Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
5.1 A Multiplicity of E-Government Models
Far from comprising some homogeneous whole, the set of ideas and practices that
lie at the heart of e-government are actually quite diverse, varying over time,
space, and institutional context. Recognition of this fact is essential if the geo-
graphic specificity of e-government forms is to be taken seriously.
Chadwick and May (
2003
) sketch three models of e-government—the mana-
gerial, consultative, and participatory—based on the experiences of the U.S.,
Britain, and the European Union. Managerial e-government is focused on maxi-
mizing the efficiency of delivery of government services to citizens, in which
speed is the defining criterion of improved effectiveness. The consultative model
centers upon citizen input into local and national governments, in which infor-
mation technologies are seen as democratizing in nature: examples include internet
voting, polling, referenda, and electronic town halls. Finally, the participatory
model of e-government facilitates an electronic public sphere in which the state is
but one of many actors, a utopian objective that falls in line with Habermas's
(
1979
) famous vision of democracy as a negotiated consensus that lies at the heart
of legitimate political rule. As Froomkin (
2003
, p. 856) puts it, ''In Habermasian
terms, the Internet draws power back into the public sphere, away from other
systems.'' Importantly, the involvement of non-state actors, including citizens,
corporations, and non-governmental organizations, broadens e-government to the
wider domain of e-governance. In short, these three models lie in a continuum of
social access, in which the consultative and participatory forms represent the most
socially inclusive implementations.
Analogously, Layne and Lee (
2001
) constructed an influential sketch of
developmental stages in the implementation of e-government: a simple online
presence (i.e., web portal); interfaces that allow transactional access to data and
services, in which citizens shift from a passive to an active role; vertically inte-
gration, in which local government portals are seamlessly meshed with those of
national authorities (e.g., for license applications); and finally, horizontal inte-
gration, in which one or a few centralized sites offer ''one-stop shopping'' for a
broad range of government functions and purposes. Empirical evaluations of e-
government initiatives often include assessments of websites, including criteria
such as missing links, readability, publications and data displayed, email addresses
and/or telephone numbers of public officials, foreign languages access, sound and
video clips, ability to use credit cards and digital signatures, security and privacy
policies, and opportunities for citizen comments. Thus, those forms of e-govern-
ment that exhibit the widest range of applications and ease of use may be said to be
the most inclusive and useful to the largest potential pool of users.
One widely hailed application of e-government is electronic voting, or e-voting,
in which votes are cast over the internet (not to be confused with electronic reading
of paper ballots). Largely due to security concerns, internet voting is still in its
infancy. In the United States, only Arizona has experimented with this approach as
one among several (Gibson
2001
; Solop
2001
). In Europe, the popularity of this
