International Perspectives of E-Government? Yes Please

Regarding E-Government, there have been loads of articles from the international community and their respective experiments, in fact when it comes to E-Government, the International community is "Top Dog" compared to the United States? How much so?

Well the UN creates an "E-Government" Survey every two years, recording the international community's development of E-government systems, as well as participation. The end result? For the year 2016 the top 10 developing systems and top 11 participative systems are all international countries, The US appeared on both tables nearing the bottom of the top 10 and 11 in 2014, but that was the last time it has appeared, we are currently 12th (UN, 2017). Now why is that? well, possibly due to the some of the advantages that this system can bring compared to some of the safeties the US might possibly have.

These two areas? Costs, and Corruption. While both are still major issues in the US, they both have proved to be serious benefits of an E-Government system. So much so that a study of users interaction and costs done in London found tremendous differences in use and price, with self-service on a website being found to overshadow usage of face to face and call center interaction combined, while doing it at only .25 pounds a visit compared to the face to face 14.65 and the call center's 1.39!

Stories, such as fighting corruption are also prevalent in some countries, with one event in Macedonia noting that e-government tools and regulations involved in making an automated standardization of fees for cross-board licenses applications actually lower in cost due to the account of no corruption involved in the process from a physical representative, just a mouse click.

Two great advantages, and if you think they are worth it...well you are right, it is so great that the top countries embracing the E-Government boom are....

Whelp...I don't think these countries have any cost or corruption issues, except Italy

So for the US to not be one of the top 10 or 11 countries, but rather outside the table is quite puzzling, these are all rich western culture countries (except Singapore, Japan, and to an extent S.Korea) that have all embraced the turnover to these new digital technologies, and the citizens of these countries are active in them!

Does the US have a motivation problem? I would love to hear your thoughts!

If you want to check out this awesome interactive graph showing each countries' e-government index, click here!

Works Cited:

Perera, D. (2008, October 2). Fighting Corruption Through E-Government. Retrieved from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/business/worldbusiness/03iht-EGOV03.1.17420751.html

The Economist. (2008, Feb 14). The Good, The Bad and the Inevitable: The Pros and Cons of e-Government. Retrieved from The Economist: http://www.economist.com/node/10638105

United Nations. (2017). UN E-Government Knowledge DataBase. Retrieved from United Nations: https://publicadministration.un.org/egovkb/en-us/Reports/UN-E-Government-Survey-2016