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Book Review: The information ecology of e-government

Victor Bekkers and Vincent Homburg define e-government as “the strategic use of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) within the public sector” (p. 1). In practice, e-government is implemented in many ways. The volume contrasts information ecology with what the editors call the machine engineering approach to e-government. The machine engineering approach is what a government-client would receive if it hired a hardware technician to construct a computer network and a programmer to build an information system and web site. The hardware-software team (characterized as “IT cowboys” by two of this volume’s contributors) would consult with client personnel regarding their needs in an orderly or haphazard manner depending on the team’s experience and then assemble the e-government system with little thought to its potential side effects such as its effect on intraor interagency relationships or the agency-citizen nexus (p. 22). The editors argue that machine engineering practitioners make simplistic assumptions without being aware that they are doing so: