The Evolution and Continuing Challenges of E‐Governance

E‐governance comprises the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support public services, government administration, democratic processes, and relationships among citizens, civil society, the private sector, and the state. Developed over more than two decades of technology innovation and policy response, the evolution of e‐governance is examined in terms of five interrelated objectives: a policy framework, enhanced public services, high‐quality and cost‐effective government operations, citizen engagement in democratic processes, and administrative and institutional reform. This summary assessment of e‐governance in U.S. states and local governments shows that the greatest investment and progress have been made in enhanced public services and improved government operations. Policy development has moved forward on several fronts, but new policy issues continually add to an increasingly complex set of concerns. The least progress appears to have occurred in enhancing democracy and exploring the implications of e‐governance for administrative and institutional reform. ICT‐enabled governance will continue to evolve for the foreseeable future providing a dynamic environment for ongoing learning and action.     

Non‐Governmental Monitoring of Local Governments Increases Compliance with Central Mandates: A National‐Scale Field Experiment in China

Central governments face compliance problems when they rely on local governments to implement policy. In authoritarian political systems, these challenges are pronounced because local governments do not face citizens at the polls. In a national‐scale, randomized field experiment in China, we test whether a public, non‐governmental rating of municipal governments' compliance with central mandates to disclose information about the management of pollution increased compliance. We find significant and positive treatment effects on compliance after only one year that persist with reinforcement into a second post‐treatment year. The public rating appears to decrease the costs of monitoring compliance for the central government without increasing public and media attention to pollution, highlighting when this mode of governance is likely to emerge. These results reveal important roles that nonstate actors can play in enhancing the accountability of local governments in authoritarian political systems.     

The New Governance: Practices and Processes for Stakeholder and Citizen Participation in the Work of Government

Leaders in public affairs identify tools and instruments for the new governance through networks of public, private, and nonprofit organizations. We argue the new governance also involves people—the tool makers and tool users—and the processes through which they participate in the work of government. Practitioners are using new quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial governance processes, including deliberative democracy, e-democracy, public conversations, participatory budgeting, citizen juries, study circles, collaborative policy making, and alternative dispute resolution, to permit citizens and stakeholders to actively participate in the work of government. We assess the existing legal infrastructure authorizing public managers to use new governance processes and discuss a selection of quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial new governance processes in international, federal, state, and local public institutions. We conclude that public administration needs to address these processes in teaching and research to help the public sector develop and use informed best practices.     

Public Trust in Government in Japan and South Korea: Does the Rise of Critical Citizens Matter?

Based on the Asia Barometer Survey of 2003, 2004, and 2006, government performance, citizen empowerment, and citizen satisfaction with self‐expression values are associated with public trust in government in Japan and South Korea. This study finds, first, that government performance on the economy, controlling political corruption, the quality of public services, crime, and attention to citizen input are significantly associated with broad public trust in government in both Japan and South Korea. Likewise, citizens’ satisfaction with their right to gather and demonstrate and to criticize the government is closely connected to trust in central and local governments in Japan. In South Korea, citizens’ satisfaction with their right to gather and demonstrate is intimately linked to trust in local government. Implications for government leadership to enhance performance, transparency, citizen participation, and public trust in government are analyzed and elaborated upon in this insightful study.     

Reassessing popular participation in Uganda

The 1980s saw the emergence of popular participation as a mechanism for promoting good governance in developing countries Good governance was seen as crucial to efforts to improve the welfare of poor people in countries where elites had hitherto benefited disproportionately from policies conceived at the top without reference to ordinary citizens at the bottom. Donor pressure helped accelerate the change. In Uganda these developments coincided with the rise to power of a government that sought to democratise the country's politics. A major plank in the democratisation agenda was the establishment of a participatory system of local administration in which ordinary citizens, facilitated by local councils, would participate in public affairs and influence the way government functioned. These aspirations coincided with those of the donor community and enthusiasts of popular participation. This article is an account of the evolution of village councils and popular participation from 1986, when the National Resistance Movement came to power in Uganda, to 1996. It shows that while at the beginning the introduction of local councils seized the public's imagination leading to high levels of participation, with time, public meetings as consultative fora succumbed to atrophy due to participation fatigue and unwarranted assumptions about the feasibility and utility of popular participation as an administrative and policy‐making devise. It calls for political history and the socio‐cultural context to be taken into account in efforts to promote participation. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reforming Social Services in Hong Kong: The Role of Contracting and Performance Management in the Non‐Profit Sector

