The first enactment of a single national e-government act took place in Korea in 2001. Subsequently, the United States enacted its electronic government act in November 2002. Unified e-government acts in Korea and the United States have since been established and enforced for nearly two decades, and provide interesting case studies for examining the long-term influences of the e-government act on national e-government and digital government policies. The e-government act of the United States is much more comprehensive than the e-government act of Korea. The US e-government act focuses on strengthening the federal government’s ability to regulate the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)’s role in e-government implementation. The OMB has overall jurisdiction over the e-government promotion process and will continue to consult with ministries on appropriate budget support for each project. In contrast, the e-government law in Korea is based on electronic document processing as the basic viewpoint and has been downgraded to a level that supports document reduction and electronic processing of documents, rather than a comprehensive law that can support e-government projects. The comparative case study of e-government acts in Korea and the United States revealed that, from the standpoint of digital government transformation using information technology, it is most important to promote digital government policy directly from the ministry that manages the budget, or to establish a dedicated organization under the ministry to secure strong coordination while linking it with the budget.

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This research intends to draw implications for digital governance establishment by analyzing how the president’s leadership has worked in the digital government innovation promoted in South Korea over the past 30 years. This research examines the process of digital government development in South Korea from the 1990s onwards, chronologically and in the order of presidential administrations. The analysis proceeds from the following three perspectives: the political characteristics of digital government, the presidents’ leadership on government innovation through digital government process, and the composition of a strong cross and joint governmental promotion system. The implementation of digital government is not simply about a computerized government. Driving digital government means the overall transformation of government. From this point of view, to successfully implement digital governance, we must approach it from a highly political perspective. The implementation of digital government in South Korea has been continuously pursued as a national agenda. Since South Korea has a well-established high-speed information and communication infrastructure, e-Government and digital government innovation have been promoted as national agendas regardless of regime change. However, in this process, the president’s leadership determined the success or failure of digital government innovation. Therefore, the most important success factor for digital government innovation is securing policy sustainability regardless of administration change.

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