Electronic Journal of e-Government Volume 3 Issue 4 2005 (213-218)
limit the field of research to citizen-relationshipmanagement. We will analyze the literature,highlighting the contributions and limits. We willthen propose a method and elaborate a newmodel.
2. The field of research: Interactionsbetween citizens and localgovernment
2.1 Definition of citizenship inmanagement
Given that the notion of citizenship is ever-changing and constantly being debated, thedefinition that Leca gave in 1986 presents us witha kind of universal structure in the sense that itconsiders citizenship as a whole, composed ofrights and duties, of a role and moral values. Wewill use this structure as the ground definition ofour work. However, the notion of moral values willbe first kept aside, as it would be difficult tointegrate it into a public management approach atthis stage of the study. The basis for our work willthen be : Citizenship is composed of rights, dutiesand participation. Any definition of citizenshipseems to make use of those three componentseven if one takes preference over the others.Each conception gives us a different vision of thecitizen’s role. The citizen can be considered as aconsumer, a passive agent or an actor in localdemocracy. Thus, when the “Rights” component isgiven more weight in a definition, the citizen isconsidered as a consumer, whether it may be ofrights or of public services. Whereas in a definitionwhere the”Duties” component is given moreimportance, the citizen is considered as relativelypassive, being subject to a number of restraints.Finally, in a definition where the word“Participation” is given ascendancy over the otherwords, it is taken for granted that the citizen is anactor who is totally engaged in local political life.
2.2 Citizen relationship management
The 1958 French Constitution states that the veryprinciple of the Republic consists of a“government of the people, by the people and forthe people”. Out of this founding principle, twoideas appear: first of all, that the citizens aremanageable, which allows us to considercitizenship as “something to be governed”.Secondly, there are different visions or modes forthe management of citizenship. Thus whenreferring to a government “for the people”, werefer to the first vision of citizenship, i.e. the citizenis a consumer of rights and public services. In thiscase, the underlying logic for the “government forthe people” would be to improve services.“Government of the people” would refer to acitizen as a passive agent. The representativeswould then have to improve the chances ofsuccess for a policy by making the citizens’adherence easier. Finally, the “government by thepeople” emphasises the participation facet andconsiders the citizen as part and parcel of theprocesses of politics. The goal is then toencourage debate and their participation.
2.3 The local territory as a relevant scale
Some authors have taken interest in a nationalvision, even a supra-national one, of citizenship(Chadwick and May, 2003; Laudon, 1977). AsAssens and Phanuel (2001) or Vedel (2001) did,we want to underline the advantages of taking thelocal level as the reference. There are two mainreasons for this: First of all, initiatives beginlocally, where all pilot schemes are conducted andevaluated before being taken to larger scales.Secondly, the local level is the key level for thelegitimation of any public action. One of thecurrent political goals, when some perceive acrisis in the democratic system, is to rebuild thelegitimacy of representatives’ roles by means ofequivalences: presence in thecommunity=implication=participation=efficiency=legitimacy (Lefevre,2001). The local level approach reinforces therepresentatives’ legitimacy. The local level is thusrepresented as “the most relevant scale forrecovering citizens’ trust” (Lefevre, Nonjon, 2003).The local scale makes many strategies possible:“The easiest way to reach government of thepeople by the people is the city” (Voilin, 1929,cited by Paillart, 2003). Depending on the chosenstrategy, the mayor’s role will be different. In a“government for the people” perspective, themayor would have to regulate and meet therequirements of the “new economy”, providequicker and more effective services to thecitizens-consumers. When the chosen strategy is“the government of the people”, the localrepresentatives have to make citizens -consideredas passive in this case- more confident. Finally, ina “government by the people” perspective, themayor has to protect freedom of speech andregulate the structures in order to ensure goodconditions for debate and participation of thecitizens, who are then actors in the system.
2.4 The new tools
We distinguish three types of tools. Each onecorresponds to a local citizenship’s management’smode. The first kind of tool aims to favourtransparency, facilitate procedures andpersonalize services. For example: e-procedure,personalized account, on-line payment, filechecking, etc. These tools are appreciated by thecustomer-citizen, who seeks outstanding services.
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