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William Dutton ; Gerardo A. Guerra ; Daniel J. Zizzo ; Malcolm Peltu
2005 Information Polity
The growing use of the Internet and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) in e-government services raises important new issues of 'cyber trust' that could have a significant influence on governance structures and practices in the future. This paper argues that at the heart of debates about cyber trust in e-government is a 'trust tension' between the need to collect data on individuals as the basis for providing services and fears about the inappropriate use of personal information gathered, stored, and analysed using ICTs. It draws on studies of experiences in e-commerce and e-business, as well as e-government, to illuminate the nature of cyber trust and its wider social dimensions, including the main related challenges faced in e-government and some strategies, products and services for dealing with them.
2005 Information Polity
As the UK government seeks to (re)-establish a high-trust relationship with citizens, voluntary sector organisations (VSOs) are being incorporated within the state in ways that are designed to shift blame and risk away from government. This is not a straightforward process: as the government seeks to manage trust relationships through this engagement with VSOs, significant new risks are being generated for e-government. In conceptualising this emerging relationship between government and VSOs as concerned with trust, blame, and risk, this essay brings fresh perspective to the deepening debate about how government and voluntary sector are re-positioning their relationship.
Victor Bekkers ; Marcel Thaens
2005 Information Polity
Interconnected networks constitute the backbone of our society and bring many advantages to our daily life and activities. At the same time, however, our dependence on these networks and the fact that they are all interconnected makes our society vulnerable. Risks emerge from these interdependencies. How can society deal with these risks? To answer this question we first explore the closely related concepts of risk and trust. These explorations enable us to understand the implications of interconnected networks in terms of governance challenges. On the basis of this insight, we conclude that it is impossible to define risk as a 'general' policy concept. A major policy challenge in the governance of risk is not only the interplay of all kinds of networks and infrastructures, but also the interplay between diverse policy regimes with different governance models. We have discerned a number of specific governance models that can be used to handle the risks resulting from interconnected networks and infrastructures. Following Ashby's law of requisite variety, the variety of risks in the network society asks for a variety of risk governance models, in which different values are attached to the role of government, the private sector and the civil society.
Christine Bellamy ; Charles Raab ; Charles Raab
2005 Information Polity
Tensions between goals of integrated, seamless public services and of client confidentiality are increasingly important, as trends in public services require more extensive sharing of information about users of those services. This article identifies reasons why these tensions have become more salient under the Labour Government in the UK and the types of policy initiative that now give rise to them, before considering the development of the policy frameworks intended to strike settlements between these goals. In conclusion, the sustainability of these settlements is considered in the context of the trade-off between the risks of different types of judgment errors likely to be made by professionals providing public services in decisions on whether, when and how much to share client information.
2005 Information Polity
Advances in technology and changes in the way that we communicate and store information have steadily increased the vulnerability of informational privacy. This vulnerability is compounded by a combination of increased concerns about citizen security and developments in e-government designed to improve state services and reform the public sector. Starting from a statement of principle of the right to informational privacy, recent technological developments are surveyed, the dangers they pose to privacy and existing protections are discussed. The question of risk in this context is then explored and, resulting from this, a number of mechanisms for achieving a better balance between the right to individual privacy and the need for communal security in an information society are proposed.
2005 Information Polity
This article identifies emerging risks in electronic government: the risk of government lagging behind a 'smart' society, where increasing proportions of citizens and businesses are accustomed to conduct their affairs electronically; risk involved in information technology outsourcing; and risk brought about by the integration of technology into governmental activities, particularly policy innovation. All three represent the introduction of risks more commonly associated with the private sector into government. For each of these three risk factors, the article suggests some potential strategies for dealing with them. First, government needs to use the capability of internet-based technologies to understand 'smart society' more fully. Second, the UK government in particular needs to develop a more relational style of contracting and learn from the sharp variations in contracting regimes across the world. Third, leaders of governmental organisations need to accept that digital technologies are now at the core of a wide range of their activities and adapt policy-making processes accordingly.
2005 Information Polity
The UK Government is committed to experimentation with online voting and has promoted Internet voting in local elections in 2002 and 2003. This article examines the risks of online voting and suggests that political risks should not be conceived in terms of an elusive scientific objectivity, but should be understood as arising from reflexive contestations involving a range of actors and contexts. After examining the risk of online voting from several perspectives, the article concludes by arguing for a more politicised and nuanced conception of risk which takes into account non-functional aspects of voting, such as the symbolic.
2005 Information Polity
In this essay the consequences of the transparency of physical risks through the Internet are explored by posing three questions: do citizens in the Netherlands use risk maps to find out what risks there are in their neighbourhoods, does this enhance their involvement in the management of risks, and, do risk maps on the Internet and citizen involvement improve the quality of risk management? It is argued that transparency does not lead to a better informed citizenry since few citizens look at the risk maps on the Internet and, as a consequence, citizens are not more involved in the management of physical risks. In spite of the lack of citizen involvement, transparency does improve the quality of risk management. Transparency puts pressure on governments and companies and stimulates them into performing better. In addition to this optimistic conclusion, the essay also points at a dark side to openness: terrorists may use the information about physical risks to plan attacks.
2005 Information Polity
This essay explores the democratic and legal risks related to the emerging situation of global Internet governance. This situation can be considered as an outcome of the 1997 US Federal Government's policy aims towards privatisation and self-regulation of the technical management of the increasingly global Internet at that time. Thus far there is little empirical knowledge available about the nature and functioning of the various relatively unknown international organisations that are involved in the technical development and management of the Internet. Attention in this respect seems to be exclusively focused on only one of these organisations, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which continues to have a unique relationship with the US Federal Government's Department of Commerce. The empirical question of who actually regulates and manages the Internet infrastructure further rises in importance if we consider that the technical development of the Internet might not be a 'neutral' development but could involve the building in of regulatory norms into the technology.
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