Politics of E‐Government: E‐Government and the Political Control of Bureaucracy

This case study reports an innovative e‐government experiment by a local government in Seoul, South Korea—Gangnam‐gu. A new local political leadership in Gangnam made strategic use of e‐government applications to exert greater political control over the local civil service bureaucracy. The authors find that e‐government applications possess political properties that can be applied effectively by the political leadership as instruments to improve control over the government bureaucracy as well as to enhance essential government accountability and transparency. The political circumstances underlying e‐government development as well as its impact on local government are reported, along with key variables associated with this innovation and directions for future research.     

Governance in the Post‐Soviet Era: Challenges and Opportunities

In the aftermath of the Soviet Union's demise, the countries formerly comprising it embarked on massive reforms to transition from socialist to market‐driven economies. This transition also required substantial transformation of their governance systems. In this Viewpoint essay, the authors reflect on critical reforms in human resource management, ethics management, and anti‐corruption, and highlight successful initiatives in these fields. They also discuss the role of the Astana Civil Service Hub in helping the countries in the region to jointly look for solutions to common governance challenges and to learn from policies and strategies that proved effective for their peers. The authors conclude by identifying the common elements of effective public administration reforms in the post‐Soviet setting.     

International Organizations ICTs Policies: E‐Democracy and E‐Government for Political Development

New technologies provide new channels of access to political information and participation in decision‐making processes. This assumption is clearly important in the action plans and policies of International Organizations (World Bank, Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development, United Nations), which have assumed a leadership role in the reform of political institutions. Starting from an analysis of the reasons that have brought the state and processes of institution building back into focus, this paper will reconstruct the International Organizations' vision of the transformative potential of new information technologies and their activity in this field. Particular attention will be devoted to e‐democracy and e‐government as policies to build democracy in developing countries.     

Testing the Development and Diffusion of E‐Government and E‐Democracy: A Global Perspective

E‐government uses information and communication technology to provide citizens with information about public services. Less pervasive, e‐democracy offers greater electronic community access to political processes and policy choices. Few studies have examined these twin applications separately, although they are widely discussed in the literature as distinct. The authors, Chung‐pin Lee of Tamkang University and Kaiju Chang and Frances Stokes Berry of Florida State University, empirically analyze factors associated with the relative level of development of e‐government and e‐democracy across 131 countries. Their hypotheses draw on four explanations of policy change—learning, political norms, competition, and citizen pressures. All four explanations are strongly linked to nations where e‐government policy is highly advanced, whereas a country’s e‐democracy development is connected to complex internal factors, such as political norms and citizen pressures.     

E‐Governance Developments in European Union Cities: Reshaping Government’s Relationship with Citizens

At the beginning of the twenty‐first century, the challenge to governments is to improve citizens’ trust in governments. The Internet aids good governance by increasing transparency and customer‐oriented service delivery. During the last few years, European Union local governments have expanded their presence on the Internet. This article presents empirical evidence on the nature of e‐governance initiatives in cities across Europe. The findings could be of interest to cities interested in determining how their online presence compares with that of other cities. There are opportunities for information and communication technologies (ICT) to enhance governance in local governments, but the focus of the ICT applications concentrates technologies on the management and delivery of services rather than on other areas. The Internet is not yet running as an effective medium facilitating democratic inputs into the policymaking process. Our study shows that technology is behaving as an enabler within preexisting social and political structures.     

