Democracy and Bureaucracy in the Age of the Web

Abstract

The foundations for governance in an information age are developing through the World Wide Web as it becomes the principal electronic public gateway into government organizations. Governmental openness is now important to a variety of strategies for governmental reform. The Web (a) makes government more efficient; (b) facilitates the functioning of new network-like arrangements between public organizations, the private sector, and citizens; and (c) empowers citizens to play a stronger role in interacting with government. We describe the concept of organizational openness and summarize a methodology to measure it on a worldwide basis. Data from 1997 through 2000 are presented, showing rapid diffusion of the Web and variation in levels of openness, even across countries with similar levels of economic and political development. Bureaucracies adopt Web technologies as a function not of traditional diffusion processes, but of emergent institutional isomorphism. Short-term prospects for responsive government improve, but so do unrealistic expectations affecting government legitimacy.

Determinants of E-Government Development: Some Methodological Issues

“…However, they are similar to the results of La Porte et al (2002) for worldwide countries, Pina et al (2009) for European municipalities and Tolbert et al (2008) for US states. Relating to political capacity, our findings are related to Laswad et al (2005), who conclude that it is not a statistically relevant factor for New Zealand municipalities.…”

“…According to La Porte et al (2002), economic institutional capacity is measured by the government expenditure relative to gross domestic product (Egdp). The variable STA, the percentage of votes achieved by the ruling political party in the last presidential elections, and PP, the number of political parties that are represented in the national Parliament, identify political capacity.…”

“…Owing to the reduced number of studies focused exclusively on the analysis of the socioeconomic determinants of e-government development in the national public administrations (e.g., La Porte et al, 2002;Siau and Long, 2006;Kim, 2007), and owing to the advantages derived from the consideration of different geographical contexts, this study analyzes the determinants of e-government sophistication in the national administration of 192 countries worldwide.…”

Budget Transparency in Local Governments: An Empirical Analysis

“…16 La Porte, Demchak and Jong (2002) fail to obtain empirical support for their hypothesized positive effect of government size on openness, although in some of their tests the -government size‖ variable does not remain after removing accounting for obvious collinearity. Bastida and Benito (2007: 690-691) observe that the relative size of central government presents a low significant (p-value=0.079) negative relationship (-0.260) with budget transparency.…”

“…18 Although La Porte, Demchak and Jong (2002) find no empirical support for the hypothesized impact of democracy on web site openness, they appear not include the -voting‖ variable in testing. Esteller and Polo (2008), however, confirm a positive relationship between electoral participation and fiscal transparency, and Rosendorff and Vreeland (2009) do the same for democracy and transparency.…”