E-Government, Strategic Planning and Co-Production: Can Technology Promote Greater Citizen Engagement in a Rapidly Changing and Turbulent World: the University Response

Abstract

Any large city mayor or public administrator has a sense that the world with which his/her city must interface is turbulent and changing exponentially faster. Advancing communication, transportation and other technologies have made the people of the world increasingly interconnected. Immediate crises such as financial collapse, pandemics, climate change and military tensions bring the negative side of this global phenomenon to the fore. Nevertheless, even in their absence, other incipient, but persistent, and portentous issues are increasingly demanding of public action. Simultaneously, pressure to engage all citizens in public policy debates and decision-making is growing and becoming central to trust in government and the survival of democracies.The collision of the two forces, turbulence v. demand for increasing public debate and involvement, gives further salience to the notion that science-based technologies are charging ahead while the development of social technologies, such as democratic institutions, are lagging.This paper looks at several approaches to citizen engagement: co-production, asset-oriented public management, strategic planning, and participatory modeling. It then addresses various forms of e-governance and investigates how new technologies might be used to expand and improve citizen engagement while allowing the government to deal with the more turbulent environment. Some criticisms and cautions are listed. Finally, the paper investigates how well higher education in public administration is responding to the collision through the offering of specialized courses and programs. The methodology was to catalog the course offerings of the top ranked PA programs. The conclusion is that these programs are not adequately responding to the issues presented in this paper.

Keywords

• turbulence
• e-government
• co-production
• asset-oriented
• strategic
• engagement.