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Asian geographies of e-governmentBarney Warfa

a Department of Geography, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS66045, USAPublished online: 08 Aug 2014.

To cite this article: Barney Warf (2014) Asian geographies of e-government, Eurasian Geographyand Economics, 55:1, 94-110

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Asian geographies of e-government

Barney Warf*

Department of Geography, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA

(Received 22 April 2014; accepted 1 July 2014)

Roughly, 40 percent of people in Central, South, East, and Southeast Asia now usethe Internet. Given the technology’s growth, many governments have adopted it toreshape how they interact with their citizens, including tax collection and serviceprovision. There are a variety of applications of e-government ranging fromdownloading of forms to more interactive types, such as applications for licenses,Internet voting, and citizen input into public policy. This paper opens with a reviewof e-government and its implications. Second, it turns to the digital divide in Asia, amajor obstacle to e-government implementation. Third, it utilizes two measures ofe-government compiled by the United Nations: the e-government readiness ande-participation scores, to provide an overview of how e-government implementationvaries among the region’s countries. The fourth part offers a series of vignettes thathighlight how e-government varies among countries, including the most and leastsuccessful examples. It concludes by emphasizing that there is no standard modelthat can be used to understand the phenomenon; rather e-government must beunderstood contextually and in a geographically specific manner.

Keywords: e-government; Internet; cyberspace

The extremely rapid growth of the Internet – now used by 37 percent of the world’spopulation – has unleashed enormous changes in how the planet’s netizens (Internetusers) communicate, are entertained, shop, obtain information, and interact. It has alsochanged how governments interact with their citizens. Electronic government, or e-gov-ernment, has become increasingly widespread not only in the economically developedworld, but in developing countries as well. Definitions of e-government vary (Yildiz2007), but all involve the use of the Internet to deliver government information and ser-vices, change administrative procedures, and improve citizen input and participation.Web 2.0, which allows users to interact with government bureaucracies rather than justpassively receive information, has expedited this process considerably. The topic hasbeen extensively scrutinized by scholars (for a review, see Rocheleau 2007). However,the bulk of such work concentrates on e-government in economically developed coun-tries, while developing ones have been largely overlooked (Basu 2004).

This paper examines e-government in Asia (here defined to exclude the MiddleEast), including its Central, South, East, and Southeast components. It has two primarygoals: first, it seeks to illustrate that e-government has made steady gains throughout theregion. Second, it demonstrates that social and spatial context matters: e-governmentpreparedness, implementation, policies, and effects are highly uneven among (and likely

*Email: bwarf@ku.edu

© 2014 Taylor & Francis

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within) Asian countries. In short, e-government cannot be understood withoutgeography. The argument to demonstrate these objectives proceeds in a series of steps.First, the paper offers an overview of e-government and e-governance. Next, it turns tothe digital divide, a particularly important issue in the context of the inequalities perva-sive throughout Asia, which are manifested in highly uneven Internet penetration rates.The third section correlates Asia’s e-government readiness and participation scores witha series of economic measures, including GDP per capita, percent of population in pov-erty, and the Gini coefficient of income inequality, a widely used measure of incomedistribution. Fourth, it briefly summarizes e-government implementation in numerouscountries to illustrate its spatially uneven nature. The conclusion focuses on the factorsthat lead to successful e-government implementation and refutes the simplistic, aspatial“one-size-fits-all” interpretation.

E-government forms and consequences: an overview

There are many types and levels of e-government, ranging from simple one-way deliv-ery of information, in which citizens are passive consumers, to integration that allowsuser input and citizen feedback. Typically, e-government is divided into three forms:government-to-business (G2B), government-to-government (G2G), and government-to-citizens (G2C) (Fountain 2001). G2B e-government includes digital calls for contractproposals; submissions of bids, bills, and payments; and Internet management of supplychains. Among other things, G2G e-government enhances interaction among differentgovernment offices and agencies. These variations are frequently alleged to increase citi-zen accessibility, improve efficiency, create synergies, and generate economies of scalein the delivery of government services. E-government may also encourage a democrati-zation of public bureaucracies by moving them from classic hierarchical forms of con-trol to more horizontal, collaborative models (Ho 2002; Ndou 2004). The most commontype is G2C e-government, which is used, inter alia, for the digital collection of taxes;electronic voting; payment of utility bills, fines, and dues; applications for public assis-tance, permits, and licenses; online registration of companies and automobiles; andaccess to census and other public data. Online access facilitates acquisition of informa-tion and reduces trips to and waiting times in, government offices. In very remote ruralareas, e-government such as distance education or telemedicine offers advantages topeople who may not receive these services at all. Local governments often use the Inter-net to entice tourists and foreign investors; interactive municipal sites give residentsaccess to information about schools, libraries, bus schedules, and hospitals. By makingpublic records more open, e-government improves transparency and helps to galvanizeobjections to arbitrary government actions.

