E-government within Public Administration

The purpose of the article is to determine the nature, content, and characteristic features of e-government, as well as to analyze its impact on the implementation of public administration. While writing the article the following methods were used: logical, semantic, method of documentary analysis, and comparative legal. Specific features of modern models of e-government in the world have been analyzed; the expediency of introduction of the optimal model of the specified kind of government into the state system of Ukraine has been researched. The influence of modern high-tech means of egovernment on the existing public administration systems in the world has been studied. The author has suggested their definitions of «e-government», «public administration» and «e-governance». Authors have defined the perspective directions of the development of this sphere, which need to be developed to improve the general situation in the field of public administration. A comparative analysis was carried out with the leading countries in this field. Particular attention has been paid to the successful experience of developed foreign countries in organizing the process of e-government as a perspective form of public administration.


A. INTRODUCTION
The issue of the development of electronic space in the conditions of the modern globalization and information world acquires special urgency at present time. This indisputable fact actualizes the study of a set of problems that have a direct impact on the development of society. First of all, it concerns the issues of improving the efficiency of public institutions' activities, including executive agencies and local self-government, through the introduction of information and communication technologies based on e-government.
Besides, the aspirations of the Ukrainian Government to integrate and to be a full member of the European Union have significantly increased the priority of implementing European norms and standards for the realization of state information policy. To this end, Ukraine must ensure the comprehensive development of e-government following the European requirements and in the framework of the Association Agreement. To accomplish this, the Decree of the President of Ukraine "On Sustainable Development Strategy "Ukraine -2020" No. 5/2015 dated from 12 January 2015 determined the development of egovernment as one of the top priorities for reforming the public administration system.
Recently, Ukrainian society has increasingly called for the introduction of an e-government system into the national state and political structure. These appeals are based on the fact that any system of public administration cannot currently function effectively without the use of modern methods and means of distant provision of administrative services to the population. Such means, among other things, should include e-government technologies.
The main goal of e-governance in Ukraine is to build a modern high-tech mechanism, aimed at the improvement of the central executive authorities and their territorial units, local authorities, and local governments. The result of this should be to ensure the rights of individuals and entities for objective and reliable information about the activities of state agencies, quality administrative services, and the establishment of e-democracy. E-governance as a special form of public administration is essential in today's conditions and is designed to provide (Volokh, 2016): 1) improvement of technology governance, and improving the quality of management decisions using electronic interaction of executive power; 2) the provision of services to citizens and business entities electronically using the Internet and other means, especially the principle of "single window"; 3) citizen participation in public affairs by enabling treatment to government entities via the Internet; 4) protecting the rights of citizens to access public information by publishing it in the form of open data.
It is known that while basic generally accepted standards of egovernment in the field of public administration are just beginning to be introduced in Ukraine, such systems have existed in some developed countries for more than a decade. Therefore, it is appropriate to analyze foreign practice in this area in the context of research on this topic.
The specifics of the issues examined in this article are currently quite relevant. It follows that researchers on this topic have the opportunity to use a significant number of modern authoritative sources. In particular, it should be noted that many scientific papers have been focused on studying the essence and specific features of e-government. Among them, the most authoritative are the works of such scholars as Barikova

B. METHODS
The present paper analy ze utilizes basic theoretical foundations of the application of e-governance. Nowadays, any research should be based on the use of appropriate scientific methods, the application of which makes it possible to achieve the purpose, to justify the conclusions scientifically, and to propose appropriate ways to solve the problem under study. The methodological basis includes a set of general and specific methods of scientific cognition. Also, a systematic approach is used as a general scientific method that has allowed to define the problematic issues related to using e-governance. B asic concepts about e-government became theories about different types of partnership in an e-government system (as G2G, C2G, G2B, and others). L ogical and semantic methods within this study provided an opportunity to consider the essence of the concepts of «e-government», «public administration» and «e-governance». In this context, e-governance is viewed as a way that facilitates communications and secures information sharing. The method of documentary analysis and the analytical method was used during the scientific substantiation of theoretical conclusions, in particular, the authors concluded, the solution of the existing problems in the sphere of e-governance is possible only through comprehensive and multilateral research. All of these methods are applied in interdependence and interconnection.

