A Panel Data Study of the Effect of Information Technology and Communication on Democracy

In recent years the impact of information and communication technologies on the growth of democracy and citizen participation, has attracted the attention of researchers. Theoretically hypothesized that the development of information and communication technologies yields development of citizen participation and democracy. However, little empirical tests have been implemented for this hypothesis. The current study uses panel data from selected countries to empirically test this hypothesis in the period 2003 to 2012. In this study, the ICT with dimensions of infrastructure of online services, e-participation and e-government considered as the independent variable and democracy considered as the dependent variable. Methodology is econometric and panel data regression analysis generalized least squares (GLS) is used to test the research hypothesis. The findings show a positive impact of technology on the development of democracy.