There are many alleged benefits of e-government. If it improves the delivery ofpublic services, it may raise satisfaction with existing administrations; conversely, incountries plagued by chronic corruption, the increased efficiency resulting frome-government may minimize the growth of public employment and increase trust ingovernment. Electronic payment of dues and fines limits the opportunities for graft, whiledigital hotlines allow citizens a voice in the circles of governance. Because e-governmentis, at its heart, a political (and not simply technical) process, it is often resisted byentrenched bureaucracies, which rightly view it as a “disruptive technology.” Concernsover e-government include the potential invasions of privacy that it invites, local andnational security (i.e. hacking of government files), and the inequality of accessgenerated by digital divides (about which more later) (Bélanger and Carter 2008).

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A common view of e-governance, typically rooted in a technologically deterministperspective, naively implies that its impacts are so similar among countries that there isa generic, universal model of e-government that can be applied everywhere identically(e.g. Grant and Chau 2005). Such a view divorces the Internet and its consequencesfrom local political, cultural, and economic contexts. More sophisticated understandingsinsist on the different institutional and political environments in which e-government isadopted, thus acknowledging that there are bound to be significant differences inimpacts. As noted, one goal of this paper is to emphasize that even in the ostensiblyplaceless world of the Internet, place still matters; i.e. that profound geographical varia-tions exist in the levels of adoption of e-government among (and within) countries andtheir consequences.

E-government consists of a series of diverse practices that vary over time and spacein response to varying political climates and institutional contexts. Chadwick and May(2003) describe three models of e-government – managerial, consultative, and participa-tory – drawn from the experiences of the USA and the European Union. Managerial e-government maximizes the speed and efficiency of delivery of government services tocitizens. The consultative model incorporates citizen input in various ways, so that infor-mation technologies are seen as inherently democratizing (e.g. Internet voting, polling,referenda, and electronic conferences with officials). Finally, the participatory modelincludes input from nonstate actors, including corporations and nongovernmental organi-zations. These views constitute a continuum of social access in which the consultativeand participatory models are the most socially inclusive forms.

In similar fashion, Layne and Lee (2001) offered a well-received conception ofdevelopmental stages of e-government, ranging from simple online presence (i.e. a web-page); interfaces that allow citizen access to data and services; vertical integration inwhich citizens can actively participate (e.g. for license applications); and horizontal inte-gration, in which one or a few centralized websites offer a broad range of governmentfunctions and purposes. Empirical assessments of e-government initiatives typicallyfocus on the quality of websites, including criteria such as missing links, readability, thepublications and data displayed, contact information for public officials, number of lan-guages that provide access, sound and video clips, ability to use credit cards and digitalsignatures, security and privacy policies, and opportunities for citizen feedback. Thegrowth of cellular or mobile phones and social media outlets such as Facebook andTwitter likewise has paved the way for mobile governance, or what Linders (2012) callsthe shift from e-government to “we-government.”

Important components to the successful implementation of e-government includedecisive leadership, cooperation by bureaucrats, sufficient funding of e-government ini-tiatives, clear lines of responsibility and accountability, explicit metrics of success orfailure, and effective mechanisms for feedback (Rose and Grant 2010). Thus, e-govern-ment is as much an administrative process as a technological one. These commentsserve to illustrate that the adoption of e-government is highly contingent and path-dependent, and is shaped by a variety of cultural, legal, and political forces. The highlypolitical nature of e-government implementation and its effects imply that its usagechanges over time and space, and that its consequences are inevitably geographicallydifferentiated.

