Suchergebnisse

There are no simple answers when it comes to explaining what information technologies would change in public management. Conceptually the electronic government is a rather new research field, therefore it lacks universally accepted definitions & causal models. Therefore this article attempts to make a contribution in theoretical terms: it develops the idea that technologies provide an impetus towards development of a new institutional public management model, which is fundamentally different from the traditional rational bureaucracy & New Public Management. Having defined the main features of the IT-based model, the article discusses the possible mechanism of change -- ie., to what extent within this mechanism the IT can be considered an independent variable? Adapted from the source document.

The contemporary information & communication technologies (ICT) will not, by themselves, resolve the issues, faced by Lithuanian public administration in designing & implementing its policies. This is the major argument of the article, supported by the available empirical information & various secondary sources. Why the bureaucracy, which is often considered as being slow, inflexible & inertic should suddenly change due to the mere fact of ICT being purchased & installed? The answer is often based on some intuitive logic, which is called in this article the "ideal model of e-government." The first of the assumptions in this model claim that the public sector has the right skills to select the relevant technology. The next assumption is that once the technology is installed, it will be used competently & open-mindedly -- with the right capacities, motivations & leaders available to do that. In turn, if the technology is used competently, one can indeed expect improvements in public policy making & implementation: organizational change, better inter-institutional co-operation, development of e-services, etc. Notably, many ICT projects in the public sector fail & Lithuania is no exception in this respect. The investment does not necessarily lead to a meaningful organizational change, it does not enhance co-operation between institutions & does not improve communication & trust between the citizens & the state. Surely, the e-government is a rather new development, so one should hardly expect that all the visions will be successful outright. However, while at least some of the major problems may be anticipated in advance, the solutions are not always clear-cut. In order to take a full advantage of the ICT potential in the public sector, a clear choice of an actual model of public administration is necessary. Here a number of classic dilemmas may be identified -- regarding the relations between the public & the private sectors, internal control within the organization, sharing of responsibilities between organizations, etc. It is argued in the article that the answers to these questions in Lithuania are clear only in the official strategies & statements. Meanwhile the practice shows, that the relations between the public & the private sector are unbalanced, organizations lack the culture of critically assessing their achievements, institutions are carefully avoiding "interference" from outside into their internal matters & government is far from being conceived as a "service" to the citizens. It is also noted, that the differences between the official rhetoric & the practice may well be explained by the experience of both the soviet period as well as the accession to the EU: the institutions developed the skill of flexible adjustment to the dominant discourse without finding it necessary to change the essence of policy process. All in all, while the ICT do provide opportunities for improvement of public management, in order to take a full advantage of these opportunities it is necessary to resolve some of the classical dilemmas of public administration. In order to do that, some deeper changes of attitudes, values, & culture are necessary both in the public sector as well as in the society at large. Therefore, notwithstanding the expectation of the big change towards modernization of public sector the old saying of "plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose" is applicable for estimating the potential of the ICT to change the public sector. Adapted from the source document.

The major question for this article is to what extent the implementation of the Lisbon strategy contributed to public policy change in Lithuania. The analysis is based on an overall discussion of experience in preparation & implementation of the National Program for Implementation of the Lisbon Strategy 2005-2010. Also, two case studies are conducted in the fields of active labor market policy & R&D policy. The overall conclusion is that Lisbon strategy is still to a large extent a missed opportunity. The article argues that perhaps the most important among the lost opportunities is the fact that the National Lisbon program has not became a catalyst for policy reform. Furthermore, the national Lisbon program has not yet found a well-defined place among other major national strategies in Lithuania. Finally, the program has only partially contributed to the improvement of strategic planning framework in Lithuania & to a better co-ordination of horizontal policies. Adapted from the source document.

Implementation of government commitments is one of the most relevant issues of public policy studies. A gap between electoral pledges, government priorities and their practical execution brought disappointment in many democratic countries and attracted significant attention from public policy researchers. This article elaborates a theoretical framework and sets several hypotheses for analysing the process of implementing performance priorities of the Lithuanian government and achieving their results. It argues that public policy decisions can be best explained by the interaction of advocacy coalitions in different policy subsystems. A public policy research agenda focused on the analysis of government commitments can be also applied to assessing how specific political priorities or other policy decisions are carried out in Lithuania and other democratic states, as well as to explaining successes and failures of their implementation process. Causal process tracing can be employed for the within-case and between-case analysis of policy studies. Theoretically developed and empirically rich policy studies following this research agenda would provide interesting insights on policy implementation to researchers, politicians, civil servants, various policy stakeholders, and even citizens. Adapted from the source document.