Electronic government and public policy: current status and future trends in Latin America.
| Autor | Ignacio Criado, J. |
| Cargo | Artículo en inglés |
Gobierno electrónico, gestión y políticas públicas: Estado actual y tendencias futuras en América Latina
INTRODUCTION
Since the turn of the new century, information and communication technologies (ict) are one of the most significant sources of public sector improvement and innovation in recent years. This article looks deeper into the field by examining the interactions between ICT and public administrations, more recently known as electronic government (e-government), in an attempt to better understand the relationship between ICT and public policies and management. Moreover, this article acts as an introduction to this special issue of Gestión y Política Pública (Public Policy and Management) on e-government, which, to a certain extent, intends to establish the status of e-government in Spanish-speaking countries. The overall aim is to drive our knowledge of e-government forward, while emphasizing the contribution of this collective volume to the study of a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly important to contemporary public administrations.
The last few years have seen the development of different areas of knowledge exchange related to e-government, consolidating it as an area of knowledge. As an example, conferences on topics related to e-government and publications linked to the topic continue to grow, in the same way as specialized research centers and international networks have expanded. Examples include the specialization of academic conferences, such as the International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV), the Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o), the IFIP EGOV conference, and the European Conference on Electronic Government (ECEG) or publications like Government Information Quarterly (GIQ), Information Polity (IP), the International Journal of Electronic Government Research (IJEGR), or the Electronic Journal of E-Government (EJEG). These all reveal the consolidation that the international academic community is undergoing in the field of e-government. At the same time, it is also important to emphasize that, because of its diverse origins and interests, research efforts are not dominated by authors involved in public policy and management. This disciplinary diversity is even more evident when thinking of Hispanic influence, where contributions to the international academic community are not yet that numerous, regardless of the fact that their experiences are already quite relevant.
Although e-government is a field of knowledge that has grown considerably over the last few years, there is a need to take a closer look at its implications for management and public policies. One of the oft repeated ideas surrounding e-government is that it has been considered a force for rationalizing the activities of public administrations. Both practitioners and academics believe that the spread of information systems would lead to the systematization of rules and procedures, and the reformulation of known problems with bureaucracy, such as bounded rationality and implementation at the operational level (Criado, 2009a; Gil-García, 2012a) or even improving efficiency, effectiveness, productivity, the quality of public services, citizen participation, and accountability (Gil-García et al., 2012). This transformation would not only brought about by ICT's impacts on specific administrative dimensions or public policy phases, but also through a broad range of cognitive, behavioral, organizational, political, and cultural changes that are linked to information systems inside public organizations (Dunleavy et al., 2006; Fountain, 2001). In other words, e-government involves technological, organizational, institutional, human, and contextual factors (Gil-García, 2012a). The capacity for innovation in public administration is linked to its interaction with ICT and will succeed only to the extent that a government permits constant improvement, different decision making, or more consolidated networking. From this point, it is possible the determine the role of e-government for public policy and management.
This article seeks to review the current state of e-government, taking Latin America into account. Significant efforts have been made by public administrations in the Spanish-speaking world to adopt and use ICT ever more intensively in order to improve public management or certain elements of public policy. Indeed, different authors have tried to capture this reality through academic studies centered around concepts and theories (Criado et al., 2002; Córdoba-Pachón, 2009; Gascó, 2009; Gil-García et al., 2010; Porrúa, 2004), national e-government policies (Criado, 2012a; Gascó, 2007; Gil-García et al., 2008), digital inclusion (Gascó, 2005; Gil-García and Luna-Reyes, 2009; Mariscal et al., 2011), web portals (Luna-Reyes et al., 2009; Sandoval-Almazán and Gil-García, 2012a; Sandoval-Almazán and Gil-García, 2009; Sandoval-Almazán, 2010; Sandoval-Almazán etal., 2010; Welp, 2008), transparency of administration and openness of public information (Corojan and Criado, 2012; Fierro and Gil-García, 2012; Mariscal et al., 2011; Sandoval-Almazán and Gil-García, 2011), open government (Dassen and Cruz, 2012; Purón-Cid and Gil-García, 2012; Purón-Cid et al., 2012; Sandoval-Almazán et al., 2012), digital processes and public policies (Fontdevila, 2009; Gascó, 2010; Ugalde, 2004), interoperability (Criado et al., 2010; Criado et al., 2011; Jiménez et al., 2011; Luna-Reyes et al., 2007; Luna-Reyes et al., 2008; Poggi, 2008), citizen participation (Gil-García and González-Miranda, 2010; Kossick, 2004), or Web 2.0 and social networks (Criado and Rojas-Martín, 2012a; Sandoval-Almazán and Gil-García, 2012b; Sandoval-Almazán et al., 2011). All such works confirm the idea that there is much to be done in the public sector of Latin America in terms of implementing e-government. At the same time, it also demonstrates that although the epistemic e-government community has managed to forge a path within the field of public policy and management, there is still a long way to go.
This article is organized as follows. The section below looks at the interactions between e-government and public policies and management, reflecting on the relationships or similarities between them, since knowledge of e-government is important for public administrations and decision makers in view of its potential for improving public policies and management. The third section describes the level of development of e-government in Latin American countries, including United Nations indicators and some of the key dimensions of its evolution. Section four looks at the articles that comprise this special issue, and speaks to their key contributions. Lastly, the article concludes by addressing some of the topics considered important to a future research agenda on the phenomenon of e-government, as well as to the possible actions of public administrations, which is not only relevant to academic efforts, but also to the implementation of actual public policies.
THE ROLE OF ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT IN MANAGEMENT AND PUBLIC POLICY
Addressing the interactions between ICT and the management of public administrations, as well as public policy processes, constitutes one of the basic pillars in the field of e-government. Rather than just engaging in conceptual debates or looking at the different approaches to the problem that have gained ground over the last few years, this section views e-government as a kind of administrative reform which has had, and continues to have, important proponents in public administrations around the globe, including some Latin American countries. The intention therefore is to highlight the growing importance of ICT in improving management functions in public administrations and the different phases of public policies. By doing so, we also hope to point out the implications of intensive and ever more generalized use of information technologies in the public sector, as well as their direct connection to the most relevant concerns in the disciplines of public management and contemporary public policies.
The relationship between public policies and management and the adoption and use of ICT is growing more direct. From the somewhat instrumental view assigned to technologies, which assumes a greater or lesser potential to improve organizations as a consequence of their use, the technological dimension of the public sector is becoming increasingly more intense. Aspects like leadership, management of human capital, design and organizational change, inter-administrative and inter-governmental relations, communication and marketing of services, and transparency cannot, nor should they, be understood in the same way in a setting where public administrations are intensive users of information technologies. The same happens with the process of public policies, given the growing use of technology at all phases, from design and implementation to evaluation. In fact, one of the foundational ideas about ICT and their relationship with public administrations is the way in which they bring about, or have the potential to bring about, benefits or improvements in certain government functions and services (Gil-García, 2012a). In other words, e-government provides the foundation for generating benefits within public administrations derived from the use of ICT in the different dimensions of public action.
By way of example, the inter-governmental and inter-administrative relationships have been viewed from this perspective through what is known as interoperability. Several studies have clearly stated the opportunities derived from the implementation of e-government in improving the exchange of data and information between different government agencies (Gascó, 2012; Pardo et al., 2012; Gil-García, 2012a). The management of specific public services is facilitated through the availability of...
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