UK Online: Forcing Citizen Involvement into a Technically-Oriented Framework?

Abstract

UK Online is a centralised initiative which attempts to structure the nature of Government- citizen interaction, part of which is to expand notions of “citizen involvement” using technological approaches. The UK Online initiative lies within a general process of “modernisation” that is driven by the UK Government’s White Paper Modernising Government ¹ . We suggest that this project — along with other UK e-Government projects — which advertise a avowedly neutral strategy of developing ICT in government actually involves an attempt on the part of Government to structure and control a new space that is opened up.