Contracts and performance management, along with the concept of consumerism, have become the fundamental metaphors for New Public Management (NPM) and key changes in the public service. ‘Doing well while doing good’ and finding generally acceptable accountability measures for social services have become the perennial aspirations of planners, service providers and funders. This article examines the contingent factors and rationales behind the quality movement and recontracting exercise in reforming the delivery of personal social service programs in Hong Kong within the framework of New Public Management (NPM). It explains the use of long‐term relational contracts rather than the standard business contracts between the government as funder and non‐profit organisations as service providers. It also deals with the complex relationships among quality issues, quality standards, consumerism, accountability, performance indicators, and performance management.     

Digital Government: A Primer and Professional Perspectives

Digital technology is a critical enabler of public administration reforms. It can improve the efficiency and productivity of government agencies and allow citizens to transact with government anytime, anywhere. It can also deepen the democratic process, empowering citizens to participate in policy formulation. In this article Andrew Botros, the director of Expressive Engineering, and Maria Katsonis, from the Department of Premier and Cabinet (Victoria), explore the challenges of the digital world for the public sector. Katsonis presents a primer on digital government tracing its evolution from the e‐government movement of the 1990s to Government 2.0 in the 2000s to today's digital‐by‐default agenda. As technology and its role in public sector reform have progressed, so too have the governance, cultural, and leadership challenges deepened. Botros examines NSW approach to open innovation with the Premier's Innovation Initiative in NSW, the state's open data experience, and Transport for NSW and its management of public transport data. He argues NSW's approach involves a significant innovation trade‐off, requiring fresh thinking in digital‐era collaboration.     

Fukuyama Is Right about Measuring State Quality: Now What?

Much has recently been written about how to best measure governance or “state quality.” Should we evaluate government performance by looking at what government achieves (outputs) as Robert Rotberg and Craig Boardman recently suggested? Or should we focus on measuring state capacity and bureaucratic autonomy, as Francis Fukuyama concludes? This commentary argues in support of Fukuyama's approach by using a public administration lens to disaggregate the public sector into two domains: upstream bodies at the center of government and downstream delivery bodies that deliver, commission, or fund services under the policy direction of government. It goes further by recommending a measurement framework that focuses on identifying indicators that are behavioral and action worthy in relation to five public management systems ultimately owned and operated by the central, upstream agencies.     

The Challenge of Strengthening Nonprofits and Civil Society

The Winter Commission Report was centrally concerned with improving the performance of state and local governments. Since the issuance of the commission’s report in 1993, the delivery of services by state and local government has been substantially changed by the growing role of nonprofit organizations in providing public services and representing citizen interests. As a result, state and local governments and nonprofit agencies are faced with complex governance challenges. The central argument of this paper is that despite the dramatic changes in the relationship between government and nonprofit organizations in recent years, the key tenets of the Winter Commission report—the need for improved training and education, greater transparency and accountability, more emphasis on performance, and improved citizen engagement—remain deeply relevant in improving the governance of the public services in an increasingly complex policy process and service delivery system at the state and local levels.     

Gauging the Effects of Social Accountability on Services,Governance, and Citizen Empowerment

Engaging citizens in holding public officials and service providers accountable, referred to as social accountability, is a popular remedy for public sector performance weaknesses, figuring prominently in many international donor‐funded projects and leading to widespread replication. However, the contextual factors that influence the successful transfer of social accountability are debated. Demand‐side factors (civil society and citizens) are overemphasized in much of the literature. Yet supply‐side factors (state structures and processes) and the nature of state–society relations are also important. This article examines four projects in developing countries to explore how these contextual factors influenced social accountability aims and outcomes. The salience of supply factors in enabling social accountability for service delivery and government performance stands out, particularly the degree of decentralization and the availability of space for citizen engagement. The capacity and motivation of citizens to occupy the available space, aggregate and voice their concerns, and participate with state actors in assessing service delivery performance and problems are critical.     

