ABSTRACT
Yet the current Chinese interest in e-government appears theoretically salient for a variety of reasons. First and foremost among them is that the interest emerged amid national governmental and “free-market” economic reforms during the 1990s that paralleled the New Public Management (NPM) movement in the United States (Lan 2005, 9); thus information technology’s place in business-based appeals for governmental reform extends globally. Second, e-government’s implicit commitment to democracy raises speculation about the authenticity of motives within traditionally authoritarian settings. In a study of openness among nations using e-government, Katchanovski and La Porte find evidence of “high-tech façades that create the impression of government openness” among nations lacking Western traditions (2005, 677). Other researchers, however, refute such assertions, claiming that they are based on the false premise that nations can be dichotomized simply as democratic or undemocratic (see Yang 2003). And the third reason, presuming some authenticity in government-reform efforts, is that Chinese experiences with e-governments raise broader questions about public-sector uses of information technology (IT) and the quality of governance in national settings, particularly regarding causality. In short, does public IT use affect (improve) governance or the other way around?
