Explaining eDemocracy development: A quantitative empirical study

Abstract

The term eDemocracy refers to the usage of information and communication technology in the democratic process. This usage can vary in form and extent. This paper distinguishes three types of explanations for this variation: explanations based on the suggestion of objective rationalisation, explanations based on political evaluation and discretion and explanations based on the assumption that technology itself is a driving force of institutional change.Taking the case of eDemocracy development in Dutch municipalities, these three types of explanation are subjected to an empirical test. A quantitative analysis leads to the conclusion that the perspective of technology as driving force behind eDemocracy finds most support, and that the rationalisation perspective has some merits as well. There is no evidence, however, that differential political traditions play any significant role in the development of local eDemocracy in the Netherlands.

Supply of and demand for e-democracy: A study of the Swedish case

“…Theorizing that traditional civic engagement would positively affect e-democracy can, based on these findings, be dismissed in this case. Moreover, the fact that the technological infrastructure is completely without explanatory power opposes previous research [22,67]. A final remark should be made about the control variable reflecting population size, which shows a substantial influence.…”

“…Finally and in contrast, the importance of democratization is hard to examine on the local level, since there are often methodological problems in assessing local variations in democracy. One noteworthy example though, is van der Graft and Svensson's [22] test of the effect of voter turnout on e-democracy, which shows contradictory results to those theorized earlier, namely a negative influence on e-democracy. These studies and other having the same ambition [5,31,50,64] emphasize the legitimacy of such theoretical tests of e-democracy on a sub-national level.…”

“…Regarding the development and modernization of societies, Medaglia [38] has shown that a positive link exists between local supply of e-democracy and wealth. Moreover, technological theories have been verified by van der Graft and Svensson [22], by arguing that the presence of right technology positively influences the development of e-democracy. Finally and in contrast, the importance of democratization is hard to examine on the local level, since there are often methodological problems in assessing local variations in democracy.…”

“…These two variables are in accordance with Bell's [3] description of a post-industrial society where a highly educated workforce is employed in an advanced economy. The second hypothesis will be measured by including a variable about the share of the population with wired internet access [22]. The third hypothesis will be measured through understanding the quality of democracy in Swedish municipalities.…”

“…Moreover, these two perspectives are analogous to how previous empirical research can be categorized. The first tradition, examines e-democracy from the supply side, trying to measure the opportunities for e-democracy [22,30,38,40,51,67]. To be more specific, this is about maintaining the channels that are preconditions for citizens' use public e-democratic functions.…”