Políticas de governo eletrônico em Estados da Federação Brasileira: uma contribuição para a análise segundo a perspectiva neoinstitucional

Abstract

Electronic government as a theme became popular in Brazil in the 2000s. The term, either the more or the less broad conception, suggests the usage of communication and information technology means by the public administration when serving citizens, promoting governmental actions transparency and allowing citizens to participate in the processes of elaboration, following-up and evaluation of public policies. At least theoretically egovernment means the possibility to redesign public administration structures and processes. Based on e-government itself, this thesis investigates the e-government policies institutionalization process in Brazilian states. Neo-institutionalism was used as the central theoretical axis for this work. Two questions were essential in building the research issue: (i) what is the level of e-government institutionalization in the Brazilian Federation states? And (ii) does the e-government institutional policy design influence governance in state governments? In order to answer these questions an assumption group was used. Among these assumptions the following should be highlighted: (a) e-government institutional policies design influences the government of each state in its services delivery and in each of its Secretariats’ as well; (b) an institutional design which favors the building of an e-government integrated policy influences electronic governance positively; (c) the level of e-government policy institutionalization in the states of Brazil’s Federation is low. The insulation of actions and initiatives and CIT (Communication and Information Technology) management models based on fragmentation prevails; (d) CIT management models in state governments present structural arrangements which are little operable and often useless. In order to test these assumptions and presuppositions quantitative and qualitative methods were conjugated. Multiple case studies were used and the qualitative part was carried out in five states of Brazil whereas the quantitative part was done in ten states. Results confirm the assumptions and presuppositions previously made and suggest a general state government need to rethink e-government policies, otherwise these governments will not achieve the promises made in e-government literature. This work demonstrated that the institutional design in e-government policies is essential to effective electronic governance and public services deliveries. Beyond that, this thesis also showed that e-government institutionalization is a present challenge which needs to be faced by state governments in Brazil.