Put your money where your mouth is - participatory budgeting in Romanian cities

Almost 40 years ago, New Public Management theorists reserved an increasingly important role for citizens and civil society in the policy making process. This trend continued afterwards with proponents of Digital Era Governance or New Public Service theories. But without the opportunity of taking decisions on how to spend at least some parts of the government money, the influence of citizens and NGOs is fairly limited. Local governments, as the institutions closer to the needs and wishes of the communities, have gradually taken note of the increasing clamor for more power and transparency. Participatory budgeting processes have sprung up all over the world in the last years. Romania is no exception; a number of cities have implemented platforms that allow their citizens to propose and vote on projects to improve the quality of life in their communities. Our research will try to ascertain the level of success such initiatives have in Romania, a country with a generally low level of civic engagement. For this, we will use questionnaires and interviews with public servants in charge of these platforms.

Smart City governance from below: how Hungarian towns respond to the need for institutional design and digital capacity building

One of the most important focal points of the complex processes taking place in the world has been created by highly diverse urbanisation zones, which all face similar problems. At the same time, for historical, economic and cultural geopolitical reasons, each town needs an approach that is tailored to its specific characteristics and needs. However, relatively little attention has been paid to developing the elements of a supportive environment, the process of planning and capacity-building needed to manage a smart city, and exploring concrete cases and best practices. This study examines initiatives supporting the conditions for smart city governance within the framework of the Digital Welfare Programme (DWP) launched in Hungary, with particular focus on the development of a marketplace as an info-communication platform to support the planning process.

Comparative analysis of evidence based policies in the era of digitalization

A well-functioning administration with embedded institutions enables the formulation of a competitive environment which propitiously effects the country’s economic growth. In case of an intervention, the results and impacts should be measured and continuously monitored in a strategic policy cycle. These activities can be done on project and national levels and at the same time there could be a legitimate claim for carrying out international comparative analysis of results. The majority of public administration developments belongs to the scope of e-government. The evidencebased policy making is a component of good governance next to transparency, sustainability, efficiency, integrity and people centricity. Government obligations and responsibilities in evaluations vary from country to country. Digitalization brings new challenges for public service and governments are taking various measures in response to them. Evaluation can fulfil its role in the strategic policy cycle only if it can meet the political conditions with attention to ethical and methodological standards; can adapt to the digitalized circumstances. The paper aims a deeper analysis of evaluation phase, and to summarize the possible new methods reaching better results in public services and public administration services. In this paper we are going to conduct an international comparative analysis with a special attention given to a public administration development program in Hungary.

eServices as a challenge for small municipalities - Slovak Republic experiences

Cities are using smart city and eGovernment solutions as modern trends also to enhance the management of the city and to get the citizens and entrepreneurs more engaged. Cities in the Slovak Republic are thus introducing ICT based services in order to cope with legal state obligations and also as a natural decision based on specific needs of the municipality. eGovernment developed and introduced on the national level by the state, combined with eServices at the municipality level, mutually lead to a modern, smart and better functioning city. The article is focused on current Slovak Republic’s experiences in the field of eGovernment, more concretely on the provision of eServices in small municipalities, which make up the majority of the entire municipalities in the Slovak Republic.

Evaluation of business models of urban IoT-applications for a medium sized city

Digitalization of the public sector is being driven by a number of factors. In particular, the concept of "Smart Cities" has become an important driver of this development. This relies heavily on an intelligent infrastructure including the Internet of Things (IoT). But does it make sense for small and medium-sized municipalities to develop this? Is it justified to invest in IoT? (How) can a mediumsized city benefit from it? This paper presents the application of an evaluation scheme for business models of urban IoT applications to answer these questions. The research question focuses on how best practices of urban IoT applications in general and in particular can be evaluated. In order to establish a concrete practical reference we evaluated ten chosen IoT applications for the German city of Herrenberg.

Digital single market - a new impetus on EU social policy?

