Deadline for abstracts extended until 15th May 2018!

Whilst concepts and approaches associated with e-Government and the smart city appear to be focussed on delivering better services, they differ markedly, with the former focussing on the administrative and enhanced use of ICTs and the latter on creating an environment for innovation and radical new ways of using data, including data emanating from social media. The evolution from e-Government to smart city services implies an even greater emphasis on the use of data, which in turn is intended to lead to better policy and decision-making, as well as enhanced service provision. Alongside this subtle but significant shift in the way data is used has been has been a transformation in the way services are conceived, commissioned, organised, delivered and governed, with a far greater involvement of the private sector and greater use of commercial data practices. The smart city environment includes a range of diverse stakeholders and partnerships, including public agencies, private companies, civil society, academia and individual citizens and consequently traditional governance practices are evolving.

For the dedicated panel session of the Permanent Study Group on eGovernment, we are especially interested in papers that examine the ways in which these new smart city environments are governed and the ways in which smart city governance arrangements are evolving with the development of new smart technologies.

Questions for consideration include:
•  Are new forms of governance emerging around smart cities?
•  To what extent are new governance arrangements dependent upon new smart technologies?
•  What is the impact on and experience of stakeholders?
•  Do new governance arrangements include new forms of participation?
•  How has the role of the private sector evolved?
•  How has public policy and practice changed with the emergent of smart technologies?
•  Have traditional concepts of transparency, accountability and stewardship been challenged in this new era?
•  What are the barriers to delivering the effective governance of smart cities?

For these dedicated sessions of the Study Group, we are looking for theoretical and critical papers, as well as case studies, exploring aspects of smart city governance. Our intention is to collect the papers together for a special issue of the journal Information Polity, to be published in 2019.

Deadline for abstracts: 18 April 2018

Full information about the call can be found here.

Information about the annual EGPA conference can be found here.