Does ICT promote democracy similarily in developed and developing countries? A linear and nonlinear panel threshold framework

Abstract

This paper assesses the impact of ICT adoption on democracy for a panel of 70 countries over the period 2000-2017. We consider two different measures of ICT and check for the stability of the relationship for different levels of economic development. Our findings show that both internet and mobile technologies increase the level of democracy in our sample countries. When considering the level of economic development, divergent results are reported for developing and developed countries. Developing countries most commonly have autocratic political regimes where internet and mobile content is monitored by government authorities. More ICT diffusion produces in these cases a negative impact on their level of democracy. Moreover, these countries do not show any presence of a threshold of ICT use necessary to enhance their level of democracy. Our findings however report the presence of a nonlinear relationship in developed countries, suggesting that the effectiveness of ICT in enhancing democracy increases as more users are connected to ICT networks. Our findings also show that unlike developing countries, press freedom and ICT adoption are complementary in developed countries. That is, when developed countries are better endowed with ICT, they can enhance the freedom of their press and therefore their level of democracy. 2020 Elsevier Ltd