Beyond E-Government by Brian D. Loader

Written by a key thinker in the field of e-governance and cyberspace, this book examines the current drive towards e-governments. The introduction of e-government has been firmly placed on the policy agenda of governments throughout the world and its delivery is viewed as both desirable for modernizing public administration and necessary for stimulating participation in a new information age. However, Brian Loader argues that the e-government policy drive masks an uncritical acceptance of the commercialization of politics and the weakening of democratic governance. The book examines how e-government adoption is not undertaken in a value neutral vacuum but rather according to the ideological principles of market liberalization. Loader investigates how such an approach has significant consequences for the nature of democratic governance and should therefore be subject to far more critical scrutiny than is currently the case.