The Effects of E‐Government on Trust and Confidence in Government
Abstract
Trust in government has been declining for more than three decades now. E‐government has been proposed as a way to increase citizen trust in government and improve citizen evaluations of government generally. Using two‐stage models to analyze recent Pew survey data, this research explores the relationship between e‐government use, attitudes about e‐government, and trust in government. There is a statistically significant relationship between trust and use of a local government Web site, as well as other positive assessments of federal and local governments. The evidence suggests that e‐government can increase process‐based trust by improving interactions with citizens and perceptions of responsiveness. The findings are theoretically important for reconciling the conflicting research on the effects of e‐government and for understanding variations by level of government. Citizen attitudes toward government, including trust, are core concerns for democratic governance and public administration.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Survey research has found positive correlations between manifest transparency and trust.
“Survey research has found positive correlations between manifest transparency and trust (Tolbert & Mossberger, 2006;Im, Cho, Porumbescu, and Park 2014).”
From Latent transparency and trust in government: Unexpected findings from two survey experiments (2020) · cites this paper as Tolbert & Mossberger, 2006
Cites
Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide
Norris, P. (2001) · doi:10.1017/cbo9781139164887 · Cited by 2,921 · see citing works
Political Trust and Trustworthiness
Levi, M., & Stoker, L. (2000) · Annual Review of Political Science · doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.3.1.475 · Cited by 2,190 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
An empirical validation of a unified model of electronic government adoption (UMEGA)
Dwivedi, Y. K., Rana, N. P., Janssen, M., Lal, B., Williams, M. D., & Clement, M. (2017) · Government Information Quarterly · doi:10.1016/j.giq.2017.03.001 · Cited by 622 · see citing works
Adoption of ICT in a government organization in a developing country: An empirical study
Gupta, B., Dasgupta, S., & Gupta, A. (2008) · The Journal of Strategic Information Systems · doi:10.1016/j.jsis.2007.12.004 · Cited by 579 · see citing works
Grimmelikhuijsen, S. G., & Meijer, A. J. (2014) · Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory · doi:10.1093/jopart/mus048 · Cited by 565 · see citing works
Blockchain as a confidence machine: The problem of trust & challenges of governance
De Filippi, P., Mannan, M., & Reijers, W. (2020) · Technology in Society · doi:10.1016/j.techsoc.2020.101284 · Cited by 406 · see citing works
Validating a Scale for Citizen Trust in Government Organizations
Grimmelikhuijsen, S., & Knies, E. (2017) · International Review of Administrative Sciences · doi:10.1177/0020852315585950 · Cited by 366 · see citing works
Internet, trust in government, and citizen compliance
Im, T., Cho, W., Porumbescu, G., & Park, J. (2014) · Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory · doi:10.1093/jopart/mus037 · Cited by 245 · see citing works
Government Openness and Public Trust: The Mediating Role of Democratic Capacity
Schmidthuber, L., Ingrams, A., & Hilgers, D. (2021) · Public Administration Review · doi:10.1111/puar.13298 · Cited by 180 · see citing works
Transparency and Trust in Government. Evidence from a Survey Experiment
Alessandro, M., Cardinale Lagomarsino, B., Scartascini, C., Streb, J., & Torrealday, J. (2021) · World Development · doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105223 · Cited by 135 · see citing works
Zhao, F., Collier, A., & Deng, H. (2014) · Information Technology & People · doi:10.1108/itp-01-2013-0022 · Cited by 98 · see citing works
“Further, Tolbert and Mossberger (2006) found that there was a statistically significant relationship between trust in government and the use of government web sites.”
BackgroundLatent transparency and trust in government: Unexpected findings from two survey experiments
Grimmelikhuijsen, S. G., Piotrowski, S. J., & Van Ryzin, G. G. (2020) · Government Information Quarterly · doi:10.1016/j.giq.2020.101497 · Cited by 81 · see citing works
Wang, Q., & Guan, Z. (2023) · Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory · doi:10.1093/jopart/muac040 · Cited by 81 · see citing works
Chen, Y., Bretschneider, S., Stritch, J. M., Darnall, N., & Hsueh, L. (2022) · Public Management Review · doi:10.1080/14719037.2021.1874497 · Cited by 66 · see citing works
Does E-Government Raise Effectiveness and Efficiency?: Examining the Cross-National Effect
Nam, T. (2019) · Journal of Global Information Management · doi:10.4018/jgim.2019070107 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
Hierarchical Order of User Preference Parameters in Adopting M-government Services
Faculty of Technology Management and Business, U. T. H. O. M., Rashed Mohammed Alneyadi, R. H., Abdul Hamid, N. A., & Faculty of Technology Management and Business, U. T. H. O. M. (2021) · International Journal of Sustainable Construction Engineering and Technology · doi:10.30880/ijscet.2021.12.05.022 · Cited by 2
- Authors
- Tolbert, C. J., & Mossberger, K.
- Affiliations
- Kent State University (US)
- University of Illinois Chicago (US)
- Corresponding author
- Tolbert, Caroline J.
- Mossberger, Karen
- Venue
- Public Administration Review
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2006-05
- Volume
- 66
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 354-369
- ISSN
- 0033-3352 (ISSN-L)
- 1540-6210
- OpenAlex
- W2035669333
- Cited by
- 1,092
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 50 · 2025: 61 · 2024: 56 · 2023: 64 · 2022: 59 · 2021: 73 · 2020: 71 · 2019: 57 · 2018: 54 · 2017: 49 · 2016: 66 · 2015: 78 · 2014: 75 · 2013: 55 · 2012: 71
- FWCI
- 113.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Public Administration Review (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › E-Government and Public Services
- Social Sciences › Public Administration › Public Policy and Administration Research
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Technology Adoption and User Behaviour
- Keywords
- e-government, public trust in government, public confidence, local government websites, federal government, local government, government responsiveness, citizen-government interaction, attitudes toward government, democratic governance
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
