Conceptualizing e-governance

In this paper, we aimed at conceptualizing the notion of e-governance, as there is a need to explore the new configurations and knowledge issues having emerged out of such pressures as globalization, economic competitiveness, the evolution of the State and the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs). In fact, we postulate that there is a constant and necessary readjustment to be made between the trend towards technological innovation and the need for regulation and institutional acknowledgement and transformation. This co-evolutionary process goes far beyond the mere extension of government action onto non-State actors, as e-governance is too often understood. We see this process rather as a collective problem-solving dynamics, involving several types of stakeholders, among which, often, the State and its diverse representatives, but not only and by far, have to operate in a multi-level and open-ended space ICTs, in that type of process, are multi-faceted, sometimes just tools for productivity or communication, but sometimes also an industrial sector of its own, that has to be supported and regulated, as part of a critical series of structural change factors impacting our society. In this evolution, administrative services have been thought of, too often, as the main objective of e-governance, but we see now the need for an enhanced capability framework in policy-making and regulation, involving a broader mindset when it comes to use and regulate ICTs.