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Is Digital Government Advancing Sustainable Governance? A Study of OECD/EU Countries

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  • Jaromir Durkiewicz

    (Department of Informatics in Management, Faculty of Management and Economics, Gdańsk University of Technology, 80-233 Gdańsk, Poland)

  • Tomasz Janowski

    (Department of Informatics in Management, Faculty of Management and Economics, Gdańsk University of Technology, 80-233 Gdańsk, Poland
    Department for E-Governance and Administration, Faculty of Business and Globalization, Danube University Krems, 3500 Krems, Austria)

Abstract

International bodies and numerous authors advocate a key role for Digital Government (DG) in improving public governance and achieving other policy outcomes. Today, a particularly relevant outcome is advancing Sustainable Governance (SG), i.e., the capacity to steer and coordinate public action towards sustainable development. This article performs an empirical study of the relationship between DG and SG using data about 41 OECD/EU countries from the United Nations’ E-Government Survey and the Bertelsmann’s Sustainable Governance Indicators project, covering the period from 2014 to 2020. We examine if DG progress pairs with SG progress, apply a DEA model to find out which countries are efficient in using DG for better SG, and uncover cases of imbalance where high DG pairs with poor SG and vice versa. The results show that the efficiency in using DG for SG strongly varies, and that some DG leaders persistently fail to advance or even regress their SG. These findings refute the claims about the benign role of DG and points at democracy as the “weak link” in the analyzed relation.

Suggested Citation

  • Jaromir Durkiewicz & Tomasz Janowski, 2021. "Is Digital Government Advancing Sustainable Governance? A Study of OECD/EU Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-17, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:24:p:13603-:d:698571
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Dejan Ravšelj & Lan Umek & Ljupčo Todorovski & Aleksander Aristovnik, 2022. "A Review of Digital Era Governance Research in the First Two Decades: A Bibliometric Study," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-27, April.

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