Building E-Government 2.0 - A Step Forward in Bringing Government Closer to Citizens

This paper tracks the development of e-government towards the e-government 2.0 concept under the influence of WWW innovations and provides insight in how strategic goals of e-government 2.0 can be achieved in the Web 2.0 era. Although Western countries progress rapidly in achieving more open, participatory and transparent relations with users, by adoption of Web 2.0 technologies, less developed countries are slower to progress. This paper examines government websites in the developing countries of the Balkans for the presence of Web 2.0 applications and evaluates the results in comparison with more developed countries. It concludes with suggestions on how countries with e-government models prior to 2.0 can catch up and create an environment for citizen engagement and empowerment.