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e-government as an enabler of public management reform: The case of Switzerland
Abstract
Governmental reform has been on Switzerland's political agenda since the 1970s. In the 1990s, the ideas of NPM (New Public Management) spread quickly within the Swiss public sector. From the mid 1990s, the three levels of government also began experimenting with electronic government. Ten years later these experiments have matured and Switzerland is regularly ranked among the top countries for the implementation of electronic government. It is possible to link these eGovemment experiments and projects to some of the ideas and promises of NPM, such as customer orientation, seamless interaction between levels of government, businesslike management, and better transparency of public affairs. By means of ten examples, this paper illustrates how eGovemment has become one of the most meaningful agents of government transformation and modernisation at the beginning of the 21(st) century, at least in Switzerland.
... In addition to cultural differences, Swiss and Azerbaijani public administrations differ in terms of the introduction of innovations such as e-government. While Swiss public administrations at all three institutional levels (federal, cantonal, and municipal) have been experimenting with e-government since the 1990s (Chappelet, 2004), its introduction in Azerbaijan is more recent and is at very different stages of implementation depending on the ministry (Guliyeva & Rzayeva, 2018). By examining these questions on the basis of a comparison of two types of public administrations that were at different stages of innovation before the outbreak of the pandemic, it can be observed whether the covid-19 crisis had an accelerating effect on the introduction of innovations or even a transforming effect on the culture of innovation within public administrations. ...
... As mentioned in the introduction, this study is based on a comparison of two countries at different stages of e-government innovation before the outbreak of the covid-19 crisis (Chappelet, 2004;Guliyeva & Rzayeva, 2018). In so doing, it can be observed whether the covid-19 crisis (independent variable) had an accelerating effect on the degree of innovation (dependent variable), or even transformed the innovation culture (dependent variable) within public administrations. ...
... Although this study was unable to determine precisely the degree of innovation in the two public administrations examined at the time before the covid-19 pandemic, previous studies (Chappelet, 2004;Guliyeva & Rzayeva, 2018) indicate that, at least as far as e-government is concerned, there was a certain time lag. However, as suggested by Seker et al. (2023), the crisis has clearly acted as a "game changer" and, despite the danger of a certain degree of bureaucracy (Degerman, 2021;Sciulli et al., 2015), has led the two public administrations to very quickly introduce or reinforce the use of technological innovations that make it possible to maintain interactions within the public administration, but above all also between the public administration, on the one hand, and citizens and companies, on the other. ...
Based on a comparison between Swiss and Azerbaijani public administration units, we examine the extent to which the crisis relating to the 'covid-19' pandemic had an accelerating effect on the introduction of innovations and a transforming effect on the innovation culture. While the accelerating effect can be affirmed, the transforming effect is denied. Contrary to the findings of a previous study, carried out in non-crisis times, the successful introduction of innovations did not have a significant effect on the innovation culture. It is therefore hypothesised that this different finding can be explained by the circumstances of the (non-)crisis. Future studies should examine this hypothesis and expand on the present exploratory study.
... B. Steiner, 2000;Bonoli, 2001;Hofmeister und Borchert, 2004;Lienhard, 2006). International relevante Grundlagenbeiträge anhand Schweizer Forschung sind praktisch nur in den letzten Jahren zu erkennen (Rieder und Lehmann, 2002;Schedler, 2003;Chappelet, 2004;Emery, 2004;Ritz, 2009). ...
... Mit nur wenig Verzögerung nach dem NPM wurde in der Schweiz -ebenfalls interdisziplinär, diesmal aber vorwiegend zwischen Politik, Management und Technologie -eine neue Welle an Informations-und Kommunikationstechnologie im Public Management diskutiert: das Electronic Government. Für viele geht E-Government und Modernisierung der Verwaltung ineinander (Chappelet, 2004;Summermatter, 2006), die beiden Aspekte helfen sich gegenseitig in ihrer Entwicklung (Schedler und Schmidt, 2004). Obwohl der Bundesrat zu Beginn noch das Ziel vorgab, die Schweiz müsse weltweit führend im E-Government sein, zeigte sich rasch, dass unser Land den Anschluss an die Entwicklung verpasste. ...
Open Access - The interconnectedness of government organizations through data-exchange is proliferating. This is relevant for many debates in public administration today since all applications of data-driven government rest on a foundation of data. In this article, rather than focusing on specific applications, we analyze the way supra-organizational data-exchange shapes such applications and specifically automated administrative decision-making (AADM). We argue that the whole of bureaucracy that is connected through data-exchange implies the organizational separation of the collection or gathering of government data from the exchange, modification, combination and/or analysis and subsequently its (re)use in decision-making processes. To analyze the consequences of this new division of labor we further develop the concept of the infrastructure-level bureaucracy and formulate hypotheses on its consequences for data itself, organizations, and citizens. Ultimately, we argue infrastructural information flows pose challenges for democratic control and for procedural lawfulness in the constitutional state.
Government use of the internet - e-government - varies considerably in its degrees of sophistication. This article explores the spatiality of e-government in Europe. It first situates the topic within wider theorizations of geographies of cyberspace. Second, it reviews e-government and its implications. Third, it turns to the digital divide in Europe. Fourth, it maps national e-government readiness and e-participation scores and correlates them with socio-economic measures. Fifth, it provides several overviews of successful West European e-government programs. It concludes by emphasizing that e-government must be approached geographically in a manner tailored to different national contexts.
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