Market Orientation and Public Service Performance: New Public Management Gone Mad?

The backbone of theory of the market‐based approach New Public Management is that market orientation improves public service performance. In this article, market orientation is operationalized through the dominant theoretical framework in the business literature: competitor orientation, customer orientation, and interfunctional coordination. Market orientation is examined from the vantage point of three stakeholder groups in English local government: citizens, public servants, and the central government’s agent, the Audit Commission. Findings show that market orientation works best for enhancing citizen satisfaction with local services, but its impacts on the performance judgments of local managers or the Audit Commission are negligible. The conclusion discusses important implications of these findings for research, policy, and practice.     

Legislating deliberative engagement: Is local government in Victoria willing and able?

Growing dissatisfaction with representative democracy and concomitantly, the increasing expectation that citizens assert more influence over public policy have seen the emergence of more participatory and deliberative forms of governance in public management practice. This article explores the attempt of the state government of Victoria, Australia to legislate for mandatory deliberative engagement as part of its local government strategic planning instruments. The ambition of the reform was significant; however, it was almost unanimously rejected by the local government sector. Based on analysis of the key themes that emerged from the submissions made during the 3-year Victorian Local Government Act Review process, we explore the limitations and barriers to implementing deliberative engagement practice at a local government level. We demonstrate that whilst the promise of participatory democracy might have been compelling, in the case of Victoria there were a series of contextual and capacity considerations that needed to be taken into account before the implementation of such reforms were pursued.     

THE COGNITIVE FOUNDATION OF A CO‐PRODUCTION APPROACH TO PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT: HOW DO OFFICIALS AND CITIZENS UNDERSTAND GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE IN CHINA?

In this article, we explore and discuss the implications and relevance of the concept of co‐production to the design of performance measures. Such a co‐production approach to performance management is grounded upon a conception of public management that emphasizes collective problem‐solving involving not only government officials but also citizens. We argue successful application of such an approach requires that both officials and citizens be cognizant of their role as co‐producers in the process of public service delivery. Whether such a cognitive basis exists in a particular context will affect the utility and viability of the co‐production approach and is an important question that needs to be addressed empirically. To illustrate the importance of the cognitive basis for co‐production, we have conducted an empirical analysis of data collected in a survey in three cities in China. Our analysis suggests that the officials and citizens in the sample generally do not recognize that public administration is a co‐production process involving the efforts of both officials and citizens. Yet, our analysis identifies a number of leverage points for building the cognitive basis. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reinventing government through on‐line citizen involvement in the developing world: a case study of taipei city mayor's e‐mail box in Taiwan

Since the 1980s, a global administrative reform movement is reshaping the relationship between citizens and state. A major concern is how government can be more responsive to the governed through citizen participation. However, the more citizens participate, the more costly it is to govern. And the application of new information and communication technology (ICT) seems to be a cure for this limitation. In this research, authors take the Taipei City Mayor's e‐mail‐box (TCME) in Taiwan as a case to illustrate the complex relationships among citizen involvement, e‐government and public management. After a series of empirical investigations, the authors show that although ICT can reduce the cost of citizen involvement in governing affairs, it cannot increase citizens' satisfaction with government activities without reforming the bureaucratic organisation, regulatory structure, and managerial capacities of the public sector. The results could be helpful to public managers in planning and evaluating online governmental services in the developing countries. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Democratic Governance: Systems and Radical Perspectives

How might we think about democratic governance? This paper distinguishes between system governance and radical democracy. System governance borrows the language of radical democracy while missing its spirit. It advocates increased participation through networks because new institutionalists suggest networks are an efficient means of service delivery. It advocates increased consultation to build consensus because communitarians suggest consensus is needed for effective political institutions. System governance is, then, a top‐down discourse based on the alleged expertise of social scientists. Radical democrats concentrate instead on the self‐government of citizens. Instead of the incorporation of established groups in networks, they promote a pluralism within which aspects of governance are handed over to associations in civil society. And instead of consultation prior to decision making, they promote a dialogue in which citizens play an active role in making and implementing public policy.     

