A Token Economy built on Blockchain open up new ways for efficiency and wealth distribution in Public Services.

It is worth to highlight that Blockchain is also especially suitable for environments where there is low trust between the actors. The lack of trust is the case of most relations between the governments and its citizens and hence makes Blockchain very relevant in public services.

However, before looking at how Blockchain can be used in governance, a brief introduction to how governance works is presented.

Public Governance

Public Governance is the exercise of power or authority conducted by political leaders for the well-being of their citizens or subjects. However, the governments themselves cannot do everything for their people, so governance has become more and more associated with the concept of decentralization of power and the involvement of the private sector and the civil society.

In general terms, public governance occurs in three broad ways:

Top-Down : Through top-down methods that primarily involve governments and the state bureaucracy.

: Through top-down methods that primarily involve governments and the state bureaucracy. Networks : Through networks involving the public administration with public-private partnerships and the collaboration of community organizations.

: Through networks involving the public administration with public-private partnerships and the collaboration of community organizations. Regulation: Through the use of market mechanisms whereby market principles of competition serve to allocate resources while operating under government regulation.

Governance can be conducted both in a good and a bad way. To identify what good governance is, the following eight indicators can be used: it is participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive and follows the rule of law. When looking at these eight indicators, it is clear that all these can be achieved, or at least radically improved, by using Blockchain.

Blockchain in Governance

The Values of Blockchain in Public Administration

As Blockchain offers transparency, immutability, and cybersecurity; establish trust; and permits new governance models through the Token Economy. Hence Blockchain has caught the attention of many stakeholders. And although Blockchain is by no means the solution to solve every problem within the public administration or the governmental services, it offers exciting solutions to many of them.

As seen previously, there are three different ways in which governance can be carried out: through top-down, networks and regulation. Below, it is analyzed how Blockchain can potentially be applied in different use cases to achieve good governance in each one of them.

Blockchain in Top-Down Governance

The State Bureaucracy is the first way of governance, where it is carried out in an authoritarian way from the top of the public sector, down to the private and civil society. Succeeding, some of the most relevant Blockchain use cases in relation to this model are presented.

➜ Blockchain for Democracy and Decision making

Current democratic models are generally based upon elections where the citizens vote, with several years in between, for political parties with political programs and their representatives. This traditional model of governance responds poorly to today’s management of nations and cities which continuously gets more complex and changes in an increasingly faster rate. This malfunctioning of democracy in today’s society is reflected in low participation in elections and the increase of new ways to protest against governmental politics. So, it is rather apparent that there is a need to improve the participation and involvement of the citizens in political processes at all levels.

Blockchain can offer new disruptive models for decision making with functionalities such as: the possibility for citizens to engage and participate more directly in areas they are interested in, real-time participation in voting processes, new ways for politicians and experts to build credibility and authority and the possibility to delegate ones votes to authorities within specific areas. Aragon is an example of a Blockchain platform, where organizations can be built online, with alternative models for management and decision making, which highlights interesting alternatives to current democratic models.

➜ Blockchain Identity

Correct identification of people, entities, objects or even autonomous agents is crucial for all the actors involved in providing services within the digital economy. Identification is necessary for the individuals use of essential services such as voting, property registration or banking. Moreover, for governments, the identification is necessary for example: to verify citizenship, to tax, or to assign the rights to health services and education. The lack of reliable digital identification is also stopping the development of many interesting and valuable services within governance.