e-government as an enabler of public management reform: The case of Switzerland

Governmental reform has been on Switzerland's political agenda since the 1970s. In the 1990s, the ideas of NPM (New Public Management) spread quickly within the Swiss public sector. From the mid 1990s, the three levels of government also began experimenting with electronic government. Ten years later these experiments have matured and Switzerland is regularly ranked among the top countries for the implementation of electronic government. It is possible to link these eGovemment experiments and projects to some of the ideas and promises of NPM, such as customer orientation, seamless interaction between levels of government, businesslike management, and better transparency of public affairs. By means of ten examples, this paper illustrates how eGovemment has become one of the most meaningful agents of government transformation and modernisation at the beginning of the 21(st) century, at least in Switzerland.