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This study aims to examine the relationship between political regimes and e-government performance, with a focus on governments’ perspectives of e-government. First, the authors use United Nations (UN) E-government Development Index (EGDI) to establish the current patterns of e-government performance across different regime types, and then develop their own typology of the various perspectives of different political regime types to e-government adopted in the literature. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between e-government performance and regime types.

This study adopts a mixed-method research approach that involves quantitative (statistical databases) as well as qualitative (interviews) methods to go beyond the statistics and obtain interpretations of explored patterns of e-government performance and regime types. The research instruments for this study include the Jupyter open-source software used for drawing the relevant correlations, and validating the results using expert interviews.

The results of the analysis support the research hypothesis that democracies have better e-government implementation than autocracies. The findings suggest that the type of a political regime has an influence on the conceptualization of e-government, the implementation of its practices and subsequently the assessment of its performance.

This study relies on the UN EGDI and data from previous literature. the UN Index only measures the supply side of government outputs without taking into consideration their impact on citizens, which does not provide a holistic view of the whole picture. Therefore, the UN EGDI rankings do not necessarily imply citizen satisfaction or improved e-government.

From a practice point of view, this study gives information to government leaders as well as technical experts on how the political regime influences the government’s performance in e-government. In fact, this paper bridges the gap between theory and practice by calling policymakers to take different regime worldviews and motivations into consideration before setting e-government strategies or even assessing e-government performance. Considering the current global digital transformation, it should be ensured that practitioners take these regime specifications into consideration. In the long term, the results of this research will prove that setting up e-government or e-participation platforms is not enough as technology alone is not enough to strengthen democracy or let alone stimulate citizen engagement. When dealing with e-government initiatives, the focus should be broadened beyond the technological aspect and take the social and political motivations of governments into consideration.

From a theoretical standpoint, this study calls for a more holistic e-government performance indicator that could take the regime perspectives into consideration and integrate them into its evaluation process. An indicator that can accommodate the different objectives pursued by different regime types. This could also be achieved by setting two indicators with each one matching the perspective of the specific regime type, which takes us to Ashby’s “Law of Requisite Variety” (1991). The Law of Requisite Variety states that “the system must possess as much regulatory variety as can be expected from the environment” (Ashby, 1956). This law has some implications for this study. It implies that the regime worldview influences the requisite variety depending on the political context where e-government is being implemented. Because we have two regime worldviews, we need to have at least two responses (in this case indicators) that consider the variety of political contexts. Therefore, through appreciating the differences between these two worldviews, this study recommends using the Law of Requisite Variety to investigate the influence of political regimes on e-government. In the same way, in our repertoire of responses, we should not assume that one discipline has the answer but have a variety of cross-disciplinary responses.

The contribution of this study lies in going beyond the statistical analyses of the UN EGDI to come up with possible interpretations of the reasons why political regimes differ in their e-government performance and what could be the reasons behind such variations. Based on analyzing correlations between e-participation performance and regime types, and interviews with experts, two different e-government perspectives could be identified: one for democracies and one for autocracies. Through identifying the relationship between these perspectives and the e-government performance of each regime type, this study provides governments and policy makers with new evidence that different regime types have different motivations for developing their e-government performance. Hence, e-government policies and strategies ought to match particular political contexts.

Faced with contradictory outcomes in empirical studies on the relation between democracy and income inequality, this paper attempts to provide empirical relations between democracy and income inequality. In particular, the authors seek to find if any curvilinear relation exists as in the Kuznets hypothesis.

Given elusiveness in empirical relations, the authors will consider several specifications using different estimation methods such as ordinary least squares (OLS), panel data estimation and performing statistical tests to determine the best specification for the relation between income inequality and democracy. Once the authors choose the specification, then the authors will apply this specification to the different groups of data to find any meaningful implications.

Using the unbalanced panel of 136 countries spanning from 1980 to 2018, the authors found an inverse U-shaped relation, called a political Kuznets curve – income inequality increases first and then decreases later as more democracy is achieved. By quantifying the curve, the authors find that the direct impact of democracy on income inequality is small and that the incremental impact of democracy on income inequality is smaller in a semi-democracy while relatively larger in a full democracy and autocracy.

From the study’s findings, the following policy implications can be considered. First, any change in income inequality caused by democratization should not be concerning as the impact of democracy on income inequality is measured to be very small. Second, the largest factor reducing income inequality is real GDP per capita. Third, the authors find that an impact of government expenditure on income inequality is also inversely U-shaped.

The world is experiencing democratic backsliding such that the situation is down back to 1986. This has resulted in the global shrinking of civic space for civil society organizations (CSOs). NGOs engaging in advocacy activities are seen to be among the CSOs affected. Using four NGOs cases from Tanzania, the study contributes to the civic space debate by uncovering how advocacy NGOs become resilient.

The study is anchored in interpretivism and a cross-sectional case study design, following a qualitative approach path. Data were collected through interviews and a documentary review.