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E-government and digital divides

A major obstacle to the successful adoption and implementation of e-government is thedigital divide; that is, social and spatial discrepancies in Internet access (Yigitcanlar andBaum 2006). E-government is useless to those without access to the Internet; thus,e-government and the digital divide are deeply intertwined phenomena (Helbig, RamónGil-García, and Ferro 2009). For many economically and politically marginalized popu-lations – the familiar litany of the poor, elderly, undereducated, and ethnic minorities –cyberspace is simply inaccessible. Fountain (2001, 48) notes, “An increasingly digitalgovernment favors those with access to a computer and the Internet and the skills to usethese sophisticated tools competently.” People who lack the requisite technical skills,the income to acquire a personal computer at home, schools, or jobs that provide Inter-net access or the ability to utilize public Internet points such as libraries are excludedfrom the benefits of e-government. Sadly, and ironically – because those who need theinformation that the Internet offers typically benefit the most, and those with abundantsources of input need it less – the digital divide may enhance, not simply reflect, theinequalities surrounding e-government. Those most in need of government services havethe least opportunity to them in digital form. Dugdale et al. (2005) found that thosewho use government services the most are least likely to use the Internet. Therefore,Becker et al. (2008) conclude that due to the digital divide, the adoption ofe-government is primarily a demand-side rather than supply-side problem. Moreover,Hossain (2005) posits that e-government may exacerbate, not reduce, social inequalities.

The digital divide is particularly important in Asia, home to 3.97 billion people,given the region’s pronounced inequalities in income and rates of economic growth,which are replicated in social and spatial variations in Internet access among countries.Internet penetration in the region in 2013 averaged 21.9 percent but varied markedly(Figure 1). The highest penetration rates were found in South Korea (82.5 percent,higher than the USA), followed by Japan (79.5 percent), Brunei (78.0 percent), Taiwan

Figure 1. Internet penetration rates, 2012.Source: Author, using data from http://www.internetworldstats.com/ (2014).

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(75.4 percent), and Singapore (75.0 percent). Conversely, Internet access was consider-ably lower in impoverished countries such as North Korea, where the Internet is essen-tially illegal; Myanmar and East Timor, where one percent of residents were netizens;and Cambodia (4.4 percent). In between these extremes are middle-income countrieswith moderate penetration rates, such as Malaysia (60.7 percent), China (40.1 percent),Kyrgyzstan (39.9 percent), Vietnam (33 percent), and the Philippines (32.4 percent).Digital divides are also present within countries, although much less is known about thisphenomenon: typically it is urban areas, the relatively well-educated, those with above-average incomes, and younger people, who enjoy the most access.

Several Asian governments have taken steps toward reducing the digital divide, withvarying degrees of success. For example, China has sought to increase Internet accessin remote rural areas (Harwit 2004; Lai 2010) and has promoted the mobile Internetthere (Loo and Ngan 2012). Similar programs exist in South Korea (Moon et al. 2012),Thailand (Srinuan, Srinuan, and Bohlin 2012), and Malaysia (Nair et al. 2010). TheIndian government has initiated several commissions to bridge the country’s digitaldivide, with limited success, such as Gyandoot, a series of digital information kiosks inMadhya Pradesh launched in 2000 (Rao 2005; Monga 2008). In Sri Lanka, the govern-ment established 600 Nenasala centers in rural areas to provide access to governmentinformation and services (Karunasena and Deng 2012).

