1.28. Theory of eGovernance information systems

The purpose of this simple and high-level theory of eGovernment information systems developed by the DemocrIT? research group of Örebro University is mainly to contribute to a more realistic and governance focused view on the idea of eGov than the more technical and determinist one currently prevailing. This is done on an empirical basis, but not by testing the theory. This could be done, authors believe, as there now is some eGov reality to be investigated, but would require another paper to be done in any credible manner.

While some thirty years of studies of information systems have produced many theories concerning IT use in organizations, eGov studies require going beyond the border of the organization as government/nance cannot be reduced to individual organizations, not even if interorganizational cooperation is included. Here a theory is proposed that considers governance as a system rather than in terms of its individual organizational units and processes, and views information systems from that perspective. The theory draws on both theories of government and theories of IT in organizations, and proposes the following:

Governance is for this purpose best described in terms of a system consisting of three interrelated societal spheres: the political sphere, the administrative sphere, and civil society (including individuals, organizations, media and the public sphere). These spheres have different nature in terms of their motivation, interests, focus unit, and mode of operation. The successful eGov information systems will be those who best and most constructively integrate interests and modes of operation of all three spheres.

In other words, the complete system, including the spheres and the processes that tie them together, constitutes a democratic infrastructure, which serves both as a limiting factor for rapid technology-driven development and as support for long-term success of changes designed to meet the success criteria suggested by the theory.

A general governance model

To discuss electronic governance or electronic government theoretically, there is a need for a model of government that goes beyond the individual organization. Most e-government discussions and systems so far do not do that. They focus on the operations of one single organization – e g job office e-services (Wiberg, 2002). or car license renewal – or (one or a few) processes that stretch over two or more organizations but without changing the rationale of any of the organizations (e g one-stop shops). Also, as some authors have noted, eGov projects typically apply an information processing view of government activities and do not consider other aspects of government (Zouridis & Thaens, 2002). In a systems perspective this too narrow approach means a risk for suboptimization in two respects, technically (information processing regarded too narrowly in terms of coverage of the whole government) and functionally (a too narrow view of what government is all about). As an example of the latter, Zouridis & Thaens (Zouridis & Thaens, 2002) argue that this approach to eGov will lead to solidification of a certain distribution of power, transformation of citizenship into consumership, and rationalization of legal and policy processes into administrative-technical ones (Zouridis & Thaens, p. 127-128).

Unlike businesses and individual government organizations, government as a whole (as opposed to individual politicians and parties) does not have a clearly defined goal in terms of where to go. It does have a goal, however, in terms of maintaining a balance among different interests in society so as to maintain general interests such as peace, individual freedom and privacy, a viable economic system and so on. Hence, government is an infrastructure guarantor.

The term government covers several aspects of managing a country (or some part thereof), ranging from the very form of government, over strategic management to daily operations. Definitions of eGov generally also cover all these areas, and hence most typically contain not only goals of more efficient operations but also of better quality of services and increased and improved citizen participation in democra­tic processes (e g Grönlund, 2002a; World Bank, 2002). Sometimes the term governance is more appropriate, as it also incorporates the idea of other organizations than public sector ones engaged in public sector-related activities by means of e g outsourcing, partnerships or value-added services.

Discussing eGov stringently requires defining the context in which it appears in terms of a public sector model. In simple terms, drawing on a textbook in political science, and at a general level where national differences do not matter, a democratic[1]? government can be described as shown in Figure 1. It consists of three interrelated spheres, the political sphere, the administrative one, and the civil society one.

Figure 1: Basic spheres and relations in a democratic government system. Arrows indicate influence, and circles indicate domains of control. Domain intersections indicate “transaction zones” where control is negotiated by e g lobbyists and media on the left-hand side, intermediary service deliverers on the right-hand side and professional interaction in government boards and committees on the top side (Adapted from Molin et al., 1975, p. 16).

