Information Polity

2008 Information Polity

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Baldersheim, Harald ; Øgård, Morten

2008 Information Polity

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The article seeks to test propositions about innovation in e-government inspired by innovation theory. The tests are carried out on data from a survey of municipal web pages in the four Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The research question is concerned with explaining variations among Nordic municipalities as to the features of their respective web pages. A model of innovation is developed, aiming at capturing typical features of local government as a setting for innovations in e-governance. Web pages were analyzed according to their information and communication features. Sources of innovation investigated include motivating, enabling and predisposing factors. All of these sources are important for innovation; one of the enabling factors stood out most of all – national context. Surprisingly though, it was the Danish context that explained the most of the variance, not the Finnish setting, as expected. The last part of the paper is devoted to a discussion of the factors that may account for the Danish preeminence in this respect.

Taylor, J.A. ; Lips, A.M.B.

2008 Information Polity

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The rise of 'e-government', both as a recognized field of practice and an identifiable and legitimate field of study, has occurred extraordinarily rapidly throughout the world. The term 'e-government' has come to capture and de-limit in toto what might be termed the agenda for government in the age of the Internet. This article questions the value of the orthodox interpretation, the paradigm, that has so rapidly emerged around e-government, in particular the casual assumption that e-government is ipso facto 'citizen-centric'. In so-doing this article reveals a concern that different questions must be asked in order to understand 'e-government' and its implications fully and fundamentally. If we are to ask these different questions rather than those to which we are drawn under the orthodox e-government frame of reference then this field will become more theoretically informed, particularly in ways that aid our understanding of 'citizenship' in the 'e-ubiquitous' State.

Narro, Amber J. ; Mayo, Charles ; Miller, Alison F.

2008 Information Polity

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This study focuses on legislators' homepages as a political communication channel for constituents to remain informed of state legislative decisions and actions, as well as legislative issues. Included in this research is an examination of whether state legislators in the United States offer Internet tools and online relationship-building strategies as a means of political communication. Regression analysis of results from the content analysis of state legislators' official homepages (provided by their respective state legislatures) led the researchers to find for the most part, there is still a digital divide when considering the tools available on the legislative homepages that offer constituent relationship-building strategies as well as Internet tools. Constituents in some districts are able to utilize more Internet tools than those who live in others. Age, race and education of the legislators predicted more availability of tools of communication on homepages. Race, income and education of the constituents also predicted that more communication tools were available on legislators' homepages. The results suggest that even when considering the mountain of information available online, there are still some population segments that have online access to specific information relevant to their own districts and some who do not.

Boyd, Ovid Pacific

2008 Information Polity

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eDemocracy political parties are an emerging and radically new form of political party that enables citizen participation in the policy-making process using ICTs. This paper compares the eParticipation systems of four of the first eDemocracy parties (Senator On-Line, Knivsta.Now, Aktiv Demokrati and Demoex) using an eParticipation ontology that describes eParticipation systems according to 1) stages of policy-making, 2) levels of engagement, 3) stakeholders, 4) participation areas, 5) eParticipation tools and 6) emerging technologies. By applying this ontology a great diversity among eDemocracy parties' eParticipation systems was discovered. Two overall categories, proxy politician systems and deliberative community systems, are created to label the current variety of systems. However, even within these overall labels there are substantial differences and several subtypes of proxy politician eParticipation systems are suggested: individualistic systems, citizen-review systems and delegated-leaders systems. Additionally, a multi-channel system may be a variety of the deliberative community eParticipation system.

Meijer, Albert ; Bannister, Frank

2008 Information Polity

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Soeparman, Stefan ; van Duivenboden, Hein ; Wagenaar, Pieter ; Groenewegen, Peter

2008 Information Polity

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In this article we have tried to establish how the nature of professional routines affects the ICT supported standardization and scripting of work performed by operators in Dutch colocated emergency response control rooms. In this type of multidisciplinary emergency control room three professions – police, fire rescue services and ambulance services – share the same technical facilities and are housed under the same roof. In the control rooms under study, efforts to create a more integrated control room are accompanied by a pursuit to further script and standardize operator intake and dispatch routines with the help of ICTs. Findings suggest that important impediments to the ICT supported scripting and standardization of operator intake and dispatch routines are not of a Human-Machine Interface (HMI) nature, but can mainly be attributed to differences in the nature of each of the three disciplines' professional routines themselves. These impediments are primarily related to ostensive as well as performative aspects of distinct sets of routines in the colocated control room.

van Duivenboden, Hein ; Thaens, Marcel

2008 Information Polity

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In this article we will explore the relation between ICT-innovations and the culture of public administration. We will demonstrate that the traditional bureaucratic organizational culture within the public sector often hinders innovation. However, putting this aside, numerous innovations take place within government organizations every day. This paradox leads us to two related questions: How can it be that public innovation takes place even though the culture of public administration makes it unlikely? And, is it possible to develop a more innovative culture within public administration? Based on our exploration we will provide some answers to both of these questions. We then draw the conclusion that the relation between innovation and organizational culture within the public sector is even more complicated than already expected. There seems to be a specific reciprocity between organizational culture and (ICT-) innovation. On the one hand, cultural change is to foster an innovative climate and to bring about successful innovations. On the other hand, successful innovation seems to lead to cultural changes in local organizations. So in practice there is a kind of interplay, an iterative process of mutual influence between innovation and cultural change that points at innovations being successful if they co-evolve with the specific environment in which they come about. With this conclusion we subscribe to Orlikowski's viewpoint of the ‘dialectic nature’ of the interaction of technology with organizations.

Edwards, Arthur

2008 Information Polity

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This paper explores how Dutch councillors used an online forum that was established for communication between citizens and councillors. Councillor participation varied widely across parties and individuals. Councillors vary in their attitudes toward online communication with citizens. These differences are partly attributable to styles of representation. A research strategy based on speech act theory is used to identify these styles. Councillors have outspoken viewpoints concerning anonymity and tone. Personal competences to communicating with citizens effectively online are also important. The paper concludes by presenting a theoretical framework for explaining elected politicians' uses of online forums.

Smith, Colin ; Webster, C. William R.

2008 Information Polity

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This article explores the ways in which information and communications technologies (ICTs) have become embedded within the activities of parliamentarians, by examining the experiences of Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). The article presents an overview of exiting research in this area and suggests that many authors do not take into account the full range of functions and activities undertaken by a modern parliamentarian and consequently cannot fully perceive the extent to which these technologies support parliamentary life. Central to the article is a discussion of new unique longitudinal research data which provides empirical evidence of a significant technological orientation, and an emergent ICT culture, that is the outcome of the intertwined relationship between the adoption and use of new communications technologies by parliamentarians, and the established norms and procedures of parliamentary activity. The research findings presented here highlight the significant role played by new ICTs in the Scottish Parliament and the emerging new democratic system in Scotland. For the new Scottish Parliamentarians interacting with ICT is an important part of their daily life, to the extent that it would not be unreasonable to assert that use of these technologies has become a core parliamentary activity, possibly even to the extent that parliamentarians, and consequently the parliamentary system, have become reliant on the informational and communications capabilities embedded in ICTs. This is because these technologies are supporting a wide range of parliamentary roles and activities, and because they are underpinning a range of communicative relationships in the parliamentary arena and wider polity.

2008 Information Polity

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2008 Information Polity

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