Use of WWW and SN (social networking tools)
The widespread use of WWW and other SN's (social network tools), by its nature, has erased both social and territorial boundaries between users. This wave has affected the governments of different countries. Since the government aims to provide services to citizens and to inform them, social platforms helped strengthen and simplify communication between government agencies and citizens. Premising the platforms used, the government establishes unique ways of communicating with citizens. Accordingly, the government is simply forced to keep up to date, introducing new and new technologies. As a result, race for modernity was the emergence of such a definition as e-government (Smirnova, 2020, p. 70).
Electronic Government ( e-Government ) has been seen as the silver bullet for modernizing public administrations over the last few years. But the fact is that the broad variety of e -Government initiatives results in an evenly heterogeneous picture regarding the quality of e -Government services provided. Within an international context differences in e-government, quality may result from nationally specific factors such as e-readiness, legal restrictions, the existence of a nation-wide e-Government strategy, and so forth (Becker, Niehaves, Algermissen, Delfmann & Falk, 2004).
The desire to improve the efficiency and quality of public administration in the country has always been relevant for any political power. The only difference is that the authoritarian regimes sought to establish increasing control over their territories and population. Instead, freely elected officials in democratic countries, who have always primarily aimed at serving and reporting to their people, sought to increase the efficiency of their public administration system to improve the quality of people's lives and provide more services to the public. E-government is one of the most important topics of our time. S ocioeconomic development is not possible without an effectively and efficiently operating e-government. The economic, sociocultural, technological, and organizational factors have a significant influence on successful e-government. Furthermore, these factors reflect access to e-government, e-government competencies, and the usage of e-government. Unfortunately, factors determining the success of e-government are not sufficiently established, especially in developing, emerging and transition countries (Ziemba, Papaj & Jadamus-Hacura, 2015).
The e-government system currently deserves particular attention among the many ways and means offered to society for the qualitative improvement of public administration processes. This is explained by the fact that this system, being initially introduced only in the management processes of several states, later, having proved its high efficiency, began to be introduced into the state systems of many other countries (The Decree of the President of Ukraine, No. 5/2015).
The United States of America was one of the first countries to introduce certain e-government and workflow systems into its governance structure. This country, among other things, is considered to be the initiator of the creation and implementation of several different services aimed at providing the public with administration services. By supporting the functioning of e-government systems, thus, the US Government has played a significant role in making the daily lives of its citizens easier.
As early as 1997, the United States Government suggested an initiative called "Improving Government Activities through New Technologies", and a few years later the country launched a special application that brought together more than 20,000 websites of various state agencies and institutions. The final result of the constant modernization of the e-government system in the United States was the creation of a single site for providing services.
It is known that such electronic services were initially designed only for a small list of administrative and public services. For the most part, these were simple operations, primarily such as filling out documents in electronic form, as well as executing and issuing certain licenses (for example, driver's licenses). It should be separately noted that the legislation agency of state power (US Congress) plays an extremely important role in the effective and efficient functioning of e-government systems in the United States. Due to the active position of its members, which is to provide the most favorable conditions for improving the lives of citizens, the country demonstrates a flexible and at the same time effective approach to regulating this area (Order of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 649-r).
As for the countries of Western Europe, it should be noted that the recognized leader in the field of e-government in this region is the United Kingdom. Among the characteristic features that take place in the British system of electronic public service delivery, we can distinguish its division into two main sectors. The first sector should include the program "E-citizen" (electronic citizen). It mainly focuses on interaction with the average citizen, i.e. provides services to his needs in contacts with government officials or assisting in the preparation and execution of documents.
The second sector includes the "E-business" (electronic business) program. Unlike the previous one, this program is to support trade and commercial enterprises, companies with various forms of ownership, as well as non-profit organizations.
For example, it allows representatives of any legal entity to receive distant consultation on issues that constitute an interest in them . This program is also a kind of intermediary between enterprises and organizations, on the one hand, and state agencies -on the other hand. In particular, it is manifested in applying this service by persons during the registration or reorganization of the enterprise.
Nowadays, the e-government system in the UK provides a full range of public administration services both to citizens, meeting their needs distantly and with a high level of efficiency, and legal entities, making their activities more efficient and mobile. In this context, it is noted that a significant contribution to the implementation of such a developed and effective egovernment system, which is currently owned by the Kingdom of Great Britain, was made by the Government's strategy "Service to society in the information age".
This initiative of the British political leadership was to simplify the provision of the bulk of public administration services, making them faster and more efficient, while ensuring the principle of inclusiveness for each citizen. A separate subdivision of this system of electronic provision of public services is a special application that allows you to send a variety of complaints and suggestions that concern citizens to state agencies and institutions.
