AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT E-GOVERNMENT IN LEBANON: THE CASE OF WEBSITES OF LEBANESE MUNICIPALITIES by RATIBA HABIB KASSEM A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts to the Department of Political Studies and Public Administration of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the American University of Beirut Beirut, Lebanon April 2019 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is a great pleasure to write this section of my thesis as I get to thank all the wonderful people who have helped me, in one way or another, accomplish this work. First, I would like to thank Dr. Tania Haddad, she provided me with a sense of direction every time I felt lost. Her continuous support and motivation gave me the needed boost every time I felt I hit a dead end. She made me a good researcher. I also would like to thank the committee members, Dr. Roland Riachi and Dr. Alain Daou, they were helpful and their pleasant and understanding attitude gave me the required support to work on the thesis. Their valuable comments were essential for the completion of this work with quality standards that I feel proud of. Finally, I am eternally grateful to every member of my beloved family. I thank them for always being supportive, loving, and caring. I thank them for always being there when I needed them. I particularly thank mom, my brothers: Omran, Mustafa, Jihad and Abbas, my sisters: Neamat and Mariam and my sisters-in-law: Fatima and Dana for their continuous support and encouragement and for all the smiles they drew on my face, especially when I‘m working on my thesis. A special thank you for my mother, Zeinab Ammoun, who supported and motivated me throughout my whole life, and especially during writing this thesis. She is my backbone, my support system, source of love and understanding, and without her presence beside me, I would have not been able to finish this thesis. For my mother, I dedicate this thesis. Also, I wish to thank all my friends for their support and motivation: Assile Hennawi, Pamela Attalah, Lamya El Husseini, Farah Abu Harb and Sara Baalbaki. v AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Ratiba Habib Kassem for Master of Art Major: Public Administration Title: E-government in Lebanon: The Case of Websites in Lebanese Municipalities Despite the enormous literature on e-government and the factors of adoption of e-government, existing frameworks in this context have been limited to developed countries. This paper highlights the importance and benefits of e-government adoption in local governments, leading to faster and easier public services provision by citizens. It also identifies the interrelated factors which lead to failure or success in e- government. Today, Lebanese some citizens suffer from redundancy during standard operating procedures (SOPs) and when accessing public services because of red tape that dominates traditional public administration. Therefore, improving the functions of municipalities is a crucial step for citizens to gain the trust of their local government; yet, there is little to no data available on e-government practices in Lebanon. Thus, this work will study the efficiency of websites in Lebanon at the local level, particularly in municipalities. It will use a mixed approach by observing the content of the websites of 211 municipalities. The websites will also be evaluated using content analysis, and will be selected using nonprobability sampling, representing 26 districts in Lebanon. In addition, interviews will be conducted with municipalities which have websites in order to better understand the challenges faced and the different factors that influenced the initiation and development of these websites. The research problem that I am trying to address here is summarized in the following questions: What is the importance of e- governance? How can it be adopted? If available, are websites efficient in Lebanese municipalities? If not, what are the ways in which municipality websites can improve? My analysis revealed the main challenges which some municipalities face when initiating and developing their websites, some factors were not identified in the literature. It also helped me to identify the set of factors that can lead to failure or success of e-government in Lebanon. This helped me to give some possible recommendations which can help with mitigating some of the challenges. My analysis also revealed that my work can be improved and move forward in many directions that are worth pursuing as future work. vi CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................ v ABSTRACT ................................................................................ vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ...................................................... xi LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................... xiii Chapter INTRODUCTION ....................................................................... 1 2. LITERATURE REVIEW OF E-GOVERNMENT ................ 5 2.1. The emergence of e-government ........................................................... 5 2.2. The outcomes of e-government ............................................................. 12 2.2.1. E-government and efficiency ..................................................... 13 2.2.2. E-government and transparency ................................................. 15 2.2.3. E-government and trust .............................................................. 17 2.2.4. E-government and civic engagement ......................................... 18 2.2.5. E-government and democracy .................................................... 19 2.2.6. Smart cities ................................................................................. 21 3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................................... 24 3.1. Delone and Mclean information technology success model ................... 24 vii 3.2. E-government maturity model ................................................................. 26 3.3. Other factors ............................................................................................. 28 3.4. Conceptual framework ............................................................................. 30 4. A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF LEBANESE MUNICIPALITIES AND E-GOVERNMENT .......................... 33 4.1. Brief background on decentralization in Lebanon ...................................... 33 4.1.1. Prerogatives and bylaws of governorates ................................... 34 4.1.2. Prerogatives and bylaws of district commissioner ...................... 35 4.1.3. Municipalities in Lebanon .......................................................... 36 4.2. Overview of e-government in Lebanon ................................................... 40 4.3. Content analysis of websites of municipalities in Lebanon ...................... 47 4.3.1. Research methods and data collection ....................................... 47 4.3.2. Results ........................................................................................ 49 4.4. Analysis of e-government in municipalities in Lebanon ........................ 58 5. UNSERSTANDING E-GOVERNMENT IN MUNICIPALITIES THROUGH ACTORS ............................... 63 5.1. Interviews research method ................................................................ 63 5.2. Factors of website development ............................................................. 67 Top-down and bottom-up approaches ....................................... 80 viii CONCLUSION ........................................................................... 89 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................... 92 ix ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 4.1 Number of Municipalities in Each Governorate ................................. 49 4.2 Number of Websites Adopted ............................................................. 50 4.3 Distribution of Websites by Size of Population of Governorate ........ 52 4.4 Web Traffic of Websites in Each Governorate ................................... 56 4.5 Traffic Sources for Municipality of Beirut ......................................... 57 x TABLES Table Page 3.1 E-government Stages Adopted by Layne and Lee in 2001 .................................. 28 3.2 Conceptual Framework ......................................................................................... 31 4.1 Administrative Division in Lebanon ..................................................................... 34 4.2 E-Government in Practice ..................................................................................... 54 4.3 Percentage of Municipalities in Stage 1 of E-government Maturity Model ........ 55 4.4 Municipalities Having Websites and Mobile Applications ................................. 58 5.1 Set Dates of the Interviews with Municipalities .................................................. 64 5.2 Interview Guide ................................................................................................... 65 5.3 Longevity of Websites ......................................................................................... 67 5.4 Conceptual Framework in Practice ...................................................................... 69 5.5 Percentage of Municipalities by Each Stated Benefit .......................................... 70 xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Electronic government (e-government) is the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs)