The Effects of E-Government on Trust and Confidence in Government
Corresponding Author
Caroline J. Tolbert
Kent State University
Caroline J. Tolbert is an associate professor of political science at Kent State University and coauthor of Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide (Georgetown University Press, 2003). Her research examines voting, elections and public opinion, direct democracy, technology and electoral politics, and race and ethnicity. She is the coauthor of Educated by Initiative: The Effects of Direct Democracy on Citizens and Political Organizations (2004) and coeditor of Citizens as Legislators: Direct Democracy in the United States (1998). E-mail:[email protected].
Karen Mossberger is an associate professor of public administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago and coauthor of Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide (Georgetown University Press, 2003). Her research interests include information technology, urban public policy, economic development, and policy learning and diffusion. She has published previously in the Public Administration Review. E-mail:[email protected].
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Karen Mossberger
University of Illinois at Chicago
Caroline J. Tolbert is an associate professor of political science at Kent State University and coauthor of Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide (Georgetown University Press, 2003). Her research examines voting, elections and public opinion, direct democracy, technology and electoral politics, and race and ethnicity. She is the coauthor of Educated by Initiative: The Effects of Direct Democracy on Citizens and Political Organizations (2004) and coeditor of Citizens as Legislators: Direct Democracy in the United States (1998). E-mail:[email protected].
Karen Mossberger is an associate professor of public administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago and coauthor of Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide (Georgetown University Press, 2003). Her research interests include information technology, urban public policy, economic development, and policy learning and diffusion. She has published previously in the Public Administration Review. E-mail:[email protected].
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Caroline J. Tolbert
Kent State University
Caroline J. Tolbert is an associate professor of political science at Kent State University and coauthor of Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide (Georgetown University Press, 2003). Her research examines voting, elections and public opinion, direct democracy, technology and electoral politics, and race and ethnicity. She is the coauthor of Educated by Initiative: The Effects of Direct Democracy on Citizens and Political Organizations (2004) and coeditor of Citizens as Legislators: Direct Democracy in the United States (1998). E-mail:[email protected].
Karen Mossberger is an associate professor of public administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago and coauthor of Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide (Georgetown University Press, 2003). Her research interests include information technology, urban public policy, economic development, and policy learning and diffusion. She has published previously in the Public Administration Review. E-mail:[email protected].
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Karen Mossberger
University of Illinois at Chicago
Caroline J. Tolbert is an associate professor of political science at Kent State University and coauthor of Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide (Georgetown University Press, 2003). Her research examines voting, elections and public opinion, direct democracy, technology and electoral politics, and race and ethnicity. She is the coauthor of Educated by Initiative: The Effects of Direct Democracy on Citizens and Political Organizations (2004) and coeditor of Citizens as Legislators: Direct Democracy in the United States (1998). E-mail:[email protected].
Karen Mossberger is an associate professor of public administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago and coauthor of Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide (Georgetown University Press, 2003). Her research interests include information technology, urban public policy, economic development, and policy learning and diffusion. She has published previously in the Public Administration Review. E-mail:[email protected].
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
Trust in government has been declining for more than three decades now. E-government has been proposed as a way to increase citizen trust in government and improve citizen evaluations of government generally. Using two-stage models to analyze recent Pew survey data, this research explores the relationship between e-government use, attitudes about e-government, and trust in government. There is a statistically significant relationship between trust and use of a local government Web site, as well as other positive assessments of federal and local governments. The evidence suggests that e-government can increase process-based trust by improving interactions with citizens and perceptions of responsiveness. The findings are theoretically important for reconciling the conflicting research on the effects of e-government and for understanding variations by level of government. Citizen attitudes toward government, including trust, are core concerns for democratic governance and public administration.
Notes
References
- Abramson, Paul R., and Ada W. Finifter. 1981. On the Meaning of Political Trust: New Evidence from Items Introduced in 1978. American Journal of Political Science 25(2): 297–307.
-
Alvarez, M., and
L. Bedolla. 2004. The Revolution against Affirmative Action in California: Racism, Economics, and Proposition 209.
State Politics and Policy Quarterly
4: 1–17.
