Determinants of E-democracy adoption in Turkish municipalities: An analysis for spatial diffusion effect

Abstract

This article aims to analyse the extent to which metropolitan and provincial municipalities in Turkey take advantage of the opportunities offered by information and communications technologies to strengthen democracy and to evaluate the factors affecting the e-democracy adoption of municipalities in Turkey within the framework of spatial data analysis. In this context, this study tries to contribute distinctively to the local e-democracy literature by focusing on the investigation of whether there are any spatial effects on e-democracy adoption of municipalities in Turkey. The findings of our analysis show that while being the members of the same political party and geographical contiguity do not have any impact, the variables of size, status, budget and Internet penetration have impacts on the level of e-democracy adoption of municipalities in Turkey.