The Web of Governance and Democratic Accountability

Developments in e-government are resulting in fundamental reorganizations of the ways in which democratic governments operate as well as in the ways in which citizens relate to their own and other governments and to each other. Of special relevance here are the manners in which institutions and citizens are becoming interconnected into a complex ‘web of governance’ via largely uncoordinated information networks. This paper examines how this web of governance is simultaneously producing changes in individual citizen’s senses of identity and challenges to conventional notions of accountability in liberal democratic systems. Together, it is argued, these suggest moving focus from e-government (the institutions of government) to egovernance (the larger web of formal and informal institutions, organizations, norms, traditions, authority structures, groups and behaviors within which individuals and groups live their lives). Such a refocusing holds the promise of developing citizen capacity and identity in balance with formal governmental transformations. Specific illustrative examples are provided including Seoul Metropolitan Government’s OPEN System.