The E-Government paradox: Better customer service doesn't necessarily cost less

Depending who you ask, the promise of E-Government (and its more recent spin-offs of E-democracy, E-participation, E-procurement, and a range of other “E-‘s”) is either to engage citizenry in government in a citizen-centered manner or to develop quality government services and delivery systems that are efficient and effective. The former suggests that governments will provide their citizens services and resources tailored to the actual service and resource needs of citizens. The latter suggests that governments will gain economies of scale, reduce costs, and provide technology-enabled citizen services. In fact, for a number of years, there have been many predictions that it will revolutionize democratic participation or that it will revolutionize the delivery of government services in one of these ways (Borins, 2002; Browning, 2002; Noveck, 2003; Prins, 2001; Toregas, 2001). But, here is the dilemma: to develop citizen-oriented E-Government services that achieve cost savings implies that governments knowwhat citizens want from E-Government. And if they do not know, governments are actively seeking to discover what citizens want from E-Government. These sorts of information collection by governments, however, are rare at best (Heeks&Bailur, 2007). To engage citizenry in E-Government requires a range of iterative and integrated design processes such as:

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