Results show that several strategies such as complying, building community back-up, collaboration, strategic litigation, using digital media and changing the scope are applied. However, strategies face obstacles including scope limitations, expected democratic roles, high cost, changes in the scope and being outsmarted by the government, and hence their effectiveness is questionable.

This study focused on advocacy NGOs. More studies can be conducted for other advocacy-related CSOs on how they become resilient.

While NGOs are allowed to exist in the country, their freedom continue to be curtailed. Even the effectiveness of resiliency becomes temporary and depends on the political will of the existing regime.

Tanzania NGOs have to build strong bonds with citizens, expand the scope of strategies and use deliberative democratic principles to educate the government to change laws and tolerate plural political culture. Also, NGOs in other countries with confined civic space can apply the same.

Existing research has examined the results of women’s political leadership participation (WPLP) and the reasons for the lack of advancement of women to management positions. However, little research has been adopting a more comprehensive framework and configuration perspective to investigate the determinants of WPLP. By integrating institutional theory and institutional complementarities theory, this study aims to construct an institution–culture–structure framework to investigate the multiple driving mechanisms of WPLP.

Drawing on the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis method and a sample of 66 countries, the authors identify multiple equifinal combinations of conditions related to high and not-high levels of WPLP.

According to the results, the authors summarize five pathways influencing WPLP. These pathways include education and culture-driven pattern, political institutions-driven pattern, political institutions and structure-driven pattern, integrated-driven pattern and political institutions and culture restrictive pattern.

The authors shed new light on the driving mechanism of WPLP and contribute to research on making full out of women’s leadership.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of political stability on corruption by drawing upon a sample encompassing both developed and developing European and Asian countries.

The dataset, sourced from the Refinitiv database, spans from July 2014 to May 2022. Panel data techniques, specifically pooled estimation and dynamic panel data [generalized method of moments (GMM)] are employed. The analysis encompasses both fixed and random effects models to capture country-specific cross-sectional effects. To validate our findings, we perform a robustness test by including in the investigation four control variables, namely poverty, type of governance, economic freedom and inflation. To test heterogeneity, the dataset is further divided into two distinct subsamples based on the countries’ locations.

Empirical findings substantiate that political stability (viewed as the risk of government destabilization) has a positive and significant impact on corruption in all analyzed samples of European and Asian countries, though some differences are observed in various subsamples. When we take into account the control variables, these analysis results are robust.

This research provided a panel data analysis with GMM, while other empirical methodologies could also be used, like the difference-in-difference approach. However, our results should be validated by extending the time and the sample to a worldwide sample and using alternative measures of corruption and political stability. Moreover, our focus was on a linear and unidirectional relationship between the considered variables, but it would be interesting to test in our further research a non-linear and bidirectional correlation between them. Furthermore, we have introduced in the robustness test only four economic variables, but to consolidate our findings, we plan to include socioeconomic and demographic variables in future studies.

These outcomes imply that authorities should be aware of the necessity of implementing anti-corruption policies designed to establish effective agencies and enforcement structures for combating systemic corruption, to improve the political environment and the quality of institutions and to apply coherent economic strategies to accelerate economic growth because higher political stability and sustainable development determine a decrease in levels of corruption.

At the microeconomic level, the survival of organizations may be in danger from new types of corruption and money laundering. Therefore, in order to prevent financial harm, the top businesses worldwide should respond to instances of corruption through strengthened supervisory procedures. This calls for the creation of a mechanism inside the code of conduct where correct reporting of suspected situations of corruption would have a prompt procedure to be notified of. To avoid corruption in operational procedures, national plans and policies should be developed by government officials, executives and legislators on a national level, as well as by senior management and the board of directors on an organizational level. This might lower organizations' extra corruption-related expenses, assure economic growth and improve global welfare.

A novel feature of our research resides in its broad examination of a sizable sample of European and Asian countries regarding the nexus between corruption and political stability. The paper also investigates a less explored topic in economic literature, namely the impact of political stability on corruption. Furthermore, the study depicts policy recommendations, outlining effective and reasonable measures aimed at improving the political landscape and combating corruption.

The purpose of this study is to create an ethical norm that will help guide the human race toward long-term survival.

The project posits a new societal ethical norm designed around a fundamental principle: the long-term survival of the human race with individual dignity. This study examines the requirements of the new norm and what is needed to achieve that goal.

There are three types of organizations that have the organizational and economic capacity to be responsible for future outcomes: governments, religions and corporations. These three types of organizations must act as if they have a moral compass that will compel them to develop and uphold the requirements for the survival of humanity with individual dignity.

The analysis shows that a new, broader ethical norm must be established, and this norm implies that large organizations must act with a future embracing ethical behavior.

This study generates specific pathways for example: governments should adopt the just war principles and prohibitions on governments or other institutions from teaching any form of class superiority. These and other pathways are designed to diffuse threats to the fundamental principle.

The fundamental principle includes universal human dignity. This means that the notion of individual dignity must be defined or understood, and the requirements to attain this goal must be identified.

This project takes concepts from long-termism, forward-looking collective responsibility, corporate social responsibility and the global catastrophic risk institute to advocate for a new ethical norm.