Setting Sail into the Age of Digital Local Government

This book delineates the political significance and implications of ICTs for societies at the local level of government and within the context of public administration in the advanced industrialized democracies. It also provides insightful theoretical and practical knowledge about the implementation and significance of ICTs at the local level, and systematically investigates the implications of ICTs for electronic government (e-government) and electronic democracy (e-democracy) from a normative, empirical, comparative, and practical perspective in the United States, France, Germany, and Japan. On August 30, 2009, the Pirate Party Germany or "Pirates" received 1.9% in the 2009 Saxony state election in Germany. While the party failed to enter the state parliament on that day, it managed to receive 8.9 % of the votes two years later, in the 2011 Berlin state election. In doing so, the party gained 15 out of 141 seats in the Abgeordnetenhaus in a German state parliament. Since its founding in September 2006, the Pirates have also captured municipal councils in major cities, such as Aachen and Münster. For the first time, a political party, born during the digital age that perceives itself as part of an international movement to shape the digital revolution and that primarily relies on the latest information communication technologies (ICTs) to articulate opinions, network, and influence politics, entered the political§landscape in one of the major industrialized democracies. The party's success at§the state and local level of government is intrinsically linked to innovations§in information and communication technologies over the past two decades. The book will be of interest to public administration scholars as well as practitioners internationally.