Blockchain-based Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are systems for transacting and storing value by automatically executing a function without the need for trusted, centralized authorities. Participative budgeting requires voting about budget allocation by communities and is often confronted with issues in trust and transparency. Yet, DAOs are hardly used for participative budgeting. In this research, we introduce Decentralized Autonomous Citizen Participation Organizations (DACPOs). In a DACPO, data and actions are recorded and autonomously executed in a decentralized way. DACPOs can be used for enabling participative budgeting and thereby provide transparency, decrease the risks of fraud and corruption, and increase citizens’ trust. The viability of DACPOs depends on a number of factors, including a minimum number of citizens who participate. In further research, factors influencing the use of DACPOs for participative budgeting can be further analyzed and tested.
Shafaq Khan, Mohammed Shael, Munir Majdalawieh, Nishara Nizamuddin · 5 authors
Blockchain technology is an innovative technology with the potential of transforming cities by augmenting the building of resilient societies and enabling the emergence of more transparent and accountable governments. To understand the capabilities of blockchain, as well as its impact on the public sector, this study conducted a review of blockchain technology and its implementations by various governments around the globe. E-government evolution is analyzed, based on empirical evidence from a Dubai government entity in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has utilized blockchain technology for developing end-user services, relevant to the public sector. Benefits achieved and challenges to overcome in such blockchain-based pilot deployments are discussed. The findings of this study offer new insights for practitioners involved in bringing in innovations for the benefit of society, using blockchain technology. Furthermore, it provides insights into policy actions to be developed to address the future challenges and to improve already existing e-government policies. The results of this research will benefit all blockchain-based pilot deployments by providing guidance and knowledge on this immature yet developing technology.
Abstract Emerging technologies permeate and potentially disrupt a wide spectrum of our social, economic, and political relations. Various state institutions, including education, law enforcement, and healthcare, increasingly rely on technical components, such as automated decision-making systems, e-government systems, and other digital tools to provide cheap, efficient public services, and supposedly fair, transparent, disinterested, and accountable public administration. The increased interest in various blockchain-based solutions from central bank digital currencies, via tokenized educational credentials, and distributed ledger-based land registries to self-sovereign identities is the latest, still mostly unwritten chapter in a long history of standardized, objectified, automated, technocratic, and technologized public administration. The rapid, (often) unplanned, and uncontrolled technologization of public services (as happened in the hasty adoption of distance-learning and teleconferencing systems during Corona Virus Disease (COVID) lockdowns) raises complex questions about the use of novel technological components, which may or may not be ultimately adequate for the task for which they are used. The question whether we can trust the technical infrastructures the public sector uses when providing public services is a central concern in an age where trust in government is declining: If the government’s artificial intelligence system that detects welfare fraud fails, the public’s confidence in the government is ultimately hit. In this paper, we provide a critical assessment of how the use of potentially untrustworthy (private) technological systems including blockchain-based systems in the public sector may affect trust in government. We then propose several policy options to protect the trust in government even if some of their technological components prove fundamentally untrustworthy.
Public value theory was conceived in a time before the far-reaching consequences of the digital era were fully realized, without sufficient explicit consideration of the dynamic and disruptive shifts that might occur on the technological frontier, especially when driven by civil society. As such, the disruptive and citizen-driven nature of many digital technologies, such as cryptocurrencies and the blockchain, has yet to be incorporated into the public value discourse. This article examines the relevance of the public manager to disruptive digital innovations, arguing that value creation is a function of addressing the digital aspirations of citizens, and making technological disruption into a conduit for public value co-creation that is driven by citizens. This is accomplished through mechanisms such as regulatory and policy initiatives that ensure public managers strike a balance between innovation and accountability. It theorizes this using Moore’s strategic triangle to foresee a role for proactive engagement by public managers in citizen-driven public value creation that balances innovative impulses and stronger accountability.
Tamara Roth, Alexander Stohr, Julia Amend, Gilbert Fridgen · 5 authors
Digital technologies play an important role for the delivery of many public services. However, selecting and adopting the ‘right’ digital technologies is often challenging, especially for federally structured governments. Universal factors for successful adoption are hard to establish, and the particularities of federalism, such as the separation of competencies, complicate technology selection. Nevertheless, blockchain technology seems to flourish in these environments. Through a single-case study on the blockchain project of Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, we unpack one essential factor for this success: the fit between (cross-)organizational task structure and technological properties. This fit earns the Federal Office’s project considerable credit and traction with stakeholders and partner authorities – not least because it supports the argument that the digitalization of federal systems is possible without ‘digital centralization’ and redistribution of competencies. Our task-technology fit analysis contributes to a better understanding of the adoption of blockchain in the public sector. It also provides the foundation for an extended task-technology fit theory for federally structured, cross-organizational contexts.
