3
While the term “digital government”, or e-government, was disseminated to the general
public with a special report of the Economist in June 2000 (Economist, 2000), technology-
induced changes in government go back a long way (Fountain, 2001). In German-speaking
Europe, some visionary scholars in the field of public administration had envisioned a “virtual
public sector” since the 1980s (Lenk, 1997; Reinermann, 1999, 2000; Reinermann, Fiedler,
Grimmer, Lenk, & Traunmüller, 1988).
Paving the way: Public sector reforms
It can be argued that public sector reforms laid the groundwork for DG initiatives
(Schedler & Scharf, 2001), emphasizing the importance of efficiency gains, attempting to
introduce market-like principles into government, most visibly expressed in a shift from input to
output orientation as well as an orientation toward the customers of government (Barzelay, 1992;
Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). There is, however, at least one important difference between the
driving forces of these reforms and DG initiatives: whereas public sector reforms are strategy-
driven and originate chiefly within government, DG is driven more by outside pressures such as
the information society (Schedler & Summermatter, 2002).
The DGPs examined in this study are located in two different countries: Switzerland and
the United States. Both countries experienced public sector reforms in the 1990’s, and although
similar policy concepts have been employed, one should bear in mind that they carry different
operational and institutional meanings in European and American settings (Toonen &
Raadschelders, 1997). The nature and content of American managerial reforms in the context of
the Clinton-Gore Reinventing Government program (National Performance Review, 1993) differ
from the Swiss version of New Public Management (NPM) in that Swiss reforms are
characterized by stronger political control processes (the general basis for state action in
Switzerland is a specialized public law), and the emphasis lies on outcomes rather than outputs
(Schedler, 1998).
Convention