10.1177/153244000400400101 Google Scholar
- Alvarez, M., and G. Glasgow. 2000. Two-Stage Estimation of Nonrecursive Choice Models. Political Analysis 8: 147–65.
- Alvarez, M., and T. Hall. 2004. Point, Click and Vote: The Future of Internet Voting. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press.
-
Anderson, C.,
Andre Blais,
Shaun Bowler,
Todd Donovan, and
Ola Listhaug. 2005. Loser’s Consent: Elections and Democratic Legitimacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
10.1093/0199276382.001.0001 Google Scholar
-
Ayres, Ian, and
John Braithwaite
1992. Responsive Regulation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
10.1093/oso/9780195070705.001.0001 Google Scholar
-
Baldassare, Marc. 2000. California in the New Millennium: The Changing Social and Political Landscape. Berkeley: University of California Press.
10.1525/california/9780520225121.001.0001 Google Scholar
- Barber, Benjamin. 1984. Strong Democracy. Berkeley: University of California Press.
-
Bimber, Bruce. 2003. Information and American Democracy: Technology in the Evolution of Political Power. New York: Cambridge University Press.
10.1017/CBO9780511615573 Google Scholar
-
Bok, Derek. 1997. Measuring the Performance of Government. In
Why People Don’t Trust Government, edited by
S. Nye Joseph,
D. Zelikow Phillip, and
David
C. King, 55–76. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
10.2307/j.ctv322v3xg.6 Google Scholar
- Bowler, Shaun, Todd Donovan, and Caroline Tolbert, eds. 1998. Citizens as Legislators: Direct Democracy in the United States. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press.
- Brewer, Paul R., and Lee Sigelman. 2002. Trust in Government: Personal Ties that Bind? Social Science Quarterly 83(2): 626–31.
- Budge, Ian. 1996. The New Challenge of Direct Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.
- Chadwick, Andrew, and Christopher May. 2003. Interaction between States and Citizens in the Age of the Internet: “E-Government” in the United States, Britain, and the European Union. Governance 16(2): 271–300.
- Citrin, Jack. 1974. Comment: The Political Relevance of Trust in Government. American Political Science Review 68(3): 973–88.
- Citrin, Jack, and Donald P. Green. 1986. Presidential Leadership and the Resurgence of Trust in Government. British Journal of Political Science 16(4): 431–53.
- Clift, Steven. 2000. The E-Democracy E-Book: Democracy Is Online 2.0. www.publicus.net/ebook/edemebook.html [accessed February 1, 2006].
- Council for Excellence in Government. 2001. E-Government: The Next American Revolution (Hart/Teeter Poll). www.excelgov.org/admin/FormManager/filesuploading/bpnt4c.pdf [accessed January 30, 2006].
- Council for Excellence in Government. 2003. The New E-Government Equation: Ease, Engagement, Privacy and Protection. www.excelgov.org/admin/FormManager/filesuploading/egovpoll2003.pdf [accessed January 30, 2006].
- Craig, Stephen C. 1993. The Malevolent Leaders: Popular Discontent in America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
- Craig, Stephen C. 1996. The Angry Voter: Politics and Popular Discontent in the 1990s. In Broken Contract: Changing Relationships between Americans and Their Government, edited by C. Craig Stephen, 46–66. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
- Dalton, Russell J. 1984. Cognitive Mobilization and Partisan Dealignment in Advanced Industrial Democracies. Journal of Politics 46(1): 264–84.
- Donovan, Todd, and Shaun Bowler. 2004. Reforming the Republic: Democratic Institutions for the New America. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
-
Dryzek, John S. 1990. Discursive Democracy: Politics, Policy, and Political Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10.1017/9781139173810 Google Scholar
- Easton, David. 1975. A Re-Assessment of the Concept of Political Support. British Journal of Political Science 5(4): 435–57.
- Fishkin, James S. 1993. Democracy and Deliberation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
- Fountain, Jane E. 2001. Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
- Grossman, Lawrence K. 1995. The Electronic Commonwealth. New York: Penguin.
- Hetherington, Marc J. 1998. The Political Relevance of Political Trust. American Political Science Review 92(4): 791–808.
