ICT in Politics and Public Administration

Some basic concepts Politics Democracy Public administration & management Public policy

What is ”politics”? Collective actions aimed at changing or preserving conditions in society Collective actions: decisionmaking, demonstrations, signing petitions etc Decisions on WHO does WHAT and HOW Decisions are made by elected politicians Decisions are made in common (public) matters

What is ”democracy”? A decisionmaking technique Direct or representative Representative democracy criteria: –Universal franchise –Meaningful elections –Freddom of organisation –Freedom of opinion –Freedom from repression and political violence

What is ”public administration”? Traditional definition –An administration under the formal control of the political leadership –Strictly hierarchical model –Permanent, neutral and anonymous officials –Merely administering policies decided by politicians –Administration = follow instructions

Public Management The achievements of results and taking personal responsibility for doing so Fokuses on –Strategy –Managing internal components –Managing external constituencies

What is ”public policy”? ”A government’s program of action to give effect to selected normative and empirical goals in order to address perceived problems and needs in society in a specific way, and therefore achieve desired changes in that society…” (Cloete 1998) Written or unwritten

THE POLICY LIFE CYCLE Evaluation Implementation Policy decision Problem structure Policy options Feasibility of options (Parsons 1995: 77 ) Review Problem

The year 1996 …”the breakthrough for Internet information services in (Swedish) public administration” (statement by The Swedish Agency for Public Administration) First time ICT issues were dealt with in Parliament as a separate policy area

Access to computer at home

Government bills 1996 and 2000 ”Sweden will be the first country to become an information society for all” (statement by the Prime Minister in 1999) Goals: –Increase growth and employment –Safeguard societal goals (democracy, rule of law, gender equality etc)

Areas of concern regarding citizens To create and maintain trust in the information society among the broad public To provide skills to use the services To secure access to the information society

Good services for citizens and enterprises defined as: Access – services when needed Participation – possibilities to give feed- back to public authorities Co-operation between authorities in order to achieve single point contact Simple and similar routines for easy use Development based on the demand of users