E-government and Policy Innovation in Seven Liberal Democracies by Professor Patrick Dunleavy (LSE and ANU), Professor Helen Margetts (UCL), Simon Bastow (UCL), Jane Tinkler (LSE).

This paper looks at the impact of electronic government - widespread government use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) - on the transaction costs of policy innovation. e-government has great potential to reduce the transaction costs of innovation for those organisations that use it creatively. Government agencies rely heavily on private sector computer services providers for ICT expertise. Over time, governments develop distinctive ‘contracting regimes’, where trends in public management reform, contracting styles and markets of computer services providers produce a variety of patterns of contract relationships.