Responsible researcher: Eduarda Miller de Figueiredo
Authors: Georgios Kontogeorgis and Nikolaos Varotsis
Intervention Location: Greece
Sample Size: 193 UN countries and 31 OECD members
Sector: Public Sector
Variable of Main Interest:
Type of Intervention: Digital Governance
Methodology: Others
Technology has proven to be a great ally in different aspects of daily life, including in relation to public services. Digital governance is the use of this practice of implementing policies in the information sphere. In this article, a comparison of e-governance in relation to OECD and UN countries. The data suggests that Greece scores lowest on the DESI index. Finally, the results demonstrate a significant lag in Greece in terms of digital criteria.
The evolution and dissemination of technology has provided a valuable tool for the world, including public administration. In this way, the term “electronic government” or digital governance was developed. Where digital governance is defined as “the practice of establishing and implementing policies, procedures and standards for the adequate development, use and management of the information sphere” (Floridi, 2018).
In Greece, due to the financial programs of the European Union, an impetus was given to the development of digital governance (Markellos et al., 2014). However, new technologies were not sufficiently disseminated in the country, due to: political failures, deficiencies in planning and programming, and obstacles to the application of new technologies (Tsakanikas et al., 2014). Politicians fail to promote new technologies due to lack of political will, lack of funding programs, lack of state continuity and lack of know-how [1] . In which the obstacles to the implementation of new technologies in the public sector are, among others, the high cost of acquiring information systems and software, as well as the lack of incentives for implementing new technologies (Glyptis et al., 2020).
Digital governance has the benefits of reducing bureaucracy, citizen participation in decisions through digital processes, protecting human rights and increasing transparency. On the other hand, it presents disadvantages such as security problems that violate citizens' privacy and the fact that many citizens are not familiar with the use of new technologies (Erkut, 2020).
Due to the above, this article sought to both discuss the importance of e-governance , as well as explore the degree of establishment and transformation of e-government in Greece (Pedersen, 2018).
For Dawes (2008), electronic government “comprises information and communication technologies (ICTs [2] ) to support public services, government administration, the democratic process and relations between citizens, civil society, the private sector and the State". In other words, digital governance plays an important role in citizen-State relations and the quality of services provided. Thus, e-government has the potential to change state services for citizens and relationships between the public and private sectors (Markellos et al., 2014).
Greek public administration includes:
The authors point out that Greek public administration is distinguished by its bureaucratic style based on the Napoleonic administrative tradition, as well as by the slowness that can lead to inefficiency and e-insufficiency (Featherstone, 2015; Choi and Park, 2018). In which operation is defined by laws, presidential decrees and ministerial decisions, in which each public service operates based on a legislative decree that defines the operating framework and organization of each service.
As can be seen in Figure 1, e-government in Greece is developing, but still well below the European average. However, it is observed that Greek public administration achieves a satisfactory convergence in relation to the provision of cross-border electronic services.
Figure 1: Overall performance of public service provision by country
Source: European Commission (2020)[3]
Figure 2: Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI)
Source: European Commission (2020)
According to the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), Figure 2, Greece is among the lowest scoring states in the European Union. The modernization of Greek public administration in each case is related to political decisions such as the willingness to implement strategic plans for the digitalization of public services, simplification of legislation, and/or review of fiscal and taxation policy. However, efforts have demonstrated that in addition to implementing and investing in new technologies, reform of the public sector, information behavior and a digital development model is necessary (Katsonis and Botros, 2015; Cruz-Jesus et. al, 2016 ).
The aim of this article was to verify the hypothesis about the delay in the evolution of digital governance in Greece. To this end, benchmarking was carried out with indicators that represent different aspects and dimensions of electronic governance or governance involvement, based on internationally comparable data. Verification is based on comparability between pairs of measurement indicators that represent the e-governance .
The data was taken from the UN's E-Government Survey 2020 Digital Government Index 2019 . Therefore, the data covers the 193 countries of the United Nations and the 31 members [4] of the OECD as instruments.
The selection of indicators was made taking into account internationally recognized criteria that cover both dimensions, in terms of services and in terms of technological infrastructure, at the same time that they have a defined coverage and are independent of each other.
Firstly, a comparison was made in relation to the level of e-government performance based on OECD criteria. The results of the comparative analysis show that, while the average for OECD countries is 0.50, Greece is below the average, at 0.35. The weak points of Greek performance are in the “User Oriented [5] ” criterion and in the Proactivity criterion, in both of which Greece achieved 0.13 while the average for OECD countries was 0.47 and 0.42, respectively. . However, Greece recorded a better performance than Sweden, 035 versus 0.26.
Based on the United Nations criteria, in the composite results normalized in the comparative analysis, it was observed that Greece's performance was above the average of the countries. While the average for UN countries was 0.5988, Greece reached 0.8021. However, in this criterion, Sweden achieved a high performance when compared to the OECD criteria. With this, the authors highlight the complexity of the criterion and the importance of taking several criteria into account when examining the level of e-governance .
The effective use of ICTs in digital governance can increase the efficiency of existing work, the quality of electronic services offered, as well as increase the transparency of the general functioning of the government. The findings showed the deficiencies in e-government policies in Greece, suggesting a significant lag in terms of digital criteria.
References
GEORGIOS, Kontogeorgis; NIKOLAOS, Varotsis. Reinstatement Greek E-Governance: A Framework For E-Government Benchmarking, Improvement And Government Policies. Вопросы государственного и муниципального управления , n. 6, p. 103-127, 2021.
[1] Term in English to describe a set of practical knowledge.
[2] ICTs: information and communication technologies .
[3] benchmarking guide for European governments, measuring through the e-governance , which incorporates the development of digital governance by country. To find out more, see: E-Government Benchmark 2020 and Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) 2020 , both in European Commission (2020).
[4] 29 member countries and 4 non-member countries.
[5] User Driven
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