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A.A. Ozok and P. Zaphiris (Eds.): Online Communities, LNCS 5621, pp. 700–709, 2009.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009
Measuring E-Democracy Opportunities:
A Global Perspective
Farid Shirazi
Institute for Research on Innovation and Technology Management, Ted Rogers School of
Management, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada
f2shiraz@ryerson.ca
Abstract. In recent years, several case studies have emerged illustrating the
impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and in particu-
lar the expansion of the Internet and mobile cell phones on socio-political ac-
tivities. This paper investigates 146 economies and the relationship between the
global expansion of ICTs and the current degree of democracy within each na-
tion by constructing an index of e-democracy opportunities among them, for the
period of 1995 to 2005. The key findings in this study are (a) a notable progress
in e-democracy opportunity on the global stage; (b) the fact that in some coun-
tries there is a rapid ICT expansion and global success in e-democracy, and yet,
there is a growing digital divide between the most and least developed e-
democratic nations.
Keywords: Civil Liberties, Digital Divide, E-democracy, Economic Freedom,
Filtering, Freedom of Press, ICT, Ideology, Political Rights, Virtual Feudalism.
1 Introduction
Many scholars have argued that information and communication technologies (ICTs)
have the potential to create a new space for engagement, deliberation and collabora-
tion in the political process that can make democratic processes more inclusive and
transparent [1, 2, 3, 4]. In this regard, ICTs are seen as providing citizens with infor-
mation regarding relevant local and national government issues, facilitating dialogue
between constituents and government officials, and promoting more accountability
and transparency in political processes [5].
Some scholars point out that the Internet and mobile SMS have the potential for not
only strengthening and transforming the existing patterns of political participation [6] but
also political mobilization [7] and collective actions [8]. Well cited examples of such mo-
bilizations are rallies organized through the Internet against World Trade Organization in
Seattle (1999), the IMF and World Bank meetings in Prague (2000), the G8 summit in
Geneva (2001), [7] as well as rallies organized by feminist bloggers, Iranian women
rights’ activists demanding for an end to discriminatory laws against women (2005,2006)
[9] and rallies in Egypt over soaring food and oil prices and a growing gap between the
affluent and the impoverished, organized by Facebook users (2008) [10]. These are just a
few examples of the emancipating power of the Net and its increased role as a platform to
enable public engagement in various socio-political matters.
Measuring E-Democracy Opportunities: A Global Perspective 701
This study uses archival data from 146 countries in different stages of ICT expan-
sion to investigate (1) the impact of ICTs on the process of democratic participation
and (2) the existence of a digital divide on both regional and global scales.
2 E-Democracy Framework
The role of the Internet in the 2008 US presidential election displayed evidence of the
power of the internet for mobilizing and engaging citizen participation in a democ-
ratic process. The Internet was able to attract first time voters and the younger genera-
tion as well as appeal to groups which might otherwise be uninvolved in conventional
forms of activism and civic engagement, and those who felt alienated [6] from main-
stream society. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press [11] states close
to a quarter of Americans (24%) reported they regularly learn something about the
presidential campaign from the Internet, almost double the percentage in the 2004
campaign (13%) and more than triple the percentage in the 2000 campaign (7%).
Almost 42% of young American adults (age 18-29) reported that the Internet was
their main source of campaign information in addition to 16% of Americans who have
sent or received emails with friends and family regarding candidates and the cam-
paign. According to Pew’s report 14% of US citizens have received email messages
from political groups or organizations about the campaign; and about 8% reported
that they visited US political candidates’ website [11].
Globally, the number of Internet users exceeds 1.46 billion [12]. Mobile cell phone
subscribers hit another record high value of 4 billion users at the end of 2008 [13].
The massive usage of SMS in Spain’s 2004 general election [7], Iran’s presidential
election in 2005 in support for other candidates or boycotting the election [14], in
Egypt’s 2005 presidential election [15], in India’s 2005 general election [16], and
most recently in the 2008 US election [17], SMS played an important role for mobi-
lizing people and/or monitoring the election outcomes.
