ABSTRACT
Electronic government (e-government) is the use by state authorities of information and communication technology (ICT), in particular the Internet, to deliver information and public services and to encourage civic participation. Since the early 1990s, local, regional, and national governments worldwide have established or expanded a presence on the World Wide Web (Jaeger, 2003: 323–4). E-government is regarded as an innovative force and an important tool to reform the public sector and foster good governance. Within the administrative perspective, e-government creates a new paradigm of service delivery that enhances efficiencies and achieves cost savings by providing integrated, seamless and one-stop online public services. Within a governance perspective, e-government provides a new channel for the government to interact and communicate with citizens that can improve government accountability, political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption. 1 Hence, e-government has the vast potential of transforming the model of public service delivery, organizational settings and the state-society relationship that stimulates political, economic and social progress of the society in the long run (Yong and Koon, 2003: 12–3). It is crucially important for the government to utilize the power of e-government so that it can adapt to an ever-changing environment in the information age. The rest of this study is organized into six primary sections: (1) literature review and research questions; (2) conceptual and theoretical framework of e-government; (3) methodology and data collection; (4) e-government development in China; (5) the extent e-government has transformed governance in China; and (6) the opportunities and challenges for transforming governance in China. A brief conclusion then follows.
