E- government in Turkey: An Instance of Good Governance Hatice Hande Orhon Ege University Bialystok

E- Government in Turkey:

An Instance of Good Governance

Hatice Hande Orhon

Ege University

Bialystok

2010

E- Government in Turkey: An Instance of Good Governance
Abstract

Good governance can be defined as a concept including all required principles (like transparency, accauntability, consistency, fairness, openness, respect to law and efficiency) to maintain a democratic governance. Technology development with the globalisation trends has become one of the most important transformers all around the world. Therefore, the state structure, governance and of course the relationship between state and the citizens are also affected by those developments. Hence, information and communication technologies has to be used for providing better servicing for making better regulations and also for improving its policy making functions. E-government is one of the most important examples of such sorth of development. When objectives of good governance and e- government (transparency, accountability, consistency, fairness, openness…) evaluated together, it is seen that their objectives are the same ones. Since e-government is a systematic way to balance the relations of citizens, state officials and also businness, non governmental organizations, it is important for public, for state and also for private sector and civil society.

Turkey, as a developing country, has tried to create some technics to improve its governance criterias. One of the most important examples of those tries is the e government project starting from 1990s. Turkey has made a great progress after that date in implementing e government project. Thanks to E-Government Portal, 183 different services related with 26 instutions mostly tax, military and police service, is given in an integrated structure directly to the Turkish citizens. Turkey is not completely worse than European Union avarage but the main problem of Turkey related with e- governance, the limited amount of household internet use cannot be forgotten. Indeed, Turkey had great progress both using communication and information technologies and internet use; has still lots of responsibilities to realise for making e- government project more efficient. Turkey as an developing country is not complate its democratization process ( even its a endless process, relative to EU) but, it does not mean that Turkey is a authoritarian country, Even Turkey has some problems related with good governance Turkey had and going to have great progress in this sense. On the other hand, it is impossible to argue that the e- government project is the only indicator for the Turkey's democratization. All of the other examples should be considered complitely as a part of complex process.


Introduction

When the concept “governance” which is not new but fashionable nowadays, considered the question of what is good or what is bad for governance become an important contaversial subject. This paper is focused on the e-government project in Turkey in accordance with the good governance. For that reason, first of all it is required to evaluate the “good governance”. In this section, especially the questions of what is good governance, what are the important components of good governance will be replied. Then, the importance of e-government project will be examined. For which reasons e-goverment is an explanatory instance for good governance is one of the points that will be focused on. Lastly, the e-government project in Turkey will be examined in detail.

When the official definitions of governance made by some international organizations like World Bank, OECD, UNDP analysed, the definitions are not identical is seen.However, there are also common points in the definitions. For instance, according to World Bank governance is the way of exercising power in managing eonomic and social resources of a country. For OECD, “concept of governance denotes the use of political authority and exercise of control in a society in relation to the management of its resources for social and economic development.” According to UNDP governance which includes mechanisms, processes and instutions that citizens can articulate their interest is exercise the economic, social and administrative authority to manage all affairs of an country. ¹ Therefore, it is obvious that governance and the terms power, authority, management, countries' resources are considered all together. In this sense the relationship between citizens and the state become very determining in terms of governance and this is the point which makes the governance bad or good.
It is possible to evaluate the meaning of “good governance” in three main levels: systemic, political and administrative. Systemic level shows the democratic capitalist regime which means minimal state as a part of the wider governance of new world order. Even political level presupposes this kind of regime it is more than just a type of a regime. It also includes legitimacy, authority, distinct legislative, executive, juridical powers and puluralist polity. For administrative level good governence is efficient, independent, accauntable and open public service.²

Since “good governance” includes universal protection of human rights, non discriminatory laws, efficient impartial and rapid judical process, transparent public agencies, accauntability for decisions by public officials, devolution of decisions and decision making to local levels from the capital, meaningful participation by citizens in debating public policies and choices, ıt cannot be reduced to simple symbols of democracy like multiparty elections, a judiciary and a parliament. ³ Hence, the good governance can be defined as a concept including all required principles (like transparency, accauntability, consistency, fairness, openness, respect to law and efficiency) to maintain a democratic governance.⁴ In other words the strict relation between the good governance and democratic principles cannot be denied.

