Abstract
The ever changing situations in the governance arena have led to a great interest being focused on e-Governance.
It is this concern of e-governance, and factors such as “political, economic and social issues, worldwide wars against terrorism, an alarming proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the question whether democracy will actually take course in Russia and its lack of concern from the Western world”, that this paper is focused looks into and the methods that can be applied to the analysis of demand for e-government services.
Russia has been used as a case study to try and shed light on what e-governance is exactly, whether it is viable, its effectiveness and efficiency and whether it is sustainable in the 21st century and beyond despite the dynamics facing the global world today.
There are numerous questions by different states whether the Russian efforts of endorsing and implementing e-governance slow down, augment or are just impartial in the direction of instituting of prerequisites for democracy in the country. This paper also looks into the advantages and disadvantages of embracing e-governance, the changing mode of government and its functions to an e-government.
However, the big question here is whether it interferes with democracy or not. Despite the model of e-governance having shortcomings/setbacks, the positive aspects clearly show that it is a sustainable and viable mode of public administration.
Introduction. What is e-governance?
The use of information communication technology, by different players of the society who have one common aim of improving access to information and building or developing their capacities can be termed as e-governance.
This mostly refers to the “public sector’s use of information and communication technologies with the aim of improving information and service delivery, encouraging citizen participation in the decision-making process and making government more accountable, transparent and causing a result, especially the desired or intended result” (John 2009).
E-Governance can be termed as a one stop portal in use by the government, such as USA.gov, VisibleGovernment.ca (Canada), GCPEDIA (Canada) and so forth, where a diversity of information and services where citizens have the opportunity or right to experience or make use of this information easily.
It can be formed out of a network of organizations that can comprise of the government, NGOs, nonprofit associations and private sector bodies to facilitate the provision of information. E-Governance does not have distinctive boundaries (Kettl 2002).
The public policy challenges of the 21st century require policy-makers to see issues from multiple perspectives – not only from the perspective of the state, but also from the perspective of others whose actions will be essential to the achievement of collective goals (Levy 2007).
They also need a view that spans sectors – to understand how actions taken in one policy sector have impacts in others. Meeting multisectoral challenges requires skills not only of analysis and evaluation, but also an appreciation of how actions taken in different policy arenas are themselves inter-connected (Levy, 2007).
Golubeva and Merkuryeva (2006) argue that to fully understand “the knowledge of public expectations, three groups of e-government stakeholders must be considered: civil servants, business, and nonprofit organizations”. E-Governance is characterized by four most important or essential representations:
- government to customer (citizen);
- government to employees;
- government to government;
- government to business (Kettl 2002).
An ideal portal would be one for employment where a citizen creates a profile and is presented with employment opportunities at the federal, state, local, non-profit, and private-sectors (Chadwick & May 2003).
It is constantly asked; what is the purpose of e-governance in today’s modern and ever changing globalised world? Satola (2007) and Chadwick and May (2003) suggest that the purpose of implementing e-governance is to enhance good governance and that the good governance is normally distinguished by public contribution, intelligibility and responsibility.
Current “technological progression in communication as a result of the metamorphosis of the internet, have provided great avenues for transformation of the relationship that exists between governments and citizens in a new way, thus contributing to the achievement of good governance goals put forward by” (Ellis 1999).
“The use of information technology can make the broad involvement of citizens in the process of governance at all levels to rise to a greater number, quantity, or degree, or the amount by which this is increased by providing the possibility of on-line discussion groups and by enhancing the rapid development and effectiveness of pressure groups” (Anttiroiko 2004).
Anttiroiko further suggests that the merit for the e-government system is that the government can offer improved services in terms of timing, enhancing governance to be more organized and more effectual. In addition, the transactional costs can be reduced and governmental presence can be felt more and its services become easily reached.
On the question of the legality of the internet Satola (2007) argues that, it has transformed from the earlier more or less lawless nature. According to Satola (2007) “there are now multiple organizations and legal aspects associated with Internet governance”.
Whether the issue on the Internet is network security, intellectual property rights (IPRs), e-commerce, cybercrime, freedom of expression, freedom of information, consumer rights or liberalization of infrastructure – rules, laws and norms apply (Leben et al 2006). “These can be official regulations, pacts, commercial principles or rules of procedure on both national and international level” (Leben et al 2006).
On the legislative front there are too many national laws from too many countries that have effect on Internet governances beyond their borders (Chadwick & May 2003), hence effective global cooperation on jurisdictional issues is necessary to ensure an enabling environment for the growth of the Internet and use of the Internet and ICTs for economic growth and development (McHenry & Borisov 2006).
