Restructuring of the central organization of e-government services: Example of Digital Transformation Office

Principles such as solidarity, democracy, participation, effectiveness and efficiency of new public administration and governance approaches constitute the basis of the paradigm shift in public administration. The combination of the previously mentioned principles and the easy, fast and inexpensive aspects of information and communication technologies has facilitated task accomplishments in this sector. Therefore, the idea of using technology in public services was born. The most tangible forms of this achieved so far are online government services, such as e-Government. It can be noticed that many countries followed a similar trend regarding online government services. However, over time, the dynamic structure of the digital transformation has caused changes in online government policies, management and understanding of service delivery. With the use of new technologies and artificial intelligence, we are entering a new era in the understanding of public service and the way to deliver those services. During this period, the organizations of the state began to be restructured with the discourses of the coordinating state, the competitive state and the new developmental state. Also, the new presidential government system adopted in 2018 in Turkey can be seen as a reflection of this understanding. Since the beginning of online government services in Turkey, there have been many different people or organisations which were directly or indirectly responsible for the administration and management of these services. These led to some issues in the development of online government services. Therefore, with the transition to the new Presidential System, simplifications were made both in organizational structures and in the management of online government services. In this context, new policy actors have been created, an integrated understanding of the country's digital transformation has been adopted and the Digital Transformation Office has been established as a pioneering unit to initiate digital transformation from the public. The goal of this thesis is to examine the overall process of the evolution of the digital online government services discourse in Turkey; in particular, it is to identify and evaluate the reasons for the foreseen changes in the Digital Transformation Office and online government services that entered our lives after the New Presidential Government System. With regard to the previously mentioned approach, the method used in this thesis is analysis of the research data obtained through the document review, which is a qualitative data collection tool, by using a descriptive analysis method.