What is E-Governance? Discuss critical flow model and comparative analysis model in detail.

E-Governance

  •  It is a part of e-Government. E-Governance is dealing with all regulations and policies to control the services provided by the e-Government. However, the E-Government is an electronic government, which should be regulated by the E-Governance.
  • Moreover, e-Governance refers to the utilization of information and communication technology (ICT) for providing government services, disseminating information, communication operations with the general public.

 

Critical Flow Model

Principle

• The model is based on broadcasting information of 'critical' value (which by its very nature will not be disclosed by those involved with bad governance practices) to a targeted audience using ICTs and other tools.

• The targeted audience may include media, affected parties opposition parties, judicial bench, independent investigators, or the general public.

• Those who would divulge such information could include upright officials and workers, whistleblowers, affected parties, and those who were themselves involved in bad governance practices but have now changed their minds or may wish to trade such information for lenient punishments.



Application 

• This model could be applied in the following possible ways:

• Making available corruption-related data about a particular Ministry / Division/ Officials online to its electoral constituency or to the concerned regulatory body.

• Making available Research studies, Enquiry reports, Impact studies commissioned by the Government of Independent commissions to the affected parties.

• Making Human Rights Violations cases violations freely available to Judiciary, NGOs, and concerned citizens. Making available information that is usually suppressed, for instance, 

• Environmental Information on radioactivity spills, effluents discharge, information on green ratings of the company to the concerned community.



Example of Critical flow model

Global: Wikileaks

www.wikileaks.org

WikiLeaks is a not-for-profit media organization. It brings important news and information to the public. It publishes secret information, news leaks, and classified media from anonymous sources to keep the public informed, amongst others on cases of corruption, whistle-blowing, and crimes.


Evaluation 

•  This model is more directed and evolved in comparison to the Broadcasting / Wider - Dissemination Model. Different organizations can use it differently depending on the aspect of governance the situation they want to address.

•  Critical Flow Model is more focused in terms of its information content and its intended users. Due to the critical aspect of information, the model exposes the weakest aspects of governance and decision-making mechanisms and informs people about specific cases of state failure and bad governance to build up a case for concerted action.

•  The model will not work in cases where government mechanisms do not foster public debates and censure all information of critical nature. It will also fail where the government maintains tight control of overall information. There it remains restricted to the top few levels of the government. Inherently the Internet is an open medium.

•  Thus, restricted dissemination is only typical-only those interested may use the critical and subject-based information lodged on Internet websites for public access (as indicated above) as applications.


Merits 

• This model is more directed and evolved.

 • Different organizations can use it differently depending on the aspect of governance they situation they want to address.

 • The model corrects information failure, raising awareness about the bad governance practices, and acts as a hindrance to bad governance practices. 

• Also, the model exerts indirect pressure on the concerned governance institution/policy-making body to move away from optimal ignorance attitude to reform, and take into cognizance the interest and opinion of the masses in decision-making processes. 


Demerits 

• The model may not work in cases where the governance mechanism does not allow public debates and opinions and censures all information of critical nature.



Comparative Analysis Model

Principle

• This model empowers people by comparing cases of bad governance with those of good governance and identifying specific aspects of bad governance, the reasons and people behind them, and how the situation can be improved.

• The comparison could be made over a time scale to get a snapshot of the past and the present situation or could be used to compare the effectiveness of an intervention by comparing two similar situations.

• The strength of this model lies in the infinite capacity of digital networks to store varied information and retrieve and transmit it instantly across all geographical and hierarchical barriers.



Applications

This model could be applied in the following possible ways: 

• To learn from past policies and actions and derive learning lessons for future policy-making.

•  To evaluate the effectiveness of the current policies and identify key learning in terms of strengths and flaws in the policies.

• To effectively establish conditions of precedence, especially in the case of Judicial or legal decision-making (example for resolving patent-related disputes, public goods ownership rights), and use it to influence/ advocate future decision making.

• To enable informed decision-making at all levels by enhancing the background knowledge and also providing a rationale for action.

• To evaluate the performance and track record of a particular decision-maker/ decision-making body.


Evaluation

  • Developing countries can effectively use this model to their advantage as ICT opens access to global and local knowledge products at a relatively low cost. 
  • Watch guard organizations and monitor groups could use the model to track the performance record of electoral candidates and share them in their constituency. 
  • The model is, however, dependent on the availability of comparative information sets and the ability of the users to analyze and bring out strong arguments or self-explanatory graphics from the analysis. 
  • The model however becomes ineffective in the absence of a strong civil society interest and short public memory.

Example 
 • Global: Human Development Indicators http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/ The Human Development Report of UNDP makes use of archived Statistical information pertaining to literacy, health, national income, etc. as a benchmark to assess the progress made by different countries with regards to their Human Development Index and suggests policy recommendations based on that.

Merits:

 • Based on the existing sets of information

• Watch-guard organizations and monitor groups can use this model to continuously track the governance's past record and performance and compare with different information sets.

Demerits:

 • Requires the ability to analyze and bring out strong arguments

• Ineffective in absence of a strong civil society interest and public memory which is essential to force decision-makers to improve existing governance practices

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