- Hetherington, Marc J. 1999. The Effect of Political Trust on the Presidential Vote, 1968–96. American Political Science Review 93(2): 311–26.
- Hibbing, John R., and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. 1998. Too Much of a Good Thing: More Representative Is Not Necessarily Better. PS: Political Science and Politics 31(1): 28–31.
- Hibbing, John R., and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. 2001. Process Preferences and American Politics: What the People Want Government to Be. American Political Science Review 95(1): 145–53.
-
Hibbing, John R., and
Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. 2002. Stealth Democracy: Americans’ Beliefs about How Government Should Work. New York: Cambridge University Press.
10.1017/CBO9780511613722 Google Scholar
- Ho, Alfred Tat-Kei. 2002. Reinventing Local Governments and the E-Government Initiative. Public Administration Review 62(4): 434–44.
- Inglehart, Ronald. 1997. Postmaterialist Values and the Erosion of Institutional Authority. In Why People Don’t Trust Government, edited by S. Nye Joseph., D. Zelikow Phillip, and David C. King, 217–36. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Inglehart, Ronald. 2000. Globalization and Postmodern Values. Washington Quarterly 23(1): 215–18.
- Jiobu, Robert M., and Timothy J. Curry. 2001. Lack of Confidence in the Federal Government and the Ownership of Firearms. Social Science Quarterly 82(1): 77–88.
- King, David C. 1997. The Polarization of American Parties and Mistrust in Government. In Why People Don’t Trust Government, edited by S. Nye Joseph, D. Zelikow Phillip, and David C. King, 155–78. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Larsen, Elaine, and Lee Rainie. 2002. The Rise of the E-Citizen: How People Use Government Agencies’ Web Sites (Pew Internet and American Life Project). www.pewinternet.org/reports/pdfs/pip_govt_website_rpt.pdf [accessed January 30, 2006].
-
Lawrence, Robert Z. 1997. Is It Really the Economy, Stupid?
In
Why People Don’t Trust Government, edited by
S. Nye Joseph,
D. Zelikow Phillip, and
David
C. King, 111–32. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
10.2307/j.ctv322v3xg.8 Google Scholar
- Levi, Margaret. 1988. Of Rule and Revenue. Berkeley: University of California Press.
-
Levi, Margaret. 1997. Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism. New York: Cambridge University Press.
10.1017/CBO9780511609336 Google Scholar
- Levi, Margaret, and Laura Stoker. 2000. Political Trust and Trustworthiness. Annual Review of Political Science 3: 475–507.
- Mansbridge, Jane. 1997. Social and Cultural Causes of Dissatisfaction with U.S. Government. In Why People Don’t Trust Government, edited by S. Nye Joseph, D. Zelikow Phillip, and David C. King, 133–53. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- McNeal, Ramona, Caroline Tolbert, Karen Mossberger, and Lisa Dotterweich. 2003. Innovating in Digital Government in the American States. Social Science Quarterly 84(1): 52–70.
- Miller, Arthur H., and Stephen Borrelli. 1991. Confidence in Government during the 1980s. American Political Quarterly 19(2): 147–73.
- Miller, Arthur H., and Ola Listhaug. 1990. Political Parties and Confidence in Government: A Comparison of Norway, Sweden and the United States. British Journal of Political Science 20(3): 357–86.
- Moon, M. Jae. 2002. The Evolution of E-Government among Municipalities: Rhetoric or Reality? Public Administration Review 62(4): 424–33.
- Mossberger, Karen, Caroline Tolbert, and Mary Stansbury. 2003. Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
- Musso, Juliet, Christopher Weare, and Matt Hale. 2000. Designing Web Technologies for Local Governance Reform: Good Management for Good Democracy? Political Communication 17(1): 1–19.
- National Performance Review (NPR). 1993. From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government that Works Better and Costs Less. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
- Nevitte, Neil, and Mebs Kanji. 2003. Authority Orientations and Political Support: A Cross-National Analysis of Satisfaction with Governments and Democracy. Comparative Sociology 1(3/4): 387–412.