Each sphere contains individuals, organizations, technical systems, social relations and value systems. Often, an overly simplified view of a democratic system is propagated, where the relationships of the model are presented as straightforward; citizens elect officials, which then go to work in a formal political system containing certain institutions and rules. Their work produces results in the form of directives to the administration, which with blind obedience – without any influence on the political decisions – executes the decisions.

In practice, the system is of course much more complex. The political impact administrations can exert by having the expertise necessary to prepare decisions in complicated matters is often acknowledged (Snellen, 2001; Watson et al., 1999). Citizens act in many other ways than by casting votes, for example they organize in many ways, and they lobby. This is not the place for enumerating and analyzing all aspects of this, neither to discuss different variations of democratic systems. For now, let us just observe that there are a number of relations, and that each node in the system influences both the others by a number of relationships: all nodes are interrelated. The details of these relations are always under discussion and borders are changing slightly over time. Currently, however, they are in a process of profound change in many countries, for several reasons including globalization, economic constraints, changing demographics, declining appreciation for the political system (as measured by declining turnout in elections) and the availability of IT. One example of changes is that private enterprise is increasingly acting in the system by means of outsourcing of government activities or deregulation and competition.

Given that eGov IS typically transcend organizational borders there is likely to be conflicts among different structures involved (see Figure 2). Given also that there are indeed values, practices etc that pertain to each of the three spheres, and thus serve as a general “mode of operation” for actors (organizations and individuals) in each sphere we have an additional complexity for eGov IS. This is of course a practical problem, but also one that has to be reflected in theories in, and of, the field.

The eGov framework thus adds locus to structuration theory by situating the idea of structures in the eGov context. It also extends the concept of structures by introducing the “sphere” concept as a “modality” (Giddens, 1982) in each of which a large number of actors, individuals and institutions, operate under a similar basic “mindset”, different from the others’.

Figure 2:    A structurational model of technology, based on but extending that of Orlikowski (Orlikowski, 1992, p. 410)

Unlike actor network theory (ANT), eGov theory views actors as not independent of their “social background”, their position in the governance system. This is not a unique feature of our eGov framework – SCOT (Social Construction of Technology) also – if somewhat vaguely – recognizes “groups”, which are based on mutual interests.

The nature of the spheres

eGov information systems often, arguably typically, span more than one societal sphere. Information systems – even mandatory ones – are generally dependent on user acceptance to work well. User acceptance comes only to a part from technical qualities of the system. More importantly in this context it comes also from alignment of the system with work practices and culture. Hence, there is a need for analyzing the nature of the spheres – if there are differences among them on any of the above criteria, there is likely a complication for implementation of information systems.

The below table summarizes some salient features that distinguish the three above-mentioned major spheres of a governance system. The table is of course a rough summary, and it does not attempt to tell the complete truth about any of the spheres. In democratic theory, there is a host of literature on the relation between leaders and the people (e g Dahl, 1989; Sartori, 1987; Pateman, 1970), and even a brief study, of for example the three ones just referred to, shows that this relation can be conceived very differently. Table 1 does not directly want to add to that discussion, but one point is to bring awareness of the literature into eGov studies – government is about managing a society, and democratic theories are then to be compared with management theories in the business sector. Another point is to say just what the table amounts to: the spheres are different. They are different in terms of their motivation, interests, focus unit, and mode of operation; variables that are individually, and certainly together, important for the implementation and operation of any information system. Therefore they can be seen as “modalities”, or as “superinstitutions”, clusters of institutions operating under the same general conditions. They each set the scene for the actors that operate within them, not just formally but also culturally.

Table 1:    A comparison of the spheres.

