Virtual Special Issue: The Government and its Contexts in the AI Chatbot Era

Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy

Regardless of individual assumptions and standpoints on the role of the government in the economy, the government is granting respective societies a point of reference, a benchmark. In a period best defined by debates on artificial intelligence (AI), Chatbots, and their impact on our societies, and in times touted by many as a period of a profound change, the fundamental question of how the government fares is left largely unattended. Clearly, as the multiple contexts in which the government is embedded become seemingly more complex, more interconnected, possibly more fragile, and less predictable, the government is bound to transform in a manner apt to meet the variety of the existing and the nascent challenges and opportunities to ensure the growth, stability, and prosperity of respective societies.  

To showcase this variety of issues and contexts, in which contemporary governments operate, a carefully selected collection of papers published in Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy has been included in this virtual special issue. These articles offer insight into a diversity of dilemmas that need to be considered today if the role of the government, and so the challenges it needs to face, are to be comprehended. This virtual special issue outlines the broader, global contexts, in which the government is embedded, and it showcases as well the regional contexts, e.g. specific to the European Union, and country-level developments, including cases from the United Kingdom, the Caribbean, Afghanistan and others. As sophisticated information and communication technology (ICT) exerts a pervasive impact on the government today, this virtual special issue provides a critical insight into the processes of technology adoption at the central government- and municipality levels.  

The papers listed below will be free to access from 3rd July to 3rd August 2023.
 

Professor Anna Visvizi 

Editor-in-Chief, Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy
 

Table of contents

The new normal: governance, disruption and the post-truth era 

Mark N. Wexler and Judy Oberlander 

 

The state of information infrastructure for global climate governance 

Tove Sofia Engvall and Leif Skiftenes Flak 

 

European regional inequalities in citizens’ digital interaction with government 

Luisa Fernanda Rodríguez-Hevía, Laura Rodríguez-Fernández and Luis Manuel Ruiz-Gómez 

 

The impact of degree apprenticeships: analysis, insights and policy recommendations 

Raheel Nawaz, Ernest Edem Edifor, Samantha Reive Holland, Qi Cao and Leo Shixiong Liu 

 

Woe is the dark Web: the main challenges that governments of the Commonwealth Caribbean will face in combating dark Web-facilitated criminal activities 

Lloyd Waller, Stephen Christopher Johnson, Nicola Satchell, Damion Gordon, Gavin Leon Kirkpatrick Daley, Howard Reid, Kimberly Fender, Paula Llewellyn, Leah Smyle and Patrick Linton 

 

The role of e-government in reducing corruption and enhancing transparency in the Afghan public sector: a case study 

Mohammad Mustafa Ibrahimy, Sirje Virkus and Alex Norta  

 

When innocence is no protection: governance failure of digitization and its impact on local level implementation 

Luthfi Ramadani, Amalia Yovadiani and Fitriyana Dewi  

 

Mechanisms of constraint: a clinical inquiry of digital infrastructuring in municipalities 

Jwan Khisro, Tomas Lindroth and Johan Magnusson