The Scope of E-governance

Abstract

In this chapter, the reader is introduced to the main types of e-governance tools now commercially available: the market is so vast and changing so rapidly that I make no attempt to pick out individual branded products. (For a discussion of some branded products, from a political science perspective albeit one that suggests with some qualifications, contrary to the argument of the present book, that the use of these technologies can itself transform the quality and rationality of the policy process; see Cloete, 2001a,b,c.) Rather, the chapter begins by offering a brief definition, and situates e-governance thus defined by contrast with the other programmes that together make up ‘electronic government’. After a very rapid canter through the recent history of e-governance since the development of the modern digital computer, the chapter then offers a classification of tools by the principal uses to which they are put.