ABSTRACT
E-government may be defined as the use by government of digital technologies internally and externally, to interact with citizens, firms, other governments, and organizations of all kinds. Defined so, the phenomenon of e-government can be traced back to the 1950s, when computers were brought into government departments in the United Kingdom and United States, first in defense and scienceintensive areas and later in the largest administrative transaction processing departments such as tax and social security. The widespread use of computers for holding financial information developed
in government from the 1960s and combined with the development of networks and PCs with processing power opened the way for computers to begin to penetrate a wider range of “front” offices or mainstream administrative settings, instead of being concentrated only in selfcontained “back-office” enclaves. But the real changes for government-and indeed the emergence of the term “e-government” came with the internet in the second half of the 1990s. Earlier government information technologies were largely internally facing, with a clear potential for transforming administrative tasks and reducing
costs but few possibilities for changing the way that government communicated with citizens. As citizens began to witness the transformation of their relationship with many private sector agencies (banks, shops, and travel agents in particular) they also began to expect to interact with government electronically. Governments too began to perceive the
potential for new forms of governmentcitizen interactions. The development of the internet and the web presented a key opportunity for government to provide higher quality services directly to citizens in innovative ways at lower cost. It facilitated improvements in the provision of information to the public, especially allied with “open government” and “freedom of information” policies. Information can be made available via the web 24 hours a day, from whatever location people access it. Customers who know their own personal circumstances in detail can search for exactly the information they require. There is scope for many citizens to conduct most of their business with government electronically. Web-based technologies can also be used to facilitate “joined-up” government. Websites can provide virtual front-ends or entry points to otherwise fragmented organizational arrangements, allowing citizens to transact with several departments and agencies and across different tiers of government simultaneously. Someone newly out of work, for example, can use government websites to look for and apply for a job, but also claim and receive benefits, obtain information about starting up a small business, or find out about retraining and apply for educational courses. In general, governments have been slower than commercial firms to realize the potential of the internet and associated technologies, but from 2000 onwards the potential of e-government has been evident too, particularly given the phenomenal rise of e-commerce over the period 2000 to 2005.
