[...]... innovation and development The governmental application of advanced electronic information and communication technology is extremely varied in terms of the policy and institutional domain, the nature of governmental activity (for example, the administration and management of policy, the delivery of services, the development, analysis and evaluation of policy, the involvement of political and democratic... complexity Chapter 12, the final chapter, draws the lessons from the earlier Chapters of Part III together to examine the power effects of e-government and what this means to the reconfiguration of citizenship, subjectivity and society This chapter then draws the threads together in a brief conclusion 12 Governing Electronically Undertaking the study E-government is a field of great and frequent change... provided a rich and in-depth understanding of each e-government project The transcriptions of interviews and the documentary data were thematically analysed Insights into the changing character of public administration, policy and power, which were signalled by these projects, were given particular attention The bulk of the data was collected during 2002 to 2004, the time in which the above projects... health services and, by implication, the reconfiguration of medial professionals and their patients Within each of these three policy domains, two e-government projects were examined As discussed earlier their selection was based on what each might demonstrate about the changing character of public administration, policy and power, rather than for their technological innovation per se Selection of projects... employment and our experience of work, and the operation of the modern state The advent of the internet has generated new and heightened interest in the governmental operations of the state, spurring new debates about power, democracy, surveillance and freedom The origins of my intellectual journey, of which is this book represents another step, began before the internet became commonplace and euphorically... through the actions of the material object, a locked door Consider the occasion when the owner comes home to unlock and enter their home, and finds s/he has lost their key The locked door now disrupts the intention of the home owner It is not sufficient for the home owner to want to get in, the action of the locked door must be overcome To do this, the only communication that the door lock understands – the. .. discussed With a focus on both public administration and policy making processes, Chapter 8 examines e-government s role in the constitution and governance of time, particularly the experience of time intensification With Chapter 9, the focus turns more heavily on e-government s contribution to the reconfiguration of the actual structure and substance of public and social policy and associated political rationalities... stance to much e-government literature, which is neither theoretically nor historically informed By studying contemporary uses of ICTs by governments, this book seeks to offer a more nuanced appreciation of what new and often networked ICTs are contributing to the reconfiguration of public administration, policy and power As such, this book does not present the use of the internet (and other advanced... (1993) and the later Martin Heidegger (1977) who saw the emergence of a technocratic way of life Rather, I seek to identify the particular and contingent ways in which the use of ICTs in practices of governing can emphasise, extend and give rise to contingent, yet wider transformations in the ways contemporary government is thought and practiced Structure and argument of the book The remainder of this... beyond the intention of manufacturers, to refer to the way in which an object is inserted into the activities of the user Heidegger points out that our experience of such tools are not of the tools themselves, but the ‘in-order-to’ that the tool manifests Such objects Heidegger describes as ‘readiness-to-hand’, in that they melt into the activity of the human and are not evident in themselves; they are . technological side of e-government and what it contri- butes to the social side of government, in terms of public administra- tion, policy and power. The reason. to offer a more nuanced appreciation of what new and often networked ICTs are contributing to the reconfiguration of public admin- istration, policy and power.