The construction of Knowledge and Information Societies in the context of the process of structural change in modern societies Nuno de Almeida Alves PhD student at ISCTE, Lisbon

Theoretical frame ICT as the key-factor for the upsurge of the fifth long wave of economic development (Freeman & Louçã, 2001; Perez, 2002) Knowledge and Information Societies as a political process of structural adjustment

Action Plans for knowledge and information societies Stimulating Broad Adoption of Internet Access by the population Fostering Technological Literacy among citizens Promoting the integration of firms in the digital economy Pushing forward e-government Supporting national digital content production

Percentage of households who have Internet access at home (2003)

Results Large Adoption in the North and part of Central Europe Feeble Adoption in Southern Europe Reasons Telecommunications tariffs Available income Lack of English language skills Broad adoption by the population

Number of computers connected to the Internet per hundred students (2002)

ICT and learning Results Only Denmark has a favourable rate of computers per 100 students (1 to 3) All the other countries, especially Germany and Southern Europe, have unsatisfactory rates of equipment Consequences Hinders planned extension of the ICT integration and use in all subjects related to secondary education

Percentage of companies with Internet access (2003)

Digital economy Results Extensive dissemination of Internet connections in European Businesses – close to statistical irrelevancy However Widespread use of ICT and electronic commerce in business processes is still weak and sector specific

Basic public services provided on line (2003)

E-government Results Only one third of the countries has a majority of (the 20) basic public services fully provided online. As usual, Northern Countries integrate the early adopters group. However Almost only taxes and social security contributions services are fully available online.

Conclusions The speed of structural adjustment is far slower than the western governments expected at the time of the Action Plans design. Why?

Technologies expected to boost Internet access are not generally available (UMTS) Telecommunications tariffs are still too high. The liberalization of the telecommunications market did not have the expected effect. Telecommunications markets are still largely dominated by the incumbent operators, which have a crushing effect over the new entrants in the general telecom services.

In spite of the similarity of the action plans and schedules adopted by the generality of the countries in consideration, the actual responses have been very different. The rate of adoption of ICT in each country is far more dependent of socio-economic and cultural conditions than western governments expected.