Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 17th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview II. Working Group on E-government Author(s) Cristi Iftene Ovidius University Constanta Romania Title Modernizing bureaucracy through e-governance in Romania File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract In the 21st century, the most significant means of communication is doubtless the Internet. It has changed the infrastructure of global communication system and has become a potential tool for creating an instant medium that allows for real time social and personal interaction across continents. However, bureaucratic systems have been quite slow to adopt the benefits of information technology, mainly because the basic structures and operations of governance in these countries are still traditional. The use of information technology in any organization means to do more work with fewer people in less time and within a smaller space. Government, as a collector and source of information, may also follow this trend to serve its citizens and to save costs by making internal operations more efficient. E-governance is defined as the application of electronic means for: a) establishing interaction between government and citizens, government and business, and between different levels of government, and b) implementing internal government operations to simplify and improve democratic government and business aspects of governance. The main mission of e-governance is good governance by bringing national, regional and local administrations closer to the common people and providing efficient and effective services (UNESCO 2003). So we can say that the objectives of e-governance are: 1) to provide a friendly, affordable, speedier and efficient interface between government and the people; 2) to ensure greater transparency, efficiency, objectivity, accountability and speed that can help resolve most of the maladies of government by providing efficient services to the public; 3) to provide cost effective service and at the same time improve the quality of services; 4) and to provide a single window for government services at all levels. E-governance is related to the transformation of government structures and organizations into a streamlined framework, by developing the tools and mediums of the Internet, help citizens and business keep pace with new opportunities in today's knowledge economy. So e-governance is a tool to achieve a set of well-defined objectives that collectively work for the betterment of society as a whole. In the present paper the starting point is what might be termed the democratic paradox. On the one hand, more and more European countries can claim to be democracies, and more individuals live within such democracies. As the literature on multi-level governance recognizes, democracy is not simply the province of the nation state but is also practiced and promoted at sub-national and supra-national levels. On the other hand, representative democracy has never been so contested in practice. From growing mistrust in political institutions and politicians through to problems of political participation and engagement at all levels of governance, governments are struggling to address an ever-increasing democratic deficit. This deficit is not simply a problem for mature democracies but is also being experienced by those countries that have arrived at democracy relatively recently. Most democracies in Europe appear to be moving beyond their ‘democratic moment’ to ‘post-democracy’. The implications of ‘post-democracy’ are that the institutions of democracy need to adapt to take account of the changing way in which the public engage in politics. In this brief paper I will argue that the future of democracy in South Eastern Europe is related also to the new developments in e-democracy.
