Models of E‐Government: Are They Correct? An Empirical Assessment

Research into e-government is relatively new. Nevertheless, much contemporary thinking and writing about e-government is driven by normative models that appeared less than a decade ago. The authors present empirical evidence from three surveys of local e-government in the United States to test whether these models are accurate or useful for understanding the actual development of e-government. They find that local e-government is mainly informational, with a few transactions but virtually no indication of the high-level functions predicted in the models. Thus, the models do not accurately describe or predict the development of e-government, at least among American local governments. These models, though intellectually interesting, are purely speculative, having been developed without linkage to the literature about information technology and government. The authors offer grounded observations about e-government that will useful to scholars and practitioners alike.     

Administering the Overseas Vote

While there is a growing academic literature about mail-in ballots, there has been no serious academic research to date on overseas voters, even though the counting of overseas military ballots figured into the 2000 presidential election controversy. The participation of nearly 4 million overseas voters, both civilian and military, is governed by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. The authors examine the reported perceptions of military and nonmilitary voters covered by this legislation using two surveys funded by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, focusing on their perceptions of electronic means of transmitting voting materials. The authors find that civilian overseas citizens have a harder time registering and voting than military overseas citizens; that the key factor is the timely transmission of voting materials; and that, despite privacy concerns, electronic transmission of voting materials is viewed favorably.     

The Administrators of Democracy: A Research Note on Local Election Officials

Local election officials are the administrators of democracy, but we know little about their views. This paper draws from two national surveys of local election officials. The authors find that local election officials generally support the goals of the federal Help America Vote Act but are less enthusiastic about the actual impact of the legislation. Implementation theory helps explain their evaluation of federal reforms. Goal congruence with reform mandates, resource availability, and a willingness to accept federal involvement predicts support for these reforms. Federal policy changes have promoted electronic systems, and some of the authors' findings are relevant to research on e-government. Users of electronic voting machines tend to have high confidence in them despite the significant criticism the machines have faced. Local election officials who support e-government generally are more likely to more positively evaluate federal reforms.     

Stability not change: Improving frontline employee motivation through organizational reform is harder than it looks

As evidence mounts about the positive effects of autonomous motivation such as public service motivation, there is a growing case for public organizations to design reforms to better support public employees’ inherent desire to help others. But how feasible is this in reality? Most experimental evidence on autonomous motivation stems from interventions at the individual level, possibly exaggerating what government reforms can achieve in reality. We present a longitudinal study that analyses a three-year trial in Danish hospitals in which incentives and autonomy were changed to encourage autonomous motivation. This set-up offers a rare opportunity to observe the potential malleability of intrinsic, public service, user and external motivation. The results show little observable change in motivation due to the reform. We explore the practical difficulties of translating evidence about motivation into reforms given implementation challenges, contextual factors and a recognition that motivation might be less malleable than implied by research.     

“Dieselgate:” How Different Approaches to Decentralization,the Role of NGOs,Tort Law and the Regulatory Process Affected Comparative U.S. and European Union Outcomes in the Biggest Scandal in Automotive History

ABSTRACT

The VW diesel emissions scandal (“dieselgate”) recounts how Volkswagen became ensnared in a self-inflicted and staggeringly costly cheating scandal that started in the U.S. and then spread to the European Union. This case study shows how fundamental differences in comparative public administration (CPA) between the U.S. and the European Union (EU) led to different consequences for one of the world’s largest and most highly-regarded European auto manufacturers with respect to four institutional variables: (a) approaches to decentralization, (b) the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), (c) civil (tort) law, and (d) regulatory environment.     

The Job of Government: Interweaving Public Functions and Private Hands

Lively and sometimes raucous debate about the job of government has increasingly engulfed American politics. Much of that debate has swirled around government's size, with conservatives arguing the case for shrinking government and liberals fighting to grow it. In reality, however, neither of these debates engages the critical underlying trend: the increasing interweaving of governmental functions deeply into every fiber of the nongovernmental sectors. Many reforms have sought to rein in government's power, but none has engaged the fundamental interweaving of policy implementation, and, not surprisingly, most have failed. Indeed, many have eroded the public's trust in the governmental institutions on which they depend. This process raises fundamental challenges for defining government's core role, for building the capacity to govern effectively, and for enhancing the accountability of governmental programs. Many of government's administrative tools are a poor match for the governance problems they seek to solve.     

The ombudsman in France

Abstract: Though France and the United Kingdom are the most populous countries with a legislative ombudsman at the national level, little has been written in English ahout the French plan. Created in 1973, it resembles the British scheme for the central administration, in that coinplaints must he forwarded to the ombudsman (Médiateur) by members of Parliament. The French plan has been more successful than the British one, and hence ought to lw studied by other populous countries considering such a plan. It differs from the British scheme in several important respects, three of its unique features being its political nature. its decentralization and its reform orientation. However, a comparison of the total number of coinplaints received by the plan in France with that in countries where complaints are made directly- indicates that, as in the United Kingdom, the requirement for complaints to be made through legislators has been a serious restriction, and has prevented the plan from meeting a large part of the need. Sommaire: Bien que la France et le Royaume-Uni soient les pays les plus peuplés àêtre dotés d'um médiateur législatif (ombudsman) au niveau national, le système françis n'a pas suscité heaucoup de commentaires de la part des auteurs anglophones. Créé en 1973. ce systéme ressemble à celui instauné au Royaume-Uni pour l'administration centrale en ce que les plaintes doivent être transmises au médiateur par l'intermédiaire des députés. Le système français a connu plus de succès que le Lritannique et mérite par conéquent d'être étudié par d'autres pays à haute derisité démographique qui envisageraient un tel systéme. Il differe du inodèle britannique par certains aspects importants, ses trois caractéristiques particulières étant sa nature politique. sa décentralisation et son orientation réformatrice. Toutefois, une comparaison entre le nombre total de plaintes enregistrées dans Ic cadre du système fiançais et le nombre de plaintes déposées dans les pays où l'on a adopté la façon directe de procéder démontre que comme au Royaume-Unit, l'intermédiaire qu'est le député constitue un obstacle important qui empêche le système fraiçais de répidre à une grande partie des hesoins.