Chapter Two: Literature Review

Chapter Introduction

As noted above, the problem of interest to this study concerns the relative effectiveness of public administrations activities dedicated to the evaluation of the life quality and standards. Therefore, this chapter provides a review of the relevant literature concerning current public administration research, focusing on governance's role in evaluating and enhancing societal wellbeing globally. For this purpose, the chapter assesses recurring themes, limitations, influential works, and implications for future studies in this field. A summary of the findings are presented in the chapter conclusion.

Common Themes, Assumptions, and Approaches

The identification of common themes, assumptions and approaches used in public administration and evaluating their effectiveness in assessing and improving citizen life quality and standards is critically important for several reasons. Perhaps most importantly, the process serves to provide accountability concerning how well governance bodies are meeting public needs which enhances transparency of performance on wellbeing metrics. In addition, comparative analysis of successful and unsuccessful administrative approaches allows identifying hard-learned and expensive best practices that can be scaled while reforming or discontinuing ineffective policies. The review of the relevant literature revealed a number of common themes, assumptions and approaches that have garnered mixed results which are discussed below.

Furthermore, resilient, citizen-centric governance emerged from the reviewed literature as a shared thematic priority across multiple sources. Citizen-centric governance refers to public administration that prioritizes meeting the needs and preferences of citizens through co-creation and user-driven policy and services (Hanbal et al., 2023). For instance, Ansell et al. (2021) highlight robust strategies such as modularization that enabled targeted Covid-19 pandemic-era responses. In many cases, these types of initiatives involve innovative e-governance models that encourage citizens to more actively participate in the local decision-making processes (Lo et al., 2022).

In sum, instead of a model of government that acts on passive citizens, citizen-centric governance places a high priority on collaborative engagement, participatory processes, and individualization. In this regard, Singh et al. (2022) report that, A citizen centric approach mainly concerns the needs of the citizens or develops products and services with the orientation of benefits to the citizens. Additionally, citizen centricity is all about creating value for citizens (p. 540). Therefore, by adopting informed and timely citizen-centric governance, policymakers can create a democratic system that not only addresses citizens' needs but also empowers them as active contributors to the decision-making process, fostering a sense of ownership and accountability within society in mutually beneficial ways. For example, according to Ju et al. (2019), Citizen participation in E -governance is, essentially, a social exchange between individuals and their government through which the citizen creates public value as well as acquires private value (p. 37).

Some of the core principles of citizen-centric governance include transparency, accountability, accessibility, human-focused design, and prompt responsiveness and potential approaches include participatory budgeting and crowdsourcing citizen feedback and insights (Lazaroiu, 2017). The overarching aim of citizen-centric governance is responsiveness to citizens values and priorities across the policy cycle. A growing body of research confirms that well-implemented citizen-centric governance can enhance satisfaction, trust, and collective problem-solving processes (Lazaroiu, 2017).

Similarly, Frijters et al. (2020) trace the historical foundations of wellbeing economics, providing policymakers preliminary models like the UKs What Works Centre for Wellbeing to emphasize happiness in governance. Although proponents differ in their precise views, they generally share the notion that the overarching goal of wellbeing economies and public policy should be maximizing human wellbeing/happiness rather than solely focusing on economic growth. In this regard, Henscher (2023) reports that, The wellbeing economy draw heavily upon a range of heterodox schools of economic thought; these schools differ in many respects, but all share the central common insight that the economy is best conceived as a social provisioning system for humanity's needs (p. 1). In this context, wellbeing is comprised of multiple dimensions including physical health, mental health, social connectedness, purpose, financial security, among others (Henscher, 2023).

Digital innovation is also a recurrent theme in the relevant literature, with Helander et al. (2020) using activity theory to examine collaborative e-government services and Bullock (2019) assessing AIs transformative potential. Likewise, Lo et al. (2022) cite the example of E-governance technologies to enhance government operations and services involving citizens, businesses, and other stakeholders. As technology rapidly progresses and Moores law continues to hold true, there is a growing assumption among public sector policymakers that establishing e-governance models has become absolutely essential for streamlining processes, integrating multi-actor governance, and adopting a digital-by-default approach aimed at efficiency, reduced bureaucracy, improved capabilities, and increased trust among stakeholders (Lo et al., 2022). There is likewise a prominent and unjustified assumption among many scholars and policymakers alike that if sufficient resources are allocated to these initiatives, achieving optimal outcomes is possible and perhaps even inevitable.

