E-government is an emerging feature, continously adopted by hundred of governments across the world. The main idea is to convert bureaucracy into digital format, then link it to the internet – if possible. This procedure undoubtedly provides more efficient bureaucracy. Long lines of people waiting turns for public service in government offices are expected to be avoided by such mechanism. Broader people participation in governance is also hoped to rise since it allows citizens to engage with governments’ policies with their fingertips. Some also argue that e-government is a gate towards more transparent world – to prevent corruption. Yet, do all of these expectations meet in reality?

“..the pursuit of ideal digital society and e-government in partcular is still far from ideal even with initial measures already done.”

Implementation of e-government faces serious challenges to overcome. Not all societies are ready to utilize this facility properly. Societies in leading states such as Republic of Korea, Australia, and Singapore – which are accounted as the big three in E-government Development Index[1] – are more advantaged since political willingness, technological development and usage, as well as supporting infrastructures are available without serious problems. Neverheless, especially for third world countries, the pursuit of ideal digital society and e-government in partcular is still far from ideal even with initial measures already done.

Public participation world wide is indeed increasing. But do people really use governments’ digital/online complaint-handling mechanisms under the framework of e-government to voice their concern? Even if so, how many of them? Public participation is still commonly associated by the usage of social media instead of canals provided by governments. Its vast, popular, and massive spread characteristics make social media more preferable. Ineffective promotion also contributes to the low popularity of e-government in some societies, not to mention the factor of less-qualified system and/or contents.

Political willingness is also an issue. Government is less likely to build e-government projects because the urgency is deemed low or does not exist. It is better to alocate the limited fund to solve social problems such as poverty. Furthermore, we can suspect that transparency may threathen certain officials’ convenient working style which – to some extent –  tolerates corrupt behavior.

Center for Digital Society held a research regarding the development of information and communication technology as a mean to solve Indonesian secondary cities’ problems. Overview of the research can be accessed on our previous article here.

[1] United Nations, ‘UN E-Government Survey 2014,’ , accessed 23 May 2016.