Building the Digital Government in Regions: Success Factors and Institutional Barriers in Spanish Comunidades Autónomas

This chapter tackles with some basic questions about eGovernment with a regional perspective: is it growing the importance of regional governments in the information age political environment? Is there a specific regional administrative modernization agenda? Which institutional factors shape regional electronic public administration developments? There is an increasing importance of regional government around the European Union, specially, in countries with strongly decentralised politico-administrative systems. This paper outlines a precise regional perspective to comprehend the global electronic government (eGovernment) phenomenon. In so doing, next pages deal with a country case (Spanish Comunidades Autónomas, in general, and Comunidad Valenciana region, in particular), with extensive regional competencies and socio-economic as well as political and legislative power. This study takes into account the significance of contextual institutional and historical factors, and internal institutional settings, that shape the evolution of administrative reforms, also in regional perspective. ABSTRACT