Suchergebnisse

In many respects, Electronic Government (oreGovernment) is just a new name for theinformatisation of the public sector, which hasbeen going on for several decades now (Lenk1994; van de Donk and Snellen 1998). The useof IT in public administration and in otherbranches of government (including parliamentsand the judiciary) has attained a high level inmany countries of the industrialised world. Butthere was hardly any political interest in thisongoing and almost invisible process ofmodernising government. Especially New PublicManagement as the most important explicitmovement of government reform hardlyrecognised the enabling potential of IT for changingthe work practices and the business processesin the public sector. Its image of IT was one ofan auxiliary tool, to be used for supporting financialmanagement and statistical information.

Results of the research "Quality of communication between citizens and governance using the Internet" are analysedin detail and some comparisons are made on the bases of similar surveys conducted in other countries on a topic ofelectronic governance. Different information evaluation criteria were used in survey describing the communicationbetween citizens and every government institution's group (ministries, local authorities). Those criteria were set inaccordance with international and Lithuanian legal acts. Internet websites of Lithuanian governance institutions,communication between citizens and governance via e-mail was analysed in article too.

Italian government has demonstrated its sensitivity towards innovation by including amodernisation of the country public administration through the application of new ICT technologies amongits political programme priorities. In this article are discussed Italian strategies for the development of theInformation Society, giving especially attention to the development of e-Government and to the learning ofpublic servants, citizens and the general public.

The Lithuanian academic community groundlessly pays little attention to the State security policy, even thoughit was of considerable importance in Lithuania's joining to the NATO and EU. In autumn 2002 the efficiency of thepolicy was positively evaluated in the general context of the country and Lithuania eventually received an officialinvitation to join the structures.The article analyses the Lithuanian State security policy, its peculiarities, development from 1990 to 2002, aswell as provides suggestions for the development periods and gives prognosis on its development perspectives.

Spanish electronic government projects are analysed in this article. These projects are the reduction of pricesfor the Internet connection, information society development, modern tax system in Internet, electronic electionpossibilities and perspectives, "Unified Internet window" project, electronic certificates project, telework establishmentand the perspectives of electronic administration. Spanish electronic government were creating in the realizationof individual projects from the year 1998. Spain is a young and quickly developing European Union state andbecause of this the experience of Spanish e-government projects would be very useful for Lithuania.

Lithuania faces difficult dilemmas in the field of old age security. Aging population, weak bonds betweencurrent wages, salaries and amount of (size of) future pensions causes certain dissatisfactions and risks. They along- side with the pressure of certain interest groups which are interested in possibility to enter financial flows and to take benefits from partial privatization of these flows create certain gnoseological, political and ideological climate surrounding the issue of pension reform. In these circumstances the use of neutral, scientific approach would be helpful. Together with more open, comprehensive, democratic discourse it would add to the rationality, prudence of the decisions concerning the issue.Author of the article argues that the currently functioning pay-as-you-go (PAYG) system together with some shortcomings have its advantages which should not be neglected in the discussion on the pension reforms. On the other hand private pension system based on individual accumulation is not so advantages and effective as its por- trayed by its proponents. It is connected with rather high risk both for individuals and for state. The danger of loss of money in the financial markets in case of downfall of the value of securities and the threat to budgetary stability of the country are two major reasons to refrain from overly enthusiastic attitudes towards private, especially manda- tory, pension funds.The experience of Argentina, Hungary, Poland should caution us against impulsive, non-comprehensive de-cision. West European and especially Scandinavian pattern could serve us a good service.

Deeds and decisions made by Lithuanian politicians and public servants are deserving greater public and mass media attention whenever before.Authors directs readers attention to the aspects of significance of ethics in public administration, characterizes the situation of ethics in contemporaryLithuania. Ethical dimension in Lithuanian politics and administration is underestimated. Lithuania has several laws which define ethical principles forpublic servants, prohibit the conflict of interest etc. Laws without their effective implementation are worthless. Professional code of ethics for politiciansand public servants, ethical education and training could help to create ethical climate and ensure public trust which are very important for democracy.Authors concludes that ethical politics and administration in Lithuania could be reached by formulating ethical strategy on the state level.

Democratic government and public sector modernization presumes equality, majority rule, citizen participation,accountability. Major dimensions of modernization process include management innovations such as totalquality management.The challenges of modern organizations require the objective of the manager. Public sector needs morepeople in managerial roles who can find simplicity and order amidst organizational confusion and chaos.Public organizations dependence on pluralistic decision processes – that is processes through which manydifferent people and groups are likely to be involved in any particular decision – makes the process of managing change in the public sector quite complicated. The classical goal of efficiency and the new public management may become partners in opposing the expansion of citizen participation.

The forms of decentralization, focusing on the main features and differences of these forms, are analyzed in thisarticle. It is shown that each type of decentralization - political, administrative, fiscal, and market - has differentcharacteristics, policy implications, and conditions for success. There are defined the main goals of decentralizationreforms and identified the tools for theirs achievement. Decentralization is considered as a sine qua non not only in thedevelopment of local self-government, but with regard to civil society as a whole and the greatest factor of social change.Decentralization can address poverty, gender inequality, environmental concerns, and the improvement of healthcare,education and access to technology. Moreover, decentralization does not only affect government and civil service, but isconditional on the involvement of community organizations, stakeholders in the private sector, international aidorganizations and citizens. The measurements of decentralization are analyzed too. Since, the standard measures fail totake into account the different degrees of decentralization and the true decision-making authority of sub-nationalinstitutions over revenues and expenditures, there are focusing on the search for more impartial and integrated evaluationindicators.