It is important to emphasize that in most developed Western countries, including the above-mentioned United States and Great Britain, the system of egovernment copies the existing system of state, administrative and territorial organization in these countries. Thus, it means that following the high independence of administrative and territorial units of these states (especially in federal countries such as the United States), each city or region has its own and independent e-government systems (Barikova, 2016).
Concerning the levels of organization of e-government system, it should be emphasized that it can be operated in four areas in the vast majority of countries, namely: G2C (government to citizens) or "government to citizens", G2E (government to employees) or "government to employees". G2B (government to business) or "government to business" and G2G (government to government) or "government to government". The G2C level, which is the interaction between public authorities and ordinary citizens, when the latter receive public services, is usually the largest structural unit of the system and is considered to be the one, whe re e-government systems are created for its operation.
This important role of this structural unit is explained by the fact that it is the main (basic) component of the system, as it allows to cover a much larger number of entities compared to other structural components. Due to this organizational level, representatives of various segments of the population of the country have the opportunity to receive a wide range of all the information and assistance they need in the field of public administration services that interest them (Khomy, 2015).
The G2E level is recognized as a relatively new separate unit in the egovernment system. This is because its main purpose, namely maintenance of a high level of interaction between officials and employees working in various state agencies and departments, was not initially considered at all while creating the first models of e-government. But over time, the capabilities of this service in the field of automation of daily activities of employees and their cooperation have been highly praised by government agencies in many countries.
Concerning the level of G2B mentioned above in this article, it is stated that it is aimed at facilitating the functioning of business in the state by creating the most favorable conditions for it, by providing it with the necessary relationship with the competent state agencies. Among other things, with the help of this component of e-government, it is possible to pay taxes distantly in an electronic way or even to conduct electronic tenders for purchasing any product needed by the state or enterprises. It is emphasized that countries can save a lot of money by using this component of the e-government system. Regarding the fourth component (level) of the e-government system (G2G), it is noted that its emergence is due to the desire of governments of different countries to improve interaction and document management between their structural agencies. A characteristic feature of this component is the fact that it does not belong to any of the current state e-government systems. Instead, it is defined as a generally accepted standard of interaction and exchange of information between government agencies of the countries. This component is also applied to the interaction between territorial units of different levels of government, which ensures more effective coordination of efforts between government agencies of the country. In turn, it is noted that improved interaction between government agencies leads to significant success in the development of the economy of any region.
Studying each of the structural components of the e-government system, as well as comparing them with each other, we can say that although each of them has its characteristics, they are all united by a common set of principles, objectives, and functional purposes. In particular, their common principles should include the continuity of the document flow, its one-time registration, as well as the possibility of simultaneous execution of many parallel operations.
At the same time, the main functional purpose of the above levels of egovernment, as a rule, include the involvement of citizens in public affairs, ensuring their fundamental rights, freedoms, and legitimate interests. Besides, the functions are usually supplemented by improving the national and local public administration system, improving the quality of the process of providing public administration services, overcoming information inequality between members of different segments of the population, etc. (Malynovskyi, Hrytsiak & Semenchenko, 2017) The study Ziemba, E., Papaj, T. & Jadamus-Hacura, M. showed that some factors identified in the literature affect the successful e-government. For example, the factors analyzed by Rana, Dwivedi, and Williams (2017) influence the success of e-government in Poland, i.e. citizen's satisfaction, security, privacy and trust, support from the government, ICT skills, facilities offered, and efficiency. Furthermore, also found that the factors identified for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, like the EU membership, innovative thinking, strategic ICT thinking within government, rule of law, availability of ICT infrastructure, and ICT amenities affect the success of e-government. However, these previous studies did not investigate the role of other factors indicated in the proposed success factor framework, e.g. Financial situation of e-government unit, New social and cultural competences of government employees, Citizens' and enterprises' awareness of e-government services, The competence of employees of government units in the field of new management models, Mandatory usage of electronic documents in government units, etc. Besides, these previous studies defined some factors at a very general level, e.g. the EU membership (Ziemba, Papaj & Jadamus-Hacura, 2015).
