Digitalization of government bureaucracy in European countries: corruption risks and anti-corruption effects

Abstract

Recently, countries around the world have been using ICT to effectively deliver information and public services to their citizens. This phenomenon is called e-governance or e-government. The article is devoted to the identification of the impact of e-governance on the dynamics of corruption risks. The aim of the article is to examine how the introduction of information technologies affects the dynamics of corruption in post-communist European countries. The methodology is based on using programming in R for conducting empirical research. The research was divided into two stages. The first stage is an analysis of panel data to find the relationship between the level of implementation of e-governance and corruption. The second stage is the creation of country clusters regarding the level of corruption and tools of e-governance used. The study states three hypotheses. H1: The use of e-Government will result in mitigating corruption in European countries. H2: The impact of e-Government on corruption will be lower in post-communist countries than in countries which never experienced communist regimes. H3. The level of corruption depends on types of e-government services implemented in studied countries. The study results showed that all three hypotheses were confirmed. The results of the research showed that digital government transformation helps to reduce corruption risks in post-communist countries. Reducing the risk of corruption is faster where e-government tools target increased accountability and transparency. Anti-corruption effects are higher in countries that did not experience communist regimes. This study contributes to the methodology of studying the relationship between the digital transformation of government and the level of corruption.