Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Government

This chapter re-interprets the development of electronic participation and electronic government in the context of an alternative ideology. Bringing back the critique of previous chapters about government as a technology, the chapter shows how it is possible to generate new and socially oriented spaces for democratic processes in which technologies are tools for transformation. This requires expanding the concept of citizenship, of the state and of society.

The Process of E-Government Public Policy Inclusion in the Governmental Agenda

The incorporation of information systems in government agencies is a process that started several decades ago, but it has sped up its pace due to the evolution of information technology and communications. This process could be characterized as being responsive to specific or by-sector requirements without policies or guiding principles. To this date, national and local government agencies obtain, record and process information in order to accomplish their duties. Their ways illustrate a fragmented scheme, noticeably based on the criteria of a self-referenced, bureaucratic state. Accordingly, the state has a myriad of information systems which are frequently disconnected. In spite of this, their remarkable evolution is a valuable asset that policy makers should consider. When the concept of electronic government emerged in the late nineties, it came to bridge the gap in the creation of public policies regarding the use of state information technologies and communications. However, electronic government it is not just limited to technology applications; it also introduces an innovative view on state modernization. The latter is presented from an external point of view that adopts the citizen’s perspective and emphasizes the need for coordination and integration in inter-agency processes. The development of electronic government has two basic approaches: electronic government initiatives and electronic government policies. The first approach resembles the traditional incorporation of information systems in government agencies, where multiple electronic government initiatives respond to specific vertical requirements. The second alternative incorporates a holistic view intended to build a global model of State through an electronic government public policy. This chapter focuses on the political process leading to the development of an electronic government policy, and it is illustrated by the analysis of the political process that led to the development of electronic government policy in Uruguay. The analysis uses John W. Kingdon’s (1995) multiple streams model, a conceptual approach that is intended to explain the mainstreaming of policies in the governmental agenda. The chapter further proposes that the multiple streams model could be extremely useful as a framework to be used on an ex ante basis for advocates of electronic government policy making.

Building the Digital Government in Regions

The author traces the unfolding of modernisation efforts in the region of Valencia in Spain, showing a number of assemblages whose study requires developing varied employing complementary approaches and concepts. The inclusion of regional governments as important actors in modernization processes is put forward and explored in the case of Valencian Comunidad Autonómas (Autonomous Community). The chapter shows how the interplay of institutional practices, the development of new forms of organization to provide e-government services and the unfolding of regional policies within Spain and Europe all contribute to make e-government what is now in the region of study.

Articulated Planning

The authors bring a notion called articulated planning that defies existing associations between centralised government approaches and socialism. With increasing availability of information and communication technologies (ICTs), the authors argue that governmental processes can be facilitated and develop more participative planning efforts towards developing e-governance in countries. The free software and simulation tools can contribute to generate appropriate spaces for citizens’ participation in, definition and supervision of government plans.

Electronic Government Implementation Projects with Multiple Agencies

Contemporary public administrations have been suffering several ways of pressure to promote modernization in their structures and services. One of governments’ options to meet that demand lies in the potential use of information and communication technology for the benefit of better service to citizens and greater state apparatus efficiency. This contemporary movement particularly connected with personal computing and the Internet arrival has been called Electronic Government (e-Gov). One of its actions relates to building government electronic services that integrate several government agencies in a collaborative format. However, e-Gov projects demanding integration to this degree have an implementation complexity that is greater than traditional projects, which reflects on low success rates worldwide. This paper investigates the good practices identification in multi-agency e-Gov project management. Using the PMBOK framework, this paper presents an in-depth study of Nota Fiscal Eletrônica - NF-e (Electronic Invoice) project implementation. This project was based on a nationwide integration of multiple agencies (26 State Tax Administrations, the Brazilian Federal Revenue Service and nineteen large companies) and faced major technical and management complexity. The results found suggest that the project was implemented in an informal way, however with impressive results. There were identified two complementary management models. The first model was nationwide, focused in Scope and Communication Management. The second model was local to each institution, focused in Cost, HR and Procurement Management.

Technology and Government

This chapter develops an argument of both technology and government as historically determined phenomena within what has been called liberalism. Technology helps the government to make clear and assist with individuals’ choices. The author asks the question about the existence of an alternative ideological framework to guide the use and implementation of both government and technologies and defines possible ways forward for the pursuit of citizenship in societies.

Internet and Political Parties in Chile

Due to the importance that the Internet has gained as a means of communication, literature on political communication has incorporated it as one of its preferred topics of focus. Literature stems almost entirely from Europe and the United States. Very little is known about the political use of new information and communication technologies (NICTs) in other parts of the world. The present chapter aims to provide evidence in that line, starting from the study of the incorporation of the Chilean political parties to the Internet. In specific, the following questions are answered: In what extent do factors such as the organizational characteristics of the political parties explain their greater or lesser adoption of NICTs? What do parties use NICTs for? Furthermore, although briefly, the authors will try to answer the question whether the parties have experienced change in their interaction with the citizenry and their bases because of the usage of NICTs.

E-Government and Its Evaluation in South East Europe

E-government (electronic government) has spread globally as a phenomenon that involves the use of information technologies supports delivery of public services. There are different actors and organisations being involved in e-government implementation and use, three of which are government organisations, businesses and citizens. In the case of government institutions, a common goal is to provide an appropriate service environment for both businesses and citizens. Citizens want to maximize their benefits received when for instance they pay taxes, and businesses have a goal to maximize profits. How to assess and improve e-government services is still a challenge in many countries. This chapter will offer some insights into the e-government phenomenon which could inform its future evaluation. The objective is to review e-government in the light of new public management (Barzelay, 2001), a term used in the last 30 years to describe new themes, styles, and patterns of public service management. This will lead us to consider alternative ways to evaluate e-government services (e-services). One of these is a technology acceptance model (TAM) to describe e-government related reforms in Albania and the Balkans region towards building a better understanding of how evaluation could be conducted. The insights from the Albanian case open up a number of opportunities that could be taken forward by policy makers, developers and other stakeholders. For those researching on e-government evaluation, the chapter offers a view of why we need to consider different aspects in the evaluation process.

Ways of Citizen Learning

Citizens talk, act, relate. In these processes, political deliberation emerges as a citizen exercise tool, and nowadays, also as a phenomenon of learning and training susceptible of being mediated through Web 2.0 tools. For the citizen to practice as such in full, he must, therefore, assume a political training process which contributes to his recognition in a broad and plural institutional context. What actions must be carried out by the institutions to account for the needs and expectations of citizen training? This paper pretends to reveal the pertinence of initiating the debate regarding the training needs of the citizens with the goal of understanding the use of ICT as a tool for deepening citizenship exercise.

E-System for Public Health in India

Public health stands for the study and practice of those activities and initiatives that result in the prevention and reduction of incidences of illnesses and diseases in the population. The application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can considerably facilitate Public Health project initiatives. In spite of the huge benefits of using ICT in Public Health, it can also pose considerable challenges in certain populations, pertaining to the access and comprehension of information shared through modern technology stemming from a range of issues such as illiteracy, demographic and linguistic diversity, differing economic strata of people, and differing priorities. In this chapter, after presenting a discussion on the issues faced by the public and relevant systems thinking approaches that may enable addressing the same, we propose a visionary architectural framework for ICT in Public Health through the eye of systems-thinking. We have called this framework e-System for Public Health (ePH). The understanding draws heavily from the Indian context as the country presents an interesting array of the challenges that we have mentioned above.