This volume critically explores the contentions in the emerging debate surrounding new media technologies and the extent to which they are challenging traditional political and government models.

Examining a range of citizen/government interactions which together form e-government in different contexts, this book assesses the potential of new media technologies to facilitate new institutional patterns for governance and participation, as experienced primarily, but not only, across Europe. Analysing a range of challenges spanning from those of a technological and conceptual nature to those of a more political and legal nature, the authors scrutinise the central policies at governmental and organisational levels and consider the following questions:

• Is society driving or responding to e-government and is it ready to cope with it?
• What implications does e-government have for the power/democracy relationship?
• Is the technology right for e-government? What is needed to ensure government services are delivered optimally?
• How is e-government perceived and is it trusted?
• How are the sensitive issues of identity, privacy and social inclusion dealt with?
• How are management and safety dealt with when one considers issues such as activism, cyberterrorism, biometrics, and new implications for international relations?

This comprehensive text will be of interest to students and scholars of public policy, politics, media and communication studies, sociology, law and European studies. It will also offer insights of relevance to practitioners and policy-makers in regional, national, and transnational governance, reform and innovation.

This volume critically explores the contentions in the emerging debate surrounding new media technologies and the extent to which they are challenging traditional political and government models.

Examining a range of citizen/government interactions which together form e-government in different contexts, this book assesses the potential of new media technologies to facilitate new institutional patterns for governance and participation, as experienced primarily, but not only, across Europe. Analysing a range of challenges spanning from those of a technological and conceptual nature to those of a more political and legal nature, the authors scrutinise the central policies at governmental and organisational levels and consider the following questions:

• Is society driving or responding to e-government and is it ready to cope with it?
• What implications does e-government have for the power/democracy relationship?
• Is the technology right for e-government? What is needed to ensure government services are delivered optimally?
• How is e-government perceived and is it trusted?
• How are the sensitive issues of identity, privacy and social inclusion dealt with?
• How are management and safety dealt with when one considers issues such as activism, cyberterrorism, biometrics, and new implications for international relations?

This comprehensive text will be of interest to students and scholars of public policy, politics, media and communication studies, sociology, law and European studies. It will also offer insights of relevance to practitioners and policy-makers in regional, national, and transnational governance, reform and innovation.

This book traces the development of e-government and its applications across Europe, exploring the effects of information and communication technology (ICTs) upon political action and processes.

Explores a range of concepts and topics underpinning e-government in Europe:

• the degree to which e-government translates into genuine reform of government and public administration
• the dual role of the EU as both a provider of e-government through its own internal activities and also as a facilitator or aggregator in the way it seeks to engender change and promote its ethos in member states across the EU
• cyberterrorism and its use both by terrorists and governments to pursue political agendas.

Featuring in-depth case studies on the progress of e-government in the UK, France, Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands, Portugal, Greece, Slovenia, Hungary, and Estonia. These case studies address the above issues, whilst at the same time highlighting commonality and diversity in practice and the paradox between top-down strategies and the effort to engage wider civil participation via e-government.

e-Government in Europe will be of interest to students and scholars of public policy, politics, media and communication studies, computing and information and communications technologies and European studies.

This book traces the development of e-government and its applications across Europe, exploring the effects of information and communication technology (ICTs) upon political action and processes. Explores a range of concepts and topics underpinning e-government in Europe: the degree to which e-government translates into genuine reform of government and public administration the dual role of the EU as both a provider of e-government through its own internal activities and also as a facilitator or aggregator in the way it seeks to engender change and promote its ethos in member states across the EU cyberterrorism and its use both by terrorists and governments to pursue political agendas. Featuring in-depth case studies on the progress of e-government in the UK, France, Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands, Portugal, Greece, Slovenia, Hungary, and Estonia. These case studies address the above issues, whilst at the same time highlighting commonality and diversity in practice and the paradox between top-down strategies and the effort to engage wider civil participation via e-government. e-Government in Europe will be of interest to students and scholars of public policy, politics, media and communication studies, computing and information and communications technologies and European studies.

This book examines a broad range of fiercely debated contemporary issues which are shaping the policy-making agenda in international relations, and particularly European affairs, in the early twenty-first century. Since the late 1980s, the EU has faced the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet bloc, followed by more than a dozen new applications for membership; the re-unification of Germany; various ethnic conflicts; a fragmenting Yugoslavia and the dramas of Bosnia and Kosovo accompanied by rising waves of refugees and immigration; and a troublesome but successful completion of Monetary Union. The impact of all this upon the continuing integration of Europe, and upon its frameworks of governance and policy-making, is evidently huge. The central theme of the book is to consider the concepts of interdependence and the effectiveness of cooperation in addressing these issues