Blockchain technology and its applicability in public administration

Blockchain technology has been one of the most prominent topics in the field of information technologies in the last fifteen years, and it has started to attract attention and be adopted by companies in different countries and different sectors of the world. This technology, which was initially considered only in the context of cryptocurrency, later started to affect the lifestyle of individuals in areas such as finance, health, supply chain, insurance and the internet of things, and it continues to show that it has the potential to transform many more areas. Blockchain, in its most basic sense, is an encrypted software technology in which transactions, records, etc. are kept. What makes this technology transformative is that the ledger is "distributed". In other words, all stakeholders connected to the network have all or some part of the ledger at the same time. The reason why this structure is called a blockchain is that each update to the ledger is added to the previous block as an information block, creating an unalterable and auditable chain of transactions. The ledger cannot be changed without consensus of the nodes. The main innovation brought by the blockchain is that it performs all these transactions without the need for a central authority, thus eliminating the need for third parties. The reasons that lead to the acceptance of the factors that push the public administration to change are due to the deficiencies of the traditional management approach. Despite the success it has achieved in its stable periods, the traditional public administration approach is losing its functionality in today's world, where a rapid and widespread technological change is experienced. However, the rapid spread of information with globalization results people in different countries to make new demands from the governments in their own countries by comparing them with the examples in other countries. Blockchain has the potential to provide benefits to the public administration in terms of openness, effectiveness, accountability, reliability and participation, with its distributed and trustless infrastructure, transparency and traceability of the system, certainty, unchangeability of transactions without consensus, cost savings and efficiency. With these aspects, it finds the opportunity to be applied in different areas of public administration such as identity management, asset registration and land registry, notary and registration, electronic voting, smart contracts, health services and food safety. In this study, the applicability of blockchain technology in public administration is examined. First of all, the conceptual framework of the blockchain is presented, and its advantages and disadvantages are reviewed. Then, the benefits of blockchain technology in the context of public administration and its application areas are discussed. Subsequently, in order to better understand the technology, the use cases of blockchain technology in the world and Turkey are reviewed. Finally, the current risks and obstacles are discussed and evaluations are made on the applicability of blockchain technology in public administration.