Dimitris Christodoulakis et al.
conditions of the citizens. Last, government is heavily influenced by the financial and technological position of the state. The formation of a public policy issues is influenced by factors groups B and C. Respectively, these factors influence government in the legislation generation flow. Or working hypothesis is that each factor influences positively its target action. Therefore, there are several reinforcement loops in the graph. For example, the reinforcement loop policies‐media‐government‐legislation‐policies represent the criticism and pressures usually exercise the media on governments. Another interesting example is related to the factors of group B: the reinforcement loop from policies to technological or economic position of the citizens, which in turn influences government. The extend governments take account of the economic or technological status of the citizens is of cause doubtful. As we are entering the fifth year of the global economic crisis and the debts strangle the economies of many developing countries( TIME 2012), few of the above reinforcement loops are really taken into account by governments around the world.
Furthermore, real world does not contain only reinforcement loops. Factors influence also negatively their target actions and the causal structure contains many rebalancing loops( examples include: lows and procedures that became inactive due to the negative public opinion, procedures that stuck due to lack in appropriate training etc). As mentioned before, for simplicity reason we assume that there are only reinforcement loops, meaning that even negative criticism influence government and force changes in legislation( e. g. replacement or suspension of lows).
3. Governance and e‐Government
After the little acquaintance we have had to system dynamics and their application to government and governance, we turn our attention to e‐Government. Figure 2 is generated from figure 1 by replacing government with e‐Government and incorporating in to the graph the factors of group D. Driven by our experience in the development of e‐Government applications( the authors have participated in the design and implementation of a several e‐Government projects, among them the e‐business‐registry in Greece), we assert that e‐Government should functioning under the same rules as of good governance. In addition e‐Government should provide a set of quality characteristics like these of group D.
Typical reinforcement loop of figure 2 is the E‐Government‐E‐gov apps‐Procedures‐Peoples technology awareness. We assume that an e‐Government application should reflect the people’ s technological background and perception, and as the users become more experienced the application should evolve and extend in functionality. In case this golden rule is not followed the reinforcement loop reverse to rebalancing one, expressing the resistance of the users to adopt and use e‐Government systems.
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CONDITIONS GROUP A State’ s Economy Technology Status Practices
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CONDISIONS GROUP D Content Structure Layout Credibility Reachability Security‐Privacy Personalization |
CONDITIONS GROUP B People ' s Financial situation Technology awareness Traditions History Culture |
CONDITIONS GROUP C Media Private Sector Civil Society Organizations |
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Figure 2: E‐Governance as a causal structure
Every e‐Government application should respect tradition. Hundreds of years of paper communications cannot be changed at once to paperless. As people are used to the traditional communication methods, a sadden change usually creates resistance that may nullify the expected outcome. Similarly, when public administration is forced to use e‐Government systems( sometimes even without training), traditional staff often fill unsecure; keep double archives and work twice as previously.
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