Can Information and Communication Technology Help Reduce Corruption? How So and Why Not: Two Case Studies from South Asia

Author： Mahmood Rumel

Publisher： Brill

ISSN： 1569-1497

Source： Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, Vol.3, Iss.3, 2004-01, pp. : 347-373

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Abstract

The deployment of electronic governance over the past few years has enabled citizens to access government information and services with more ease and less cost. Unfortunately, the majority of governments embracing these technologies and making the citizen-government interaction easier to navigate are found primarily in the industrialized West. One exception is India, which is the focus of this paper. Beyond viewing electronic governance as a means of facilitating state-citizen interactions, I explore the linkages between electronic governance and corruption deterrence, and by doing so, fill in a crucial void in the current literature. After reviewing successful ICT-led government reform efforts in the West from public administration literature, a simple model is proposed to determine how these technologies may come to be utilized for reform. The model is then applied to the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and the neighboring government of Bangladesh to test the salience of the variables, and to determine why the former may be more successful than the latter.