E‐government in China

The article analyses e‐government progress in China. It provides a brief overview of benchmarking studies and their evaluation of China, plus a contextual analysis of e‐government initiatives in China and of the changing official position witnessed in the past two decades. It then takes stock of e‐government in China in the first quarter of 2004. On this basis, it considers the significance of contemporary e‐government activity for Chinese governance. The argument is that e‐government is currently having no more than a limited impact on the Chinese public sector. However, there are strong grounds for optimism about future development. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Serving Clients When the Server Crashes: How Frontline Workers Cope with E‐Government Challenges

Implementing e‐government in the contemporary American state is challenging. E‐government places high technical demands on agencies and citizens in an environment of budget austerity and political polarization. Governments developing e‐government policies often mobilize frontline workers—also termed “street‐level bureaucrats”—to help citizens gain access to services. However, we know little about how frontline workers cope in these challenging circumstances. This article fills this gap by examining frontline workers implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Based on a qualitative analysis, the authors find that frontline workers “move toward clients” when coping with stress: they bend the rules, work overtime, and collaborate in order to help clients. They are less inclined to “move away” or “move against” clients, for instance, through rigid rule following and rationing. In other words, frontline workers try to serve clients, even “when the server crashes.” Frontline workers, then, can play a vital role in the successful implementation of e‐government policies.     

The Continuing Evolution of Medicare Hospice Policy

This case study traces the creation and evolution of Medicare hospice policy. The Medicare hospice benefit, created in 1982, emphasizes palliative rather than curative care. It focuses on quality of life for the dying patient and family and encompasses medical, psychological, and spiritual care. Because no standard hospice care practices existed before this benefit was implemented, Medicare rules almost exclusively dictated the structure and delivery of services. Despite initial concerns about low use, spending averaged 17 percent per year between 1991 and 2001, largely driven by increased enrollment, covered days, services provided, and inflation. A rich accumulation of research studies and analyses of specific aspects of the hospice program provides an opportunity for a retrospective analysis of the program's genesis, impact on health care delivery, and implications for future policy decisions.     

E‐government and public service quality in Ghana

This article contributes to the growing discourse on the potential of e‐government to transform the operations of public sector institutions, thereby improving public services. It does so by conceptualizing public service quality into efficiency, economy (cost reduction), customer satisfaction, and service accessibility and draws on qualitative data from the Ghanaian narrative for illustration. As previous studies have demonstrated, this study also affirms the potential of e‐government in improving public services delivery by increasing efficiency, reducing the cost of operations, expanding access to services, and achieving customer satisfaction. Yet, there remains a repertoire of challenges such as weak ICT infrastructure especially in towns and villages, incessant power outages and illiteracy, which are drawbacks to fully harnessing the benefits of e‐government in Ghana. The study recommends that these challenges should feature prominently in e‐government policies to increase the chances of solving them.     

E‐Participation,Transparency, and Trust in Local Government

This article examines the relationship between electronic participation (e‐participation) and trust in local government by focusing on five dimensions of the e‐participationprocess: (1) satisfaction with e‐participation applications, (2) satisfaction with government responsiveness to e‐participants, (3) e‐participants’ development through the participation, (4) perceived influence on decision making, and (5) assessment of government transparency. Using data from the 2009 E‐Participation Survey in Seoul Metropolitan Government, this article finds that e‐participants’ satisfaction with e‐participation applications is directly associated with their development and their assessment of government transparency. The findings reveal that e‐participants’ satisfaction with government responsiveness is positively associated with their perceptions of influencing government decision making. Furthermore, there is a positive association between e‐participants’ perception of influencing government decision making and their assessment of government transparency. Finally, the article finds that there is a positive association between e‐participants’ assessment of government transparency and their trust in the local government providing the e‐participation program.     

The Evolution of a Global Labor Governance Regime

During the last decade, the approach by businesses and governments toward labor and social issues at the global level has fundamentally changed. Industrial relations are rapidly internationalizing by developing new actors and forms of governance to deal with the regulation of labor. This article looks at the evolution of self‐regulatory standards in the global labor governance debate. Key is that notwithstanding problems with the lacking legal framework of global regulation and enforceability, patterns of local self‐regulation, norm‐setting, and international codes lead not only to higher expectations of the behavior of transnationally operating firms but also to an indirect pattern of regulation. The article argues that particularly the adoption of the core labor standards by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the setup of the Global Compact by the UN serve as points of convergence. A plethora of voluntarist initiatives that converge over time toward a shared understanding of labor standards is part of the transformation of global labor governance institutions.     