- Norris, Donald F., and M. Jae Moon. 2005. Advancing E-Government at the Grassroots: Tortoise or Hare? Public Administration Review 65(1): 64–75.
- Norris, Donald F., Patricia D. Fletcher, and Stephen H. Holden. 2000. Is Your Local Government Plugged In? Highlights of the 2000 Electronic Government Survey. Washington, DC: International City/County Management Association.
-
Norris, Pippa. 1999. Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
10.1093/0198295685.001.0001 Google Scholar
-
Norris, Pippa. 2001. Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide. New York: Cambridge University Press.
10.1017/CBO9781139164887 Google Scholar
- Nye, Joseph S., Jr. 1997. Introduction: The Decline of Confidence in Government. In Why People Don’t Trust Government, edited by S. Nye Joseph, D. Zelikow Phillip, and David C. King, 1–18. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Nye, Joseph S., Jr., Phillip D. Zelikow, and David C. King, eds. 1997. Why People Don’t Trust Government. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Orren, Gary. 1997. Fall from Grace: The Public’s Loss of Faith in Government. In Why People Don’t Trust Government, edited by S. Nye Joseph, D. Zelikow Phillip, and David C. King, 77–108. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Osborne, David, and Ted Gaebler. 1992. Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
- Peters, B. Guy. 2001. The Future of Governing: Four Emerging Models. 2nd ed. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
-
Putnam, Robert. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.
10.1145/358916.361990 Google Scholar
- Rheingold, Howard. 1993. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
- Rosenthal, Alan. 1997. The Decline of Representative Democracy. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
-
Seifert, Jeffrey, and
R. Eric Peterson. 2002. The Promise of All Things E? Expectations and Challenges of Emergent Electronic Government.
Perspectives on Global Development and Technology
1(2): 193–212.
10.1163/156915002100419808 Google Scholar
- Sigelman, Lee, Carol K. Sigelman, and Barbara J. Walkosz. 1992. The Public and the Paradox of Leadership: An Experimental Analysis. American Journal of Political Science 36(2): 366–85.
- Tapscott, Donald. 1997. The Digital Media and the Reinvention of Government. Canadian Public Administration 40(2): 328–45.
- Thomas, Craig W. 1998. Maintaining and Restoring Public Trust in Government Agencies and Their Employees. Administration & Society 30(2): 166–93.
- Thomas, John Clayton, and Gregory Streib. 2003. The New Face of Government: Citizen-Initiated Contacts in the Era of E-Government. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 13(1): 83–102.
- Toffler, Alvin. 1995. Creating a New Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave. Kansas City, MO: Turner.
- Tolbert, Caroline. 2003. Direct Democracy and Institutional Realignment in the American States. Political Science Quarterly 118(3): 467–89.
- Tyler, Tom R. 1990. Why People Obey the Law. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
- Tyler, Tom R. 1998. Trust and Democratic Government. In Trust and Governance, edited by Valerie Braithwaite and Margaret Levi, 269–94. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
- United Nations Division for Public Economics and Public Administration, and American Society for Public Administration. 2001. Benchmarking E-Government: A Global Perspective. http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan021547.pdf [accessed January 31, 2006].
- Welch, Eric W., Charles Hinnant, and M. Jae Moon. 2005. Linking Citizen Satisfaction with E-Government with Trust in Government. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 15(1): 37–58.
- West, Darrell M. 2000. Assessing E-Government: The Internet, Democracy, and Service Delivery by State and Federal Governments. Washington, DC: World Bank.
- West, Darrell M. 2003a. State and Federal E-government in the United States, 2003 (Report of the Center for Public Policy, Brown University). www.insidepolitics.org/egovt03us.pdf [accessed January 30, 2006].
- West, Darrell M. 2003b. Urban E-Government, 2003. (Report of the Center for Public Policy, Brown University). www.insidepolitics.org/egovt03city.pdf [accessed January 30, 2006].
- West, Darrell M. 2004. E-government and the Transformation of Service Delivery and Citizen Attitudes. Public Administration Review 64(1): 15–27.
- West, Darrell M. 2005. Digital Government: Technology and Public-Sector Performance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Citing Literature
May|June 2006
Pages 354-369
