Article
Factors Influencing the Success of Participatory Egovernment Applications in Romania and South Korea
Greg Porumbescu1, Catalin Vrabie2, Jiho Ahn3, Tobin Im4
1Greg Porumbescu is a PhD student in the Graduate School of Public Administration at Seoul National University and lecturer in the Department of Public Administration at Kyonggi University. His research interests include e-government, government transparency, and trust in the public sector. E-mail:
gporumbescu@gmail.com
2Catalin Vrabie is an assistant professor at the National School of Political Science and Public Administration in Romania. His research interests include e-government and innovation in the public sector. E-mail:
cataloi@yahoo.com
3Jiho Ahn is a postdoctoral researcher at Korea University. He received his PhD from the Free University of Berlin. His research interests include e-government, comparative administration, and administration in North Korea. E-mail:
braudel2@snu.ac.kr
4Tobin Im, is a professor in the Graduate School of Public Administration at Seoul National University. His current research focuses on government competitiveness and organization theory. This work was supported by a grant from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2011-330-B00195 [I00035]). E-mail:
tobin@snu .ac.kr.
© Copyright 2012 Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Received: Feb 17, 2012; Revised: Feb 23, 2012; Revised: Apr 15, 2012; Accepted: Apr 18, 2012
Published Online: Apr 30, 2012
Abstract
While participatory e-government is increasingly advocated, few studies have investigated whether it is feasible across all national contexts. This study investigates how certain contextual features influence the success of participatory applications of e-government. In particular, it assesses how the political, economic, and social context in which a particular government operates influence the introduction of participatory e-government, and compares participatory e-government applications in Romania and South Korea. These nations possess important similarities and differences in their political, social, and economic contexts. The study results suggest that the success of participatory e-government projects is to a large extent contingent upon political and economic factors and less related to social factors.
Keywords: Egovernment; Citizen Participation; Comparative Study
