Electronic Government and Digital Divide. From Theoretical Expectations to an Unclear Reality

Authors

  • VIRGIL STOICA PhD,Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi,

Keywords:

Electronic government, Communication and information techonology, Digital divide

Abstract

The explosive growth of Internet use in recent years and the rapid development of electronic commerce in the private sector have created significant pressures on the public sector to offer electronic services to citizens. Information technology has become an essential element of administrative reform all over the world. However, while the use of information technology is growing rapidly, some parts of society/of the world remain increasingly far behind in this respect. The term digital divide is generally used to describe patterns of unequal access to information technologies. The present work represents a theoretical insight which attempts to clarify the role that information technology can play in governance and the consequences related to the implementation of these technologies, as the emergence of digital divides. Though, unsurprisingly, it is perceived as being linked to unequal access (to the internet or to computers) this paper shows multiple facets of this concept, and, consequently, the major difficulties related to measurement and evaluation of this phenomenon.

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