‘Mind the Gap II’: E-Government and E-Governance

Abstract

This paper provides a brief overview of a research project exploring citizens’ views of e-government and e-governance (the pilot study was reported at DEXA 2006). The following research propositions were investigated: i) egovernment users are motivated by generic benefits offered by the Web, such as convenience and information provision, rather than democratic engagement; ii) users and non-users perceive moderate value in using e-government for knowledge acquisition and communication, but little value as a vehicle for democratic dialogue, iii) frequent users are more positive than other groups. All three research propositions are supported, suggesting that it may be difficult to engage citizens online in participatory democracy. Employing the phrase of the London Underground, we suggest that there is a Gap between e-government and e-governance that must be ‘minded’ (paid attention to). Governments should not assume that the former will morph smoothly into the latter by political will alone.