This book seeks to inform small state policy-makers of the conditions and processes involved in the planning and execution of e-Government projects.

This volume covers a wide spectrum of governance issues relating to small states in a global context. While different definitions of governance are given in the chapters, most authors associate governance with the setting and implementation of policies aimed at managing a country or territory, and with the related institutional structures and interventions by political actors. Generally, good governance is associated with concepts such as policy effectiveness, accountability, transparency, control of corruption, encouragement of citizens’ voice and gender equality—factors which are, in turn, linked with democracy. What emerges from the book is that the societies of small states are being re-shaped by various forces outside their control, including the globalization process and climate change, rendering their governance ever more complex. These problems are not solely faced by small states, but small country size tends to lead to a higher degree of exposure to external factors. The chapters are grouped into four sections broadly covering political, environmental, social and economic governance. Governance is influenced by many, often intertwined, factors; the division of the book into four parts therefore does not detract from the fact that governance is multifaceted, and such division was based on the primary focus of each particular study and its main disciplinary background. The expert authors have, moreover, used a variety of approaches in the studies, the subject of small states being well suited to scholarly work from different disciplines using qualitative, quantitative and mixed approaches to arrive at useful conclusions.

Small States and EU Governance shows that the EU's rotating Council presidency and small states' capacity to make use of it have been underestimated. It examines the political objectives the presidency serves and presents a systematic and comparative assessment of its nature and influence in internal market and foreign policy issues.

What is special about small states? How do they adapt their policies and patterns of governance to meet turbulent times such as a new security environment and the international financial crisis? Answers to these and further questions are provided by experts. What are the constraints on and opportunities of governance of small states in an interdependent and increasingly turbulent global setting? How do small states deal with radical changes in the international environment? What is the role of political institutions in facilitating and constraining policy responses to a rapidly changing international environment? How can political leadership contribute to stability in times of change? This book seeks to answer these questions by taking a comparative perspective on the processes of change and adaptation in the governance of Norway and Slovakia. These two small European states with highly open economies have been exposed to the same set of global turbulences related to post Cold War changes in the security environment and the global financial crisis; they are also facing internal challenges that spring from rapidly rising expectations while demographic shifts put pressure on their welfare systems. Their governance structures and processes are informed by their different political-administrative cultures, different history and levels of stability of democratic governance structures and, indeed, by their different modes of attachment to the European Union and other regional integration frameworks. These differences and a comparative approach in exploring the questions raised above can shed light not only on the specific forms of adaptation of governance structures in two small European states, but also generate insights into the role of integration structures in facilitating and constraining change.

This volume covers a wide spectrum of governance issues relating to small states in a global context. While different definitions of governance are given in the chapters, most authors associate governance with the setting and implementation of policies aimed at managing a country or territory, and with the related institutional structures and interventions by political actors. Generally, good governance is associated with concepts such as policy effectiveness, accountability, transparency, control of corruption, encouragement of citizens’ voice and gender equality—factors which are, in turn, linked with democracy. What emerges from the book is that the societies of small states are being re-shaped by various forces outside their control, including the globalization process and climate change, rendering their governance ever more complex. These problems are not solely faced by small states, but small country size tends to lead to a higher degree of exposure to external factors. The chapters are grouped into four sections broadly covering political, environmental, social and economic governance. Governance is influenced by many, often intertwined, factors; the division of the book into four parts therefore does not detract from the fact that governance is multifaceted, and such division was based on the primary focus of each particular study and its main disciplinary background. The expert authors have, moreover, used a variety of approaches in the studies, the subject of small states being well suited to scholarly work from different disciplines using qualitative, quantitative and mixed approaches to arrive at useful conclusions.

Drawing lessons from the eFez Project in Morocco, this volume offers practical supporting material to decision makers in developing countries on information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D), specifically e-government implementation. The book documents the eFez Project experience in all of its aspects, presenting the project’s findings and the practical methods developed by the authors (a roadmap, impact assessment framework, design issues, lessons learned and best practices) in their systematic quest to turn eFez’s indigenous experimentations and findings into a formal framework for academics, practitioners and decision makers. The volume also reviews, analyzes and synthesizes the findings of other projects to offer a comparative study of the eFez framework and a number of other e-government frameworks from the growing literature.

Global Environmental Governance gives the perspectives of small states on some of the most important issues of the anthropocene, from trade, climate change and energy security to tourism, marine governance, and heritage. Providing an in depth analysis of global environmental governance and its impact on Caribbean small island developing states (SIDS) Michelle Scobie explores which dynamics and contexts influence current policy and future environmental outcomes for one of the most biodiverse regions of the planet.

Unlocking E-Government Potential: Concepts, Cases and Practical Insights provides a conceptual and empirical basis for understanding the potential of e-government and practical insights for implement-action of e-government at local, state or national level. The author provides an overview of global experience in implementing e-government, explores the potential impact of e-government on cost of access, quality of service and quality of governance for citizens and businesses and analyzes the potential impact of e-government on transparency and corruption.

This book explores the development of subnational government in small states, using Iceland as a model and comparing it with small states of similar population size as well as those with larger populations. The book examines subnational government from the perspective of small state theory, providing a comprehensive overview of the basic data on subnational government for all small states with between 100,000 and 1 million inhabitants. It presents Iceland as a model for decentralization in small states, providing detailed information on the country’s organization at the subnational level, and highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of decentralizing tasks from central to subnational government. Demonstrating the difference population size makes when it comes to successfully decentralizing tasks to subnational governments, this book is intended for scholars, students and practitioners alike.

Agency, Security and Governance of Small States examines what seems to be a defining paradox of Small-State Studies: the simultaneous coexistence (and possible co-dependence) of vulnerability and opportunity related to small-state size. This book analyses small states within the framework of this apparent paradox. Traditionally, Small-State Studies has focused on three guiding questions: what constitutes a ‘small state’? What explains small-state influence in global affairs? Are small states truly vulnerable to security threats given the expansion of multilateralism and regionalism throughout the world? This book contends that new questions should be asked which recognise the important shifts in twenty-first century security paradigms, to better understand how some states deploy their smallness as a resource for agency in supranational contexts. By varying historical, geographical, security, and governance contexts, the book embraces a most-different-cases approach. The historical perspective is often neglected in Small-State Studies but contributes to understanding how small states have often, over time, transformed perceived insecurity into agency. By focusing on different world regions, the authors enable the comparative analysis of collective actions, and the creation and implementation of institutions for ‘common sense purposes’ within a geographical region. Of particular contemporary importance, the book includes contributions which contend with hard-security issues alongside other soft-security challenges. The comparison of case studies confirms that hard-security vulnerability and soft-security opportunities seem to be two sides of the same coin, which reinforces the book’s focus on small-state paradoxes, and raises the question of whether smallness can be considered the defining characteristic of governance in these countries. This book will have a broad appeal because of the different world regions it analyses. It will be of interest to postgraduate students, scholars, and researchers of international relations, security, sustainability, governance, development, and political economy, as well as Small-State Studies. The Chapters 4, 8 and 11 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. The publication of Chapter 4 as Open Access has been made possible by the Institute of History at the University of Luxembourg. The publication of Chapter 8 as Open Access has been made possible by Western Sydney University. The publication of Chapter 11 as Open Access has been made possible by the University of Hamburg.