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Developing Pan-European e-Government Solutions: From Interoperability to Installed Base Cultivation

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The Circulation of Agency in E-Justice

Part of the book series: Law, Governance and Technology Series ((LGTS,volume 13))

Abstract

In this chapter I address some of the complexities of ICT systems like Pan-European e-Government solutions, the challenges we are regularly confronted with when developing such solutions, the kinds of strategies that can help us cope with these challenges, and the extent to which an EU strategy with a strong focus on interoperability is an appropriate approach to dealing with them. I conclude that complex solutions like those discussed here can appropriately be seen as IIs. These IIs are not designed from scratch: they just evolve. A strategy for developing such solutions must therefore concentrate on how to make an II evolve in the desired direction. Standards are indeed crucial to infrastructures but the way standards are developed and their various properties have to address the need for an infrastructure to be flexible in order to grow and adapt to changing user requirements. The way the concept of interoperability is understood and used implies a static view of infrastructures that does not take into account the need for flexibility.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Ole Hanseth

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  1. Ole Hanseth
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Correspondence to Ole Hanseth .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. National Research Council of Italy, Research Institute on Judicial Systems, Bologna, Italy

    Francesco Contini

  2. Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Giovan Francesco Lanzara

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Hanseth, O. (2014). Developing Pan-European e-Government Solutions: From Interoperability to Installed Base Cultivation. In: Contini, F., Lanzara, G. (eds) The Circulation of Agency in E-Justice. Law, Governance and Technology Series, vol 13. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7525-1_2

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