Shefali Virkar

Consulting the British Public in the Digital Age: Emerging Synergies and Tensions in the Government 2.0 Landscape

Over the last two decades, public confidence and trust in government has declined visibly in several Western liberal democracies owing to a distinct lack of opportunities for citizen participation in political processes, and has given way instead to disillusionment with current political institutions, actors and practices. The rise of the Internet as a global communications medium has opened up huge opportunities and raised new challenges for government, with digital technology creating new forms of community, empowering citizens and reforming existing power structures in a way that has rendered obsolete or inappropriate many of the tools and processes of traditional democratic politics. Through an analysis of the No. 10 Downing Street ePetitions Initiative based in the United Kingdom, this chapter seeks to engage with issues related to the innovative use of network technology by government to involve citizens in policy processes within existing democratic frameworks in order to improve administration, reform democratic processes and renew citizen trust in institutions of governance.

Trolls Just Want To Have Fun: Electronic Aggression within the Context of e-Participation and Other Online Political Behaviour in the United Kingdom

Over the last two decades, public confidence and trust in Government has declined visibly in several Western liberal democracies owing to a distinct lack of opportunities for citizen participation in political processes; and has instead given way instead to disillusionment with current political institutions, actors, and practices. The rise of the Internet as a global communications medium and the advent of digital platforms has opened up huge opportunities and raised new challenges for public institutions and agencies, with digital technology creating new forms of community; empowering citizens and reforming existing power structures in a way that has rendered obsolete or inappropriate many of the tools and processes of traditional democratic politics. Through an analysis of the No. 10 Downing Street ePetitions Initiative based in the United Kingdom, this article seeks to engage with issues related to the innovative use of network technology by Government to involve citizens in policy processes within existing democratic frameworks in order to improve administration, to reform democratic processes, and to renew citizen trust in institutions of governance. In particular, the work seeks to examine whether the application of the new Information and Communication Technologies to participatory democracy in the Government 2.0 era would eventually lead to radical transformations in government functioning, policymaking, and the body politic, or merely to modest, unspectacular political reform and to the emergence of technology-based, obsessive-compulsive pathologies and Internet-based trolling behaviours amongst individuals in society.

Search Engines and Expertise about Global Issues: Well-defined Landscape or Undomesticated Wilderness?

This chapter investigates the ‘winner-takes-all’ hypothesis in relation to how academic researchers access online sources and resources. Some have argued that the Web provides access to a wider range of sources of information than offline resources. Others, such as Hindman et al. (2003), have shown that access to online resources is highly concentrated, particularly because of how Internet search engines are designed. With researchers increasingly using the Web and Internet search engines to disseminate and locate information and expertise, the question of whether the use of online resources enhances or diminishes the range of available sources of expertise is bound to become more pressing. To address this question four globally relevant knowledge domains were investigated using large-scale link analysis and a series of semi-structured interviews with UK-based academic researchers. We found there to be no uniform ‘winner-takes-all’ effect in the use of online resources. Instead, there were different types of information gatekeepers for the four domains we examined and for the types of resources and sources that are sought. Particular characteristics of a knowledge domain’s information environment appear to determine whether Google and other Internet search engines function as a facilitator in accessing expertise or as an influential gatekeeper.

Information and Communication Technology for Government by Design: The New Digital Media, Actors, Creative Influences, and Fields of Play

Much has been written about the application of the new digital media to government within a growing stream of literature on ICT for development, generating countervailing perspectives where optimistic, technocratic approaches are countered by far more sceptical standpoints on technological innovation. This chapter seeks to, through the use of a case study, unravel the social dynamics shaping e-government projects used to reform public sector institutions. In particular, the research analyses actor behaviour, motivations, and interactions surrounding the conception and maintenance of software platforms facilitating these transformations. The value of such an approach is based on a review of existing ICT and software development literature which tends to be overly systems-rational in its approach and, as a consequence, often fails to recognise the degree to which project failure (viz. the general inability of the project design to meet stated goals and resolve both predicted and emerging problems) is symptomatic of a broader, much more complex set of interrelated inequalities, unresolved problems, and lopsided power-relationships both within the adopting organisation and in the surrounding environmental context.

Information and Communication Technology Platform Design for Public Administration Reform: Tensions and Synergies in Bangalore, India

The recent global proliferation of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) platforms for public sector reform has sparked an increase in an already growing stream of literature on e-government for development, generating countervailing perspectives where optimistic, technocratic approaches are countered by far more sceptical standpoints. The recent upsurge in Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) between national governments and private firms has added a new dimension to this debate, as these projects require the collaborative involvement of different actor groups driven by and responding to differing, sometimes conflicting, value systems and behaviour patterns.

The Impact of the Internet on Global Networks: A Perspective

The last quarter of the twentieth century was a time of significant upheaval. Unprecedented advances in computer technology began to collapse vast geographical distances and differences in time and made it possible for people from different parts of the world to form connections in manner not thought possible before. Centred around information, this technological revolution has today transformed the way in which people around the world think, work, share, and communicate. The rise in the number of non-state actors, particularly the emergence of civil society bodies such as NGOs, and the increase of their political influence has thrown up significant questions about how best the Internet and its associated technologies may be harnessed to aid the activities of such organisations and facilitate the formation of international networks.

Wired for Change?: Information and Communication Technologies Shaping Public Administrative Reform for Development in Karnataka, India

The recent global diffusion of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) has raised expectations for technological change to support socio-economic progress and political reform in the developing as well as the developed world. Much as been written about e-government within a growing stream of literature on ICT for development, generating countervailing perspectives where optimistic, technocratic approaches are countered by far more sceptical standpoints on technological innovation. In seeking to bridge existing gaps in the literature, this article critically examines the role of Information and Communication Technologies in governmental reform processes for development through the presentation of a case study based in the Indian State of Karnataka. The study focuses on a collaboration between the state government of Karnataka and the eGovernments Foundation (a non-profit private sector organisation) between 2002 and 2011, designed to reform existing methods of property tax collection through the establishment of a networked online tax collection system across the municipalities of 56 towns and cities within the state. Through a combination of both qualitative and quantitative data, this paper analyses the interactions between new technologies and changing information flows within the complexities of public administration reform of the given context and, in doing so, examines the interplay of local and external factors and relationships and their role in shaping the implementation of the project at hand.

The Changing Face of Electronic Aggression: The Phenomenon of Online Trolling within the Context of e-Participation in the United Kingdom

Over the last two decades, public confidence and trust in Government has declined visibly in several liberal democracies, giving way instead to disillusionment with current political institutions, actors, and practices; rendering obsolete or inappropriate much of traditional democratic politics. Simultaneously, digital technologies have created huge opportunities for public bodies and agencies. In analysing the No. 10 Downing Street ePetitions Initiative based in the United Kingdom, this chapter engages with issues related to the innovative use of digital network technology by Government to involve citizens in policy processes and to buffer national security within existing democratic frameworks. The work examines whether the application of new digital platforms to participatory democracy in the Government 2.0 era leads eventually to radical transformations in government functioning and the body politic, or merely to modest, unspectacular political reform and to the emergence of technology-based obsessive-compulsive pathologies and trolling behaviours amongst individuals in society.