Adding Validity and New Results to the Global Explanations of e-Democracy

The use of information and communication technologies in democratic processes, often summarized by the term e-democracy, has seldom been analyzed from a global perspective. Although the UN eParticipation index provides one of the few examples of an international measurement of e-democracy, it has been thoroughly criticized for serious shortcomings in its validity (Grönlund 2011). At the same time, however, a number of studies (Åström et al. 2012; Lee et al. 2011) have added knowledge in the field of global determinants of e-democracy by using this index. In this study I inquire this by: (i) examining whether the UN index is a valid measurement of e-democracy; (ii) inquiring whether there are alternative measurements that better capture the theoretical understanding of e-democracy and finally (iii) retesting the determinants of e-democracy using both the UN index and alternatives together with a larger data set and more suitable estimations than have previously been used in this field. The results of these investigations will give several contributions. First, even if the index has flaws it is not necessarily as problematic as assumed, although some observations still violate crucial assumptions. Second, combining this index with measurements of democracy corresponds to the emphasis in the literature of e-democracy being embedded in democracy. Third, determinants of e-democracy on a global scale show the positive importance of technology but also of socio-economic variables and population size. These points show that previous studies not always have been designed in a systematic fashion. All in all, this study contributes to an emerging field by using comparative methods to reassess earlier assumptions and analyses and by providing its own findings that bring nuances to previous notions.