E-Government and Public Trust: An Evidence in Worldwide Level

This study examines the relationship between the e-government development index and public trust in the government. The e-government index is divided into three categories: online services, telecommunications infrastructure, and the human capital index. This study also included the e-participation index as a supplement to the e-government index. The findings show that the e-participation index has a positive relationship with public trust, whereas the human capital index has an inverse relationship with public confidence in government. However, the Internet service index and communications infrastructure are not related to public trust in the government. As a result, when a country uses e-government to boost public faith, the most important thing is to expand public engagement in all government policies and e-government services. Online service quality and ICT infrastructure have little impact on public trust, because they are ineffective without public participation in e-government. The existence of a negative relationship between the human capital index and public trust does not imply that the government should leave people in the dark as this can have a negative impact on many aspects of life. However, this implies that the government should seriously provide services to the public and increase public participation, so that even if a country's human capital is of high quality, public trust is maintained.