Government in the Digital Society: Shaping Participation

Dear Colleagues,

The past two decades have brought significant investments globally in the connection of government services to networked and web-based channels, through which government agencies, connected organisations, and citizens can interact. Much of this investment has been targeted on increasing efficiencies, lowering transaction costs, and improving governmental engagement with the wider populace. Initially, similar to multiple domains (e.g., healthcare and private enterprise), service transformation occurred with limited identification of targeted benefits; therefore, a significant amount of investment internationally has been wasted in initiatives that fail to substantially impact on government operation. Indeed, the movement of some services has led to concerns related to inclusive engagement, cultural change, population manipulation, and the perceived removal of front-line services. However, in a range of contexts, it is clear that benefits can be realized.

Success in connected government services can be seen across multiple different areas. From a transparency perspective, the connection of government documents, recorded governmental meetings, open data, and items such as taxation services, can lead to improvements in trust in government. The enablement of digital transactions can lead to improvements not just in public cost and transactional speed, but can also lead to reductions in transactional complexity for organisations and citizens. Furthermore, platforms facilitating greater government to citizen and/or citizen to government engagement can help to encourage collections of individuals to engage with government services in ways beyond what was possible in physical face to face scenarios, and at their best can lead to government-facilitated or citizen-facilitated participatory action designed to ensure the betterment of local or national populaces.

Therefore, it is important to continue to explore how the development of government digital services are impacting on global environments and helping to shape our societal constructs as we move through this century. This Special Issue will explore how government is being shaped in the digital society, engaging with both the challenges presented by connected government services and the wider societal benefits that such changes can and are facilitating. We are seeking submissions which will focus on research that demonstrates the impact of the transformation of government services through an understanding of quantitative and/or qualitative data and engagement with a wide range of service users, including governmental, organizational, and citizen users.  This will enable further critical engagement with the impact of government in the digital society, allowing us to determine how we might best shape service offerings in our governmental futures.

Relevant contributions to this issue may include (but are not limited to):

• Demonstration of service value in a range of different contexts.
• The public value of governmental digital services.
• Public relations of government in a digital society.
• Participation with government through digital services.
• The barriers and benefits of connected governments.
• Societal risks from a governmental perspective in a connected world.
• Future government services.
• eAdministration versus eDemocracy—what does the ‘e’ enable?
• Trust in connected government contexts.
• The impact of connected services on transparency.
• Stakeholder perspectives on connected government services.
• The use and value of social media to government, organisation, and citizen communication.

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Administrative Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• e-government
• connected government
• e-participation
• public value
• digital services
• social media