1. E- Government

As noted above, to understand the e-government project, firstly the definition and aim of e- government must be clarified. It ıs possible to make the definition of e- government as “use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to provide public goods and services to citizens.” ⁵ “The use of information technology to free movement of information to overcome the physical bounds of traditional paper and physical based systems or the use of technology to enhance the access to and delivery of government services to benefit citizens, business partners and employees”⁶ are the other definitions for e- government. Technology development with the globalisation trends has become one of the most important transformers all around the world. Therefore, the state structure, governance and ofcourse the relationship between state and the citizens are also affected by those developments. This is why it is required to analyse the information and communation technologies. Technologic development are directly related with the oprerational activities of a state to make them more effective and more efficient by implementing e- portals, e- taxes, e-forms and e- voting...⁷

However, technologic developments are an important transformer only when state has reached enough capacity to maintain and promote and also use those technologies with regard to state affairs. Therefore, information and communication technologies has to be used for providing better servicing for making better regulations and also for improving its policy making functions.⁸ For maintaining good governance government also has to seek the answers of some questions like how can new technologies facilitate the relationship between ctizens and elected officers, how can informatic technologies facilitates maintenance of active citizenship, how can political parties and pressure groups organise themselves to become more efficient.⁹ All of these questions are important with regard to relation between promoting democracy and good governance. Because e- government, whether practised succesfully, can include important advantages for promoting democracy.
The objectives of e- government required to be examined. Because, determination of the governments' motivation while implementing e-government methods are important for also the determination of the success of this method. The objective of e- government can be defined as engage, enable and empower the citizen by the dimensions of e-Participation, eVoting, e-Transparency, e-Accountability...¹⁰ However, it is impossible to say that e-government is just some web sites related with public administration. On the contrary e- government has really imoprtant and long term objectives. For instance, the strategic objective of the e- governmwnt is to support and simplify governance for both citizens and government and also for businesses.¹¹ But also this explanation is not sufficient to understand the aims of e- governmet. Because objectives of this project should be analysed into two main parts: internal objectives and external objectives.
The internal objectives are “to facilitate a speedy, transparent, accountable, efficient and effective process for performing government administration activities. Significant cost savings (per transaction) in government operations could be the result.”¹² The external objectives can be named as “to fulfil the public’s needs and expectations satisfactory on the front-office side, by simplifying the interaction with various online services. The use of ICT in government operations facilitates speedy, transparent, accountable, efficient and effective interaction with the public, citizens, business and other agencies.”¹³

As seen all above explanations and definitions, e- government method in state affairs have lots of benefits not just meterial but also relational. Because e- government is a systematic way to balance the relations of citizens, state officials and also businness, non governmental organizations. Therefore it is important for public, for state and also for private sector and civil society. The technologic developments are the engine of e-government but not enough for a succesful e- government implemetation. Since, the way of using resources is imoprtant as much as the amount and quality of resıurces. For that reason e- government and democracy relation need to be consider at least two times. Even if it is impossible to deny the possible constructive effects of e- government on promoting and streghting democracy some politicians are suspicious about e- government and argued that the contributions of e- government to democratization is not much more than the contributions of television to do so and noted some risks like the protection of private informations.¹⁴

Whether, good governance is defined as exercise of economic, political, and administrative authority to better manage affairs of a country at all levels, then it is obvious that the aims of good governance and aims of e- government are consistent but there are also imortant determinants for the succes of e government as instance for good governance. Those are: Political stability (democracy or dictatorial regime), adequate legal frame work, level of trust in government (perception of service levels), the importance of government identity (fragmentation or integration economic structure (education, agriculture, industry or service) government structure (centralized or decentralized) different levels of maturity (weakest part of the chain determines speedl constituent demand (push or pull).¹⁵


2. E- Government in Turkey

Turkey's satellite and cable tv operator named TURKSAT defines e- government as transformation of state services from bureaucratic systems to electronic systems. The services that are given faster and reliable are defined as e- services and all those services are e- government.¹⁶ To identify the e- government implementation in Turkey first of all it is required to take a look to the history of the process. The development of e-government in Turkey has incrementally realised. It ıs possible to evaluate the development in 3 main terms: The term that focused to improvement of strategies by the contrubutions of scholars, civil society, public and private sector (1990s – 2000), the term that arranging plans to realise those strategies (2000- 2002) and the term that focused on the modernization on public administration by implementing e-government as a tool. (2002-...)¹⁷

In 1990s with the creation of knowledge based economy that take their roots from higher value added production has gave rise to some initiatives in terms of e- government like Internet tax project of the Ministry of Finance and the central population management system.¹⁸ In the second term which can be characterized with economic and political unstability even if the government has supported e- government projects there was not any important implementation example.¹⁹ After 2002 with the new single party government “The Urgent Action Plan” including E-Transformation Turkey Project” has put into effect. According to that plan: ²⁰

1. Policies, laws, and regulations regarding ICT will be re-examined and changed if necessary, with respect to the EU acquis; e-Europe+ Action Plan, initiated for the candidate countries, will be adapted to Turkey.

2. Mechanisms that facilitate participation of citizens to decision-making process in the public domain via usage of ICT will be developed.

3. Transparency and accountability for public management will be enhanced.

4. Through increased usage of ICT, good governance principles will be put in place in government services.

5. Widespread usage of ICT will be enhanced.

6. Public IT projects will be coordinated, monitored, evaluated and consolidated if necessary in order to avoid duplicating or overlapping investments.

