ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: EFFICIENCY VERSUS DEMOCRACY: POLICY TRENDS AND ASSESSMENT OF STATE E-GOVERNMENT

Title of Thesis: EFFICIENCY VERSUS DEMOCRACY: POLICY TRENDS AND ASSESSMENT OF STATE E-GOVERNMENT David Adam Anderson Master of Library Science, 2008 Directed by: Professor Paul T. Jaeger, College of Information Studies Assessments of E-government literature have noted a lack of both broadly-drawn studies and policy-oriented research. This paper addresses this gap through a systematic, content-based assessment of E-government strategic planning documents from 37 states, meant to determine the holistic policy orientation of American E-government. Specifically, this study tests the proposition that state E-government policies can be said to exhibit either an evolutionary or revolutionary orientation towards affecting desired changes in matters of efficiency, democracy, or both. This orientational framework is drawn from examples found in federal Egovernment policy and academic E-government literature. It is also used to outline biases of existing E-government implementation models, and to frame discussion of a model for gauging progress in “E-democracy.” Other issues explored include the ultimate legitimacy of an E-government that fails to implement democracy-oriented tools, the potential Constitutional conflicts of a transformative approach to E-government, and the wisdom of re-conceptualizing citizens as “customers.” EFFICIENCY VERSUS DEMOCRACY: POLICY TRENDS AND ASSESSMENT OF STATE E-GOVERNMENT By David A. Anderson Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Library Science 2008 Advisory Committee Professor Paul T. Jaeger, Chair Professor Jennifer Golbeck Professor Dave Yates © Copyright by David Adam Anderson 2008