The Futures of EU-Based eGovernment: A Scenario-Based Exploration

Abstract

The future of egovernment is very uncertain and requires to be approached by depicting different scenario in which a wide range of contextual factors, such as social, cultural, institutional and economic should be described. The scenarios in this paper are focused on 2020 and situated along two scenario-axes which form the framework in which the scenario-stories have been placed: (1) cultural diversity and (2) citizen involvement. The scenario-axes point to the extremes of a (possible) future trend or development. These two scenario-axes are chosen by experts, who have weighed and assessed both uncertainty and expected impact for egovernment of several factors. When combining the extreme manifestations of the two chosen factors (cultural homogeneity versus cultural heterogeneity and low versus high involvement of citizens) four explorations of government models in 2020 emerge: 'Our Europe', 'We the Market', My Community' and Me, myself and I'.