Electronic government vs digital government in the context of digital transformation

Abstract

The article examines the transformation of e-government into the digital government in the context of digitalization penetrating into the developed countries. The purpose of the study is to consider the essence of e-government and digital government and distinguish the notions. The paper raises the following question: Is the digital government only a stage in the e-government development or a large-scale project being the conceptual development of e-government, with its specific features? The methodology embraces historical and analytical techniques, systems and network approaches, sociological research and statistical methods, and empirical methods (ratings, overt observation).

Analysis of analytical studies, namely ten UN reports on the development of e-government (from 2001 to 2018) and a number of documents, helps to track how the meaning and understanding of the notion of e-government change over time and to spot the conceptual shift from electronic to digital government. The article provides basic principles and generalized characteristics of the digital government.  

The author concludes that the e-government concept is focused on the provision of services in the electronic form. The digital government, being an extension of e-government, differs substantially; it represents an all-embracing concept and has a number of specific features which should be key in the strategic policy of the government which undertakes digital transformation.