What is e-Government for?

Electronic government services have been the subject of theoretic elaboration and regular evaluation surveys since the beginning of the decade. It is argued in this presentation that the theoretical paradigm used for methodology design in these surveys (and, therefore, also its main results) tend to neglect political influence as an analytic dimension and consider citizen return as resulting from technical interactivity. It is presented a criticism of the assumptions underlying this paradigm and a complementary criterion for the analysis of electronic government services. Available results from existing surveys are reexamined in the light of this reflection. Findings reveal an indisputable growth in coverage (a larger percentage of services available online) and in technical interactivity of government services online. However, a more careful look at the same surveys also supports the hypothesis that their results should not be taken as meaning automatically an increase in citizen engagement, or that services are being developed departing from the user’s needs and expectations. On the contrary, data suggests that sophistication is increasing faster in the technical interactivity dimension than in citizen participation features. Simultaneously, services more closely related with the extractive activity of the state (e.g. that imply revenue or income generation) are placed online sooner and with more technical sophistication than services in other areas. Some data also suggests that these trends are not imperceptible to citizens: according to one survey, citizens expect from electronic government more consequences in state efficiency and cost reduction than in government transparency or accountability.N/