The Impact of Closed Autocracy on E-Government Development: Focusing on Arab Countries

Abstract

The phenomenon of Arab countries adopting autocracy in e-government development is an interesting case compared to the narrative of e-government development led by democratic countries. However, some characteristics of e-government, including top-down delivery, and the fact that e-government development is useful for acquiring internal and external legitimacy, suggest that e-government can be developed as one of the tools for legitimization in autocratic countries. In particular, it can be logically inferred that closed autocratic countries, which lack legitimacy compared with democracies, will have a more significant impact on e-government development. By using panel data and pooled OLS, this study suggests the significant results that closed autocracy positively affects e-government development.