Authorities in different countries hardly offer good governance, but globalization has made countries embrace technology to ease the entire governance process. Technology has shaped all life aspects, including decision-making and all operations within the country. Harnessing technology in any country can speed up the governance processes through online transformations as it reduces the potential risks. Technology advancements in connectivity, data availability and computing power influence have accelerated digital transformations within countries. Data analytics and artificial intelligence have been used in different countries. For instance, the UAE government has leveraged blockchain, providing seamless digital services to its citizens during Covid-19 (Lilly, 2020). Likewise, countries in continents such as Asia, Europe, the Middle East and America have considered contact tracing through the appropriate mobile apps (Agence France-Presse, 2020). As technology advancements enhance social and economic breakthroughs, they can also enhance effective governance in different countries through e-services, improving efficiency, transparency and sustainability.
E-Government
The digital revolution is key in strengthening democracy and making countries respond faster to their citizens’ needs. According to Scholl (2017), E-government involves using ICT effectively to support state operations. ICTs are common within developed and developing states, easing the connection process between the government and their citizens through digital services such as providing wide access to State information, promoting public engagement through civic interactions with state officials and making the government more responsible through transparent operations like e-democracy, reducing embezzlement opportunities and offer rural development opportunities hence the entire reformation of a country.
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E-Democracy
Innovative ICT has the potential to transform the current political communication and systems. Lindner and Aichholzer (2019) define e-democracy as using ICT to practice democracy without limitations, replacing traditional political practices. The Council of Europe recommended 12 e-democracy frameworks. However, it focused on two basics: First, using the e-democracy opportunities to strengthen democracy, its institutions and processes and second, implementing e-democracy as democracy’s support and enhancement of its institutions and processes through ICT, linking it to the engagement and re-engagement of democratic citizens.
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Expanding Access to Government Information
The government generates a chunk of potentially significant information for citizens and their businesses. Technology has enabled the government to enhance direct access to information to its citizens through the internet and innovative communications. E-government has eased the publishing processes for governments whereby they can publish information on their relevant websites depending on the government segments, such as rules and regulations, forms, or other crucial documents, making it readily available for citizens to easily access it without commuting to the government offices. As a result, such online services reduce long queues within government offices and corruption cases, reforming these different segments of governance.
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Broadening public government participation
Citizens also want to easily engage with government services and be part of policy-making within all government sectors, which has been possible through e-government services. When the government strengthens public engagement, it builds civic trust within the government. Still, interactive e-government is a two-way communication, such as feedback forms or government officials’ contacts to comment on policy or legal proposals. Likewise, the presence of government forums allows citizens to interact and exchange ideas, broadening the awareness of public issues as innovative opportunities are established for activism regardless of their distance. As a result, it gives citizens the leeway to freely communicate social, political, environmental and other public concerns, recommending the appropriate measures fit for every citizen.
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Availing of Government Services Online
Governments have established different websites for different segments within the country. For instance, the environmental, health and citizen services generally have separate websites. Some websites allow citizens to transact online for different services, like applying for a passport or business license. The government has utilized the internet to offer different services to their citizens, even transactions via transact websites. The most significant thing about such accessibility is that the government has also provided an alternative whereby they digitally store a citizen’s information online, easily accessing their information without re-entering their information once they log in again to that site. Meanwhile, they enhance accountability and save time, superseding the traditional way of acquiring identification cards, registering lands and receiving title deeds.
Transaction websites are very beneficial in linking citizens to government services at any time convenient. For instance, when applying for a passport, a citizen must provide all the essential personal details and make the necessary transactions. Afterward, the citizen receives a digital receipt, which is printable as proof of the payment. Compared to earlier, citizens would have been required to commute to the migration offices, carry along all the valid documents for processing and making payments, receive a tangible receipt and await their passport when ready. Productivity has also been enhanced privately and publicly through government services’ simple, affordable and fast approval. This transition proves that technology has eased the country’s governance, especially in operations that benefit its citizens in developed and developing countries.
In addition, these government ICT services have streamlined the current labor-intensive and bureaucratic procedures, eventually saving money and increasing productivity. The revamping and automating processes and procedures within the revenue generation sectors in collecting taxes and fines has helped stem graft and corruption, hence high revenues and trust in the government and electoral process.
Digitization Taxation
The government constantly manages a country’s development by utilizing citizens’ taxes for better delivery systems. With the current technology, governments have embraced new tax administration and communication methods among taxpayers, alongside its accessibility and efficiency (OECD, 2021). Regardless of the benefits, there are still disadvantages, affirming that digitizing taxation is not linear, especially in achieving the designated result. Digitization taxation gives countries great insights into the taxpayers’ activities, permitting the tax administrations to signpost a taxpayers’ compliance route. Likewise, revenue pins are now accessible digitally. Taxpayers can now establish more taxpayer-centric techniques that utilize data in pre-populating tax returns, hence the scope error reduction. Utilizing the digitalized data makes it easy for tax administrations to shift towards compliance, hence high government revenue. In addition, digitization taxation increases the effectiveness and efficiency of administering taxes that benefit all taxpayers, including the country itself. Besides, it reduces the costs incurred and unnecessary engagements between the administration and taxpayers since only personal information, such as identity information, is needed to log into the internal tax administration website.