A framework-approach to legal-reform issues of Internet governance could be the best way forward.
Countries embracing e-governance
Leben et al (2006) notes that “electronic administration portals have become the basic platform for electronic administrative services for users (citizens and businesses).
The quality and user-friendliness of this supply depends to a large extent on how well planned, wealthy and technologically advanced, with sophisticated manufacturing and service industries it is.” This helps the administration portals be effective and efficient in their purpose of providing information and at the same time creating participation from citizens.
In Canada, for example, the subject of accessing information by the public is addressed by the Access to Information Act, and information is made available through the VisibleGovernment.ca. This is a non-profit site that provides information on the government and promotes transparency among public officials and administration.
McHenry & Borisov (2006) observe that this is a form of representation of e-governance (government-citizen). There is also from government to government, where the work place through the efforts of the head of federal public service (Clerk of the Privy Council), has been transformed into a “renewal of a pillar of overall public service renewal” (Leben et al 2006).
This can be observed through the use of tools such as “GCPEDIA – a wiki platform for federal public servants” which is very vital to implementation of two-way networked processing of information (Chadwick & May 2003). Other such tools include “a social networking tool – GCconnex, and a discussion board system- GCforums” (Leben et al 2006).
The United States is another example where e-governance is being utilized to reach out to the public. This was very evident during the previous election campaigns of 2007.
Chadwick & May (2003) observed that the Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on Transparency and Open Government of January 21, 2009, signed by President Obama, paved way for higher levels of transparency and accountability by government which is a key facet of e-governance.
He called upon government agencies to assure public trust and initiate a process, which guarantees intelligibility, public contribution, and collaboration in finding information (Chadwick & May 2003). The main focus point of this is creating trust in the government among the citizens by making it possible for public websites such as recovery.gov and data.gov to be able to provide the citizens with information.
This has led to key high points being achieved in terms of public administration and processing/provision of services and information. However, debate still rages on, on the issue of certain information being termed privileged by government (Leben et al 2006).
The government argues that provision of too much information “transparency” to its citizens would lead to situations where it becomes susceptible to certain technological vulnerabilities in the long run that would both bring harm to it and the citizens.
Chadwick & May (2003) recognize Europe as definitely where e-governance has shown a huge noteworthy development. However, not to be left behind, e-Governance initiatives in India are gradually picking up and generally supervised under an umbrella body initiated by the NeGP initiative (Leben et al. 2006).
Case study- RUSSIA
Economic and social problems, an alarming proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, worldwide battles against terrorism and the unknown effect of democracy taking root in Russia has greatly plaid a vital role in e-Governance in Russia despite the little or no concern showed by the west.
McHenry and Borisov (2006) argue that whilst the West press has broadcasted the latest fall of Russian democracy, there has been a distinguished perception of what was rather a striking absurdity.
Even though it appeared that the Putin government was increasingly restraining freedoms associated with an “information society,” — a society in which there is accessibility to truthful information and promotes political choice and democracy — McHenry and Borisov (2006) noted that the Putin government showed figurative and actual prop up for its expansion.
During the 1990s, various proposals were put forward mainly focusing on information communication technology expansion and the Russian information society (Ellis, 1999). McHenry & Borisov (2006) observe that notions and strategies were also implemented at the time the Soviet Union was coming to an end between 1989 and 1991; a variety of plans were drafted to come up with the Soviet information society.
While these plans fell “short of removing centralized planning and encouraging private, horizontal information flows, many of the objectives that they supported were quite in keeping with standards of the information age” (McHenry and Borisov 2006).
McHenry & Borisov’s 2006 journal report “Measuring E-Government: a Case Study Using Russia in the Communications of the Association for Information Systems” states that “numerous studies of global electronic government adoption use the presence or absence of website functions to measure development levels and create rankings” (McHenry and Borisov 2006).
They investigate and present findings on the impact of the reflection of the overall status of e-governments. This is brought out by their study of 89 regional governments in Russia (Ellis, 1999). The use of Russia and in particular focusing on St. Petersburg as a case study is due to the dynamics that are at play in Russia in relation to the impact of e-governance on democracy (Golubeva & Merkuryeva 2006).
Golubeva and Merkuryeva’s 2006 study “Demand for online government services: Case studies from St. Petersburg”, argues that the first signs of development and implementation of e-government in Russia was witnessed through a swift growth of the number of online government agency representatives (Golubeva & Merkuryeva 2006).
