"Public Administration Digitalization and Corruption in the EU Member States. A Comparative and Correlative Research Analysis"

Armenia ANDRONICEANU,Irina GEORGESCU,Jani KINNUNEN

doi:10.24193/tras.65e.1

Armenia ANDRONICEANU, Irina GEORGESCU + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.24193/tras.65e.1

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Abstract

"Effective digitalization of public administrations and economies requires rethinking of how e-government and digital services with increasing e-participation can support corruption reduction and social development. This paper aims to study the interdependencies and differences between the multidimensional phenomena of administrative corruption and digitalization in the EU member states. The research methods applied are Canonical Correlation Analysis and Principal Component Analysis. Ten relevant variables for 2019 and 2020 were selected and integrated into this research. The research results showed that digitalization significantly improved the quality of public administrations and reduced corruption. The new composite index designed and determined for EU member states showed a vast gap between the Nordic and Eastern European countries. Our results confirm that the level of e-government was found to be the best predictor of control of corruption and government effectiveness suggesting that digitalized and less corrupt governments also made economies more competitive. The digitization of public administration and services is a strategic objective of EU member states and should become a priority in the new technological era."

Highlights

The economy and public administration and society are influenced by technological transformations
RQ2: What are the differences between European Union (EU) countries in terms of corruption and digitalization of public administration? To tackle the research questions, we present the data and the Canonical Correlation Analysis methodology, to study the interdependencies of the components in the digitalization set and the corruption set
The methods used in this research are Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA)

Summary

Introduction

The economy and public administration and society are influenced by technological transformations. Countries that do not prioritize the cross-cutting integration of digital technology at all levels of the economy, public administration, and society will suffer. The modernization of public administration and services as a result of the integration of information and communication technologies is essential and should become a continuing concern of state governments (Mansell, 2012). In countries where these changes occurred, they have been proven to be an effective way to reduce corruption (Mouna, Nedra and Khaireddine, 2020). Digitalization increases the transparency and accountability to citizens of the authorities (Balzer, Užík and Glova 2020); transparency and openness of public institutions are essential for a democratic society

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