Abstract

This article analyses e-government policy in Italy over the last ten years in order to evaluate if and how politics has influenced its evolution. The focus is on the processes that have favoured the inclusion of e-government in the political agenda and the new dynamics of power that it determines. Because of the high level of specialisation required by e-government policy, many private actors have become part of the decision- making process. Governments don't generally develop or run their own systems, relying instead on private sector computer service providers to implement major, long-run contracts. This is why some of the largest companies in the world made e-government a core market. Through a detailed web research and systematic documentation analysis, as well as extensive interviewing with public officials, the article explains the extent to which e-government policy really matters.