Abstract

The digitalization of public governance and the resulting concept of electronic governance is a characteristic feature of contemporary information society. Both can be defined as the process and outcome of digital transformation: transformation of the “analog” version of governance into “digital” governance. Measuring both versions of governance against typical performance measures of efficiency, effectiveness, equity, openness and others, we expect comparable levels of advancement on both sides. The aim of this paper is to check the validity of this assumption using four international instruments to measure analog and digital governance: E-Government Survey (EGS) provided by the United Nations, Global State of Democracy Index (GSD) provided by International IDEA, Network Readiness Index (NRI) provided by the World Economic Forum and Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) provided by the World Bank. Three WGI indicators – Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Voice and Accountability, and two GSD indicators – Civil Society Participation and Direct Democracy were selected to measure analog governance; and two EGS indicators – Online Service Index and EParticipation Index, and three NRI indicators – Laws Relating to IT, ICT Use and Government Efficiency, and Importance of ICT to Government’s Vision were selected to measure digital governance. All data is from 2016, except GSD which is from 2015, and mostly covers all 193 United Nations member states. Prior to analysis, 11 analog-digital pairs were recognised for expected positive correlations based on conceptual or theoretical arguments, and various correlation coefficients were calculated for them. The results partly confirm expected correlations, including strong positive correlations between digital indicators and the analog indicators of Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality and, partly, Voice and Accountability. The results also show unexpected weak correlation between E-Participation and the analog indicators of Civil Society Participation and Direct Democracy. The paper concludes with discussion on the nature of the analog-digital relationships and on design of reliable governance benchmarks in the digital era.

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