Despite to the ambiguity of the political processes, the fall of the communist system and the re-establishmentof the independence of Lithuania were closely related. Post – Communist transition in 1992–1996 has unexpectedlyreturned the former communists (Labour Democratic Party of Lithuania) to the Olympus of power. They,having controlled the Seimas (Parliament of Lithuania) and the Government, have performed the reasonable domestic and foreign policy, yet drawn – up by the program attitudes of Sàjûdis. The aims of one political party toimpose political dictate to all other political forces was not accepted by society. The complicated relations betweenruling majority and opposition have stimulated the political polarization of society as well as upgrow of the civicenmity, and so prevented social development of civic society.

The article discusses a successful rearrangement of the economy which was carried out in German FederalRepublic. It's "godfather" became Professor Liudwig Erhard whose personality combined whose theoretical knowledgeand an experience of a head leader of economy. Drastic reforms were performed on his initiative and underhis command. Thanks to these reforms defeated, ruined and disgraced during 10 postwar years Germany threw outideological stereotypes and all schemes of planned economy into the dump of history. Besides that it presented tothe world "an economic miracle" which made Germany a prosperous and powerful state.Socially orientated conception of market economy, always showing its best result during a short period of time,was raised into the rank of official GFR doctrine and become the basis of economic programmer or ChristianDemocrats Alliance.The article tells about the neoliberalism credo's founder – Freiburg's School.Particular attention is paid to Professor Walter Eucken and his social notions. Besides that it discusses thetransformational problem of classical liberalism and shows social guides produced by Erhard.The article pays attention to the role of the state in the terms of social market economy. It discusses the threatsof father state.The article presents Erhard's conception of "formed community" and discusses it's parallels with the opencommunity and legal state.

Seit den 1990er Jahren stossen viele der 2'842 Schweizer Gemeinden, bei der Erfüllung ihrer Aufgaben anLeistungsgrenzen. Als Antwort auf dieses Problem sind im Alpenland mit 7 Millionen Einwohnern durch dieGemeinden unterschiedliche Reformen eingeleitet worden. Der Beitrag fokussiert auf die interkommunaleZusammenarbeit (IKZ) und Gemeindezusammenschlüsse, welche in der Schweiz zu den am Häufigsten verbreitetenReformen gehören. Eine postalische Befragung aller Schweizer Gemeinden und 13 Fallstudien zeigen, dassGemeindezusammenschlüsse tendenziell in leistungsschwachen und in kleinen Gemeinden durchgeführt werden.IKZ ist hingegen bei allen Gemeindetypen verbreitet. Reformwillige Behörden, intensive soziale Kontakte zwischenden Einwohnern der Gemeinden, eine günstige topografische Lage und die Politik der übergeordneten Staatsebenenfördern die Reformfreudigkeit. Nach Zusammenschlüssen und Kooperationen steigt in der Regel dieDienstleistungsqualität. Hingegen findet nur selten eine Entlastung des Gemeindehaushaltes statt. Obwohl dieGemeinen in der Schweiz um einiges kleiner sind als in Litauen, lassen sich auch für den baltischen StaatSchlussfolgerungen ziehen

The Internet intelligence of the Lithuanian government and governmental information accessibility to the wider public are analysed and comparedwith the situation in the EU countries. Based around a standard for EU countries questionnaire, the different Internet activities of the Seimas, thePresident office and Lithuanian ministries are investigated and compared with findings of West European countries. The findings show, that the Seimasand the President office closely approach EU countries average level according to Internet intelligence. The analysis shows however most of Lithuanianministries poorly use Internet feedback from society.

The article covers the project management problems, which will be especially important for the Lithuanianpublic sector after joining the European Union and trying to use the Structural and Cohesion funds investmentssuccessfully. The article provides management principles of Structural and Cohesion funds, typical programmerstructure in national and regional levels, the features of preparation and implementation of programmers and projects.It is necessary to provide more intensive training on project management for all levels of Lithuanian publicadministration.

[First paragraph of Introduction]: In this paper, we investigate the evolving relationship between government and voluntary organizations in Ontario that is occurring in the wake of a prolonged period of funding cuts. The cuts are a manifestation of a major philosophical shift in government-third sector relations. We have already examined the impact of this shift on voluntary organizations in several papers (Foster and Meinhard, 2002; Meinhard and Foster, 2003a & b). We now turn our attention to the government sector and its vision for the future. Keywords: CVSS, Centre for Voluntary Sector Studies, Working Paper Series,TRSM, Ted Rogers School of Management Citation: ; Meinhard, A. G., Foster, M., Berger, I., and Moher, L. (2003). The Evolving Relationship Between Government and the Voluntary Sector in Ontario. (Working Paper Series Volume 2003(2)). Toronto : Ted Rogers School of Management, Centre for Volunteer Sector Studies, Ryerson University.