Development and Implementation of E-Government Services in Turkey: Towards a More Citizen-Oriented Public Administration System

Introduction

Extensive use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has serious implications for all sectors throughout the world. This is especially true for the public sectors of almost every country. With the use of ICTs in governmental services, citizens have been enjoying better quality services, in an efficient and effective manner, through connection to the internet, anywhere and anytime.

Most western governments have been focusing on “citizen centric delivery of public services” for more than a decade. Movements to reform government put citizens first, raise accountability issues, apply performance management techniques, and launch quality-awareness-raising campaigns for making governments more citizen-centric. Electronic government (e-government) applications can be seen from the same perspective as well. The potential of ICTs to provide citizen-centered public services and to yield citizen satisfaction have great importance here. With the use of ICTs in the government sector, and by putting citizens in a central place in the delivery of public services, there is a high potential for transforming the relationship between citizens and government (Information Society Commission, 2003).

These developments have considerable impact on the government sector in terms of its operation and functionality. This impact has reached a point where the major or driving philosophy and the rules of the public sector need to change accordingly as well. However, without making government citizen centric, one cannot talk about citizen-centric e-government applications (Junge et al, 2006). Therefore, a more holistic approach should be taken towards the public sector, if one wants to succeed in making government more citizen-centered.

Despite the ever-increasing expansion and use of ICTs in the government sector, there does not seem to be sufficient literature on the topic focusing on citizen perspectives. As discussed by Wang et al, (2005) “little effort has been placed in evaluation of government service provided through the Web”. Moreover, assessing the needs of citizens regarding e-government, and measuring their satisfaction regarding electronic services do not seem to be receiving great consideration from researchers.

Mostly, current research emphasizes frameworks or models that explain the development and advancement of e-government systems according to certain maturation or sophistication stages. Accordingly, generally, e-government systems follow a maturation and sophistication path that starts with basic information-provision and improves with the incorporation of more interactive services into the system. On this sophistication path, content management of the information as well as evaluation of the user satisfaction regarding service quality holds a profound place.

Therefore, citizen-centered e-government applications, where a system of content management is in place, and satisfaction from e- services are measured to reflect anticipated needs of citizens, should be the center of attention in e-government applications. Accordingly, this chapter focuses on e-government applications and their relations to citizen-centric public service provision taking place. Especially, two concepts of e-government, content management system and measuring citizens’ satisfaction from e-services, are underlined to achieve more citizen-centric e-government.

The issues covered are especially crucial for Turkey, a country where the needs and expectations of the citizens must be addressed satisfactorily in its administrative system. This situation makes a reform or a major restructuring effort a requirement in Turkey, where ICT use by public organizations has reached a high level. Therefore, after giving a theoretical background first on e-government, and content management, and then measuring e-service satisfaction, new developments regarding these concepts are discussed. By relating these experiences and information, it is hoped that in e-government applications a more general and a broader view is taken to reflect the needs and expectations of citizens seriously.