The interplay of ICT innovation with state administrative tradition

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In recent years, there is an explicit link of ICT innovation with deep structural reforms in public administrations. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are viewed as enablers of state reform towards the establishment of a minimal, agile and accountable government apparatus. The concept of administrative tradition allows us to understand how structural, historical, institutional and behavioral elements shaping a country’s perception of proper public administration interact with ICT innovation. In this paper, we examine a specific administrative tradition, the Napoleonic, in its Greek variation. The properties of Greek administrative tradition are identified and analyzed. Their interaction with ICT innovation is studied in the case of TAXIS, the flagship information technology project of the Greek government in the mid 1990s. TAXIS’s implementation occurred in a period of conscious and systematic effort of the Greek polity to radically change its operations and become aligned to the political structures of its Western counterparts. Thus, there is an explicit link between ICT innovation and the need for state reform. Nevertheless, ICT innovation did not follow an independent path but was infused by elements of the Greek administrative tradition producing a number of interesting outcomes.