Electoral Process
Countries embracing ICT within their electoral processes generate the interests and concerns of voters and practitioners in the country. Ever since the EMBs adopted technology, there has been an increase in integrity within the electoral administration but within well-designed and firm policies under adequate safeguards and supportive legislation that can handle any emerging concerns within the electoral system to avoid eroding public confidence within the electoral practices. It has made the EMBs (Electoral Management Bodies) processes very efficient, whereby the rural areas with poor communication can easily access great infrastructure and communication within developing countries. Technology has also enhanced electoral processes’ integrity and strengthened shareholder trust. Using biometric technology during the registration process has improved EMBs’ accuracy of electors’ rolls by offering an effective mechanism that helps identify identical entries within the elector registry. Furthermore, it has allowed EMBs to maintain and replace hardware and software, enhancing sustainability within the electoral process.
Technology has also provided EMBs with alternatives for quickly counting, tabulating and transmitting elections via electronic measures for voting and transmitting election data via mobile technology. It enables announcing election results sooner, potentially disseminating tension within narrowly disputed elections and reinforcing trust within the entire process. IDEA (2017) noted that several scholars revealed that biometric technology is a valuable economic investment for any country regardless of reducing the chances of severe post-election violence by a minor percentage. Conversely, the earliest adopters of technological electoral processes were poorer states that hardly had a lengthy past of conducting democratic elections. These findings signify that gaining trust between electoral stakeholders is why different countries have embraced technological electoral processes. Inversely, technology does not improve trust between electoral shareholders since poor planning, training, research, voter education, or testing could also cause distrust between them.
Implication of AI Technology in Different Countries
Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, stated that AI was the future of Russia and humanity (Vincent, 2017). According to Sharma (2019), countries such as India, Russia, China, Japan, China and Singapore are looking forward to adopting AI. Currently, a number have adopted it to enjoy massive online benefits. AI has fundamentally impacted international systems and structures, considering that some leading countries use AI for economic development.
An excellent example is Silicon Valley in California, where Indians manage 20% to 30% and above startups and international technology corporations, as the Indian State leads in artificial intelligence investment. Fascinatingly, IISc Bangalore students have developed software that helps recognize fake information, reducing the spread of misinformation on social media in India and other countries.
Russia is also another country indulging in AI, specifically within the confined government within public and private engagements. Since they practice military demonstrations, Russia has implemented AI-empowered fighter jets and automated artillery.
Japan is a developed country within the Asian continent, having the best education literacy rate of more than 95%, as it also leads in AI. However, being the most aged country, Japan’s government wants robots and AI to replace humans, setting for a futuristic AI and being 65 years old in 2060.
China’s government also supports AI adoption and has published 41,000 papers on AI between 2011 and 2015, twice the US number. In 2017, the Chinese government announced a shift towards a principal artificial intelligence world center innovation by 2030 – from e-commerce to search engines, then automatic cars.
Singapore is a developed state in the Asian continent, having the best education globally with a 97% literacy level. However, the Singapore government wants to integrate the country with AI and robotics completely. In addition, they are already utilizing AI in farming but indoors.
In conclusion, technology has eased countries’ governance in several ways, from e-governance to e-democracy, whereby citizens enjoy the technology privileges as one nation. Services that earlier required citizens to be physically present are now virtually reducing commuting transport, speeding up e-services and making them more affordable. However, technology easing the country’s governance is not the main concern here but how countries utilize technology. From the gathered research, some countries utilize technology for the positive benefits of the masses, such as making government services available online. In contrast, other countries aspire to replace humans with artificial intelligence and robotics. These are two different motives within different governments that showcase technology as a drawback or a strength for some countries. Technology eases a country’s governance depending on the individuals running the country and the citizens within the state itself. A democratic country is likely to enjoy the benefits of technology freely, unlike an autocratic one, whereby only the rulers decide on how to use technology without the involvement of its citizens. Such autocratic governments do grant their citizens the opportunity to interact on the government forums and express their views or even become activists on the negative impacts of technology on their fellow citizens. Therefore, if autocratic governments embrace e-democracy within their e-government, citizens would enjoy the technological privileges as a nation regardless of their social status, education and employment levels. However, an autocratic government embracing technology will likely oppress its citizens, denying them the essential technology privileges that are mandatory for every taxpayer and citizen in the state.
References
Agence France-Presse. (2020, May 31). Coronavirus contact tracing apps: Which countries are doing what? Gadgets 360. https://www.gadgets360.com/apps/features/coronavirus-contact-tracing-apps-which-countries-are-doing-what-2237952
IDEA. (2017). The use of new technologies in electoral processes. https://www.idea.int/sites/default/files/publications/the-use-of-new-technologies-in-electoral-processes.pdf
Lilly, E. (2020, March 30). UAE Adopts Digital Identity and Blockchain to Fight COVID-19. ShuftiPro. https://shuftipro.com/news/uae-adopts-digital-identity-and-blockchain-to-fight-covid-19/
Lindner, R., & Aichholzer, G. (2019). E-Democracy: Conceptual foundations and recent trends. Studies in Digital Politics and Governance, 11–45. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27184-8_2
OECD. (2021). Supporting the digitalisation of developing country tax administrations – OECD. Oecd.org. https://www.oecd.org/tax/administration/supporting-the-digitalisation-of-developing-country-tax-administrations.htm
Scholl, H. J. (2017). E-Government. Communication. https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199756841-0186
Sharma, T. (2019, September 5). Top 10 Countries Ruling The World in AI. Globaltechcouncil.org. https://www.globaltechcouncil.org/artificial-intelligence/top-10-countries-ruling-the-world-in-ai/
Vincent, J. (2017, September 4). Putin says the nation that leads in AI “will be the ruler of the world.” The Verge; The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/4/16251226/russia-ai-putin-rule-the-world
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