As T. Kalvet (2007Kalvet ( , 2012 noted in his research, Estonia is seen as a remarkable success story in the context of e-government. Several studies that have mapped the major factors affecting the evolution of e-government in Estonia are mainly grounded in information systems theory; even if publicprivate partnerships are examined, their treatment remains too general. Estonia has had remarkable success in promoting a technology-based information society, and especially, with establishing the principles of e-government. Estonia has been ranked highly in international comparisons measuring information-society developments, not only among Central and Eastern European countries but also the original European Union member states and other leading Information and Communication Technology (ICT) countries. All public services in Estonia include an e-service component. In particular, all state and local government agencies, persons in public law, as well as persons in private law performing public law functions must accept digitally signed documents. Since their introduction in 2002, digital signatures have been employed by 250,000 users for signing contracts, applications, transaction orders, etc. Estonia is also one of the world's leaders in e-filing of tax returns and other declarations. Estonian achievements are also notable in e-voting, one of the most ambitious fields of application for e-government. Estonia has implemented remote internet-based voting in several nationwide elections: local government elections (2005) The Madrid experience project was implemented from 2015 to 2019 by the local government of the city of Madrid (numbering more than 3 million inhabitants) and aimed to be an open and binding space for the formulation, debate, and approval of proposals for the design and implementation of local public policies (Decide Madrid). The greatest difficulties in implementing participatory processes do not reside in technology, but in the will of those who can put them into operation, as well as in their capacity to identify other nontechnological factors that condition participation. Of course, our examination of the evidence leads us to conclude that digital technologies are really useful tools that favor processes of direct, binding participation and that large cities are an optimal arena for the experimentation of this kind of process. Therefore, it is still necessary to try to identify non-technological factors that affect participation in the process of making democratic decisions. Moreover, citizens' perceptions of and feelings towards e-democracy should be analy ze d before the use of digital platforms as such. The experience of Madrid, just like other equally remarkable projects, such as the aforementioned Irish Citizens' Assembly, shows a basic weakness of these democratic innovations: they are rather unstable, for they depend on the ideological alignment of the government, and they usually expire after a change or a coalition of ruling parties. The lack of the institutionalization of innovations could have an unexpected effect of citizens becoming more skeptical, not only of participatory electronic innovations but of local democracy in general (Iglesias Alonso, & Barbeito Iglesias, 2020).

Introduction process of E-government in Ukraine
According to the Concept of e-government development, approved by the Order of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dated from 13 December 2010 No. 2250-r, e-government is a form of public administration that promotes efficiency, openness, and transparency of public authorities and local selfgovernment agencies by using information and telecommunication technologies. According to this concept, the development of e-government in Ukraine, as well as the introduction of e-governance involves, first of all, the creation of qualitatively new forms of organization of public authorities and local self-government agencies, and secondly, their interaction with citizens and business entities through granting: a) access to state information resources; b) opportunities to receive electronic administrative services; c) opportunities to apply to state authorities and local selfgovernment agencies by using the Internet.
At the same time, as Yu. Solomko (2018, p. 135) noted in his study, the adoption of the Concept of e-government in Ukraine in late 2010 did not contribute to the understanding of the term of "e-government" both by state agencies and ordinary citizens and what components need to be developed. This, in turn, has led to Ukraine's lagging far behind the global pace of e-government development. Thus, according to the latest UN study (United Nations E-government Survey 2016) on the development of e-government (E-Government Development Index), Ukraine ranked 62 among 193 countries. All this indicates the need for a clear understanding of the purpose, features, principles, and benefits of egovernment technologies and improvement of public policy in this area.
The Government of Ukraine adopted a new Concept for the development of e-government in Ukraine in September 2017, which defines e-government as a form of public administration that promotes efficiency, openness, and transparency of state authorities and local self-government agencies' activities by using information and telecommunication technologies for the formation of a new type of the state focused on meeting the needs of citizens. As we can see, the concept of "e-government" has been expanded taking into account the needs of public life and the development of public administration, since this area of public activity is one of the main factors of ensuring the success of reform and competitiveness of the country. The reform of any industry in modern conditions is aimed at the widespread use of modern information and communication technologies to achieve the required level of efficiency and effectiveness. It is the tools of e-government that can significantly improve the quality of service for individuals and legal entities, and thus, promote openness, transparency, and efficiency of state authorities and local selfgovernment agencies' activities.
Further perspectives for the introduction of e-government in Ukraine are reflected in Section 2 "New policy of state authorities and local self-government agencies, public administration" of the Program of Activities of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in 2014. In particular, one of the main objectives of the Government was the introduction of e-government, the provision of electronic contactless services, and the rejection of hard-copy paperwork (Resolution of Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine No. 26-VIII).