Clift [18] argues that democratic processes enabled by ICTs provides greater and
more active citizen participation as well as a different role for government and more
participatory forms of direct citizen involvement in efforts to address public chal-
lenges. Dahlgren [19] argues that the Internet extends and pluralizes the public
sphere in a number different ways including structures, representation, and interac-
tion. Scholarly research on ICT in developing countries has identified that ICT and in
particular, the Internet, positively correlates with the proliferation of democracy [20].
Other scholars consider the global expansion of ICT as a means of imposing Western
culture onto other cultures through hegemonic power and dominance [21].
2.1 Components of E-Democracy
Clift [18] defines e-democracy as the use of ICTs in strategies by “democratic sec-
tors” within the political processes of local communities, states/regions, nations and
on the global stage. According to Clift, the “democratic sectors” include govern-
ments, elected officials, media (including online portals), political parties and interest
groups, civil society organizations, international governmental organizations and
citizens.
702 F. Shirazi
This paper adapts Clift’s conceptual model of e-democracy as depicted in Fig1.
There are six components that construct the e-democracy model. At the crux of this
model are e-citizens, the individuals who use ICTs to participate in democratization
processes. This participation can take many different forms. For example, e-citizens
can use ICTs to interact with social groups, government agencies, media and private
sectors as well as allowing for the use, creation and dissemination of information,
demanding for a more open and democratic society.
Similarly, Morrisett [22] points out that ICTs can be used to enhance the democ-
ratic process in the form of an e-government, in which citizens are able to effectively
impact the decision-making process in a timely manner within and between institu-
tionally, politically or geographically-distinct networked communities. As such, it is
evident that ICT expansion facilitates the growth and development of new communi-
ties by coordinating individuals into groups that can express protestation and grief
over socio-political oppression. Chadwick [23] argues that ICTs make it possible for
linking e-democracy to civil society with e-government at the local and national lev-
els. The main objective of civil societies, such as NGOs, women’s groups, trade un-
ions, human rights groups and independent media groups is to use ICTs in the pursuit
of ”good governance” [24] and democratic development. In addition, political groups
are able to use ICTs to promote their political agendas, run online advocacy and po-
litical campaigns [18].
text
Government
Social Groups
Media
Private SectorE-Citizen
ICT
Fig. 1. E-democracy Conceptual Model adapted from Clift(2003)
Another important component of e-democracy is media. Access to information is es-
sential to the health of democracy for a number of reasons, including: a) its informative
function and b) its monitoring function. In some societies, an antagonistic relationship
between media and government represents a vital and healthy element of a fully func-
tioning democracy [25]. The upsurge of websites, weblogs, e-mails, and SMS has also
improved communication and interaction among people across the globe and has as-
sisted in opening up new possibilities for political participation [26, 27].
Finally, the private sector is not only representing commercially-driven connec-
tivity, software, and technology [18]; it is also the main ICT provider and developer.
The growth and expansion of e-commerce and online transactions have enabled ICT
to become a core component of economic development.
Measuring E-Democracy Opportunities: A Global Perspective 703
3 Measuring E-Democracy Opportunities
This section investigates the impact of ICTs on the model of e-democracy as illus-
trated in Fig 1. Data collected in this section is related to the components of our e-
democracy model and can be grouped into two main categories a) variables that are
directly associated with institutional structures [19] namely Political Rights (PR),
Civil Liberties (CL) and Economic Freedom (Eco) and b) variables that constitute the
ability of citizens to actually use ICT tools and services for disseminating opinion,
thoughts, ideas and participate in communication discourses. These variables are ICT,
Education (Edu) and Freedom of Press (Media). The freedom of press is also in a cas-
ual relationship with the first group of variables, namely institutional structures (de-
mocracy) which will be discussed later.
