E-government in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

This chapter describes the process of e-government application and defines the barriers to and outcomes of e-government adoption in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Archival document analysis, analyses of Northern Cyprus government Websites, analyses of governmental statistics and e-government-related laws and regulations are utilized for this study. The main findings of the study are that (i) e-government applications are still in their infancy, i.e. in the cataloguing, and to a lesser extent in transaction level; (ii) there is a lack of an adequate IT infrastructure, qualified IT personnel and meaningful and useful content on government Websites; (iii) digital divide is a serious problem that hinders e-government development; and (iv) a new organizational structure that can plan and coordinate the implementation of e-government applications has to be established. The lessons derived from this case study may benefit efforts to understand the adoption of e-government, especially in small countries in the Mediterranean region and elsewhere.