PREFACE

Assoc.=20 Professor of Public Policy

The=20 benefits of using technology to remake government seem almost infinite. = The=20 promise of such programs as user-friendly "virtual agencies" and portals = where=20 citizens can access all sections of government from a single website has = excited=20 international attention. The potential of a digital state cannot be = realized,=20 however, unless the rigid structures of the contemporary bureaucratic = state=20 change along with the times. (More)

Jane Fountain is Associate = Professor=20 of Public Policy, founder and Director of the National Center for Digital=20 Government, and Co-chair of the Information, Technology and=20 Governance Faculty Group. Her research is focused at the intersection of = institutions, global information and communication technologies, and = governance.=20 Fountain is the author of Building the Virtual State: = Information=20 Technology and Institutional Change (Brookings = Institution Press,=20 2001), which was awarded an Outstanding Academic Title 2002 by Choice, = and=20 Women in the Information Age (Cambridge University Press, = forthcoming).=20 She has published research on information and communication technology = and the=20 development of networked forms of organization and governance in = Governance,=20 Technology in Society, Science and Public Policy, the Communications of = the=20 ACM, and other scholarly journals. Fountain has served as a member = of the=20 governing body of the Social Science Research Council Committee on = Information=20 Technology, Global Cooperation, and International Security; the Research = Advisory Board of the Internet Policy Institute; and the advisory board = of=20 MassConnect, an economic development e-government initiative in the = Commonwealth=20 of Massachusetts. She holds a double Ph.D. from=20 Yale=20 University,=20 in organizational behavior and in political science.