Towards a Gov 2.0 society for all: European strategies for public service delivery

To what extent the shift to Gov 2.0 technologies, embedded in the latest European governments’ strategies, is changing public service delivery in practice? Gov 2.0 technologies provide numerous opportunities for governments to create efficiencies and better serve the public. With the public sector facing intense scrutiny of its budgets it should clearly be exploring where these tools can ease financial pressure, guarantee democratic governance, and improve public service delivery. The interactive and collaborative nature of Gov 2.0 should be encouraged given the fact that public interaction is quickly moving to center stage on the public governance agenda, as it is increasingly recognized as a primary driver for innovation and value creation in both the private and public sectors. This chapter is structured as follows: The second section presents an overview of the strategic plans launched by the EU over the last decade in order to strengthen e-government services for citizens and analyzes to what extent the four major European countries have defined strategic objectives which imply the use of Gov 2.0 technologies. The extent to which the shift to Gov 2.0 technologies are changing public service delivery in practice is presented in the third section. Finally, in the conclusion we summarize the analysis highlighting advantages and challenges of Gov 2.0 development in Europe.