Effects of the internet and sociocultural factors on budget transparency and accountability

In this paper, we explore the relationship between Internet diffusion and other factors generally associated with democratic development, and transparency and accountability, as indicated by the online availability of budget information for a global sample of countries. We begin by defining transparency and reviewing research that has investigated the effects of budget transparency on governmental functioning. We go on to consider how Internet use affects democratic national development and the effects of Internet use on transparency information, particularly budget information. We then introduce our own research questions and describe analyses that explore the effects of the Internet as well as related sociocultural factors in predicting the online availability of 6 kinds of budgetary information in a sample of 90 countries.