Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide (2009): A Longitudinal Assessment of Municipal Websites Throughout the World

The Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide Survey assessed the practice of digital governance in large municipalities worldwide in 2009. This research, replicating our continuing surveys in 2003, 2005 and 2007, evaluated the websites of municipalities in terms of digital governance and ranked them on a global scale. Simply stated, digital governance includes both digital government (delivery of public service) and digital democracy (citizen participation in governance). Specifically, we analyzed security, usability, and content of websites, the type of online services currently being offered, and citizen response and participation through websites established by municipal governments (Holzer & Kim, 2007).