eGovernment Workshop ’06 (eGOV06) September 11 2006, Brunel University, West London, UB8 3PH G2C AND C2G: EMERGING PRINCIPLES AND ARCHITECTURES IN E-GOVERNMENT AND E- PARTICIPATION D. Pappa, School of Information Systems, Computing & Mathematics, Brunel University, Dimitra.Pappa@brunel.ac.uk L.K. Stergioulas, School of Information Systems, Computing & Mathematics, Brunel University, Lampros.Stergioulas@brunel.ac.uk Abstract Since its early days, e-Government has been the source of great expectations. Presently e-Government is pursued as both a way of increasing government productivity and efficiency and as a key enabler of citizen-centric, cooperative, "seamless", but polycentric, modern governance. This implies a profound transformation in the way government interacts with the governed but also the reinvention of its internal processes and organisation, including Government-to-Government (G2G) interactions. From this starting point, this paper investigates e-Government from a citizen’s perspective under the light of both Government-to-Citizen (G2C) and Citizen-to-Government (C2G) relations. Such a “joined-up government” approach, which builds G2C and C2G relationships on a backbone of good G2G synergy, may be pivotal for improving of the services offered to citizens. This paper reviews the concept of joined-up government from the public authority’s point of view and investigates the emerging architectures for service management and delivery. It also discusses the prospects of e- Participation through the development of virtual government spaces, where all involved local stakeholders can communicate. Keywords: G2C, C2G, joined-up government, integration, e-Participation. 1 1. INTRODUCTION Since its early days, e-Government was considered to be a driver for the modernisation of the public sector and a key factor for increasing the productivity and efficiency of Public Administration. The employment of Information & Communication Technologies (ICT), combined with the widespread use of telecommunication networks, is expected to accelerate the modernisation of government and its operations. Presently it is increasingly recognised that e-Government can also have a profound impact on the relations between government and its customer base, i.e. citizens and businesses, affecting both government-to-citizen and citizen-to-government relations, to become a key enabler of citizen-centric, cooperative, "seamless", but polycentric, modern governance. Government-to-Citizen (G2C) relations One of the priorities in this agenda for change is the improvement of the services offered to citizens and businesses according to a “user-centric” approach, which implies shifting from an “administrative state” to a “service-oriented state” [1],[2],[4],[5],[25],[26]. Several efforts have been made in this direction in recent years, primarily focusing on making content and services available online and on D. Pappa and L.K. Stergioulas. G2C and G2G: Emerging Principles and Architectures in E-Government and E-Participation 1