John W. Langford

Rethinking Government-Public Relationships in a Digital World

Abstract Many have argued that new electronic technologies have the potential to transform how governments relate to users of public services. This article explores the limits of e-government as it is being conceived by testing it against three service recipient models: customer, client, and citizen. We argue that despite the opportunities that electronically-based service transformations present for enhancing democratic citizen engagement and the power of clients, the market-inspired customer image is likely to emerge as the most powerful way in which service recipients are characterized and addressed. The business architecture of e-government being installed today in the pursuit of better customer relationship management may also represent a decreasingly attractive medium for client empowerment and democratic interactions between service recipients and government.

Building shared accountability into service transformation partnerships

Governments at all levels in Canada have entered into partnerships with the industry to effect user-focused, cross-agency service integration and multichannel service delivery. This article examines the problem of developing shared accountability mechanisms for public-private service transformation partnerships, which satisfy the demands of new business relationships and traditional democratic governance values. It first explores the widening canvas of collaborative information technology-driven partnerships and then draws on the emerging shared accountability literature and practices to set out five conditions which should be met in the establishment of a shared accountability regime for such partnerships. These criteria statements are used to analyse the accountability provisions of a new partnership between Service BC (the lead service delivery entity for the British Columbia government) and a consortium led by IBM Canada. The most significant shortcoming would appear to be its very limited public dimension. The article ends with a discussion of how that problem might be addressed.

Economic Policy-Making in the Asia-Pacific Region

development. He focusses instead on the major changes resulting from the 1988 Brussels summit, called in response to an emerging EC fiscal crisis. The analysis presupposes that the reader has some acquaintance with the Communitys institutions and with the arcane language of its financial dealings, such as the vital, but sometimes mystifying, distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditures. Those innocent or unsure of such matters, or puzzled by the workings of co-responsibility levies, carryovers and the like, may wish first to consult a primer on the ECs finances.