This paper is grounded in the empirical reality of a growing use of information‑ and communication technologies (ICTs) in public administrations. Generally, ICTs are being introduced in an organization in order to increase operational efficiency, quality, and transparency. But, besides these intended effects, the introduction of ICTs also leads to substantial changes in the power relationships among all involved actors. As a result of ICT‑enhanced operations, some of the actors will increase their power, while others will loose some of their power. This paper therefore studies the implications of ICTs on the power relations in local administration settings.

This paper is about exploring mobile e‑Government issues by analysing their historical evolution and illustrating some concrete activities, first in the initial phase, then through more recent projects, with the idea of capturing some attributes of its development trend. The objective is to propose a view on m‑Government, which can be both compatible with fieldwork findings and overall information and communication technology dynamics. We thus suggest a remapping of the m‑Government domain, so as to establish key priorities, eventually helping improve policy‑planning capabilities in this area. Our main hypothesis is that m‑Government should not be too specific an area of e‑Government (limited to the notion of mobile access), but on the contrary take upon the current dominant movement in favour of mobile technology usages, and steer experiments and initiatives in a way that ultimately better benefits, and even empowers the users and citizens in their various flexibility needs.

This paper is conceptual in nature: in it, we seek to identify the current trends of State transformation, combine them with the changes in the new information and communication technologies, and extrapolate this combination into the near future. More precisely, the goal of the paper is to analyse how the New Information and Communication Technologies shape the newly emerging governance mechanisms at local, regional, national, European, and global levels. It furthermore aims at developing a conceptual model in order to understand the evolution towards e‑governance, as well as assessing its positive and negative implications for the State and the society at large. Finally, it compares our model with the currently existing definitions and conceptualisations of e‑governance and e‑government.