Chapter 4: The Effects of E-Government on political Trust and Efficacy: A Case Study of Taiwan

The impact of e-government on economic, social and democratic processes is one of the major issues in the field of e-government. While most studies in this line of research take a managerial approach and focus on cost/ benefit analyses and its applications to improve organization operation and work methods, little attention has been paid to its effects on political process. (Kunstelj and Vintar 2004) Paralleling the empowerment thesis that policy design is to foster civic engagement, more recently scholars are optimistic about the capability of e-government to deepen democracy in terms of facilitating participation. (Chadwick 2003; Lenihan 2002) Particularly, studies have explored the relationship between citizens’ evaluation of e-government and their trust in government. Preliminary findings in this regard point to different directions. While West (2004) concludes that e-government has not increased trust or confidence in government, the findings of Welch et al. (2005) indicate that e-government usage and satisfaction is positively associated with trust in government. In addition, the results based on secondary data by Tolbert & Mossberger (2006) also support that citizens ever visiting government websites largely improve their perceptions on transparency, accessibility, and responsiveness of governments, which then benefit their trust in governments. Smith (2010) compares two types of e-government services, namely e-tax and e-procurement systems, and finds that salient trustworthiness cues on the e-service websites do draw users’ attention and hence reshape their interpretations of and trust in governments.