In Central Asia, progress toward reducing the digital divide has occurred much moreslowly than in most of the world and is often handicapped by governments fearful oflosing control over a vital means of information control. In 2007, the Kazakh operatorKazakhtelecom was the region’s first state-owned company to actually offer its sharesfor sale, but only 4.1 percent have been sold. The Kyrgyz government has gradually lib-eralized its telecommunications sector, which improved the affordability of Internetaccess there; using funds from the Agency for International Development, the govern-ment has created a small network of subsidized telecenters (Best, Thakur, and Kolko2009). However, as OpenNet Initiative (2010) points out, “Kyrgyzstan is an effectivelycyberlocked country dependent on purchasing bandwidth from Kazakhstan and Russia.”The privatization of the Tajik operator Tochiktelecom began in 2003, but has notadvanced much since then. Mongolia has partially privatized Mongol Telecom. Somegovernments cling to the older model of state-owned telecommunications, such asAfghanistan and Uzbekistan, in which UzbekTelecom retains a legal monopoly statuseven as it is being privatized. In 2001, following a brief window of privatization thatopened with independence in 1991, Turkmenistan granted a monopoly over data ser-vices to TurkmenTelecom, driving smaller Internet service providers (ISPs) out of busi-ness. In such cases, service tends to be poor, and prices for dial-up and ISPs arerelatively high and certainly out of reach of low-income residents. However, as theInternet has become increasingly graphical in nature, reliable access to government ser-vices requires broadband communications, a domain in which many Asian countries stillhave far to go.

Finally, given that e-government relies on Web 2.0 technology and the potential col-lection of vast quantities of data about individuals, issues of privacy are of paramountimportance. As Goranson, Thihalolipavan, and di Tada (2013, 338) argue, volunteeredinformation “provides a mechanism for collecting increasingly accurate spatial and tem-poral data about an individual, privacy must be protected above all.” Many Asian gov-ernments have long autocratic antidemocratic traditions, and many do not have clearlystated and well-enforced regulations concerning privacy protection, so as e-governmentunfolds across the region, the potential for abuses must be kept in mind.

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Broad contours of Asian e-government

E-government in Asia arrived in the early twenty-first century amidst a period of intenserestructuring of the region’s governments, including neoliberal reforms initiated at thebehest of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. This process included insis-tent calls for modernization of the region’s governments and administrative practices,streamlining of bureaucracies, liberalization, privatization, and deregulation, and reduc-tion of systemic corruption. Many governments initiated e-government programs inresponse to demands for greater transparency and accountability.

The most common measure of e-government success (or lack thereof) is the UnitedNation’s e-government readiness score, which combines assessments of countries’ digi-tal infrastructure, Internet affordability, human capital resources, public webpagedesigns, and the scope and effectiveness of government services delivered online. Thisindex varies widely across the region (Figure 2): the highest ranked countries includeSouth Korea (.928), which has the world’s most developed e-government, Singapore(.847), and Japan (.809), while conversely Southeast and most Central Asian countriestend to lag behind, including Laos and Cambodia (.290), Myanmar (.270), Nepal(.2664), East Timor (.236), and Afghanistan (.17). A second measure of e-governmentis the e-participation score, which is based on the degree to which populations partici-pate in e-government programs, the interactive properties of government webpages, andprograms to enhance access in low-income and rural communities. As withe-government readiness, e-participation varies unevenly across Asia (Figure 3): SouthKorea scores a perfect 1.0, followed by wealthy and well-connected Singapore andKazakhstan (.947) and Japan (.736); at the other end of this scale lie North Korea, Laos,Cambodia, Myanmar, East Timor, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan – all of which scorezero.

Several measures of economic viability and Internet connectivity are associated withe-government readiness scores and e-participation (Table 1). Not surprisingly, Internetpenetration rates are closely correlated with e-government readiness (.94) ande-participation scores (.86), testimony to the effect of the digital divide in enabling and

Figure 2. E-government readiness scores, 2012.Source: Author, using data from the United Nations e-Government Development Database (2014).

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hampering access to online government services. Less obviously, GDP per capita is alsocorrelated, indicating that wealthier countries tend to use e-government more than low-income ones. The relations between e-government readiness and participation with theproportion of population living below the poverty line are mixed. As expected, thesecoefficients are negative, again pointing to the effect of wealth on Internet use, butwhereas e-government readiness and Internet penetration rates are significant, e-partici-pation is not. Finally, e-government readiness, participation, and Internet penetrationwere assessed against the Gini index of income inequality on the grounds that countrieswith more equitable distributions of income (indicating a large middle class) were morelikely to have higher levels of e-government. Statistically, however, this hypothesis was

Figure 3. E-participation scores, 2012.Source: Author, using data from the United Nations e-Government Development Database (2014).

Table 1. Correlation coefficients of e-government readiness and e-participation scores.

