It Takes More Than Two To TANGO: Co-Constructing Situated Accountability Through a Local E-Government Arena

Annelie Ekelin

This paper deals with the issue of shaping local egovernment policies and practices, by including several actors, such as researchers, official authorities, politicians and software companies as well as ordinary citizens in a joint, sustainable development of a region.

One way to provide space and place for this ongoing coconstruction and negotiation work of situated egovernment is the establishment of a regional center of competence on e-government, within a program, partly funded by the European Commission, called Innovative Actions. TANGO (Thematic Arenas Nourish Growth Opportunities) is a way to build thematic competence centres and stimulate local research- and development projects (R&D), carried out in co-operation with partners from local business life. The Come on in- project, described in this paper, is an example of such an R&D project. The practices reveal several critical and crucial negotiation situations that are of importance to be put forward and be discussed in relation to what situated accountability could mean for the development of what could be called a new politics production. Situated accountability is therefore of great significance for this discussion.

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