Assessing the Influence of Actors on E-Government Policies

Abstract

E-government development, assumed as a public policy problem, has to consider political issues, where actors play a key role for success or failure on such policies. Several political theories admit the importance of actors in their approaches. Although there are efforts to formalize them, the model presented in this chapter looks to integrate a variety of proposals in the context of public policies. The application of the model to e-government cases on Chile and Costa Rica has shown that the characteristics of the process executed in a timeline (with their successes and failures) can be explained from actors' perspective. Issues like promoting new laws, the coordination of multiple agencies or the priority for projects on political context have to be solved with specific actors using their power resources. The explanations found could be considered for characterize future developments on e-government taking on account how critical is the actors' intervention.