Variable

2013penetration

rateGDP percapita

Percent living belowpoverty line

Ginicoefficient

FreedomHouse score

E-governmentscore

.92 .70 −.56 .21 −.22

E-participationindex

.82 .69 −.41 .01 −.25

Internetpenetrationrate

1.00 .82 −.62 .13 −.20

Source: Calculated by author using data from CIA World Factbook (2014).Notes: N = 30; bold indicates correlation is significant at .95 confidence level.

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not confirmed. Apparently, income inequality has little impact on Internet usage,including by governments. Finally, these measures were correlated with the FreedomHouse score of Internet openness, which assesses the extent that governments createobstacles to access, place limits on content, and violate netizens’ rights on a scale of 0(most open) to 100 (most restricted). Although all measures of e-government were nega-tively correlated with political restrictions on Internet access, none was significant at the95 percent confidence level.

Vignettes of Asian e-government

Asian e-governance exhibits widely varying levels of sophistication. Some countriesimplement e-government on the federal or national scale but not the local or provincialones. The implementation of e-government often faces formidable political resistancefrom entrenched bureaucracies that view e-government as a threat to a comfortable sta-tus quo. Thus, most Asian e-governance is usually confined to least interactive forms(e.g. downloading forms) rather than transactional capacities that include citizen inputand feedback. In this respect, it resembles many other regions of the developing world,where e-government has met with limited success at best. Because the adoption ofe-government is tightly wrapped up in wider configurations of power, class, culture, andhistorical context, it is imperative to examine its implementation and effectiveness on acase-by-case basis. Highlighted here are the relevant cases of a series of countries thathave enjoyed varying degrees of success in this regard.

Central Asia

Of Asia’s vast and diverse set of countries, Central Asian ones have exhibited relativelymodest efforts to implement e-government, largely because the region is ruled byauthoritarian regimes and suffers from high levels of corruption. Typically in this con-text, local and municipal e-government initiatives enjoy more success than do nationalones (Johnson and Kolko 2010); the most abundant and sophisticated applications tendto be confined to the national capitals. This observation implies that e-governmentimplementation in such states differs from that in democratic societies, testimony to thecontext-dependent nature of its adoption.

Although its efforts have been tentative, Kazakhstan has by far the best-developede-government system in Central Asia, but its implementation has been hampered bypolitical opposition and the country’s digital divide (Knox 2008; Bhuiyan 2010). In2006, it launched a web portal (www.e.gov.kz) that offers 900 government services digi-tally in three languages (Kazakh, Russian, and English). Electronic workflows and digi-tal signatures have been implemented in 39 state agencies. In 2009, the governmentinitiated Citizen Service Centers that allow for digital applications for licenses and bene-fits, approvals for international trade in pharmaceuticals, and registration of propertyownership. The Internet has been introduced into some of the country’s schools, and itis experimenting with electronic payment of taxes.

Other Central Asian countries fare less well. Thus, although Turkmenistan has anational strategy to introduce information technology into government circles, it lacksthe political will to move it beyond the planning stages (Orazbayev 2012). Similarly, inUzbekistan, where e-government is still in the initial stages, it faces entrenchedbureaucracies that view it with great distrust, in part because it may challenge endemiccorruption there (Rakhmanov 2009).

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South Asia

In comparison to the vibrant and energetic implementation of e-government in EastAsia, South Asian efforts in this regard have been rudimentary at best. To some degree,this status reflects its huge, often impoverished populations, low rates of literacy, andlow-internet penetration rates (Figure 1). The region uniformly ranks very low in termsof e-readiness (Figure 2). Many governments lack the human capital (i.e. trained person-nel) and institutional capacity to generate even modest e-government services.

Despite these obstacles, India has attempted several e-government initiatives. Monga(2008) notes that whereas visiting government offices there used to be a harrowingexperience, increasingly transactions can be conducted digitally. Indeed, as Haque(2002, 232) argues, “the government tends to portray e-governance as the panacea forall ranges of problems confronting India.” Nationally, the government has established anongoing series of task forces, institutes, committees, and ministries to encourage publicuse of information technologies. Some of these efforts have focused on rural areas,including satellite Internet access, which facilitate online Internet reservations for the railsystem. Two of its most successful ventures include Akashganga, an informationtechnology system designed to benefit dairy producers (Keniston and Kumar 2004), ande-Choupal (which means a village meeting place), kiosks that allow farmers to check oncrop prices and bypass predatory middlemen (Gorla 2008).

