Building digital state. Understanding two decades of evolution in Kazakh e-government project
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-03-2018-0100 |
| Date | 08 April 2019 |
| Published date | 08 April 2019 |
| Pages | 301-323 |
| Author | Maxat Kassen |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Bibliometrics,Databases,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet,Records management & preservation,Document management |
Building digital state
Understanding two decades of evolution in
Kazakh e-government project
Maxat Kassen
Department of Political Science,
Eurasian Humanities Institute, Astana, Kazakhstan
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to review and illustrate historical milestones and evolutionary stages
of public sector reforms in such a typical transitional society as Kazakhstan through the prism of existing
e-government development strategies, implementation models and institutional regulations.
Design/methodology/ap proach –The research is mostly based on a retrospective analysis of
technology-driven public sector reforms and content analysis of various e-government strategies and platforms
implemented by national and local executive authorities in Kazakhstan for the last two decades.
Findings –The results of the analysis has confirmed previously made assumptions that typical developing
states tend to adopt different non-linear and multidimensional implementation strategies in advancing
e-government reforms in comparison with developed countries. As it turns out, the continuity of actual stages
or levels of such development not always corresponds in a consecutive manner to the formal phases of the
most popular e-government maturity models proposed previously in academic literature.
Research limitations/implications –One of the fundamental limitations of the case study is that its
findings and recommendations could relate only to a limited number of countries that have similar political,
socioeconomic and administrative contexts. Taking into account the fact that Kazakhstan is not only a typical
developing economy but also a transitional post-communist and post-totalitarian society that has its own
unique political and socioeconomic features of governance, the results of case study could not be generalized
and extrapolated to all developing countries, presumably narrowing them only to a very limited number of
similar states, mostly, in Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia.
Practical implications –The main practical contribution of the article is that it provides a close review of
e-government politics in Kazakhstan that could be helpful for policy makers and practitioners in evaluating,
learning and improving the work of various technology-driven public sector projects in the area, especially
from a regulatory point of view.
Originality/value –This inherently ethnographic narrative, which is based on the analysis of e-government
legislation and implementation strategies derived from diverse administrative practices, could be interesting
for those who seek to understand an ever-changing truly evolutionary nature of technology-driven public
sector reforms in a typical transitional society.
Keywords Kazakhstan, Regulation, Public sector reforms, Digital state, E-government models,
Evolution of e-government
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Since the moment it became independent in 1991, Kazakhstan, a transitional country in
Central Asia,has been experimenting withvarious public sector reformsin order to transform
its post-communist administrative system and join the list of the most developed capitalist
economiesin the world. Often such ambitious reformshave been carried out in an intrinsically
technological manner, especially in regard to the privatization of various sectors of national
economy, streamlining of administrative procedures and operational costs in government
institutions and, more importantly, promoting of various technology-driven public sector
innovations and related digital solutions in a wide range of ministries and agencies.
The recent advance of various digital initiatives such as e-government, e-participation,
e-procurement and open data-driven platforms among others in this country is a
demonstrative example of modernization trends in related public sector reforms.
In this regard, it seems interesting to review key historical milestones and evolutionary
stages of technology-driven public sector reforms in this emerging digital society, especially
Online Information Review
Vol. 43 No. 2, 2019
pp. 301-323
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-03-2018-0100
Received 20 March 2018
Revised 2 June 2018
Accepted 11 August 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
301
Building
digital state
in locating regulatory measures and implementation tactics adopted by policy makers and
other stakeholders in the area. Kazakhstan could be regarded, to a certain degree, as a poster
child of dramatic changes that transitional societies are experiencing today in promoting
public sector reforms. Almost every implementation aspect of such reforms are affected by
technological innovations and new executive practices that either have been adopted from
administrative contexts in other countries, mostly western ones, or invented in unique
socioeconomic and political environments of post-socialist economy. Learning and
improvisation have been two key elements of technological modernization in public
sector that shaped the whole reformation process.
Today, the active promotion of digital agenda in Kazakhstan is not only limited to public
sector (Bhuiyan, 2010; Kassen, 2015), such areas as business, civic and even political ones
are also now being affected by the phenomenon. It is especially true when it comes to the
implementation of various e-procurement, e-education, e-commerce and e-culture platforms
or the recent emergence of such new instruments in advancing collaborative trends in these
administrative reforms as open software, social media and open data-driven platforms.
The key idea of these technology-driven reforms was to apply civic engagement practices
not only at national levels of government, e.g. institutionally at different ministerial
and department levels, but also at provincial and local levels. In this regard, the
overall development of various digital government platforms in Kazakhstan for the last
two decades has been reflected in the demonstrative progress of its ranking in global
e-government rating lists.
2. Research methodology
This case study research is mostly based on a retrospective analysis of technology-driven
public sector reforms and content analysis of various e-government strategies, related
regulatory mechanisms and digital platforms implemented by national and local executive
authorities in Kazakhstan since late 1990s when, in fact, first national programs of
government reformation were adopted. In this regard, it is necessary to note that
retrospective analysis is rarely used in e-government research and mostly resorted to when
scientists aim to review and locate certain periods in the development of the phenomenon
and understand historical records of related research in academic literature (Bélanger and
Carter, 2012) or, more often, in analyzing a set of related empirical data such as results of
interviews with stakeholders, short quizzes and longitude analysis (Hardy and Williams,
2011; Janssen et al., 2012). Such retrospective approach could demonstrate better the
technological progress and evolution of e-government (Pina et al., 2009; Hu et al., 2012), open
government, e-voting (Schryen and Rich, 2009), e-procurement (Hardy and Williams, 2008)
and other related institutions in a strictly consecutive manner. Therefore, the research
presented in this paper is mainly dedicated to the review of continuous progress in the
development of the Kazakh e-government project. This is especially important to do in the
context of a transitional country that is not so often mentioned in related professional
literature. In this respect, the retrospective analysis seems to be the most suitable
methodological technique in this study.
On the other hand, the second method of investigation, namely, the content analysis is a
much popular research approach in e-government studies, especially in understanding or
evaluating the implementation stages of related digital services and regulatory measures in
various public agencies (Kaaya, 2004; Zhou, 2004; West, 2004; Bonsón et al., 2012; Liang and
Lu, 2013; Bonsón et al., 2015; Gao and Lee, 2017). In this regard, the analysis of various
e-government regulation instruments adopted by Kazakh authorities for the last two
decades in the area was a key source of empirical data for the whole case study research.
The overall development of such public sector reforms was highlighted in a chronological
way in its periodization, which was elaborated and suggested by the author based on the
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