Summary

Electronic Governance And Electronic Democracy: Living And Working In The Wired World presents the results of an international study which was carried out by Professor Thomas B Riley, during the period 1998-1999, to explore the experiences of a selected number of countries world-wide, in the conceptualisation, development and deployment of the new and emerging concept of Electronic Governance (eGovernance) in the area of socio-economic development of the countries. The publication succinctly underscores the role that Electronic Governance as both a process and a tool can provide a means of using the new information and communication technologies (ICTs): (i) to deliver services by government to the public; (ii) to change and improve the efficient methods of administration within and between governments themselves; and (iii) to enable empowerment by governments to increasingly involve citizens, to varying degrees, in the democratic process of government. The publication provides an analytical exposition of the practices deployed by individual countries and governments under study, assesses the critical success factors prevailing, with the objective of delineating and articulating 'best practices' in various contexts. The first part of the publication deals with mechanisms that different governments are using to develop electronic governance initiatives. Countries under the universe of discourse of the book are the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Hong Kong and Malaysia. This section follows this on privacy, which shows that the massive amount of data collection, sharing, amassing and usage by the private sector represents a fundamental threat to the personal information of individuals who go online. The conclusion is that there is a need for International Privacy as a Human Right Convention to protect citizens in the wired world. The final section of the publication analyses the state of electronic democracy online, the directions electronic democracy is taking, where governments stand in these developments, and how online activism is changing the shape of democracy as we have traditionally known it since conception in the annals of history.