Bokolo Anthony, Sobah Abbas Petersen, Markus Helfert
Abstract Cities are actively deploying modern digital technologies to foster digitalization due to the emergence of data-driven innovations. Through modern digital technologies, municipalities aim to enhance services performance. Despite prior studies that focused on digital transformation in smart cities, there have been few studies aimed at managing service transformation and complexities needed to support cities in getting smarter. Also, as the deployment of information technology (IT) continues to grow within urban environment, there has been little research conducted that develops data-driven approach for digital services within urban environment. Additionally, cities are exploring methods of providing seamless mobility services based on collaboration among several enterprises and stakeholders in urban environment while achieving seamless data-driven services. Therefore, this study explores the adoption of Enterprise Architecture (EA) for digital transformations to achieve seamless urban mobility services. Qualitative data was collected using case study by interview from an organization that employs distributed ledger technology (DLT) to deploy digital services in smart cities. Findings from the interview sessions were modelled in ArchiMate language to illustrate the application of digital payment solution via DLT toward digitization of urban mobility services. The findings reveal that EA supports digital transformation of cities and manages data integration and alignment. Besides, findings from this study propose an EA approach to support urban planners and developers in understanding the actions required to implement digital transformation of their city services in becoming smarter.
A key challenge behind the adoption of blockchain in the public sector is understanding the dynamics of blockchain governance. Based on a systematic literature review, this article analyzes different approaches to blockchain governance across disciplines and develops a comprehensive conceptual framework for the study of blockchain governance decisions in the public sector. The framework clusters nine types of governance decisions (infrastructure architecture, application architecture, interoperability, decision-making mechanism, incentive mechanism, consensus mechanism, organization of governance, accountability of governance, and control of governance) into three levels of analysis (micro, meso, and macro-levels). Drawing on public management theories and concepts, the article elucidates the implications of various governance choices in each level of governance and provides a primer for researchers and policy practitioners on the design of blockchain-based systems in the public sector.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is often thought of as a uniformly positive tool making governments more transparent, accountable, and less corrupt. However, the evidence on it is mixed and often misunderstood. Hence, this article carries out a systematic stocktaking of ICT tools’ impact on corruption, offering a nuanced and context-dependent assessment. The tools reviewed are digital public services, crowdsourcing platforms, whistleblowing tools, transparency portals, distributed ledger technology, and artificial intelligence. We scrutinise the evidence both on ICTs’ anticorruption effectiveness and misuse for corruption. Drawing on the commonalities across technologies, we find that ICT can support anti-corruption by impacting public scrutiny in numerous ways: enabling reporting on corruption, promoting transparency and accountability, facilitating citizen participation and government-citizen interactions. However, ICT can also provide new corruption opportunities through the dark web, cryptocurrencies, or the misuse of technologies such as centralised databases. The introduction of ICT tools does not automatically translate into anti-corruption outcomes; rather, impact hinges on the matching between ICT tools and the local context, including support for and skills in using technology.
It is widely argued that Blockchain Technology (BCT) is one of the most promising trends nowadays. The most prominent characteristic of this technology is the improved sense of trust to the shared information provided by BCT applications as well as the ubiquitous access to the data ledger. At the same time governments pursue amplified trust from their citizens increasing transparency through shared information and open data. Since BCT supports this strategic goal of governments worldwide, numerous governments try to capitalize on the advances of this technology through testing the results of pilot applications in different vertical governmental sectors. Even though there are several implementations in the Government sector, there is no comprehensive study towards the analysis of the major characteristics of these developments. This paper moves towards the fulfillment of this gap by conducting a thorough analysis of e-Government pilot applications of BCT at a European level providing information to policymakers and practitioners about the grey areas of this technology.
Public value rests upon the assumption that human public managers co-create value for the public. Yet the next few phases of the digital era risk transferring greater duties of public managers to Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), which will use protocols, programming code, and blockchain-related technologies to perform such duties. This chapter examines value co-creation through the lens of DAOs by discussing their scope as digital co-creators with human public managers. It then applies the public value framework of the strategic triangle to discuss questions of legitimacy, operational capabilities, and recognition of value creation. The findings of the chapter suggest that public value must be thought of differently with “digital” public managers, since DAOs may face various challenges including those of security, legitimacy, and rigidity, but they may enhance value creation through greater efficiency, increased transparency, and equity-focused outcomes. As such, extant public value (PV) problems might persist, albeit in different forms.
Blockchain technology has unique characteristics that make it a powerful application for transforming government processes and improving the management of public benefits. In this paper, we propose that a blockchain-enabled government can achieve higher levels of efficiency and impartiality compared to traditional and general digital government. These improvements can be achieved through blockchain’s impact on the accuracy, coordination, trust, and transparency of information-based processes. Propositions are examined using a blockchain-enabled program of targeted poverty alleviation in a major metropolitan city in China. An analysis of data from semi-structured interviews and public documents indicates that the blockchain-enabled government process, through the technology’s coordination and accuracy features, can improve the efficiency of targeted poverty alleviation work in the local government. In addition, we find that impartiality of a government program is improved through the transparency and trust that is enabled by the application of blockchain technology.
