| The concept of electronic government (eGov), sometimes electronic governance, is about to emerge from a practitioners’ concept to one that also attracts research. Conferences abound, and research scales up from individual researchers and projects to institutes, both those governed by industry, such as IBM’s Institute for Electronic Government1 and those governed by universities, such as the Center for Technology in Government at Albany University.2 Research and development programs such as the EU Information Society Technologies and Government Online are focusing on developing strategic and transferable IT (information technology) uses in government. Research institutes with the focus on policies and development focus increasingly on IT use, such as the Institute for Development Policy and Management at the University of Manchester.3 Countries and states establish ”Task Forces” in the field, and there is a rich supply of Web pages with titles like ”Electronic Government Resources,” where electronic services are offered.4
It is hard to estimate the amount of effort to implement eGov currently going on around the world. Many things relevant to the field come under different names. Much material is not available on the Web, and even if it is, it is often in other languages than English as it is for use in one particular country rather than intended for the rest of the world to read. Still, an indication of the amount is that a search with Adobe pdf Finder5 finds 23,308 pdf documents containing the words “Electronic Government,” while an AltaVista search finds 44,979 html documents (March 30, 2001). One interesting observation is that not only is research increasingly focusing on developing countries, but also policy documents and implementations come increasingly from countries outside North America, EU and Australia/ New Zealand, such as India, Malaysia and Mexico. From a start in the U.S. and the EU, electronic government is increasingly on the agenda worldwide. |