Progress and Challenges with Iraq's Multilevel Governance

Nations in the Arab world are largely unitary states, yet Iraq has embarked on a seemingly ambitious agenda of decentralization and devolution mixed with federalism. While local elections have been delayed at least until 2012, and indeed may never take place, Iraq's constitutional commitment to decentralize and subsequent statutory enactments appear to be turning provincial governments into significant actors in Iraqi governance. Progress has taken place at a slower, more deliberate pace than both proponents and opponents feared in 2002–6. This article discusses the current state of implementation of this process as a cornerstone of Iraqi democratic development, from the perspective of a former U.S. Department of State senior governance specialist who served on an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team in 2009–10. These reconstruction teams were dismantled in the year leading up to September 6, 2011, as the American relationship with Iraq was “normalized,” though they likely will continue in Afghanistan into 2013.     

中国乡村基层治理的演进及内在逻辑

从建国后乡村基层治理的纵向发展来看,我国大体历经了改革开放前的"政社合一"、改革开放后的"乡政村治"和新时期的"多元善治"三个阶段,尽管这三个阶段的治理环境及治理的主体内容存在着较大的差异,但不论是过去突出国家行政力量的治理理念,还是如今强调自治属性的治理模式,实质上都是国家在特定的治理环境下实现其在乡村基层社会治理能力的体现。而在当今乡村基层治理现代化转型和国家治理现代化持续推进的背景下,以原有模式为基础并立足于本土因地制宜的创新探索和以国外成熟的治理经验作为参照并充分与我国国情相互结合的创新探索,为新时期乡村基层治理的改革与创新指引和提供了新的方向和内容。     

E‐campaigning: what it is and how to do it

Building community support for a candidate or a cause has traditionally been the essence of grass roots advocacy within the issues management process. And while political decisions in democracies are still made by the establishment, increasingly voters are expressing their views between elections on how an issue should be settled—and those who seek to retain political power are listening and responding. Corporations now need to adopt these tactics to show community support and to gain a legitimate seat at the table when decisions are made. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

Accountability‐by‐Proxy in Transnational Non‐State Governance

Transnational non‐state governance arrangements (NGAs) are increasingly common in areas such as labor standards and environmental sustainability, often presenting themselves as innovative means through which the lives of marginalized communities in developing countries can be improved. Yet in some cases, the policy interventions adopted by the managers of these NGAs appear not to be welcomed by their supposed beneficiaries. This article accounts for this predicament by examining the effects of different configurations of accountability within NGAs promoting labor rights. Most labor‐rights NGAs incorporate “proxy accountability” arrangements, in which consumers and activists hold decision makers accountable “on behalf” of the putative beneficiaries of the NGAs: workers and affected communities in poorer countries. The article shows how and why different combinations of proxy versus beneficiary accountability influence the choice of policy instruments used by NGAs, and applies the argument to three prominent non‐state initiatives in the domain of labor standards.     

Defining E‐leadership as Competence in ICT‐Mediated Communications: An Exploratory Assessment

While many aspects of the dramatic shifts caused by digital government have made enormous progress, the leadership of those who serve the public via electronic means has yet to take a significant step forward. This article addresses three questions: How significant has e‐leadership become? What are the challenges in trying to create a more comprehensive model of defining and measuring e‐leadership? And, based on current knowledge, what skill and behavioral elements are candidates for a concrete e‐leadership model? The authors develop and test an original model that focuses on e‐leadership as a competence in virtual communications (i.e., the use of ICT‐mediated communications) and the digital opportunities and challenges that are created. The results provide strong support for the proposed model. The article concludes with a discussion of a future agenda for e‐leadership research that can be developed in a manner that is fruitful for theory and practitioners.