It is important to note, though, that virtually all of the resources reviewed emphasized that a number of significant challenges remain in fully implementing these types of distributed data sharing solutions at all levels of government (Valenzuela-Fernndez et al., 2023). In this context, E-governance can be regarded as encompassing the full range of changes in politics and public services brought about by innovations in digital technologies and online platforms. This evolution highlights the interaction between e-governance, as the digital-enabled collaboration among government, citizens, and stakeholders, and e-government, or the provision of digitized public services (Umbach & Tkalec, 2022). Implementing and evaluating e-governance reveals challenges and pitfalls across different policy domains and geographic regions. The research to date indicates that the factors influencing e-governance success are highly context-specific, including policy area, institutional climate, and administrative customs. Consequently, comprehensively evaluating e-governance remains especially challenging. Indeed, assessment tends to be limited to analyzing particular tools, projects, and initiatives as operational examples (Umbach & Tkalec, 2022).

Finally, the increasingly influential impacts of trends such as populism and technology are also common themes that was identified in the reviewed literature (Wanvik & Haarstad, 2021). Although these trends have implications for virtually all types and levels of government operations, they are especially salient for environmental initiatives where citizens are becoming increasingly involved and vocal in their protests against what they regard are harmful public and private sector policies. For instance, according to Wanvik and Haarstad (2021), In local and urban politics, many populist movements have manifested as opposition to road tolls and congestion charging, car-free zones, fuel subsidy removal, and so on (p. 2096). It is reasonable to expect that these trends will continue to gather momentum as the grim realities of climate change displace tens of millions of people around the world by the end of the century or even in the foreseeable future.

Despite the efforts by researchers and policymakers to forge improved approaches to service delivery, much work remains to be done. In fact, the various approaches used by governments that are reflected in the existing body of knowledge concerning the relative effectiveness of public administration in their activities dedicated to the evaluation of the life quality and standards are all characterized by some significant common weaknesses and limitations which as discussed below.

Common Weaknesses and Limitations

The research to date that is focused on analyzing the effectiveness...…regard, Helliwell et al. (2023) emphasize that, The natural way to measure a nations happiness is to ask a nationally-representative sample of people how satisfied they are with their lives these days (p. 4).

As noted above, happiness is highly subjective and the adage that money cannot buy it may be true. Nevertheless, impoverished nations in Africa and affluent nations in Western Europe continues to rank highest on the World Happiness Report, suggesting that the fulfillment of basic Maslowian needs are absolutely essential before humans can truly realize happiness at any meaningful level. After all, parents with starving children are little interested in the fine arts or the latest entertainment business buzz. Likewise, people who suffer from debilitating diseases are hard-pressed to be happy, and the difference that money can make in securing adequate, high-quality health care is inestimable. As the editors of The World Happiness Report point out, A population will only experience high levels of overall life satisfaction if its people are also pro-social, healthy, and prosperous. In other words, its people must have high levels of what Aristotle called eudaimonia. So at the level of society, life satisfaction and eudaimonia go hand-in-hand (Helliwell et al., 2023, p. 4).

Moreover, the reports annual measurement of national happiness and models correlating life satisfaction with key variables have inspired widespread adoption of similar wellbeing indices. The report's significance lies in substantiating happiness data as essential for informing people-centered policy and assessing genuine human progress. The reports findings have spurred the implementation of similar wellbeing indices in other venues, thereby reinforcing the notion that happiness is a crucial metric for guiding governance and fulfilling citizens' fundamental needs

Warranted Future Research

Broadened comparative, longitudinal, and outcome-based assessments emerged as major research priorities for the future (Kokhanovskaya et al., 2019; Lai et al., 2020). In addition, continued technology research is needed as public sector services digitize and expand in scope (Jacobides, 2022). The exploration of systemic and structural factors together with cultural-specific behavioral factors could also improve government policies at all levels, especially those related to healthcare (Curtis et al., 2019). Similarly, structural factors that promote sustainable governmental practices warrant additional future research. For instance, Prabowo et al. (2023) point out that, Sustainable development remains a little-explored area, specifically concerning power-dominant economies and as an ethical representation of managing a country's law and order situations (p. 183).

Likewise, a major need exists for expanded comparative analyses that evaluate the effectiveness of governance models across different countries and contexts. While studies tend to concentrate on specific cases, cross-national research could better reveal best practices and enhance generalizability. Additionally, more longitudinal assessments tracking the long-term impacts of administrative policies and reforms are warranted to complement the extant body of short-term, limited analyses.

Chapter Summary

The research was consistent in identifying citizen-centric governance as a shared thematic priority, emphasizing collaborative engagement, participatory processes, and individualization in public administration. In sum, by prioritizing citizen needs and preferences, this approach empowers citizens to actively contribute to the decision-making process, fostering a sense of ownership and accountability. In addition, well-implemented citizen-centric governance were also shown to enhance satisfaction, trust, and collective problem-solving processes. Liewise, another prominent theme highlighted in the literature was wellbeing economics, which advocates maximizing human wellbeing and happiness rather than solely focusing on economic growth in public policy. In this regard, the World Happiness Report was shown to be especially influential in anchoring happiness as a government policy goal, ranking countries based on life satisfaction and providing valuable insights into the impact of various societal conditions on wellbeing. By correlating happiness levels with national-level variables,…