On the Narratives of e–Government: A Comparison of the Democratic and Technocratic Approach in Post–Soviet States

Narratives influence our perception and determine how we look on social phenomena, the society and public politics. Since the introduction of the term e–Government and the usage of technical innovations in the public sector, three narratives seem to have emerged. A review of the 100 most cited papers and publications on e–Government has revealed that at the current state, the focus on narrative in publications on e–Government seem to be the democratic narrative, the technocratic narrative, and the tech–savvy narrative. Combined with a survey of \( n \)  = 417 participants, consisting of both civil society as well as IT user and IT experts, it turned out that there is a difference between various country groups regarding their perception of e–Government. Three country groups are analyzed, the established European democracies, the post-Soviet states and one overall country group. This paper aims to find out whether there is a difference in the perception of the introduced governmental initiatives between so–called established European democracies and post–Soviet states. The paper aims to find out in which country groups IT innovations that have been implemented by the public administration reflect a more democracy–based narrative compared to a more efficiency–based.