In the development of democracy there is generally an ongoing struggle between two perspectives, both beneficial for democracy but neither of them sufficient (Goldkuhl & Röstlinger, 2001). The top-down perspective is about implementing political decisions in activities directed towards the citizens; politics as design. The bottom-up perspective, sometimes called user democracy or consumer democracy (Bellamy & Taylor, 1998), is about interaction between users and suppliers leading to user influence over service design and content; politics as evolution. Real user influence over service design also means real influence over politics. In fact, this discussion goes all the way back to fundamental theories of government developed in the 17th and 18th century by Thomas Hobbes (top-down), John Locke (power balance) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (bottom-up). Their respective views express fundamentally different roles for government, which have echoed through the debates on government design since the democratic revolutions of the late 18th century.

In Figure 2 (above), the top-down perspective can be seen as a command chain going clockwise starting in the politics sphere and ending with reactions on decisions picked up by that same sphere. The bottom-up perspective starts on the right-hand side in “service dialogues” involving the administration and civil society spheres.

A brief look at the current development of information systems relevant to eGov shows that different forces are stretching the spheres of influence of the political system, the administrative one, and the civil society respectively (Figure 3).

Figure 3:    The government model under change - different actors affect the development in the transaction zones.

The increasing use of IT in administrative processes – a more comprehensive electronic information infrastructure – restricts the action space of the political sphere as this infrastructure becomes increasingly hard to change (and, indeed, understand). This means the influence of the administrative system is increased at the expense of the political one (Arrow 1 in Figure 3). Zouridis & Thaens (Zouridis & Thaens, 2002) provide some evidence to suggest this.

The civil society cultures, in the electronic world for instance manifested in virtual communities of different kinds, contain strong social elements but less of the characteristics of formal politics (“citizen” and “member” are not synonyms, for instance). To the extent that electronic tools and techniques from such cultures become used in formal politics it will become less formal and thus more open to the influence of active minorities (Arrow 2).

The official e-democracy initiatives, as indeed municipal practice, generally endorse information rather than participation (Anttiroiko, 2001). “Participation” then most often means “everybody should know about….” rather than something that involves citizen influence. These efforts can be seen as a means to reinforce the current procedures of formal politics by complementing them with increased direct communication with citizens (Arrow 3).

Often local e-democracy projects are in practice controlled by the civil servants rather than politicians due to their control of the IT system. In a study of four Swedish local e-democracy projects, Grönlund (Grönlund 2002b) found that sometimes politicians did not control the develop­ment, but had to adjust to the development at a later stage when important traits of the information infrastructure were already implemented. This means the action space of the political system has been reduced and that of the administration has been increased (Arrow 1).

Increasing IT use in the civil society includes efforts to affect services in practice by individuals, by using electronic communication to influence individual administrative decision makers or simply by acquiring a better understanding of how the administration works by using the electronic information and tools provided. This includes new pressures on the administration, which can no longer hide behind an information monopoly, and hence increases the influence of civil society at the administration’s expense (Arrow 5).

Initiatives like the eEurope electronic government strive for more administrative control over, and efficiency within and among, the many activities of the public sector by formalizing them to the point of being implementable in electronic tools. To the extent that this succeeds it means not only that the action space of civil society actors diminishes as their interactions with government are more formalized (Arrow 4), it also means that the political system’s control over the administration is strengthened as political initiatives are more directly expressed in computer code and hence can be more easily inspected and evaluated (Arrow 6).

From this brief illustration we can see that there is no single development in terms of the relative strengths of the “influence” arrows in Figure 3. But as we cannot just assume that everything will eventually add up to a balance quite similar to what we have today, it is important to try to assess the development more in detail. Which arrows are strongest, most likely to prevail? This is the area for our theory, following next.

Conclusion

Based on the above discussion, we can now formulate a theory of eGov IS:

eGov information systems will only achieve long-term success when they sufficiently well implement interests and modes of operation of all three spheres of a governance system: formal politics, administration, and civil society.

This is not a suggestion of an either-or situation. Rather, different proposals for information systems will exist, and the more successful ones will be, the theory predicts, those who score better in these respects.

