Digitally Aided Sovereignty: A Suitable Guide for the E-Government Transformation?

Abstract

We advocate for the adoption of an integrated strategy aimed at achieving increased participation via effective digital public administration services. We argue that it is urgent to understand the integration of participatory approaches from the field of e-democracy in digitalized public administration, as trendsetting e-government implementations are already underway. We base our arguments on the observation that the approaches in e-democracy and e-government seem to be locked into extremes: In e-democracy, (experimental) platforms have failed to create a participative political culture. E-government, in turn, narrowly perceives citizens as customers. Additionally, efforts to increase digital sovereignty have mostly been educational ones that support citizens' self-determined use of the digital but do not address sovereignty via the digital. As a result, digitalized public administration is not achieving its potential to create opportunities for participation during encounters with the administration. Hence, we argue for the adoption of a digitally aided sovereignty as a normative guide for an e-government transformation that strives to create opportunities for participation via the digital.