Whom do we learn from? The impact of global networks and political regime types on e-government development

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of global networks on e-government development and the role of political regime types in e-government diffusion through international networks. We built a unique social network dataset that covers 148 countries for the years between 2003 and 2014. Our network dataset is rooted in two assumptions: 1) international organizations serve as peak organizations for international policy networks, 2) public managers who participate in international e-government conferences held by the UN and OECD work as boundary spanners. Our empirical evidence suggests that countries well embedded in global e-government networks receive ideas for public sector innovation from international conferences and show a high level of e-government development. However, political regime types serve as implicit and explicit filters of ideas for boundary-spanning activities. Ties between countries with the same political regime improve e-participation and ties between autocracies have a positive impact on online service delivery. However, ties between countries with different political regimes have no impact on e-participation and a negative influence on online service delivery. Thus, we debunk the democratic advantage perspective by demonstrating that democracies and autocracies have different ideas of and purposes for e-government.