Most Indian e-government programs, however, unfold at the state level, giving riseto an uneven topology of implementation across the Indian landscape, sometimes incounterintuitive ways. Thus, Tamil Nadu, which has not participated significantly inIndia’s economic growth, erected 80 Internet kiosks in which even impoverished farm-ers can access birth and death records, apply for pensions, and lodge complaints (Kumarand Best 2006). Karnataka has followed suit with Project Bhoomi, which allows Internetdelivery of land titles for 6.7 million rural farmers (Bhatnagar and Chawla 2007). Simi-larly, the Health Information Systems Project in Andhra Pradesh has been moderatelysuccessful in using the Internet to disseminate public health information (Madon, Sahay,and Sudan 2007). Andhra Pradesh also launched a Wide Area Initiative that allows citi-zens to pay utility bills and property taxes, purchase certificates and apply for licenses,and acquire information regarding building permits and property registration (Schware2000).

Elsewhere in South Asia, e-government has made tentative inroads. In Bangladesh,where only 5 percent of the population had Internet access in 2012, the process is con-fined to a few public webpages that provide simple information (Bhuiyan 2006, 2011).For example, AgriNet Bangladesh provides an online guide for farmers. Preliminary evi-dence indicates that the process has helped to reduce the country’s notoriously corruptgovernment agencies, for example by eliminating black marketeers in railroad ticketsales (Knox 2009). In Pakistan, e-government amounts to little more than hyperbole. SriLanka launched the e-Sri Lanka project in 2002, which has made only gradual progress,although it does include an online national population registry and motor vehicle regis-tration (Weerakkody, Dwivedi, and Kurunananda 2009; Karunasena and Deng 2012).

East Asia

In marked contrast to Central and South Asia, East Asian governments have, with theexception of North Korea, undertaken significant steps to implementing e-governmentthat make some of them world leaders in this regard (Holliday 2002). The successes of

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these countries should be viewed in light of their relatively high standards of living,including a large and computer-literate middle class, and, for the most part, democrati-cally inclined governments with tolerable levels of corruption.

South Korea possesses an e-government system often rated the world’s most com-prehensive and sophisticated (Shin 2007; Taubman Center of Brown University 2007).Largely due to a series of government initiatives stretching back to the 1980s and culmi-nating in the Electronic Government Act of 2001, the country developed a world-classtelecommunications infrastructure (including the highest rate of broadband penetrationin the world). It simultaneously gradually implemented e-government in a series ofstages by forcefully overcoming bureaucratic inertia and resistance and through the erec-tion of a well-coordinated network of agencies involved in the effort (Im and Seo2005). Highlights of the Korean system include electronic delivery of social insurancepayments, tax collections, and widespread electronic education services. Struggles overprivacy were a significant aspect of the adoption of these processes (Jho 2005). Thepresidential Blue House’s shinmoongo system allows citizens to appeal judicial deci-sions and report corruption directly with the president’s offices. An important lessonfrom the Korean experience is the need for attention to stakeholders’ trust and commit-ment, and an understanding of the dynamics of organizational learning for e-governmentto be successful (Kim, Pan, and Pan 2007). The government’s E-jiwon electronicrecords management system, for example, including vast digital archives, succeededbecause of the institutional changes that accompanied it, not simply the technologicaladvantages it offers (Lee and Lee 2009).