This consists of web portals that accommodate both federal and local governments, internet websites for the executive authorities, and also the various informing and enlightening programs (Golubeva & Merkuryeva 2006).
The Russian administration greatly supported this rising concern in implementing new electronic advances into the country’s model governance by introducing amendments that required federal bodies to make public information about their ongoing, such as legislating process (Kraemer & King 1986).
The ability of the federal agencies to meet the standards set by the government assured a high degree of transparency and openness (accountability) (Golubeva & Merkuryeva 2006).
In 2002, Russian policy makers became aware of the need to develop e-government structures and this led to the adoption of the “e-Russia, 2002-2010” federal program (Golubeva & Merkuryeva 2006). This was precedential following a necessity of systematic and orderly service provision.
Promoting and implementing e-government principles is a top priority among the federal government (Ellis, 1999). There has also been a call for the instituting of “proper regulatory and legal environment for ICT, for the dissemination of internet infrastructure and for e-education” (Golubeva & Merkuryeva 2006).
Russian officials were focused on achieving certain goals through the e-Russia project, which included: increasing of economic efficiency in both public and private sectors; expansion of use of information communication technology in government offices, departments and agencies; and finally to make available regular government functions readily available online at the click of a button (McHenry and Borisov 2006).
“ The “e-Russia” program had astonishing results in its first stage of implementation which was enormous investment in computer equipment, establishment of intranet and G2G communications systems first launches of e-procurements and development of internet portals for federal and regional authorities” (Ellis, 1999).
Golubeva & Merkuryeva (2006) argue that evaluating the infiltration and impact of this, one has to keep in mind that the growth of Russian ministries and federal departments represented online was very significant by the year 2004, growing from a low of 20% in 2001 (Kraemer & King 1986).
This is a major achievement of the e-Russia project. Some of the websites/portals that are a result of this and can be used as reference points in discussing the issue of e-governance include: the Ministry of Railway Transport’s automatic management systems; the State Customs Committee; and the Ministry of Taxation (Golubeva & Merkuryeva 2006).
On the question whether e-governance hinders democracy in Russia, McHenry and Borisov (2006) argue that “if pilot projects for more robust portals and services can be replicated widely, if the number of Internet users and their demographics can be shifted to a broader base, and if the proposed Law on Information openness strengthens what agencies are required to tell about their operations, particularly on the web, then there will be substantial, positive contributions to democracy in Russia from e-Russia and the government web portals”.
Reasons for e-governance
However, there are raging debates on whether the embracing of e-governance hinders democracy especially where too much information between government and citizens is passed to and fro, is readily available. Critics argue that this can create a situation where government resorts to spying or monitoring its citizens.
The need to assure governments, federal agencies, municipal counties, town councils and any other arm of government on the viability of e-governance is very high. This is due to the fact that the world is developing rapidly into a global village and the sudden increased technological development witnessed in the 21st century.
John (2009) argues that “whether a more collaborative form of public management is correct for the historical link between social and economic status and political participation?”
John (2009) further states that “New initiatives to involve the citizen directly in public decision making—citizen governance—aim to include a wider representation of groups in society because they draw from service users and seek to recruit hard-to-reach groups”.
Is e-governance a sustainable and viable venture for governments, federal states, public offices and agencies, municipal councils and county councils? This is a very vital question to try and understand either, the impact of e-governance or consequences of it (Levy 2007). One of the major reasons for e-governments is creating a feeling of ownership and participation among the citizens.
John (2009) argues that other beneficial reasons for embracing e-governance may include improved efficiency (“mass processing tasks, data collection and transmission, communication with customers, greater sharing of data within and between governments”) (Levy, 2007) , achievement of policy outcomes (“more sharing of information means:
improved collection of taxes, better use of health services, better matching of unemployed and vacancies, and so forth”), economic objectives are easily met- (improvements in business productivity, effective government programs, promoting e-Commerce, government consumption of ICT goods”) John (2009); it is a major contribution to reforms (“e-government enables public reform through: transparency, simplification, information sharing, enabling seamless government”) (Levy, 2007); and trust is built between the government / public agencies and citizens (Levy, 2007).
Until recently the main drive for e-governance was efficiency gains and effective delivery of policy outcomes but now other aspects of it have come into play-improved services, and increase in accountability among public officials.
Efficiency
The need to cut back on costs is what drives many governments to embrace e-governance. This helps replace papers and hard copies thus creating a paperless office. Time and cost is greatly reduced thus increasing on the efficiency of public officials.
