ABSTRACT
This chapter takes stock of the existing academic literature and provides a background of the empirical development of e-government in China. The definition of e-government is discussed and the review then systematically searches out the contributions of texts which can be seen as part of a nascent field of e-government in China. The intention is to single out the findings with importance not only for a narrow field of e-government but for all debates of public administration in China. This is based on an argument that it is both feasible and worthwhile to attempt to attain knowledge of ICT and power in public administration (Norris and Lloyd 2006; Norris 2007). Such debates could be those concerned with if and how e-government leads to centralization of power, whether e-government changes power dynamics in the Chinese fragmented bureaucracy, and to what extent citizens are empowered by the new technologies.
