Diffusion of e‐government and e‐participation in Democracies and Autocracies

Internet based technology constitutes one of the most important policy innovations in the last decades. Its diffusion has been rapid, widespread and sustained. The increase has raised questions about its drivers. The article focuses on an aspect of this dynamic that has been neglected so far: the variance between and among democracies and autocracies and their respective subtypes. Moreover, the majority of studies tackles the diffusion of e-government techniques, excluding the important array of e-participation. Our analysis thus offers a broader and more differentiated account of the adoption of online tools by governments. The findings indicate that the adoption of e-government and e-participation techniques varies substantially between and among democratic and autocratic regime types as well as over time and in kind.

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