It is also worth noting that the introduction of full e-government in the Program of Activities of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine of 2016 (Section VII "Decentralization and Public Administration Reform") is also determined by one of the tasks and the activities of the Government will focus on these tasks (Resolution of Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine No. 1099-VIII). Therefore, it can be argued that the idea of introducing e-government is not new, but considering the political and economic situation in Ukraine in recent years, it has not found its practical implementation. Researchers provide other definitions of the term "e-government" in the scientific literature. According to experts, there are different definitions of "e-government" in the scientific and expert community. It is due to the lack of consistency in the interpretation of the concepts of "egovernment" and "e-governance" in different official documents in various countries (Semenchenko & Serenok, 2017). Yekhanov (2012) believes that the term "e-governance" should be understood as a way of organizing government through the system of local information networks and segments of the global information network, which ensures the functioning of government agencies in real-time and makes it as simple and accessible daily communication with citizens, legal entities, nongovernmental organizations.
The e-Government can be defined as follows: the simplification and implementation of information, communication, and transaction processes, to achieve, utilizing information and communication technology, an administrative service, within and between authorities and, like-wise, between authorities and private individuals or companies (Becker, Algermissen & Niehaves, 2003).
According to the Rec (2004) 15 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe "On E-government", e-government includes e-democracy and the provision of e-public services. Publication of information by electronic means as a kind of activity belongs to e-services. This Recommendation outlines the following steps for the development of e-government in the signatory states: 1) to review the policy for the introduction of e-government technologies, legislation, and practice of its application in this area; 2) to involve relevant international and national experts into cooperation to develop a joint strategy for the implementation and development of egovernment; 3) to develop an e-government strategy that fully complies with the principles of the national organization of democratic governance; 4) to promote the positive development of democratic processes, etc.
We are convinced that the introduction of e-government is a basic precondition for building an efficient digital economy and digital market in Ukraine and its further integration into the EU Digital Single Market Strategy. The introduction of this form of public administration will significantly reduce the cost of human time to register the necessary documents (obtaining a certificate, appeal on social issues, etc.), as well as enable the state to save expenses on the preparation of various documents that can be done electronically. For example, e-declaration has been already introduced in Ukraine, which allowed state officials to reduce the time required to complete paper declarations and further submit them to the fiscal service.
The issue regarding the introduction of e-government is particularly relevant, very important, and vital that is facing the residents of villages and settlements, which are far from the district centers. To obtain the necessary information or any document, such people are forced to spend a considerable amount of time -first, you need to order them and after a while just get them. Thus, there is an unreasonable expenditure of both material and time resources, which indicates the urgent need to transform the information development of public administration, including through the introduction of e-government into the practice of state authorities. E-government has been conceptualized as the intensive or generalized use of information technologies in government for the provision of public services, the improvement of managerial effectiveness, and the promotion of democratic values and mechanisms (Gil-Garcı´a, & Luna-Reyes, 2003). Information technology (IT) has the potential to transform government structures and to improve the quality of government services. Technology provides two main opportunities for government: (1) increased operational efficiency by reducing costs and increasing productivity, and (2) better quality of services provided by government agencies (Gil-Garcı´a, & Luna-Reyes, 2005).

D. CONCLUSIONS
Summarizing all the views, theses, and statements presented in the article and formulating a single conclusion based on them, it can be noted that the egovernment system is unanimously recognized by all authoritative researchers and scholars as to the one that should exist and function in every sovereign country. Besides, the usefulness of this system is recognized as important for the development of management relations in the field of local self-government.
The systems of Western countries such as the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Germany, and France are currently the most developed and effective in the field of e-government among all countries in the world. This is partly since these countries have the highest level of the democratic political regime in the world, as well as high transparency of the state and bureaucratic system.
The dependence of the quality of public administration on the level of democracy of the country and the degree of rule of law there is recognized as proven. After all, it can create and implement a system of government that would work for the benefit of every citizen only in those countries, where the government is elected transparentl y, based on equality, competition, and transparency. Every politician in such a country has a personal responsibility to his constituents.
If methods and means of implementing e-democracy in Ukraine, an integral part of which is e-government, are only at the initial stage of their potential development, society and statesmen should follow the example of the e-government system of Western countries. Unfortunately, corruption schemes and the complete irresponsibility of the vast majority of politicians over the years have wasted much time that could have been used to improve the quality of public administration in the country. It has been stated that one of the main tasks of the current government should be the organization of an effective egovernment system aimed at making life easier for citizens and entrepreneurs.