Institutional Democracy: To measure the existence level of institutional democracy
within each 146 economies in which the governments and legislative representative
are elected, the index of Political Rights (PR) introduced by Freedom House was con-
sidered. This index is composed of three main components: the electoral process, po-
litical participation, and the government. The index of Civil Liberties (CL), intro-
duced by Freedom House, on the other hand consists of four main components: free-
dom of expression, associational and organizational rights, rule of law, and personal
autonomy. Finally, the economic freedom index introduced by Heritage Foundation
was used as a benchmark from which to determine a country’s prospects for economic
success. The index of economic freedom (Eco) is composed of 10 different indices
[28]. In the context of this research this index was used to measure the private sec-
tor’s involvement in socio-economic development as well as a metric to measure the
state control and ownership of enterprises, its consumption of economic resources and
intervention in economic as a main player [28].
ICTs and Freedom of expression: In our e-democracy model, the e-citizen and other
actors are connected through the use of ICTs. The index of ICT is used to measure
the level of ICT infrastructure and usage in each country. This index is composed of
eight indices namely the number of Internet users, main telephone lines, cell phone
subscribers and Personal Computers per 100 inhabitants, Cable TV subscriptions (per
100 households), the number of Internet hosts (per 1,000 inhabitants), Secure Serv-
ers/Internet hosts and the International Internet bandwidth (Kbs per inhabitant) [29].
The use of ICT tools and services requires users to have access as well as possess the
capability to learn and acquire a certain level of knowledge in order to use them effec-
tively. People who possess this knowledge (e-citizens) are those who will have the
ability to create and disseminate information, and demand a more open and democ-
ratic society. The education variable (Edu) is composed of two main indices, namely
adult literacy rates and gross enrollment rates. Education data was collected mainly
from UNDP, UNESCO and ITU. And finally, to measure the variable, Media, as de-
picted in Fig 1, the freedom of press indices published by Freedom House and Re-
porters Without Borders (RWB) are used. These institutes provide valuable informa-
tion about the level of press freedom experienced by the populace of each country.
The focus of these indices is the study of the degree of intervention in media (print
and online) on the part of governments and authorities.
704 F. Shirazi
3.1 The Index of E-Democracy Opportunities
Before constructing the index of e-democracy opportunities, data from the above
sources were converted and rescaled so that 100 represents the highest level of free-
dom (PR, CL, Eco and Media), Education and ICTs. A series of statistical tests in-
cluding the test for multicollinearity and heteroskedasticity issues [14] were applied
on panel data. To deal with multicollinearity issue the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF)
was estimated. The study’s test shows a VIF value of 2.32 which is a value far from
VIF’s critical values of 10 (moderate multicollinearity) and/or 30 (sever multicollin-
earity) [14]. A two-stage least-squares regression with endogenous variables Civil
Liberties (CL) and ICT was applied on panel data.
Following successful test results, we arrive at a higher level of aggregation namely
to construct the index of e-democracy opportunity. The Index of Institutional Democ-
racy (IID) was obtained by aggregating variables PR, CL and Eco as:
ki,j(c) 1/
k,t
i=1
IID=( I ) k
∏ (1)
Where I represents the value of each index i for the period of t and k denotes the
number of variables (for Eco k=10, for PR k=3, for CL k=4). IID was used as a ba-
rometer to help indexing each country’s progress in e-democracy over the period of
1995 to 2005 as well as comparing countries to one another. Similarly the index of
ICT Opportunity Index (IOI) was obtained by aggregating variables ICT, Edu and
Media as:
,()1/
,
1
()
nijc n
nt
i
IOI I
=
=∏ (2)
Where n denotes the number of indices within each variable (for ICT n=8, for Edu
and Media n=2). The output of regression is an index which we call it the Index of E-
democracy Opportunities (IEO).
