E-government and the transformation of public administrations in EU countries: Beyond NPM or just a second wave of reforms?

The adoption of web-based technologies to deliver government services has become a global trend in public administration. E-government inherits the administrative reform policies inspired by New Public Management (NPM) reforms implemented throughout the EU over the past twenty years. However, egovernment aims at going beyond NPM reforms, since its goal is to transform the relationships between the public sector and society and to explore new channels of service delivery. The construction and management of websites is becoming an essential element of modern public administration, but little is known about how these initiatives are being implemented. Given the substantial investment in time and other resources in governmental online initiatives, it is essential to begin to evaluate governmental Web site initiatives in terms of quality and effectiveness. The objective of this paper is to study the development of e-government initiatives at regional and local level in the EU through the opinion of those agents directly involved in the projects