Testing the Development and Diffusion of E-Government and E-Democracy: A Global Perspective

E-government uses information and communication technology to provide citizens with information about public services. Less pervasive, e-democracy offers greater electronic community access to political processes and policy choices. Few studies have examined these twin applications separately, although they are widely discussed in the literature as distinct. The authors, Chung-pin Lee of Tamkang University and Kaiju Chang and Frances Stokes Berry of Florida State University, empirically analyze factors associated with the relative level of development of e-government and e-democracy across 131 countries. Their hypotheses draw on four explanations of policy change—learning, political norms, competition, and citizen pressures. All four explanations are strongly linked to nations where e-government policy is highly advanced, whereas a country’s e-democracy development is connected to complex internal factors, such as political norms and citizen pressures.