The International Review of Administrative Sciences is a journal of comparative public
administration that has examined the major debates in public administration for 75 years. The
June 2002 issue of the Review focuses on the theme of Electronic Governance: Implications for
Politicians and Public Servants. These papers were initially presented at the conference of the
International Institute of Administrative Sciences held in Athens, Greece in July 2001.
The impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on the roles of politicians and
public servants has not received sufficient attention in scholarly writings. The use of ICTs will
have increasingly important implications for the structure and functioning of public bureaucracies
and for the relations between the political and public service spheres of government. As
explained below, the effects of ICTs are being felt at all stages of the public policy process.
Concern has arisen that the use of ICTs by public servants may strengthen their power in relation
to that of politicians.
The presentation of these papers marked the second year of the Review's program on
"Advancing Understanding of Public Administration." The major purpose of this program is to take
the lead in examining important issues that have received too little attention in research and
writing on public administration. Another purpose is to encourage our readers to prepare
theoretical, conceptual and country studies that will provide additional information, ideas and
insights on these issues. Our readers are invited to submit brief critical commentaries on these
and other issues for publication in the Dialogue section of the Review.
To facilitate comparative analysis, the authors were invited to cover a similar range of topics,
including
1. what ICTs politicians are using in electronic governance and how they use them in interactive
policy making, in "targeting" groups, in discussion groups etc:
2. what ICTs public servants are using in electronic governance and how they use them in
interactive policy making, in pro-active policy making, in co-production of policies, and in service
delivery.
3. the implications for relations between politicians and public servants, between politicians and
citizens, and between public servants and citizens.
Authors were also encouraged to address the actual or potential "rivalry" between politicians and
public servants and the impact of ICTs on the representative function.
The first paper, by Ignace Snellen, provides an overview of the theme. He begins by noting that
the theme of electronic governance is related to two of the most significant developments in
contemporary public administration: 1) the replacement of traditional vertical command and
control relationships by horizontal network relationships and 2) the revolutionary impact of
information and communications technology. Professor Snellen distinguishes between several
forms of ICTs, namely database technologies, decision support technologies, networking
technologies, personal identification and tracking technologies, and office automation and multimedia technologies. He also examines the impact of ICTs in the pre-implementation,
implementation and post-implementation stages of the policy process. The consequences for
relationships between politicians, public servants and citizens are discussed in relation to streetlevel bureaucrats, the position of the citizen, and the power of the politician. Professor Snellen
concludes that the discretion of street-level bureaucrats is being curtailed by the development of
"infocracies" but their jobs may be enhanced by the growth of one-stop shops; that the digital
divide may deepen but be offset by speedier, more accessible and client-oriented service; and
that there is a real danger of a decline in the power of politicians and a rise in the power of public
servants.
This overview paper is followed by several country studies. Sandford Borins examines current
and emerging developments in Canada and the United States. He begins by describing those
technologies being used to deliver services directly (e.g. the Internet, electronic kiosks, smart
cards) and several other technologies being used within government that affect service delivery
(e.g., data warehousing and computerized models and data bases used for performance
measurement, planning and resource allocation). He identifies the three main challenges facing
IT managers in the public sector as the management of large projects, utilizing IT's capacity for
collaborative programming, and protecting citizens' privacy. He then explores the use of
information technology in the political sphere - by political executives, legislators, political parties,
and lobbyists. Finally, in his examination of the implications of IT for relations between politicians
and public servants, he suggests that politicians may be less involved in the management of IT
but more involved in the governance of the information society.
Christine Bellamy's analysis of electronic governance in the United Kingdom provides an
excellent complement to Sandford Borins' article. She begins by noting that to date governments
have made much more use of ICT as a production technology (automating data processing in the
back offices of public organizations) than as a means of gathering information for policy makers
and connecting with citizens. She explains that e-government in the UK is both the governmental
wing of e-commerce and a key feature of the Labour Government's program for modernizing
government. She then examines the implications for such central public service values as
efficiency, transparency, equity, privacy and security of efforts to use e-government to bring about
more citizen-centred government. Professor Bellamy draws particular attention to the emerging
influence of the concept and practice of knowledge management. Two major sets of issues in this
area are the extent to which governments have in place an appropriate information infrastructure
to support "evidence-based" policy and the extent to which governments have developed
electronic tools for policy making. Especially notable in the latter respect is the establishment in
the UK of the Knowledge Network designed to provide ministers and public servants with access
to a broad range of network and information services.
With particular reference to India, Shamsul Haque explains the comparatively difficult challenges
posed by e-governance in developing countries. He begins by describing the major policies,
initiatives and institutions involved in bringing about e-governance at the national, state and local
levels of government. He then examines the effects of e-governance on relationships among
politicians, public servants and the general public. He notes improvement in the interaction
between politicians and citizens resulting from such initiatives as websites provided by the
political executive, the legislature and political parties. He reports also that there has been an
especially significant impact on relationships between citizens and public servants, both in the
way of better service delivery to citizens and the forging of stronger links based on transparency
and accountability. In respect of relationships between politicians and public servants, Professor
Haque suggests that the introduction of e-governance may shift power in the direction of public
servants "empowered by information expertise." He also notes several major concerns arising
from e-governance in India that are applicable to other developing countries as well. These
include inequitable access to computer and telephone facilities for the poor, a low literacy rate
and the dominance of the English language on the Internet. He recommends that an undue focus
on information technology not displace the need for "appropriate" technology.
In addition to the symposium on Electronic Governance, this issue of the Review contains two
articles on other issues.
Anthony Makrydemetres examines the perennial issue of dealing with ethical dilemmas in public
administration. He sets out the ALIR model of imperatives of ethical reasoning - a set of basic
principles that integrate and rearrange the process of dealing with ethical dilemmas. The four
functionally related imperatives are:
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the principle of democratic legitimacy and ACCOUNTABILITY of public bureaucracy and
administration;
the rule of law and the principle of LEGALITY whereby law and only law should govern
the administration;
the principle of meritocracy, professional INTEGRITY, autonomy and capacity of the
administrative apparatus of the state; and
the principle of RESPONSIVENESS and responsibility of administration to civil society.
He argues that the model not only provides a heuristic synthesis of values but also shows the
importance of putting morality and ethics at the forefront of public administration in the future.
Les Metcalfe and David Metcalfe are concerned with how quantitative techniques drawn from
decision theory can assist negotiators to improve both the process and outcome of international
negotiation. They use a case study of the European Union Gas Directive to examine whether
quantitative tools can enable the representatives of national governments and international
organizations to deal more successfully with the problems they face. They conclude that this
methodology brings greater realism to the management of international negotiations by disclosing
options and possibilities that might be overlooked by rule-of-thumb methods and incremental
processes. They also point out the limitations of this approach.