6. Understanding E-government/E-governance: A Walk with Bureaucracy
Synopsis
Electronic government/governance as a topic for research is still comparatively new (Coursey & Norris, 2008; Heeks & Bailur, 2007). Research articles on this subject started to appear only since 1999. Governments around the world began to launch official websites delivering information and services on the World Wide Web during the mid-1990s. Although research in e-government is relatively new and still blooming, theory development and testing is very few and scattered (Norris & Lloyd, 2006). Researchers, therefore, have used a variety of established theories and theoretical lenses to study egovernment. As Heeks and Bailur (2007) observe that a number of disciplines especially computer science, information systems, public administration and political science use various aspects of e-government. For instance, Scholl (2001) employs stakeholder theory to analyse e-government research, Bardach (2002) utilises network theory to investigate IT-enabled interagency collaboration, Lazer (2002) applies a diffusion of innovationsrelated theory to assess the influence of computerization on innovation within governments, and Jain (2004) employs Max Weber's theory of bureaucracy to scrutinise contemporary e-government research and literature.