Citizenship in a Digitalized Society: Exploring Administrative Evil in Digital Government
Author(s)
Höglund Rydén, Hanna Sara-Maria
Melchiori, Cintia Ebner
Cunha, Maria Alexandra
Sæbø, Øystein
Date Issued
2024
Type
conferenceObject
Volume
3737
Start Page
1
End Page
12
Journal
Abstract
The public sector introduces digital technologies (DT) to deliver public services and to support the political discourse based on ideas of innovation, cost efficiency, and effectiveness. Current literature reflects on what is needed to succeed in so doing where failure is generally explained as the lack of achieving expected benefits. We here argue for the need to discuss digital technology's potentially harmful effects on citizenship, not only as the absence of achieving what is considered good but as direct negative consequences for citizens. Based on the dimensions of citizenship and the concept of administrative evil, we suggest an analytical approach to identify the harmful consequences of introducing digital technologies in governments. We present an exemplary case from Norway to demonstrate the value of our analytical approach. We argue for the need for more research focusing on exploring the causes and causality of administrative evil to increase awareness of the negative implications of digital public services provision on the dimensions of citizenship.
Conference(s)
EGOV-CeDEM-ePart IFIP 8.5 Conference 2024