The theory does not predict any particular development path for a governance system, but it provides a framework for making such predictions. For instance, the need for sufficient agreement among actors across spheres that a particular system should be designed in a certain way does not preclude some actors from being able to influence the system’s design so it works more their way (and hence typically at least compatible with general interests of their sphere) than any other actors’ way, thus shifting the equilibrium among the spheres a bit. For example, one hypothesis stemming from the current development, following the observations of Zouridis & Thaens (Zouridis & Thaens, 2002), could be that eGov will over time lead to that the administrative sphere will increase its influence over the others as administrative systems are in majority, and as information processing paradigm is paramount in eGov applications so far.

Another proposition following the first could be that eGov will contribute to political systems gradually becoming more alike in different countries, as there are strong use cultures involved, in particular in the administration and civil society spheres, and these use cultures are becoming increasingly international culturally.

A number of hypotheses could be derived from the theory. These could well conflict in terms of where the development will head in terms of what actors will be most successful, as national and local situations vary and can be interpreted differently. What the theory proposes is that what will make the difference is the ability of information systems to cater for interests of all the spheres. This is, those qualities are things that technical quality of systems and process efficiency can not achieve, as these concern efficiency rather than effectiveness.

The eGov theory could then be used to assess the overall potential and the sphere bias of a certain development by providing a comprehensive general reference framework. This is an advantage compared to models commonly used today, such as penetration of PCs? and broadband connection, availability of services, economic measures by organizational unit etc, which only measure details and perhaps efficiency but do not do not measure effectiveness.

[1]? This is a restriction, but one without which eGov risks losing all credibility as information systems cannot be reduced to technical systems only.

References

Anttiroiko, A-V. (2001). Toward the European Information Society. Communications of the ACM, January 2001.

Bellamy, C.  &, Taylor, J. A. (1998). Governing in the information age. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Dahl, R.A. (1989). Democracy and its critics. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Giddens, A  (1982). sProfiles and Critiques in Social Theory. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.

Goldkuhl, G. & Röstlinger, A. (2001). IT som möjliggörare och hinder – i samspel mellan politik och verksamhet i kommuner (IT as enabler and obstacle). In Åke Grönlund & Agenta Ranerup (red) Elektronisk förvaltning, elektronisk demokrati (Electronic government, electronic democracy). Lund: Studentlitteratur

Grönlund, Å. (2002a). Electronic government – Design, Applications, and Management. Idea Group Publishing.

Grönlund, Å. (2002b). Emerging Infrastructures for E-democracy - in Search of Strong Inscriptions. eService Journal, 2 (4).

Molin, B., Månsson, L., & Strömberg, L. (1975). Offentlig förvaltning (Public Administration). Bonniers.

Orlikowski,W.J. (1992). The Duality of Technology: Rethinking the concept of technology in organizations. Organizations Science, 3 (3), 398-427.

Pateman, C. (1970). Participation and democratic theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sartori, G. (1987). The theory of democracy revisited. New Jersey: Chatam House Publishers Inc.

Snellen, I. (2001). ICT:s, Bureaucracies, and the Future of Democracy. Communications of the ACM.

Watson, R., Akselsen, S., Evjemo, B., & Aasaether, N. (1999). Teledemocracy in Local Government. Communications of the ACM, December 1999; 58-63.

Wiberg, M. (2002). e-Government in Sweden: Centralization, Self-Service and Competition. In Å. Grönlund (ed), Electronic Government – Design, Applications and Management. Hershey, PA, USA: Idea Group Publishing.

World Bank (2002). A Definition of E*Government. Retrived Nov 13, 2003 from: http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/egov/definition.htm

Zouridis, S., & Thaens, M. (2002). eGovernment: Towards a Public Administration Approach. In Proceedeings of Global e-Policy eGov Forum (pp 119-133), Seoul, Korea, Nov 6-7, 2002. Seoul: SungKyunKwan? University, Global e-Policy eGovernment Institute.

Next: Approaches Previous: Theory of an “active society”