Although Japan has an excellent information technology infrastructure, its stepstoward e-government have lagged behind other Organization for Economic Cooperationand Development nations (Koga 2003). The Japanese government, which long exhibiteda lackluster attitude toward government openness that threatened the power of itsentrenched bureaucracy, developed an e-government master plan in 1997 that led to thee-Japan Strategy I in 2001 and e-Japan Strategy II in 2003 (Yonemaru 2004). However,national e-government websites are largely confined to the simple provision of formsand information, putting the country in the first stage of Layne and Lee’s (2001) devel-opmental sequence. At the core of this initiative is the e-Gov.go.jp website, designed toserve as a centralized gateway to national e-government channels. The Juki-Net residentregistry network, launched in 2002, compiles personal information about residents tofacilitate the dispersal of government entitlement funding and allows them to moveamong cities without duplicating registration efforts. However, despite the centralizednature of the Japanese state, e-government implementation has been uneven among thenation’s prefectures, with well-established systems in the greater Tokyo-Yokohamaregion and lesser degrees of implementation in Hokkaido and Shikoku. Japanese citieshave implemented e-government in a wide range of modes and levels of sophistication(Tanaka, Matsuura, and Sudoh 2005), ranging from almost nil involvement among somehamlets to intergovernment local area networks.

China’s burgeoning ventures into e-government have also attracted considerableattention (Holliday and Yep 2005; Ma, Chung, and Thorson 2005; Chen et al. 2009;Zhao 2010; Yang, Zhang, and Tang 2012). As Gao, Song, and Zhu (2013) note, despiteits history of centralized planning, China’s e-government approaches arose haphazardlyand were badly fragmented by competing public bureaucracies. Initially its efforts wereaimed at purely economic goals such as tariff collection, import–export licenses, andcurrency exchange settlement. More recently, these efforts have been supplemented by athe wider strategy to decentralize the mechanisms of public governance, gain control

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over corruption, enhance responsiveness, and accelerate economic competitiveness underthe National Informatization (Guojia Xinxihua) plan. China’s Government Online Pro-ject (Zhengfu Shangwang Gongcheng) launched in 1999 has focused on putting govern-ment documents on the web and promotes online databases. China’s deeply centralizedpolitical system, however, presents obstacles to this strategy, including conflicting priori-ties and offices with bloated staff numbers. Luk (2013) points to several obstacles tofurther e-government adoption in China, including a conservative and overly skepticalattitude of government officials toward information technology, the lack of sufficientfinancial resources and technical skills, and the country’s digital divide, which is severe.It should, of course, also be recalled that China is among the most severe Internet cen-sors in the world (Warf 2010).

At the municipal level, wide variations exist in the degree to which e-governmentinitiatives have been adopted in Chinese cities (Fan and Luo 2013). Local governmentsare granted considerable autonomy in the degree to which they may implement suchmeasures, with wide variations in the quality of websites and services (Shi 2007). Notsurprisingly Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Shenzen have taken the lead in onlinecompany registrations, tax collections, and community information services (Tan 2013).For example, Shanghai has a digital social security smart card system in place, and itse-government services have become indispensable for firms operating there. Thenational government’s annual Chinese Government Website Performance AssessmentReport monitors the effectiveness of municipal websites in terms of their transparency,effectiveness, and service provision. In addition, many Chinese cities have turned tosocial media to disseminate information; for example, many local police departmentsuse Twitter and microblogs (Ma 2013).

Southeast Asia

Although Southeast Asian states generally lag behind leaders such as South Korea andJapan, nonetheless e-government has made steady progress there. The rapidly emergingeconomies of the region reveal considerable variation in e-government readiness andimplementation, ranging from Singapore, one of the world’s leaders in e-government, tocountries such as Myanmar, where it is nonexistent.

Because it has implemented e-government so well, Singapore has been the focus ofsignificant attention (Baum et al. 2008; Chan, Lau, and Pan 2008). Singapore’se-government initiatives began as early as 1980, with the launch of the Civil ServiceComputerisation Program. It has, for example, a state-of-art digital tax filing system andan e-citizen center (http://www.ecitizen.gov.sg), and most government services can bedelivered online (Ke and Wei 2004). The active participation of the island’s businesscommunity, which anticipated its benefits, was central to the success of these initiatives(Tung and Rieck 2005). Because multiple stakeholders were included in the design andimplementation of e-government initiatives, they enjoy widespread trust among differentsegments of the population (Lim et al. 2012); as with e-commerce, trust is central to theeffective adoption of e-government, and trust, like all social constructions, varies greatlyover time and space. Singapore has been especially innovative in using social media,particularly Facebook, to engage citizens in dialogic conversations (Soon and Soh2014).

