Clicking bribes away: the role of e-government in the fight against corruption
Date
2006-03
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Abstract
Among the most vicious and rampant problems of public governance worldwide, corruption seems to top the list both on accounts of history and magnitude of effects on the economy. With the abundance of literature covering the causes and consequences of corruption, this paper concentrates on what can be done to fight it by stressing the revolutionary role of e-government in the age of information technology. The authors empirically conclude that higher levels of e-government lead to lower levels of corruption, surveying across 50 countries across four years. The purpose of utilizing e- government to combat corruption is twofold: to increase the quantity and quality information circulating in the economy that fosters government transparency and political accountability, and to lessen opportunities for bribe charging by making transactions between the government and the citizen impersonal through the use of the Internet.
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Keywords
E-government, Digital governance, Public sector innovation, Corruption, Politics