Using Data to Manage for Performance at Public Universities

As performance‐oriented reforms have become more commonplace in recent years, questions about the factors that drive organizational adoption and use of performance systems for internal management are of central importance. This article uses data taken from a survey of presidents at public universities to advance our understanding about the use of data and performance management strategies within public organizations. The central research question is, why do public administrators choose to employ performance management strategies? In addition, the author also explores variation in the extent to which public universities use performance management strategies for three tasks that are central to public management: (1) strategic planning, (2) evaluating employees, and (3) interacting with external stakeholders. Findings indicate that public universities often use performance data to help manage, but many of the causal factors that lead to data use vary across management functions.     

Managerial Quality,Administrative Performance and Trust in Governance: Can We Point to Causality?

The relationship between managerial quality, administrative performance and citizens' trust in government and in public administration systems is a field of study that so far has not received adequate scholarly attention. This article explores some interrelationships between these variables and empirically tests between causality, if it exists, between performance and trust. Applying a technique of structural equation modelling (SEM) with LISREL 8.3 the study examined a sample of 345 Israeli citizens and compared three alternative models. The second model that showed a quality → performance → trust relationship fitted the data best. However, the third model also had some advantages worthy of elaboration. Thus, we concluded that administrative performance may be treated as a precondition to trust in governance rather than trust serving as the precondition to performance. The article ends with further discussion of the findings and their meaning in light of the democratic, bureaucratic and new public management theory.     

Understanding Business Improvement Districts: A New Governance Framework

What is the current state of research on business improvement districts (BIDs)? What is an appropriate framework for analysis? What are key questions for advancing future BID research? BIDs can be understood best within a network governance framework. The research shows, first, a blurring of the line between the public and private spheres as a result of BIDs; second, BIDs are increasingly important actors in urban governance; third, BIDs engage in collaborative, conflictual, and co‐optative relations with local and state governments; and fourth, difficult accountability and management problems are created by their interdependent relationships with local governments. Future research needs to focus on understanding the role of BIDs in urban governance and assessing their impacts on metropolitan areas, as well as their inherently complicated public accountability and management challenges.     

Public Sector Corporate Governance Disclosures: An Examination of Annual Reporting Practices in Queensland

In the public sector, corporate governance is an expression that is yet to be explicitly defined. This paper examines the existing public sector literature in order to derive a set of broad principles of corporate governance in the public sector. These principles are then applied through a content analysis of corporate governance disclosures in a group of government‐owned corporations, state government departments, local governments and statutory bodies. The results indicate the set of principles derived is generally applicable to various forms of public entities. However, due to a lack of an established public sector corporate governance framework, the disclosure of corporate governance is piecemeal. Government‐owned corporations achieved better disclosure practices in most principles than other public sector bodies. The paper aims to stimulate debate on public sector corporate governance and provides a basis for a more extensive survey on corporate governance disclosures.     

From Responsiveness to Collaboration: Governance, Citizens, and the Next Generation of Public Administration

The evolution of the New Public Management movement has increased pressure on state bureaucracies to become more responsive to citizens as clients. Without a doubt, this is an important advance in contemporary public administration, which finds itself struggling in an ultradynamic marketplace. However, together with such a welcome change in theory building and in practical culture reconstruction, modern societies still confront a growth in citizens' passivism; they tend to favor the easy chair of the customer over the sweat and turmoil of participatory involvement. This article has two primary goals: First to establish a theoretically and empirically grounded criticism of the current state of new managerialism, which obscures the significance of citizen action and participation through overstressing the (important) idea of responsiveness. Second, the article proposes some guidelines for the future development of the discipline. This progress is toward enhanced collaboration and partnership among governance and public administration agencies, citizens, and other social players such as the media, academia, and the private and third sectors. The article concludes that, despite the fact that citizens are formal "owners" of the state, ownership will remain a symbolic banner for the governance and public administration–citizen relationship in a representative democracy. The alternative interaction of movement between responsiveness and collaboration is more realistic for the years ahead.