Illusion eller Verklighet? : En statistisk analys av relationen mellan e-förvaltning och demokrati

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between e-Government and Democracy. The first step in fulfilling this quest was to find indexes which appropriately quantify these very general terms. As e-Government is a diffusely defined concept with applications and functionality spanning the entire spectrum of management, two indexes are used that measure different aspects of the concept; UN e-participation index (EPI) and e-Government Development Index (EGDI). Thus, a broader view of e-government is captured and contrasts are made visible between them. To measure the maturity of democracy in corresponding nations, The Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index (EIU) was chosen. The two indexes for e-government are subjected to three separate statistical tests against the Democracy index; Correlation, Clusters and Linear Regression. The tests are performed using IBM SPSS Statistics software. Results show statistically significant correlation between EGDI and EIU but at the same time points to a negative trend over the 2008-2018 time periods. Significant correlation is confirmed between EPI and EIU as well, although with positive trend over the same period. Cluster analysis identifies four distinct groups within given data, each of which exhibits distinctive character traits. One of which is of particular interest, for it exhibits the traits described by several critics of the indices in question; namely well-developed e-government but corresponding lack of democratic indicators. Finally, linear regression analysis is applied where EGDI and EPI are defined as independent variables. The analysis generates coefficients with which the EIU Democracy index for specific nations can be predicted. EGDI is shown to have a stronger relationship with EIU than EPI has, since a greater proportion of the variance within the dependent variable (EIU) can be explained by EGDI.