Germany has historically been considered a model of public administration. The
Prussian legacy of an efficient, accountable and reliable public sector may be more a
myth than reality, but it is an image that continues to enjoy wide currency globally and
within Germany. The German public sector is also considered by many to be slow to
reforms designed to improve efficiency, reliability, and
A recent survey by the business consulting company, Accenture, placed
Germany in the bottom half of its rankings and noted, “The government of Germany
made little measurable progress on its e-government vision” (2005, 76); this despite the
fact that German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his Social Democratic/Green Party
coalition government launched in 2000 and 2001 several major initiatives to expand e-
government solutions at all levels of government.
The situation is even more surprising
given that scholars note that Germany’s high-road economy is in large measure sustained
through continuous technological improvements in industrial production (Boyer 2003,
Jurgens 2003, Streeck 1992). One might expect that in a country with a technologically
advanced private sector and an efficient public sector, e-government reforms should be
widely adopted and accepted. Yet, this is apparently not the case. There remains a
widely-shared view that as the governments in countries such as Canada, Taiwan and the
United States push forward in the adoption of new technologies, the German public
sector is either unwilling, unable, or uninterested in adopting these new reforms
1
E-government remains an elusive concept. For this paper I use the definition developed by Wong and
Welch (2004). Their definition is developed from the American Society for Public Administration’s
(ASPA) definition of e-government (
). It is similar to the definition offered by
David McClure, Associate Director of the U.S. General Accountability Office, “Electronic government
refers to government’s use of technology, particularly web-based Internet applications to enhance the
access to and delivery of government information and service to citizens, business partners, employees,
other agencies, and government entities (Layne & Lee 2001,122-123).” For a review of the concept see H.
Sharifi and B. Zarei (2004, p.602; Graafland-Essers and Ettedgui, 2003, 5).
2
See “Deutschland Nachzügler”(2004)
3
A study by the European Union comparing 15 European countries ranked Germany 13 (“Ämter in der
Web” 2002). Global comparisons by academic scholars give Germany a slightly more favorable rating than
their consultant counterparts (West, 2004).
2
E-government in Germany 2
Convention