Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Such surveys compare governments on the way
in which they make use of internet technologies
drawing on the idea that there are stages of e-
government development. The United Nations
refers to five stages of e-government:
intrinsically tied up with information and commu-
nication technologies. Well before the invention
of the integrated circuit, government bureaucratic
action was predicated on statistics, paper forms
and filing cabinets, punched cards, the telegraph
and telephones (Agar, 2003; Higgs, 2004).
Perri 6 (2004) provides one of best consider-
ations of the various uses of ICTs by government
and how this varies according to different orga-
nizational and individual actors. He argues that
e-government consists of four distinct domains
of activity:
1.
Emerging: A government web presence is
established through a few independent of-
ficial sites. Information is limited, basic and
static.
2.
Enhanced: Content and information is up-
dated with greater regularity.
3.
Interactive: Users can download forms,
contact officials, and make appointments
and requests.
1.
e-democracy
involves the use of ICTs by
government to receive the views of citizens,
businesses and organizations;
4.
Transactional: Users can actually pay for
services or conduct financial transactions
online.
2.
e-service provision
involves the “delivery
of public services over digital networks and
media”;
5.
Seamless: Total integration of e-functions
and services across administrative and de-
partmental boundaries (UN DPEPA, 2002,
p. 10).
3.
e-management
relates to the use of ICTs
for managing the use of resources within
government; and
4.
e-governance refers to the “digital support
for policy formulation and the scrutiny and
oversight of the achievement of policy goals”
(pp. 15-17).
Such stages depict government use of internet
technologies as evolving from simple to more
complex uses, with the implication that more
developed usage is associated with more devel-
oped forms of public administration, government
service delivery and citizen participation.
While the internet technologies applied first in
business (as e-commerce) and then in government
(as e-government) has provided the impetus and
framework for much thinking about ICTs in public
and social policy, it is increasingly being recog-
nized that e-government not only involves internet
technologies, but other ICTs, including mainframe
computers and computer databases, decision sup-
port systems or expert systems, telephone call
centers, mobile phone SMSing and smart cards.
Indeed, digital information and communication
technologies were well entrenched in government
operations before the internet was invented, and
much government use of internet technologies are
built on those earlier digital ICTs (Cortada 2008).
Moreover, modern government has always been
In each of these domains ICT has some, but
a varying, relationship with public policy. In e-
governance and e-democracy, ICTs are used for
thinking about, developing, analyzing and evalu-
ating policy. ICTs implement policy in e-service
provision. In e-management, policy is limited to
policies on government administration. These
observations demonstrate the various ways in
which ICTs can be implicated in social and public
policy processes.
tHeory anD conceptual
frameWork
Governmentality
is the conceptual approach used
to analyze the role of ICTs in government, and
social policy more particularly. Inspired by the
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