4 Data Analysis
To analyze e-democracy performance on a global stage, countries are divided into six
different categories as follows:
1. Front-Runners: countries with an e-democracy value above 80% have very high
levels of ICT development where citizens enjoy an elevated level of social, eco-
nomic and political freedom (PR, CL and Eco);
2. High Performance: countries with an e-democracy value between 70% and 79%
have high levels of ICT development where citizens enjoy an admirable degree of
social, economic and political freedom (PR, CL and Eco);
3. Upper Medium: countries with an e-democracy value between 60% and 69% in
both ICT development index and social, economic and political freedom are con-
sidered above average on the world index (54.3%);
Measuring E-Democracy Opportunities: A Global Perspective 705
4. Medium: countries with approximately 54% in their ICT development and social,
economic and political performance are at the average level of the world’s e-
democracy (54.3%);
5. Transitional: countries with which their e-democracy index is below the world av-
erage with a potential to move on to a higher e-democracy category but either ex-
ercise poorer performance in their socio-political and economic freedom and/or
have a lower e-democracy index in terms of both ICT development and citizens
participation in e-democracy process; and
6. Low Performers: countries with an e-democracy opportunity index below 25%;
they have a poor performance record with regards to both ICT development and
social-political and economic development. Within this category, however, there
are countries that perform much better in their economic and ICT development
which result in a higher ranking, as well as countries that do not show any im-
provement in their e-democracy performance and/or changes in their e-democracy
opportunity indexes are very small, despite citizen involvement in the e-democracy
process.
5 Findings and Discussion
The analysis of countries’ e-democracy performance shows interesting information.
At a glance, as indicated in Fig 2, we can observe a notable progress in terms of e-
democracy opportunity index during the period of 1995-2005. For example, while the
number of countries located in categories such as medium, upper, high and front-
runners account for 38% of the total countries in the year 1995, this value has in-
creased to 49% in the year 2005. In other words, 11% of countries have successfully
advanced from low performers and/or transitional categories to a higher category. In
addition, some countries located within the “safe zone” (medium and up) were able to
position themselves in a higher category during this period. As depicted in Fig 2, the
most successful e-democracy category is related to the front-runners category.
Fig. 2. Six categories of e-democracy performance
Among the 14 new nations that joined this category in year 2005, ten nations were
from Europe; in particular, those countries representing the former Eastern block such
as Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Hungary and Slovak republic. Among the newly
706 F. Shirazi
joined nations, Estonia had the highest rank (14th place). The other notable e-
democracy progression is related to Lithuania. This country had a transitional pro-
gress from upper medium in 1995 to the front-runners category in 2005. Another
successful example within the front-runners category is Chile. Like Lithuania, Chile,
within the same 11-year time period, exercised a two-level jump from the upper me-
dium level to the front-runners level. In addition, Chile is the only nation from Latin
America that is placed in this category.
In the African region, countries such as Mauritius and South Africa had the best e-
democracy progress (High performers) followed by Botswana, Namibia and Ghana
(Upper Medium). The citizens in these countries not only enjoyed the highest level of
socio-political and economic freedom but also had the greatest access to ICTs in the
region.
Digital Divide: A further analysis of e-democracy data shows that despite the global
progress towards e-democracy opportunities, we can observe a growing digital gap in
some parts of the world. A larger digital gap can be found in Americas, the digital
divide between the high performers and the low performers in the region has in-
creased from 5.5 fold in 1995 to 5.7 fold in 2005. In Europe, the digital divide be-
tween the leading European countries and countries located within the low performers
and transitional categories have increased over an 11-year period from 3.1 fold in
1995 to 3.5 fold in 2005. In another category, among the members of the Organization
of the Islamic Conference1 (OIC), Mali, Albania and Turkey had the best e-
democracy performance over the same 11-year period. The countries’ e-democracy
opportunity index increased from 47.5%, 38.3% and 33.9% to 59.3%, 53.7% and
54.4% respectively. Turkey’s e-democracy value is equal to the world’s e-democracy
average (54.3%). This locates Turkey at 69th place in the 2005 ranking list. While
Mali’s e-democracy opportunity index is above the world average (59.4%), this value
for Albania is slightly below the world’s e-democracy average of 54.3%. Although
the e-democracy opportunity index among OIC nations has increased from 28.3% to
35%, this rate is far from the world’s average value.