E-government forms a core part of Malaysia’s ambitious Plan 2020, a strategy tobecome a fully developed economy that centers in large part on the adoption of infor-mation technology (Ghani, Said, and Nasir 2012). Although the country has made rapid

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strides in the implementation of e-government, including its famed Multimedia SuperCorridor, e-government has enjoyed modest success in Malaysia (Siddiquee 2008), inpart because it has earned less trust among its residents than elsewhere (Lean et al.2009). Nonetheless, e-procurement of government contracts has steadily become thenorm, and the country has experimented with digital filing of taxes (Santhanamery andRamayah 2014). Like Singapore, Malaysia’s cultural diversity was important, ase-government initiatives there intertwine with the culture’s emphasis on egalitarianism,fatalism, and individualism (Seng, Jackson, and Philip 2010).

In Thailand, the e-Government Interoperability Framework has guided the slow initi-ation of digital communications among different government agencies (Funilkul,Chutimaskul, and Chongsuphajaisiddhi 2011; Kawtrakul et al. 2011). However, starprograms such as Smart ID cards (which contained the owner’s demographic andeconomic data) failed there, largely due to its haphazard and unsystematic program ofimplementation. Elsewhere, such as Vietnam, where its vaulted Project 112 collapsed infailure, e-government is confined to a few websites, although even Cambodia is gettinginto the act (Sang, Lee, and Lee 2009).

Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s behemoth, has had limited success with e-government,in part due to endemic corruption, lack of political will, and shortages of qualified per-sonnel (Rose 2004; Rahardjo, Mirchandan, and Joshi 2007). Its efforts have rarelymoved beyond simple web pages, although Surabaya, the second largest city, has initi-ated an e-procurement system. The country’s enormous digital divide is a major obstaclein this regard (Hermana and Silfianti 2011), particularly the schism between Java andthe outer islands. Brunei, with a surprisingly high Internet penetration rate of 78 percent,has also taken hesitant steps toward implementing e-government initiatives (Rahmanet al. 2012).

Concluding thoughts

By now it is abundantly evident that e-government has made significant inroads acrossmost of Asia. As Internet use has grown in the region and its applications have multi-plied, many governments have taken to using it to provide information and, increas-ingly, solicit citizen input on issues as diverse as requests for infrastructure repairs orcomplaints about corruption. Applications such as downloadable forms, electronic appli-cations for birth certificates and business licenses, Internet payment of bills, and distancelearning reveal how the Internet is reshaping how the region’s governments interact withtheir citizens.

The most successful implementation of e-government has occurred in countrieswhere the government provides adequate funding, exerts decisive leadership, and putsconsiderable pressure on bureaucrats to conform, such as in South Korea, Japan, andSingapore. The creation of an adequate institutional capacity to execute this task, includ-ing strategic plans with clearly stated priorities and well-staffed agencies with the neces-sary human capital and legal clout is also important. Other obstacles to theimplementation of e-government include the lack of trust among different governmentagencies and the establishment of interoperability standards. Governments with mori-bund, corrupt, and hidebound bureaucracies fearful of change, often in low-incomecountries, are the least likely to adopt e-government (e.g. Indonesia, the Philippines).Finally, so long as the digital divide persists in East Asia, vast numbers of people willbe excluded from taking advantage of the opportunities that e-government offers.

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The impacts of e-government on Asian society are no doubt real, but difficult tomeasure accurately. Some e-government initiatives are no doubt ineffectual or have min-imal impacts. Others serve to make access to information and services quicker and moreconvenient. Perhaps most important, a growing consensus holds that e-government hasimproved transparency and reduced corruption (Andersen 2009; Kim, Kim, and Lee2009; Bertot, Jaeger, and Grimes 2010), such as in South Korea (Cho and Choi 2005)and Bangladesh (Bhuiyan 2011).

Asia’s significant economic, political, and cultural differences underpin how andwhy e-government has unfolded differentially across the region. Clearly assertions that“one size fits all” in this respect are mistaken. Neither is e-government a panacea forthe region’s problems. Rather, it should be viewed as part of the ongoing series ofchanges in the region’s governments as it proceeds through a period of intense restruc-turing, economic growth, and political and cultural transformation.

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