E-government

e-Government (from electronic government, also known as e-gov, digital government, online government or in a certain context transformational government) refers to the use of internet technology as a platform for exchanging information, providing services and transacting with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. e-Government may be applied by the legislature, judiciary, or administration, in order to improve internal efficiency, the delivery of public services, or processes of democratic governance. The primary delivery models are Government-to-Citizen or Government-to-Customer (G2C), Government-to-Business (G2B) and Government-to-Government (G2G) & Government-to-Employees (G2E).
Within each of these interaction domains, four kind of activities take place

• pushing information over the Internet, e.g: regulatory services, general holidays, public hearing schedules, issue briefs, notifications, etc.
• two-way communications between the agency and the citizen, a business, or another government agency. In this model, users can engage in dialogue with agencies and post problems, comments, or requests to the agency.
• conducting transactions, e.g: lodging tax returns, applying for services and grants.
• governance, e.g: online polling, voting, and campaigning.

The most important anticipated benefits of e-government include improved efficiency, convenience, and better accessibility of public services.

While e-government is often thought of as "online government" or "Internet-based government," many non-Internet "electronic government" technologies can be used in this context. Some non-internet forms include telephone, fax, PDA, SMS text messaging, MMS, wireless networks and services, Bluetooth, CCTV, tracking systems, RFID, biometric identification, road traffic management and regulatory enforcement, identity cards, smart cards and other NFC applications; polling station technology (where non-online e-voting is being considered), TV and radio-based delivery of government services, email, online community facilities, newsgroups and electronic mailing lists, online chat, and instant messaging technologies. There are also some technology-specific sub-categories of e-government, such as m-government (mobile government), u-government (ubiquitous government), and g-government (GIS/GPS applications for e-government).

There are many considerations and potential implications of implementing and designing e-government, including disintermediation of the government and its citizens, impacts on economic, social, and political factors, and disturbances to the status quo in these areas.

In countries such as the United Kingdom, there is interest in using electronic government to re-engage citizens with the political process. In particular, this has taken the form of experiments with electronic voting, aiming to increase voter turnout by making voting easy. The UK Electoral Commission has undertaken several pilots, though concern has been expressed about the potential for fraud with some electronic voting methods.

History of E-Government

E-government is the use of information technology in general, and e-commerce in particular, to provide citizens and organizations with more convenient access to government information and services and to provide delivery of public services to citizens, business partners, and those working in the public sector.

E-government in the United States was especially driven by the 1998 Government Paperwork Elimination Act and by President Clinton's December 17, 1999, Memorandum on E-Government, which ordered the top 500 forms used by citizens to be placed online by December 2000. The memorandum also directed agencies to construct a secure e-government infrastructure.

Development and implementation issues

The development and implementation of e-government involves consideration of its effects on the organisation of the public sector (Cordella, 2007) and on the nature of the services provided by the state including environmental, social, cultural, educational, and consumer issues, among others.

Governments may need to consider the impact by gender, age, language skills, and cultural diversity, as well as the effect on literacy, numeracy, education standards and IT literacy. Economic concerns include the "Digital divide," or the effect of non-use, non-availability or inaccessibility of e-government, or of other digital resources, upon the structure of society, and the potential impact on income and economics.

Economic and revenue-related concerns include e-government's effect on taxation, debt, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), commerce and trade, corporate governance, and its effect on non-e-government business practices, industry and trade, especially Internet Service Providers and Internet infrastructure.

From a technological standpoint, the implementation of e-government has effects on e-enablement, interoperability (e.g., e-GIF) and semantic web issues, "legacy technology" (making "pre-eGovernment IT" work together with or be replaced by e-government systems), and implications for software choices (between open source and proprietary software, and between programming languages) as well as political blogging especially by legislators.

There are also management issues related to service integration, local e-government, and Internet governance including ICANN, IETF and W3C, and financial considerations, such as the cost of implementation / effect on existing budgets, effect on government procurement, and funding.

Legal implications include freedom of information and privacy (e.g. UK Data Protection Act) concerns.

The phrase "e-government" has been a rallying cry for public sector modernization since the 90's, but for many it is now losing its appeal as a slogan or concept. This trend has various drivers. Firstly, there is a wish to mainstream e-government so that best use of technology is integrated into all public sector activity rather than seen as a special interest or add-on. Secondly, many administrations recognise the importance of linking e-government to wider public sector change programmes. Thirdly, the phrase e-government is itself not particularly useful in motivating a change programme. These sorts of considerations have led countries such as the UK to talk of transformational government rather than e-government. Finally, there is the issue of the implications for the public sector of Web 2.0 . All these considerations suggest that e-government is entering a new phase and one in which the term "e-government" is itself becoming less popular.

See also

• Digital Government Society of North America
• E-democracy
• E-Authentication
• E-participation
• E-Government Unit
• eRulemaking
• Electronic services delivery
• Knowledge policy
• Online consultation
• Online deliberation
• Open source governance
• Transformational Government
• National Center for Digital Governance

References

• Encyclopedia of Digital Government. Edited by Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko and Matti Mälkiä. Idea Group Reference.
• I. Kushchu and M. H. Kuscu (2003). "From e-Government to m-Government: Facing the Inevitable". The 3rd European Conference on e-Government. pp. 253–260. {{cite conference}}: Unknown parameter |booktitle= ignored (|book-title= suggested) (help)
• Cordella, A (2007), E-government: towards the e-bureaucratic form?, Journal of Information Technology, 22, 265–274.

External links

Official eGovernment websites

• IDABC (Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens), European Commission.

eGovernment news websites

• eGov monitor — Daily news covering developments in UK and Europe, plus comprehensive weekly newsletter.
• UNPAN eGovernment News — news from UN Division for Public Administration on eGovernment worldwide.
• DigitalGovernance.org Initiative site about electronic governance models applicable for developing countries.

• www.digital-government.net e-Government Portal

• E-Government Bulletin from Headstar in the UK. Fortnight email newsletter with features articles and plenty of pointers since 1998.

General resources

• ePractice.eu — Good practice exchange scheme with a web portal, weekly newsletter, country factsheets, online library, practitioner profiles, events calendar and monthly workshops created by the European Commission for the professional community in eGovernment, e-Inclusion and eHealth.
• The Failure of E-Government in Developing Countries: A Literature Review. — Danish Dada, London School of Economics and Political Science
• IPOL - a portal on Internet and politics — Edited by UK academics and hosted by the University of Salford, includes primary and secondary research resources related to e-democracy, e-government and the use of the Internet by parliaments and assemblies.
• Government Computerization in the Open Directory Project
• The e-Government Imperative OECD e-Government Publications

Bold text