are not currently subscribed to the Riley Report (there is no charge) you can email
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This month’s report is from Cathia Gilbert Riley, MA Law,
Research Fellow of the Commonwealth Centre for e-Governance.
She outlines the basic issues and questions raised in her recent thesis
on the Changing Role of the Citizen in the E-Governance and E-Democracy
Equation. The paper examines theories on public administration; assesses the
current state of e-government in many jurisdictions and how e-democracy flows
from e-governance.
The full paper can be found at:
www.electronicgov.net/pubs/research_papers/cath/index.shtml
and at:
THE
CHANGING ROLE OF
THE CITIZEN
IN THE E-GOVERNANCE &
E-DEMOCRACY EQUATION
Electronic Governance is a growing and expanding phenomenon
within public sector institutions around the world and is emerging as a
significant discipline within the field of public administration.
It is the movement of governments online to deliver their services and
programs, to provide government information, and to interact with the citizen,
all electronically. This is
resulting in the formation of new relationships between the citizen and the
state. E-governance differs from
e-government: the latter constitutes the way public sector institutions use
technology to apply public administration principles and conduct the business of
government; it is government using new tools to enhance the delivery of existing
services. E-governance includes the
vision, strategies, planning, leadership and resources needed to carry this out,
i.e. the ways that political and social power are organized and used.
Included
within the concept of e-governance is e-democracy, which deals with how the
citizen interacts with government or influences the legislative or public sector
process. It seeks to engage the citizen with governments and
legislatures through the use of the new information and communication
technologies (ICTs). It is this new
dynamic that is developing between the citizen and government that this thesis
explores, and evaluates what impact, if any, the new ICTs are having on citizen
participation in the government decision-making processes.
Much
of what has been written on e-governance reflects that this development
This
vision perpetuates the “command and control” process whereby government
decides what they think the citizen wants, then conducts surveys and focus
groups on what the government perceives are citizens’ needs, and implements
the service or program
based on those results. However,
because of the increased use of ICTs by the citizenry, when a government service
is now incorrectly or poorly introduced online by a department or agency, this
can simply result in citizen apathy towards the service and a significant waste
of taxpayer dollars, e.g. offering services online that are beyond the needs or
wants of the citizen. One such
example occurred in the state of Victoria, Australia, where instead of
incrementally providing a variety of services that people could learn to use,
the department responsible created a mammoth site with a plethora of unwanted
options.
Knowledge
is power, and when a government agency introduces these services online in an
effective way this can result in giving some measure of power to the citizen,
through the citizen’s acquisition of information.
The provision of government information on web sites now imparts a
measure of greater power to citizens as they now have access to data that was
known and used by government agencies, but was formerly difficult for the public
to obtain. The distribution of
knowledge results in some distribution of power and government knowledge is no
longer restricted to the political and bureaucratic elite.
In this thesis it is argued that
true citizen empowerment, be it electronic or otherwise, would provide not only
answers but would engage the citizen in the determination of what questions are
to be asked and who decides the issues. Chapter
Two will outline to what extent some countries such as Canada, the United
States, Great Britain, Singapore, India and Australia, have implemented many
electronic service delivery mechanisms, i.e. e-government.
Chapter Three will assess to what extent, if any, governments in Canada,
US and UK are engaging the citizen in terms of e-democracy, and what impact this
might or might not be having on the democratic process.
This thesis will not deal with the range of complexes nor structures of
regulation that shape and manage the various aspects of our lives by the modern
state. Rather than focusing on the
use of these ICTs from the government perspective, this thesis addresses their
potential for effectiveness in increasing citizen participation.
By
focusing on what way e-government redefines the traditional relationship
The full thesis can be found at: www.rileyis.com/publications/research_papers/thesis.htm
The Commonwealth Centre for e-Governance is sponsoring a one-day seminar on Canada’s Privacy Act for the private sector (PIPEDA). For full details go to: www.rileyis.com/seminars/index.html
Thomas Riley is available for consultations, preparation of reports, presenting workshops or delivering speeches at conferences and seminars on e-government, e-governance and e-democracy. Please contact me at the email address below for further details.
Thomas B. Riley
Executive Director and Chair
Commonwealth Centre for E-Governance
www.electronicgov.net
Visiting Professor, University of Glasgow
President, Riley Information Services Inc.
www.rileyis.com
Tom@Rileyis.com