Local E-Governance and the Risk of Territorial Fracture: The Case of Catalonia

ABSTRACT There are many causes for the digital divide, but territorial fracture linked to the deployment of mobile telecommunications infrastructure is one that is often overlooked. This article examines the role of local administrations in promoting a range of services through mobile telephones as an innovative democratic project, and explains how universal access has been hindered by a lack of necessary infrastructure. At the local level, this has often been explained by the social construction of risk, that is, a rejection of mobile telephone infrastructure (cell phone towers) because of health fears associated with electromagnetic field (EMF) emissions by certain segments of the population. This explanation however, fails to take into consideration the interactions among different actors in the governance of risk at the local level. An examination of the deployment of cell phone towers in Catalonia reveals that there is a need to consider some factors of economic and juridical inefficiency and that these examinations need to be amplified by an interdisciplinary analysis that highlights a range of other factors that have impeded the rollout of mobile telephone infrastructure.