Promoting public cooperation in government: key drivers, regulation, and barriers of the e-collaboration movement in Kazakhstan

Abstract

The primary goal of the article is to understand the political and socio-economic incentives for government agencies to adopt various collaborative strategies in promoting current public sector reforms in Kazakhstan. In particular, paying special attention to the recent diffusion of various official blog platforms, public discussion, and civic tracking systems, it aims to identify typical drivers and barriers that policymakers and other interested stakeholders face today in advancing technology-driven government. The key findings of the research suggest that the development of official e-collaborative platforms provides new promising opportunities to promote mutually beneficial cooperation between government and citizens, and to boost public sector innovations. However, the further sustainable development of the movement, not only as a technological tool of public sector reforms, but also more as a new philosophy of governance, would require the further harmonization of regulation policies at all institutional levels, the transformation of the traditional public mindset, and, most importantly, the promotion of more genuine grass-root trends in government. In this regard, the results of the research could conceptually be used to test further the limits of the modern theory of network governance in an unusual institutional context of digital centralization. Points for practitioners The observation and analysis of practical aspects in the operation of various collaborative projects, which is presented in this article in an explicitly illustrative manner, could be interesting for e-government policymakers and practitioners, as well as for all those who try to understand the phenomenon as an ongoing political and socio-economic process.