160 likes | 321 Views
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
E N D
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 Problem Problem structure Review Policy options Evaluation Feasibility of options Implementation Policy decision (Parsons 1995: 77)
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
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