Analysing the Relationship Between Postmodernism and Digital Age Governance with Entropy and Mabac Methods: The Case of the 2022 EU Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) Report

Postmodernism has affected institutions and systems with its rejection of traditional, macro, and hierarchical approaches. Accordingly, it has also affected the structuring of public administration by popularising two new concepts: new public management (NPM) and digital age governance (DAG). Public administration systems have sought to escape the rigid confines of modernism with the understanding of NPM, which has evolved into a system in which governance is strengthened together with an understanding of DAG. In this sense, data-based digital governance approaches are being adopted in the postmodernist era, and states, citizens, and the private sector actively participate in digital platforms. Information and communication technologies have become increasingly important for countries in the framework of DAG. Along these lines, the European Commission publishes its Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) Report every year to evaluate the digital transformation performance of EU countries. The aim of this study is to examine the effects of postmodernism on public administration through NPM and DAG and to evaluate the digital governance performances of EU countries in the postmodern era using the entropy and MABAC methods. The dataset used in this research consists of 5 sub-criteria of the Digital Public Service (DPS) criterion included in the 2022 DESI Report. As a result of this analysis, the sub-criterion with the highest importance is found to be ‘Digital Public Services for Business’, while the sub-criterion with the least importance is ‘Pre-Filled Forms’. It is seen that the EU countries with the strongest performance according to the DPS criterion are Estonia, the Netherlands, and Finland, respectively.