Other improvements include: bookings and arrangements are faster and more efficient especially where resources are scarce; amount of data shared intergovernmental increases– “eliminate costs of multiple collections, data reconciliation and checking”; government publications and distribution costs are reduced since online publications are in use.
Customer Focus/initiatives
This is a major focus of public reforms agenda and strategies employed by the government. It is all about giving the public information that reflect their interests instead of the organization of the federal agencies.
John (2009) observes that the sole focus is to improve citizen’s focus through particular online portals that are specifically created to address certain topics, targeting of on-line information to specific groups of citizen so that relevant information can be found more readily;
Improved Policy Outcomes
Such as; “taxation plans – (better remittance of state and federal taxes through improved distribution of information), social concerns – (enhancing the use of local language and understanding of local individuals), health concerns – (decreased demand for health attention through better use of health information and the available resources)”, monetary and environmental plans.
Challenges to e-governance
The implementation of e-governance faces a myriad of challenges worldwide but legislative barriers, technology change, financial barriers and the ever looming digital divide can be termed as issues that affect almost all countries and are not specific to one region (Kraemer & King 1986).
E-governance cannot be said to be a perfect and fool proof system. Despite its positive attributes it still has its setbacks and numerous challenges that may hinder effective implementation.
Legislative barriers: governments that are implementing e-governance are obligated to put legal frame works before initiating implementation of the system.
Legislative measures can be conducted through legalizing electronic signatures the same way paper based signatures would be recognized simply, there has to be legal recognition of electronic processes (Leben et al. 2006). The government has to put clear rules to govern the agencies concerned with the implementation of the system in terms of the needed requirements to put up the system.
Technology change: today’s technology sector keeps on changing rapidly and this affects the implementation of e-government and one way a government can solve this problem is partnering with the private sector only if they have established standards in place.
Other ways to face up this challenge is for governments to adopt the laws that are currently in place to incorporate the digital frameworks. The government can also seek to prioritize performance requirements rather than
Digital divide: despite the ability of e-governments providing improved services to its citizens even without the presence of online facilities through back office improvement it falls short due to the lack of replication of services off line to people with no internet access.
Pros and cons of e-governance
E-Governance comes with both positives and negatives and it is neither possible to term it as complete failure or near perfect system. However, evidence and facts presented from studies and analysis of regions where it is in place and functioning show that it is a viable and sustainable form of public administration despite its short comings (Kraemer & King 1986).
Pros
This model of public administration is both convenient and cost effective. These are very important factors when provision of information to the customer/client is a key component of governments (public administration). It is not only positive for businesses but also the public benefits due to the ease of getting information and services in real time and most current piece of information on offer.
Leben et al (2006) notes that this is an advantage to the public as information are freely and easily accessible from anywhere in the world. With governments embracing e-governance in public administration and providing services and information to its clients/citizens, the whole process is made straightforward and engaging the both public and private sector entities plus citizens becomes easy.
The Alabama Department of Conservation & Natural Resources, Wal-Mart and NIC are examples where this model of governance has been employed to better successes.
They teamed up to come up with an online fishing/hunting licenses service provider, and the first hunting season resulted to in excess of 140,000 licenses being processed at Wal-Mart stores thus this results in the organization giving an annual saving estimate of about $200,000 from use of the service.
Benefits from e-governance also include: transparency and accountability from public officials; increase of efficiency and effective service provision; improved services; enhanced ease of access of public services (Kraemer & King 1986).
Democratization: a major point of focus and feat of e-government is the upholding and enhancing of democracy and making sure there continues to be greater citizen participation (Leben et al 2006).
People are able to interact with their lawmakers/legislators and public servants and can air out their concerns (Kraemer & King 1986). Lawmakers can utilize this and use blogs and online interactive surveys to get the actual views of their constituents on national issues.
The presence of this provides citizens with real-time contact with the officials they have elected. These technologies consequently, make voters feel directly involved and wield influence over their government (Kraemer & King 1986).
Voters are able to make decisions on voting patterns after seeing the performance of their politicians and consequently, lawmakers/legislators are kept on their toes and are driven to perform their respective duties. They also make the government more transparent and decisions by the voters on who to elect are greatly influenced through this interaction.
Environmental bonuses: advocates of e-governance argue that services provided by government online reduce need for hard copy forms thus creating “paperless offices”. Keeping in mind pressure from environmental lobby groups, media organizations and the public, governments have resorted to embracing e-government to both reduce paper use but still provide services.
