Abstract
Many complexities associated with e-Government are caused by using the wrong perspectives to understand and explain e-Government phenomena. This argument will be further introduced and explained by using e-Government initiatives and approaches in New Zealand as an illustrative case study. Generally, two dominant streams of e-Government thinking about the role of ICTs in government can be identified over time: e-Government 1.0 – a perspective where ICTs are seen as a driving force of change in public administration and governance, and e-Government 2.0 – a perspective that directly and explicitly relates the use of ICTs in government and its external relationships with transformational change.
In this contribution it is argued that an alternative stream of thinking on e-Government is needed which accommodates the challenging dynamic, unpredictable, complex, and non-linear aspects of e-Government. As these aspects have everything to do with the unique characteristics of government, this alternative stream of thinking will be addressed as 'Public Administration 2.0', to reflect that current mainstream Public Administration thinking persistently separate out e-Government from their own domains of interest and treat them as technology-related topics without any relevance to the Public Administration discipline. The value of applying a Public Administration 2.0 perspective to e-Government phenomena is further demonstrated by discussing two examples based on empirical research from New Zealand, one example in which transactional e-Government service provision is compared with e-Commerce service delivery, and a second example exploring benefits realisation around three e-Government initiatives.