In this study, presented today at the The International Association for Media and Communication Research – IAMCR conference in Mexico City, we explore the impact of public policy initiatives on e-government capacity and reach worldwide. We conducted this cross-national study on 175 countries to examine the following hypotheses:

• National policy initiatives to promote information and communication technologies (ICTs) increase a nation’s capacity for e-government, and increase a nation’s diffusion of ICTs.
• Nations that have a national telecommunications regulatory authority and have competition to provide basic telecommunication services and have competition to provide mobile services and encourage financial investment in ICTs are the most likely to have increased e-government capacity, and most likely to have wider diffusion of ICTs.

Our findings show that nations that have a national regulatory authority and have competition to provide telecommunication services and encourage financial investment in ICTs are the most likely to have increased e-government capacity.

Nations that have competition to provide telecommunication services (especially basic services) are the also most likely to have wider diffusion of ICTs.

However, having a national regulatory authority and encouraging financial investment in ICTs do not appear to impact ICT diffusion for a nation’s citizens.




View more presentations from Anas Tawileh.


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