The citizen in the information polity: Exposing the limits of the e-government paradigm

Abstract

The rise of 'e-government', both as a recognized field of practice and an identifiable and legitimate field of study, has occurred extraordinarily rapidly throughout the world. The term 'e-government' has come to capture and de-limit in toto what might be termed the agenda for government in the age of the Internet. This article questions the value of the orthodox interpretation, the paradigm, that has so rapidly emerged around e-government, in particular the casual assumption that e-government is ipso facto 'citizen-centric'. In so-doing this article reveals a concern that different questions must be asked in order to understand 'e-government' and its implications fully and fundamentally. If we are to ask these different questions rather than those to which we are drawn under the orthodox e-government frame of reference then this field will become more theoretically informed, particularly in ways that aid our understanding of 'citizenship' in the 'e-ubiquitous' State.