FRIENDS WITHOUT BENEFITS: Critical Assessment of the Relationship between E-governance and Democracy By Yuliya Makarava A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Media and Communication at Mid Sweden University December 2011 CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................................................ IV ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................................ V 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 1 2. CONCEPTUALIZING E-GOVERNANCE ....................................................................................................... 7 2.1. FROM GOVERNMENT TO GOVERNANCE ......................................................................................................... 9 2.2. E-GOVERNMENT ..................................................................................................................................... 11 2.3. E-GOVERNANCE ...................................................................................................................................... 14 2.4. E-DEMOCRACY ....................................................................................................................................... 15 2.5. INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK OF E-GOVERNANCE ........................................................................................... 18 3. DEMOCRATIC TEST ................................................................................................................................ 21 3.1. HOW DEMOCRATIC IS GOVERNANCE?......................................................................................................... 21 3.2. HOW DEMOCRATIC IS E-GOVERNANCE? ...................................................................................................... 23 3.3. DAHL’S FIVE CRITERIA .............................................................................................................................. 26 4. E-GOVERNANCE IN A NON-DEMOCRATIC CONTEXT .............................................................................. 30 4.1. NON-DEMOCRATIC REGIMES ..................................................................................................................... 30 4.2. COUNTRIES IN TRANSITION ....................................................................................................................... 32 5. MEASURING E-GOVERNANCE ................................................................................................................ 35 5.1. RESEARCH DESIGN .................................................................................................................................. 36 5.2. MEASURES ............................................................................................................................................ 39 5.3. ANALYTICAL STRATEGY ............................................................................................................................. 44 ii 5.4. FINDINGS .............................................................................................................................................. 45 5.5. DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................................................... 54 6. CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................................... 58 APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................................... 62 A. FIVE-STAGE MODEL OF E-GOVERNMENT EVOLUTION ........................................................................................ 62 B. MAIN FEATURES REVIEWED BY THE UNITED NATIONS E-GOVERNMENT SURVEY ..................................................... 63 C. KEY CHANGES IN WEB MEASURE SURVEY METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................... 64 D. METHODOLOGY FOR E-PARTICIPATION INDEX ................................................................................................... 66 E. OPERATIONAL INDICATORS OF DEMOCRACY AND AUTOCRACY ............................................................................... 67 F. DEMOCRACY INDEX AND E-GOVERNMENT INDEX IN 2003 AND 2008 FOR 151 COUNTRIES ....................................... 68 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................................... 72 iii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Key differences among E-concepts ............................................................................ 18 Table 2.The average level of e-government development and democracy .............................. 46 Table 3. Spearman's correlation matrix and partial correlation controlling for infrastructure development index for 151 countries ....................................................................................... 48 Table 4. Spearman's correlation matrix and partial correlation for democratic countries ....... 49 Table 5. Spearman's correlation for non-democratic countries ................................................ 50 Table 6. Correlations for transitioning countries ..................................................................... 51 Table 7. The average level of e-government development in democratic and non-democratic countries ................................................................................................................................... 52 Table 8. The average level of e-participation and web presence in democratic and non- democratic countries ................................................................................................................ 53 iv ABSTRACT New information and communication technologies are often viewed as a panacea to the current crisis of representative democracy. The growing number of publications on the democratization effects of the use of new information and communication technologies (ICT) in governance focuses on social media and emerging online public spheres. This thesis examines the democratic potential of ICT from the supply side represented by the concepts of e-governance and e-government. In the context of destabilization of political communication system, e-governance as a top-down initiative has a better chance to serve as a congregative force formalizing institutional procedures between the multi-public spheres and the decision makers and, thus, democratizing political communication. The first part of the thesis pulls together the key concepts of electronic transformation – e-governance, e-government and e- democracy – and analyzes them within a broader context of new governance. The democratic test, based on evaluation against Robert Dahl’s five democratic criteria and democratic deficits of new governance, indicates numerous negative consequences of e-governance for representative democracy. Moreover, implemented in different institutional settings of democratic and non-democratic regimes, e-governance varies in the level of development and impact on political communication and political systems in general. To verify theoretical conclusions empirically, a global study was conducted for two points in time – 2003 and 2008; it examined the relationship between e-governance and democracy controlling for the impact of telecommunication infrastructure development. Hypothesis testing revealed that the level of e-governance development and its correlation with democracy strongly varied in relation to the type of political system. The findings suggest that it is premature to ascribe democratization effects to e-governance disregarding existing institutional settings. Keywords: e-governance, e-government, democracy, political communication infrastructure, new governance v INTRODUCTION 1. INTRODUCTION The role of the media in the process of political change and democratization has not received extensive attention among scholars until recently. Communications media are often assumed to play a minor role in democratization if any, and liberalization of the media is usually interpreted as a by-product rather than a driving force of political change (Lawson, 2002; O’Neil, 1998). However, Blumler and Gurevitch (2001) argue that there is a “need for advanced democracies to ‘get a grip’ on their political communication system arrangements” (p.1) as communication is central to the politics in modern societies. This perspective has entered the academic debate with the emergence and increasing importance of the Internet. Recent social and political changes such as the breakdown of party loyalties, increased electoral volatility, voters’ cynicism and the fragmentation of social orders have made the political communication landscape less manageable and predictable. Both politicians and political journalists have to vigorously compete for access to the public and audiences (Blumler & Gurevitch, 2001). Past experience shows that the introduction of a new and widely accessible medium significantly changes the infrastructure of political communication systems and ideas on how a message can be delivered. The Internet has become