In July 2019 the new president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, presented her guidelines for the period of presidency 2019-2024. While most proposals perpetuate the current reform agenda, the focus on the social dimension of the single market is remarkable. Von der Leyen has not only announced the full implementation of the European Pillar on Social Rights, but also highlighted new investment in digital competences seen as a key to competitiveness and innovation of the European economy. This paper will discuss whether the dynamics of the digital single market could lead to a new impetus on EU social policy and on European funding of training programmes. Therefore, an overview of significant funding programmes promoting digital skills is given.

The role of social media in e-Government: systematic literature review and case of Jordan

Social media has become a new revolution in communications and most governments around the world use these platforms as two-way communication between them and the citizens. The Jordanian government started using these platforms early, so this paper came to examine the Jordanian's practice on these platforms. The paper use two way of analysis, the first one was a systematic literature review in the largest two databases (Scopus and Web of Science). After the literature has been analysed and the paper found the best practices for governments around the world, three main determinants were identified for any government to start the use of social media (presence, up to date information and interaction). The most popular Jordanian's social platforms (Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) have been selected to start the analyses and 52 Jordanian governmental institutions (all the 25 ministries and 27 institutions belong to the prime ministry) have been analysed. After the institutions' websites and their pages or accounts on social media platforms scanned and analysed, most of the institutions have fulfilled the first two criteria (presence) and 77% shows that they have appearances on social media and (up to date information) 67% of the institutions regularly updated their information. But for the last criteria (interaction) we have found that the institutions still need to improve their interactions with the citizens since the results showed only 38% of these institutions have interaction on their pages or accounts on social media.

Exit/Entry, Voice/Noise, and Loyalty/Apathy in the era of social media

Use of Social Media in public life has changed the way how citizens relate to public sector. Modern communication tools, in particular Social Media, have made citizens easier to use their “voice” to mobilize. When citizens can easily mobilize, the cost of mobilization is low for them, while its impact can lead to a larger cost for the State. As the exit/entry cost of Social Media is very low or almost nothing, a virtual network has been substituting institutions, causing new issues to the State. This leads to the issue of loyalty: citizens now feel that they do not need institution like the State to belong to, as many networks substitute its function. This paper analyses the Social Media use by citizens and its impact on public sector through Albert Hirschman’s classis “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty” and tries to address new aspects.

Status quo of electronic invoice processing at municipalities in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg

On 16 April 2014, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union adopted the Directive on electronic invoicing for public contracts (2014/55/EU) in order to establish electronic invoicing as the predominant method by 2020. The e-invoicing directive requires all contracting authorities to be able to receive and process electronic invoices (ABI L133/1). The European legislator defines e-bill as "an invoice issued, transmitted and received in a structured electronic format that enables its automatic and electronic processing" (ABI L133/7). This raises the question of (a) the status quo of electronic invoicing in Baden-Württemberg's municipalities, (b) their implementation barriers and drivers, and (c) the status quo in Baden- Württemberg compared to all other German states. This paper answers these questions and points out interesting aspects that raise new research questions.

eInvoicing: the influence of the EU on the expansion of electronic administrative services

The digital transformation poses major challenges for local authorities. In order to keep pace with modern development, various basic administrative procedures need to be digitized. The status of digitization in German municipalities demonstrates that they are reaching their limits. As administrative units are to be considered as an interface between society and state, the following paper will focus on this topic. This paper reflects on the necessary expansion of eGovernment services in local authorities against a European background, with the aim of bringing together the European and municipal levels. The European Union (EU) has set itself the goal of contributing to the modernisation of digital public services and serving as a catalyst through various programs. This paper discusses to what extent the EU achieves its stated goal and whether its actions generate added value in local authorities by using eInvoicing as an example. With the Directive 2014/55/EU the EU set a standard, henceforth all European public administrations must be able to accept invoices in electronic format from their suppliers. The paper aims to demonstrate the significance of the above stated directive, with a specific focus on local authorities.