government and community

This page looks at the politics of government online.

     introduction

In line with comments on preceding pages of this guide, the institutions of government have assimilated new technologies rather than being revolutionised by them.

Movement towards 'e-government' has three stages -

• provision of basic information online (eg government agencies having a web presence)
• provision of services online (typically online bill-paying and form processing, such as web-based submission of tax returns)
• a greater degree of interactivity, with the community providing feedback and engaging dynamically in policy-making and administration

The first stage was reached in several advanced economies at the end of the millennium, with several governments announcing that all agencies were 'online'. That achievement is problematical.

In Australia it meant that every federal government agency had at least one web page. Being online appears to be an end in itself, as many pages provide little information, do not reflect best practice regarding accessibility and indeed are poorly maintained. With some major agencies it is difficult to find a basic contact number or postal details. Overall, much of the first stage of the Australian 'e-government' push has involved electronic brochureware - migration online of existing glossy promotional literature with little thought about function or usability.

     general studies and gateways

Among starting points are the Centre For eGovernment (CfeG), Democracies Online (DO), Digital Democracy: Discourse & Decision Making In The Digital Age (London: Routledge 1999) edited by Brian Loader & Barry Hague,Digital Democracy - Policy & Politics in the Wired World (New York: Oxford Uni Press 1998) by Cynthia Alexander & Leslie Pal, Digital Era Governance: IT Corporations, The State and E-Government (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 2006) by
Patrick Dunleavy, Helen Margetts, Simon Bastow & Jane Tinkler and Digital Government: Technology and Public Sector Performance (Princeton: Princeton Uni Press 2005) by Darrell West.

     courts

There is surprisingly little writing about use of the net to increase the accessibility of courts and understanding by the community. We'll be pointing to particular initiatives and studies in the immediate future.

     executive agencies

In March 2001 the US Center for Excellence in Government (CEG) has released a 22 page Blueprint for The Next American Revolution, concerned with "the e-government challenge". The report builds on a January 2001 survey and August 2000 survey suggesting that citizens believe e-government will mean better government but want to proceed carefully down the road toward digital government, given concerns about security and privacy.

The Blueprint - available in a choice of colour or b&w PDF but not, strangely, in HTML - claims that there's an "e-democracy deficit caused by over a decade of services-first-speak from the administrative side of government across the United States". Respondents ranking the most important of four possible benefits of e-government placed "Government that is more accountable to its citizens" (36%) ahead of "Greater public access to information" (23%) and "More efficient and cost-effective government" (23%) or "More convenient government services" (13%).

In February this year the UK government launched CitizenSpace, an ambitious national online discussion forum. It forms part of the major UK Online initiative, which aims to provide comprehensive access to UK national/local government information.

CitizenSpace has several features. It offers information about political processes, including elections and the development of legislation, with pointers to sites maintained by political organisations and government agencies. It allows consumers to email the offices of ministers, senior bureaucrats and members of parliament. It encourages contribution to policy development through an online central register of consultation documents ('Green Papers'), with guidance about feedback. A discussion facility allows members of the digital democracy to post messages about subjects ranging from 'A week in politics' to 'Children, families and retirement' and the 'Countryside'.

A 2001 survey (PDF) by the International City/Council Management Association (ICMA) suggests that almost 95% of local governments in the US either have a website or plan to have one in place within a year.

There's a more detailed analysis in the first report from the multipart 2001 Digital State Survey by the US Center for Digital Government (CDG) and in Darrell West's Global E-Government, 2007 (PDF), offering an analysis of 1,687 national government websites across 198 nations. In the UK Better Connected 2001, the annual map of UK council web sites by the Society of Information Technology Management (SITM) argues that while local government continues to go online, its response to email remains unsatisfactory. More surprisingly, the study notes that only one authority offers extensive payment facilities.

Around 40% of councils failed to provide any response to a test email, a figure comparable with studies of US and Australian business sites. 15% had no general email address to contact. Nearly half of the local government bodies sent a response within three days, double the number in the preceding survey.

The number of local authorities with web sites has increased by 10% to 442 (around 95% of the 467 UK councils). The percentage of sites providing detailed content on services, as opposed to more basic promotional material, increased from 53% to 59%.

There is less substance in E-Government In The Service Of Democracy (PDF) by Paul Waller, Peter Livesey & Karin Edin. The paper reflects a presentation at the 3rd Global E-Government Forum in Naples earlier this year, essentially a promo piece about aspirations in the UK. The authors argue that new technologies offer a response to "the democratic deficit": a means of enriching democracy and simplifying voting. The government aims to use the net to "facilitate, broaden, deepen" participation in the democratic process. That will involve inclusive access to net and other communication channels, appropriate security and privacy arrangements, online access to official information and - more difficult - "responsive government and effective public deliberation".

In contrast, the paper by Inger Lingvall & Sören Lindh on Use Of Public Administration Services On The Internet In Sweden (PDF) offers a succinct account of the "24/7 Agency". Access via the net to government information and services on a 24 hour seven-days-a-week basis is characterised as Sweden's leading concept in efforts to enhance government accessibility. "24/7 means good services for the public and businesses irrespective of time of day and geographical location".

That account is complemented by Michelle d'Auray's paper on Behind The Portal: Revealing The Challenges Of Service Integration (PDF), outlining Canada's strategic approach to achievement of its Government On-Line (GOL) objectives.

There is a more programmatic analysis in Untangle the Web: Delivering Municipal Services Through the Internet, a new guidebook (PDF) from the Center for Technology in Government at the University of Albany.

The guide aims to assist local government agencies to develop, launch, and maintain sites. It is part of the CTG's 'E-Government: Creating Tools of the Trade' program and draws on the valuable report What Citizens Want From E-Government by Meghan Cook.

Cass Sunstein's Republic.com (Albany: State Uni of NY Press 2001) highlights concerns about online communities talking only to themselves, being driven by the louder or more extreme members - a sort of digital Gresham's Law - and as a result being dismissed by policymakers. The impact on policymaking of newsgroups and online communities of expertise is emerging as an area of academic interest. There's arguably an overly rosy view of an Australian group in Tony Barry's paper on The LINK List on Network Policy; other pointers are found in the final page of this guide.

A perspective is provided by Ezra Suleiman's Dismantling Democratic States (Princeton: Princeton Uni Press 2003) and Paul du Gray's In Praise of Bureaucracy (London: Sage 2000).

     portals

There's increasing interest in national, state and local government portals in Australia and overseas, although most suffer from severe usability problems.

Among the more significant are those for

• Australia
  
• Canada
  
• France
  
• Netherlands
  
• United Kingdom
  
• United States
  
  

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