Speed, efficiency, and convenience: the prerequisite for physical travel by citizens to government officers/offices is eliminated by e-governments. This is due to the use of computers and the internet (Leben et al 2006).
The public is allowed to interact and get the necessary help at the click of a button from any location and at any time. The computerization of government offices and services brought about by e-governments creates a state of affairs where improved accounting and keeping of records is observed (Arnstein1969).
Accessing and processing of forms is now done with much ease since the administrative functions are stored in an updated database (Leben et al 2006).
Retrieving of information by public officers is also fast due to the computerization. E-government has also been a good solution for persons suffering from disabilities as they no longer have to be mobile to access information and services.
Public approval: another major advantage for e-governance is its wide acceptance from the public despite critics trying to suggest that it hinders the growth of democracy and lacks reliable privacy policies.
The citizens feel part of the government and are able to influence their elected legislatures/politicians or representatives on issues they feel are important for them. Young people, who customarily demonstrated minimal awareness in government issues, are now interested in the e-voting process (Bishop & Davis 2002).
Risks
On the other hand, there have been critics who discredit the gains of e-governance on public administration and democracy.
“Governments that embrace e-governance are faced with potentially volatile implications of implementing and designing e-governments which includes; disintermediation of the government and citizens, impacts on economic, social, and political factors, vulnerability to cyber attacks, and disturbances to the status quo.” (Kraemer & King 1986)
Hyper-surveillance: e-governance has been faulted with a potential of creating a scenario where there is lack of privacy for the citizens. This is as a result of the increased contact between the government and its citizens.
Kraemer & King (1986) observe that there is a possibility of e-governance increasing and turning into a complex system thus forcing citizens to solely network electronically with the government than before. Critics of this argue that a “totalitarian-like system” could emerge due to the voluminous personal information being passed to and fro leading to a loss of personal privacy
Inaccessibility: Kraemer & King (1986) notes “lack of potential to reach many users that consist of people living in remote areas,who are homebound, those with low literacy levels, exist on poverty line incomes by an e-government site that provides web access and support is very high.” Consequently this results in creation of a digital divide.
False sense of transparency and accountability: critics argue that a false sense of transparency and accountability is created by governments using e-governance. This is so, because it is the governments themselves that maintain the portals and all that is processed through them.
Opponents of this system of governance, argue that information can be manipulated according to the government’s desires thus doing away with the transparency being proposed by it.
Conclusion
The internet in the 21st century has come a long way, from an almost lawless nature to one that is monitored and used in practical ways. This has enabled the development of e-governments and e-governance in countries worldwide even developing countries. This paper has looked at Russia on how it has implemented and used e-governance.
The “e-Russia” project of 2002 greatly achieved its intended goals which included: increasing of economic efficiency in both public and private sectors; expansion of use of information communication technology in government offices, departments and agencies; and making available regular government functions.
There has been noteworthy expansion of on-line penetration in Russia especially in St. Petersburg over the last few years since the implementation of “e-Russia”.
Against the environment of the various dynamics that are in play worldwide and in Russia too consist of worldwide conflict against terrorism; political, economic and social problems; startling increase in weapons; and the big question on the state of equality in Russia, whether it will really come into reality and its lack of stirring apprehension from the west, it can be summed up that e-governance has done more than just bring the people closer to the government.
Various governments have a myriad of reasons of embracing e-governance; however, gaining public approval and partnership remains the main focal point. Reasons for embracing e-governance can be stated as a contribution to reforms especially in pushing forward democracy, achieving policy outcomes, the ease that comes with it in meeting economic objectives, building of trust between the government and citizens.
The services provided by online services generally constitute and are consistent with agency functions. Governments worldwide are partnering with private entities and non-profit organizations by making it possible for them to readily make available information pertaining to government and its agencies to the public.
As noted in this discussion paper, e-governance creates a feeling of ownership and participation among the citizens, and they are able to air their views and concerns. Citizens are also able to have a say in key issues affecting them and monitor their politicians that they elected.
However, in the course of implementing and developing e-governance, a lot of challenges are expected, such as: legislative barriers, technology change, financial barriers and the ever looming digital divide can be termed as issues that affect almost all countries and are not specific to one region.
Despite drawbacks, such as hyper-surveillance from the government, inaccessibility due to lack of exposure to technology or creation of a false sense of transparency and accountability; the benefits accruing from e-governance seem more weighty.
E-governance has made it possible for the furtherance of democracy and development in both developed, developing and under-developed countries. Other positives of e-governance include, environmental bonuses; and a creation of speed, efficiency, and convenience at the same time winning the public approval.
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