Electronic Democracy and the Diffusion of Municipal Web Pages in California

Abstract

Although the Internet has been touted as a means to improve democratic governance, there has been little systematic analysis of its use. The authors analyze the diffusion of municipal Web sites that include information concerning a specific locality. The analysis is based on demographic and fiscal data from 454 California cities and two surveys of Web site adoption. The authors’ theoretical framework draws from the political economy and technology diffusion literatures. City size, government resources, concentration of social-economic elites, and voter registration levels are the most significant predictors of adoption. In contrast to previous adoption studies, the authors find that liberal political ideology and experience with advanced communication technologies do not appreciably increase the probability of adoption.

Determinants of E-Government Development: Some Methodological Issues

“…In general, large governments are more likely to adopt e-government than small ones because they operate under greater pressure to find alternative ways to provide public services (Moon and Norris, 2005;Weare et al, 1999;Musso et al, 2000;West, 2001). …”

Policy innovation in Dutch municipalities

“…There has been research among local governments in, although not limited to, Brazil (Sugiyama, , 2012, the United Kingdom (Boyne, Gould-Williams, Law, & Walker, 2005;, the United States , and Denmark . Moreover, available subnational studies are heavily concentrated in the domain of egovernment innovations Weare, Musso, & Hale, 1999).…”

“…It has been often assumed that larger organizations have greater command over financial and human resources and are therefore more capable of adopting and implementing innovative practices Weare et al, 1999). For example, found that municipalities in California that adopted a website had larger populations, and also had significantly higher levels of government spending and revenues.…”

“…So far diffusion research at the local level has mainly concentrated on voluntary adoption of innovations (for example, . A considerable amount of research focusing on e-government (related) innovations has also been carried out at the local level (for example, Weare, Musso, & Hale, 1999). In this paper we aim to contribute to a better understanding of innovation in local government in a decentralized system by examining patterns of adoption of a mandated e-government innovation in Dutch municipalities.…”

Big Data and Evidence-Driven Decision-Making: Analyzing the Practices of Large and Mid-Sized U.S. Cities

“…Larger cities face a greater need for innovative solutions to address more complex policy problems. As a result, they are usually more willing to adopt innovative reforms or technological change [29,43,44].…”