An Assessment of Rural e‐Government in Romania
Virgil Stoica and Andrei Ilas Department of Political Science, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania virgilstoica @ gmail. com andre. ilas @ yahoo. ca
Abstract: In the last decade, a considerable amount of research materials have been generated, documenting and analyzing e‐Government performance, using a variety of methodological perspectives. However, the administration of central governments and major cities has been the main focus of this research. Much less attention has been paid to rural areas. Despite the fact that rural e‐governance can be more citizen‐centered than national government, provide services effectively, support economic development and encourage civic engagement, rural communities are considered social homogeneous spaces, with a relatively passive or conservative population, and therefore, having little of positive value to contribute to such a transformation as e‐Government is supposed to be. The goal of our research is to assess the level of e‐ Government in Romania’ s rural areas by evaluating five components: security and protection of personal data, usability, content, services offered, and democratic participation. We analyzed 198 webpages. From the five dimensions, actually only two were measurable( usability and content), the rest being almost nonexistent. That allowed us to conclude that Romanian rural e‐Government is in the first level of development.
Keywords: Romanian e‐Government, digital divide, rural e‐government, digital services, digital democracy
1. Introduction
During the last few years, electronic government has been more and more an issue present on the agenda all over the world. However, the administration of central governments and major cities has been the main focus of research. Despite the fact that rural e‐Government can be more citizen‐centered than national government, much less attention has been paid to these areas.
The aim of this paper is to explore and to describe the level of rural e‐Government in Romania. A sample of 198 rural websites were analyzed using five evaluation criteria: security and personal data protection; usability; content; services provided; and citizen participation. The gathered data are explained and interpreted taking into account the Romanian context and the international achievements. Finally, we will make some policy suggestions regarding Romanian e‐Government.
Many authors thought in the 1990s that the implementation of information and communications technology( ICT) would push public administration into a new era. Thus, both governments and individuals would benefit, governmental services being less costly, faster, personalized and accessible at any time from any location. These expectations were only partially confirmed. Actually, a classic issue occurred: the tension between innovation and conservation, a problem which slowed down the adoption of the new technologies( Lanzara, 2 009).
It is important to remember that ICT emerged into a favourable environment. The 1990s were dominated by New Public Management( NPM), the administrative theory that was supposed to make governments“ work better and cost less”, but there was growing discontent with NMP( Denhardt, 2008). Many scholars were attracted by the many advantages of ICT, especially because of its initial ideological neutrality. For their part, the political actors were also quick to recognise the technology itself as a political object( Barry, 2001). In this context, a new administrative paradigm has slowly been crafted around ICT and, a few years ago, lead authors in the e‐Government field felt entitled to proclaim the death of NPM( Dunleavy et al., 2006). The next step in this evolution seems to be the transition from e‐Government to digital governance ‐ a higher level of e‐ a dministration designed to“ provide multi‐channel two‐way service delivery to all citizens”( Milakovich, 2012).
While the change of administrative paradigm is remarkable, it is also important to note that large parts of the global population have rather limited access to e‐technologies. This new phenomenon, coined as“ d igital d ivide”, has been observed through comparisons between countries, but also within countries( ITU, 2011).
During the last decade, an impressive number of researches documented and analysed the e‐Government performance of national governments, regions and large cities. The researches indicated that a number of factors are influencing the use of ICTs. For instance, the presence of Internet connections at home is influenced by
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