Africa and Asia show the greatest regional digital divide reduction. The digital gap
between the most developed e-democracy nations and the least developed e-
democracies in Africa has decreased 3.6 fold to 3.1; this value in Asia shows a reduc-
tion from 4.8 fold to 4.2 fold during the period of 1995 to 2005. This reduction is not
only due to the expansion of ICTs but also the overall progress that the regions made
during the last decade in the area of socio-political and economic development.
Internet content filtering: Filtering and state censorship applied by some govern-
ments across the globe is used to suppress freedom of communication. Studies on
Internet content filtering show systematic Internet filtering typically targets politi-
cal, religious and ethnic minority sites as well as those that promote gender equality
and women’s rights [30, 31]. In the context of ICT, it applies not only to the Inter-
net but also to satellites, cable TVs and SMS messages, and is commonly practiced
in countries in the transitional and low performers’ categories. For example, the
OpenNet Initiative’s (ONI) report [30] indicates that the Iranian government con-
trols the information environment over the Internet in areas such as websites, blogs,
1 OIC is a solidarity organization of 57 Islamic states (www.oic-oci.org).
Measuring E-Democracy Opportunities: A Global Perspective 707
e-mails, and online discussion forums. The Saudi Arabian government has also
created one of the world’s largest Internet filtering systems [39] and publicly an-
nounced that they have blocked access to nearly 400,000 web pages to protect Saudi
citizens from offensive content that violates the principles of Islam. According to
the RWB report [31], China has developed the most advanced technology for inter-
ception of e-mail and Internet censorship [30, 31]. Some of the countries located in
the low performers’ category remained in the same position despite the global suc-
cess in e-democracy opportunity index during the last decade. A number of the
governments in this category view ICT development with the lens of ideology and
therefore consider ICT development and access to ICT tools and services by citi-
zens, a risk to their national security. Mowshowitz’s [32] uses the term of “virtual
feudalism” to refer to the reluctance of authoritarian regimes to have open use and
development of ICTs and in particular the activities on the Internet. In the context
of this research, virtual feudalism is defined as the hegemonic control [33, 34] of
ICT developments and strategies by governments. This control is applied to mass
communication channels such as the Internet and SMS messaging. It controls the
monopoly of resources, imposing restrictions on the use of high speed Internet ac-
cess to prevent Internet users from accessing sites and services that require this type
of connection, or banning SMS messaging to prevent sending out political messages
[35] or banning the use of mobile phone cameras [14].Virtual feudalism imposes
the hegemonic control of ICTs in the form of economic, political, cultural, physical
and religious pressure on social groups and individuals [36].
6 Conclusions
ICT media and services such as the Internet enable new dimensions of expression and
democratic participation [7, 37, 38, 39]. The proliferation of Websites, Weblogs, e-
mails, and SMS has improved communication and interaction among people across the
globe and has facilitated and assisted in opening up new possibilities for political par-
ticipation [26, 27, 40]. It is not surprising to see that the world’s highly developed
economies are among the top list of e-democracy opportunities (front-runners). Citizens
in these countries experience the highest level of freedom in accessing ICTs and partici-
pate in e-democracy processes. The countries’ ICT infrastructure is highly developed
and all actors within the e-democracy framework are actively involved on the Net. Ac-
cording to e-democracy opportunities index on a yearly basis 1% of all the countries in
this research improved their positions from a lower category to a higher category.
In juxtaposition, there exists the digital divide between the front-runners and low
performers which increased at both global and regional scales during the last decade.
Internet filtering and state censorship on ICT content influence negatively on citizens’
participation in e-democracy processes thus promote an increase in the digital divide.
Despite ICT development, the processes of filtering impede the e-democracy proc-
esses. That is, the role of ICT infrastructure is to provide access; however, its capabil-
ity depends on its thoroughfare of information starting with the policy makers, cas-
cading to the users. The watershed effects of the government policy, political parties,
social groups, media, private sector, and e-citizen in some societies have developed
tributaries while in other societies, government policies operate as main barriers
to development.
708 F. Shirazi
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