The previous chapter explains that this study focuses more on technological systems in relation to their environment than on individual technologies or technology in general. Such sociotechnological systems consist of complex networks of people, technological applications, government and other organisations, and businesses. The motives and interests of the actors involved play an important role in charting the course that technological development takes and in generating and utilising information. The interactions that take place within this sociotechnological system are therefore the point of departure for the empirical analysis set out in this part of the book. That analysis zooms in on the relationships between the key actors that shape eGovernment, revealing how they go about taking decisions on the use of technology and information and balancing interests that are often contradictory, as well as the role that each actor plays. Their positions are subsequently defined in terms of the driving, underpinning, and process-based principles introduced in the previous chapter. In analysing the interactions between them, this study not only looks at technological applications, but focuses in particular on the information flows that arise from or are facilitated by technology. It is in such information flows that the boundaries – which are already somewhat blurred – between various policy areas, regulatory chains, sectors, and the relevant parties tend to converge. Focusing on information flows reveals the outlines of the quiet revolution in eGovernment – a revolution that will determine the future and the character of government in the digital age.

THE ENTHUSIASM AND ‘TECHNO-TRUST’ OF POLITICIANS AND POLICYMAKERS

READY AND WILLING

On 21 June 2001 – not long before the terrorist attacks in New York – the Dutch House of Representatives discussed the Dutch Minister of the Interior's memorandum urging the inclusion of a biometric feature in travel documents, as well as a recent visit by several MPs to the passport producers, Royal Joh. Enschedé and the state printing and publishing company SDU. The Minister and the MPs were equally enthusiastic.