1 Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 1 DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-6106-6.ch001 E-Government and Social Inclusion: Concepts ABSTRACT E-Government is a relatively new phenomenon in much of the world, having been put in place in the 2000s. Thus, it is not a settled concept but an evolving one. Social Inclusion, although still a very con- tested concept, has been around for considerable time, but even that needs to be updated to suit the digital world in which it is being applied in this book. The authors in the frst section of this book deal with these and associated concepts, and this chapter provides an overview of selected ideas as a primer for the chapters that follow. INTRODUCTION E-Government is a relatively new phenomenon in much of the word, having been put in place only as late as the 2000s. Thus it is not a settled concept but an evolving one. Social Inclusion, although still a very much contested concept, has been around for considerable time but even that needs to be updated to suit the digital world in which it is being applied in this book. Through- out this section, various authors have attempted to interrogate the many propositions made on these concepts and offer their own formulations or endorse some old ones. Likewise, many authors have provided ex- tensive coverage and useful critiques of actual E-Government practices in several parts of the world with regard to e-government and social inclusion. This chapter summarises some of the key concepts found throughout this book. It is not an exhaustive list but a selective one. Each chapter has a valuable contribution to the understanding of the theme of this book and the reader is encour- aged to go through them all. CONCEPTS E-Government, the short form of Electronic Gov- ernment, has been defined in various ways but as Warf points out they “all essentially point to the Arun Mahizhnan National University of Singapore, Singapore