E-government Use and Use Mechanism: A Comparison Study among Shanghai, Singapore and Taipei

Abstract

While E-government attracts great attention and input from governments all around the world, less systematical research has been conducted from the perspective of its users. Besides, how well the users take advantage of the egovernment development and are served by e-government is seldom compared between different kinds of polities, especially from the perspective of interaction between polities and technology. To fill the knowledge gap, a comparative study is conducted among three cities (Shanghai, Singapore and Taipei) by the present research from the perspective of residents’ e-government use. The dissertation aims to answer the question: how citizens take advantage of the e-government in the three cities and what can influence their e-government usage. Five subquestions are detailed to illustrate the research question: 1) what’s egovernment use difference among the three cities? 2) What’s the relation between e-government platforms use and e-government political participation? 3) What’s the relation between e-government use and use intention? 4) How do political resources, political psychological engagement and overall recruitment influence e-government use in the three cities? 5) How can demographic-socioeconomic characteristics and internet use influence e-government use? To answer these questions, the Ladder of Citizen Participation and the Civil Voluntarism Model are adopted and modified. Online surveys were conducted in Shanghai, Singapore and Taipei. Research results reveal the universal applicability of the systematic political participation in e-government on one hand and unveil the e-government practice mechanism from the viewpoint of residents on the other hand. What’s more, the results offer some enlightenment as well as challenges for comparing egovernment practice in different forms of government.