Dangerous Enthusiasms

Information and the technology that supports its collection, communication and analysis are a core concern of modern government, making e-government (meaning electronically enabled government) fundamental to the ongoing ‘reinvention’ of public administration.

But the quest for e-government opens up a range of issues – whether to take a ‘big bang’ or an incremental approach to computerisation, how to deal with security and privacy concerns, how to reconfigure the machinery of government to fit ICT practices – and decisions – hardware and software procurement, software architecture, access by whom to what. The spending of public money is always intriguing and perhaps money spent on ICT has been the most intriguing of all, with some spectacular failures costing millions.

This book is written for a general audience and takes a critical look at policies, problems and prospects for e-government in a series of case studies. Why have ICT failures in the public sector occurred and what lessons do they provide for the future?