The Coming Of The Digital Age And Its Implications For Public Governance And Policy

Authors

Keywords:

The digital age, technology, digitization, the Internet, public governance, public policies, public service delivery

Abstract

Purpose of the Article: This study has the basic goal of contributing to the understanding of digitization, its causes, its characteristic features, and its impact on urban and public governance, policy making and service delivery processes. Another goal is to present and analyze the risks and opportunities and other consequences the digital age pose for urban and public governance, policy making and service delivery processes.

Methodology/Methods: This paper uses the techniques of literature review snd content and document analysis, and employs an interdisciplinary approach.

Scientific Aim: The paper aims to contribute to the discussions and analyses on how digitalization and Industry 4.0 affects and will affect urban and public governance, policy making and service provision processes. Besides, the paper aims to explore the extent to which the possible risks of the future uses and proliferation of digital technologies pose for urban and public governance and policy maing processes.

Findings: Despite its positive aspects, the digital revoltion seems to have been accompanied with new challenges and risks, such as breach of personal data and privacy, employment losses in many traditional employment areas to digitalized technologies and robots, cyber crimes, increased inequality and digital divide, and difficulties of adaptation to digital technologies in especially the public sector.

Conclusions (limits, implications etc): The study makes some recommendations for the development of better policies to reap the benefits of the digital age, and to avoid the possible risks involved. Some of these policy suggestions include improving the digital adaptation of public sector in order to improve quality, efficiency and effectiveness in the process of urban and public governance, policy making and service provision as well as enhancing educational institutions, innovative capacity, sustainability, green economy, and digital abilities of the labor force as a requirement for adaptation to digital economy and increased productivity.

Author Biographies

Hüseyin Gül, Süleyman Demirel University, Isparta, Turkey

Department  chair and professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Süleyman Demirel University, Isparta, Turkey. He has MPA (1999) and MA in urban affairs (1996) degress, and Ph.D. in urban and public administration from The University of Texas at Arlington, worked as a researcher in a study on the welfare reform in the United States conducted by the Rockefeller Institute of Government, during 1999 and 2000.

Songül Sallan Gül, Süleyman Demirel University, Isparta, Turkey

a professor in the Department of Sociology at Süleyman Demirel University, Isparta, Turkey. She has an MA degree in sociology from Middle Eastern Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, and earned her doctorate from Ankara University.  at Süleyman Demirel University, Isparta, Turkey. He has MPA (1999) and MA in urban affairs (1996) degress, and Ph.D. in urban and public administration from The University of Texas at Arlington,

References

Anderson, C. (2012) Makers: The New Industrial Revolution, Random House, New York.

Goldin, I. & Kutarna, C. (2016) Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance, St. Martin’s Press, New York.

Höchtl, J., Parycek, P. & Schöllhammer, R. (2016) “Big Data in the Policy Cycle: Policy Decision Making in the Digital Era”, Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, 26(1-2), 147-169.

Mayer-Schönberger, V. & Cukier, K. (2014) Big Data: A Revolution that will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think, John Murray, London.

Schwab, K. (2016) the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Crown Publishing Group, New York.

Srnicek, N. & Williams, A. (2015) Inventing the Future: Post-Capitalism and a World without Work, Verso, London.

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Published

2019-07-16

Issue

2019: COLLECTED ABSTRACTS

Section

Section 2: Perspectives of Law

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