What is the role of New Generation of ICTs in transforming government operation and redefining State-citizen relationship in the last decade?

Abstract

This article first introduce a new government initiative emerging after the US presidential election in 2008. Comparing to the more descriptive definitions of e-government, supporters of these new government initiatives emphasize the transformative and normative aspect of the newest generation of Information and Communication Technology (ICTs). They argue that the new initiative redefines how government should operate and transform state-citizen relationships. To understand the core of this initiative and whether it offers new opportunities to solve public problems, we collected and analyzed research papers published in the e-governance area between 2008 and 2017. Our analysis demonstrates that the use of new generation of ICTs has promoted the government information infrastructure. In other words, the application of new ICTs enables the government to accumulate and use a large amount of data, so that the government makes better decisions. The advancement of open data, the wide use of social media, and the potential of data analytics have also generated pressure to address challenging questions and issues in e-democracy. However, the analysis leads us to deliberate on whether the use of new generation of ICTs worldwide have actually achieved their goal. In the conclusion, we present challenges to be addressed before new innovative ICTs realize their potential towards better public governance.