Purpose This work highlights the potential of blockchain from a public management (PM) angle. Given the limited presence of blockchain's broad-spectrum, empirical-applicative evidence in the public sector, as well as theoretical systematisations that can exemplify its potential within this scope, the authors have concentrated their efforts on structuring a referring model. Design/methodology/approach After identifying a gap and conducting a preliminary literature review related to public administration (PA), the authors propose a paradigm focused on a conceptual synthesis methodology, starting from a longitudinal analysis and a coding activity that are able to structure a clear framework of theoretical parallelism regarding blockchain's main functionalities, as well as future perspectives in the public sector. Findings The main results yielded a specific longitudinal literature review and constitute a referring model of blockchain's systematised functionalities through a conceptualised matrix. The outcome of the conceptualisation process frames and systematises a rapidly growing controversial phenomenon, furnishing a specific referring paradigm for the issue as it relates to policymakers. Originality/value The study's originality resides in the two views the authors created, both from the literature review and from the conceptual synthesis for public sector operative practice via an anthropocentric lens, conveyed by a three-year range of analysis.
Blockchain technology and New Public Governance (NPG) represent promising concepts for various researchers. As such, both concepts offer the vision of an altered relationship between public administration and its non-public actors by emphasizing a strong position of non-public actors for public service delivery. This research aims to identify the relevance of NPG to leading blockchain implementations in the European public sector. For this purpose, both topics are combined in an explorative analysis. The analysis leverages an adapted analysis framework designed for this research effort to structure the expectations around NPG. Qualitative interviews with multiple key stakeholders of blockchain implementations projects were conducted to understand the actual impact of blockchain on the actor's relationships for public service delivery. This article presents the findings to this question and concludes that the use of blockchain has the changed actor relationships only in parts. Consequently, the author finally draws attention to the importance of blockchain governance and blockchain regulation for further developing the relationships of public administrations and their non-public counterparts.
Rafael Ziolkowski, Gianluca Miscione, Gerhard Schwabe
In recent years, scholarly interest research on blockchain technology steadily increased. While the underlying technology matures, observed problems in the field show questions of governance to remain crucial, even though scarcely studied empirically. One approach of solving these problems can be seen in decentralized autonomous organizations, which describes a new type of organizing that is grounded on consensus-based, distributed autonomy. The governance peculiarities of DAOs is fairly unexplored, and this is where this research commences. In an exploratory multiple case study consisting of three popular DAOs Aragon, Tezos, and DFINITY, their governance peculiarities are worked out by analyzing grey literature to understand stakeholder interests, incentivization, control, and coordination mechanisms, technical considerations, and external influences from off-chain entities. In the context of an on-and-off-chain continuum, it appears that DAOs provide mechanisms that might enable autonomous decision-making but, at the same time, find themselves strongly influenced by the interests of various stakeholders.
Juho Lindman, Jamie Berryhill, Benjamin Welby, Mariane Piccinin-Barbieri
Blockchain remains a hot topic for digital transformation and innovation. In the private sector, blockchain has demonstrated disruptive potential through proven use cases. However, despite strong interest and greater awareness, blockchain has had minimal impact on the public sector, where few projects have moved beyond small pilots. At the same time, there is a growing scepticism and cynicism about public sector blockchain. This paper seeks to understand why this is, by analysing the latest research in the area and identifying and analysing government experiences with successful and unsuccessful projects. It provides early findings on beliefs, characteristics, and practices related to government blockchain projects and the organisations that seek to implement them, with a focus on factors contributing to success or non-success. Although blockchain has yet to affect government in the ways that early hype predicted, government decision makers will nonetheless need to understand and monitor this emerging technology.
Vasileios Yfantis, Helen C. Leligou, Klimis Ntalianis
This article discusses the concept of blockchain and its application to public administration research as a tool to increase trust in the government. The contribution of this article is that it unveils the advantages and disadvantages of blockchain so that both decision-makers (who intend to adopt this innovative technology to increase the transparency of the transactions in the public sector) and users (citizens and public servants) are well informed and prepared.
Thays A. Oliveira, Miquel Oliver, Helena Ramalhinho
The way citizens interact with cities affects overall life quality. Their participation in social decisions is of paramount importance for helping on public decisions that affect governance, regulation and education. This interaction has the potential of being boosted within the scope of smart and digital cities, especially by recent advances in blockchain technology. This work introduces insights about how smart cities’ concepts and innovative technologies can help society to face daily challenges for improving citizens’ awareness. Digital technologies are able to drive social and economic development by employing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to promote innovation. In this context, e-governance, in conjunction with disruptive concepts such as blockchain, is showing up as a fundamental tool for a decentralized democracy. This study reviews, discusses, raises open points and presents suggestions towards an efficient, transparent and sustainable use of technology, applied to future cities.