7. Private sector will be guided according to the above-mentioned principles.

Even if the years between 2003 and 2006 was relatively succesful in terms of e-government there were also emerging difficulties like improvement of capacities by ministries to make logic investments that will prevent the low return independent investments, and information systems.²¹ And the establishment of e-Government Portal, operating and managing the tasks and responsibilities, No. 26 145 of the Official Gazette dated 04.20.2006 which entered into force, the Council of Ministers Decision No. 2006/10316 dated 24/03/2006 of the Prime Minister on behalf of the Ministry of Transportation authority is given.²²
Turkey has made a great progress after that date in implementing e government project. Information Society Strategy²³ has noted 7 fundemantal strategic priorities with regard to Turkey's transformation process into an information society:²⁴

1. Social Transformation: ICT Opportunity for all

2. ICT Adoption by Businesses: Competitive advantage to businesses through ICT

3. Citizen-focused Service Transformation: Delivery of public services at high standards

4. Modernization in Public Administration: Public administration reform supported by ICT

5. A Globally Competitive IT Sector: IT sector active as an international player

6. Competitive, Widespread and Affordable Telecommunications Infrastructure and Services: The opportunity of high quality and affordable broadband access to all segments of the society

7. Improvement of R&D and Innovation: New products and services in conformity with the demands of global markets
One of the most important fruits of those studies, e-Government Portal, is required to be examined. As an important step to improving life quality and to transforms public services into global standarts E- Government Portal, maintains fast, reliable, uninterrupted access by using internet and mobile technologies. This project aiming to give more transparent, more efficient, and cheaper public services, maintains new relations between governmet and citizen, government and businness and government and other governments. Therefore, becoming cınsistent with the European Union Standarts and giving 7/24 service to the citizens need to be noted among objectives.²⁵ For the usage of that portal every citizen has a private code and need to use their own identity numbers. Citizens have the opportunity to follow their transactions and can be informed.²⁶ The benefits of that portal can be explained with regard to government and citizens. Citizens can regulate their relations with instutions in a faster, more reliable manner and without vasting time. State can both modernize its operation style and gains financial profit by using time and resources efficiently.²⁷
Thanks to E-Government Portal, 183 different services related with 26 instutions mostly tax, military and police service, is given in an integrated structure directly to the Turkish citizens. However, even if the goal of government is, increasing the amount of citizens using e- government to the half of whole population until 2013; the number of the citizens who applied to take the passwords is 246.000, means just the %0.3 of the whole population.²⁸
Besides those informations related with the progress in Turkey comparison of EU and Turkey will be very meaningfull. When evaluated it can be seen that Turkey is not completely worse than European Union avarage but the main problem of Turkey related with e- governance, the limited amount of household internet use cannot be forgotten²⁹. Indeed, Turkey had great progress both using communication and information technologies and internet use; has still lots of responsibilities to realise for making e- government project more efficient.
Finally, the relation between good governance, democracy and the e- government implementations in Turkey should be discussed. The direct effect of good governance to democratization and the link between e- government and good governance was noted above. Ofcourse the arguments are valid for also Turkey. However, Turkey has some exceptional structures. Turkey as an developing country is not complate its democratization process ( even its a endless process, relative to EU) but, it does not mean that Turkey is a authoritarian country, Even Turkey has some problems related with good governance Turkey had and going to have great progress in this sense. On the other hand, it is impossible to argue that the e- government project is the only indicator for the Turkey's democratization. All of the other examples should be considered complitely as a part of complex process.
Then, It wil be better to note the some examples. Before the elections one of the most important event is preparing register of voters and in Turkey, register of voters are defined in the internet and computer base on law. This law apart from minor defeats succesfully implemented. Even, there are trys related with the online voting, the system for online voting have serious risks related with fairness and reliability. Even Turkey has the sufficient technlogy for evaluating ballots with optical reader Turkey have some financial and cultural problems to realise that. When the disclosure policy considered the progress of Turkey with regard to trancparency is very hopeful. However, it is not possible to argue that the only e-government project is sufficient for increasing participation amount to politics. This is related with democratic culture rather than the technologic developments but in Turkey it is belived that developments in informatics technology will give rise to progress in democratic culture.
Conclusion

As one of the most important concept of new world order good governance is desirable for all developed and developing countries. The development of that term must be thing both as a result of democratization and as an engine of democratization. With this structure good governance is a regulating and managing concept relation of citizens and businness with the state. For this reason, e- governmet project what aims the facilitating the public services for citizens and businness either become an important part of good governance.

Turkey, as a candidate state to the membership of European Union, attaches importance to acheive “good governance” with global standarts especially with EU's standarts. In this sense Turkey's tendency to create an efficient e- government project starting from 1990s has gave its fruits in 2000s. Even Turkey has some deficiencies in this subject, the great progress shows that Turkey will be very succesful to use technologic opportunities for public administration as e- government.

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