Drawing on case studies from Denmark, The Netherlands and the UK, this book discusses new information and communication technologies. It explores their role in the restructuring of Western democratic political systems.

Since the early 1990s information systems (IS) have increasingly pro-vided both the technical platform and conceptual rationale for ongoing and widespread institutional and cultural change across government and public services worldwide. However, analysis tends to shy away from examining the complex dynamic between agency (individual actors and collectivities), structure (systems, institutions, roles, positions), and culture (ideas, theories, beliefs and values) that is integral to these developments. Instead agents and structures are conflated - treated as largely epiphenomenal to each...