DIGITALIZATION OF LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT IN THE CONDITIONS OF DECENTRALIZATION REFORM: THEORETICAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL ASPECTS

In: Publičnoe administrirovanie i nacional'naja bezopasnost': Publične adminіstruvannja ta nacional'na bezpeka = Public Administration and National Security, Heft 2(24)

Abstract

The article analyzes the main promising areas of digitalization of local self-government in the context of management science. It is proved that such areas are: opening public information about the activities of local selfgovernment; introduction of e-democracy technologies; digitalization of management processes in local self-government; digitalization of public services by local self-government; introduction of smart technologies into community infrastructure at various levels. The choice of priority depends on the needs and priorities of a particular community and local self-government. As the scope of digitalization widens across society at large, multilevel governance arrangements have become more complex and more consequential to the coherence, performance, and accountability. While this assertion has arguably been true for quite some time, the emergence of Covid-19 has magnified its importance. At the moment, Ukraine already has positive examples of the use of «digital» technologies. The advantages that municipal structures receive from the introduction of digital technologies in their work have been shown. The results show that there is a relationship between the degree of digitalization in a municipality and the perceived satisfaction among its citizens. The findings show that outdated laws and the culture of paper document flows were institutional barriers to the digitalization. Other barriers included non-use of an integrated system implementation approach as well as inadequate and unreliable online access for all the participating units.