ŠAVŠ/TAČR Digital Czechia in a Digital Europe

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Regulation of e-Government in the European Union Jiří Strouhal In recent decades, countries have implemented some type of e-Government strategy. Although these strategies may vary by country and culture, they have largely identical features, namely streamlining public administration in order to save costs for suppliers and reducing administrative burden for citizens and companies 1 . The basic element of e-Government is the development of the use of ICT for the provision of public services. A survey of the literature reveals that the term e-Government is defined in different ways and there is no universally accepted definition of this term 2 . The concept of e-Government is thus an intersection between the public sector, new technologies and administrative forms 3 . Heeks’ definition provides a complete concept 4 that labels e-Government as “the total use of information technology in the public sector”. E-Government can be more narrowly formulated as the use of ICT to increase efficiency in public administration activities. 5 These activities include the performance of executive activities, the provision of services, access to public administration information, and the participation of citizens and different organizations under joint governance. E-Government is expected to have the potential to reduce costs and improve the quality of public services too. An important stimulus for e-Government is also bridging a certain gap between public administration and citizens 6 . Grant and Chau 7 identify the following three key activities within e-Government: a) develop and provide high-quality, seamless and integrated public sector 1 Poelmans Matt, From Electronic Government to Collaborative Governance, see https://skl.se/ download/18.2644e66d1572c650b953a693/1474545341702/Whitepaper%20and%20slideshow,%20 Matt%20Poelmans.pdf 2 Yildiz Mete, E-Government Research: Reviewing the Literature, Limitations, and Ways Forward, Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 3, 2007, pp. 646-665. 3 Giritli Nygren Katarina, E-Governmentality: On Electronic Administration in Local Government, Electronic Journal of e-Government, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2009, pp. 55-64. 4 Heeks Richard, Implementing and Managing eGovernment: An International Text, London: Sage, 2006. 5 DeBenedictis Andrea, Howell Whitney, Figueroa Robert, Boggs Roy, E-Government Defined: An Overview of the Next Big Information Technology Challenge, Issues in Information Systems, No. 3, 2002, pp. 130-136. 6 Homburg Vincent, Understanding E-Government. Information Systems in Public Administration, London: Routledge, 2008. 7 Grant Gerald, Chau Derek, Developing a Generic Framework for e-Government. In. Hunter Gordon, Tan Felix (Eds.), Advanced Topics in Global Information Management, Vol. 5. London: Idea Group, 2006, pp. 72-101.