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Combating corruption through transparency: how have e-government investments affected levels of accountability in Brazil?

Published: 27 October 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Transparency has often been hailed as one of the main mechanisms through which corruption can be combated due to the fact that it supposedly increases levels of accountability. In this sense, e-government would be the platform through which this can be achieved. However, as the author demonstrates, this is a failed assumption since it is not applicable to several national contexts, such as is the case of Brazil. In addition, most studies in this field have so far relied on rational-choice models and have thus failed to demonstrate causation, often undertaking instead a strong normative undertone. This study therefore aims to reach beyond what has already been done, and demonstrate why investments in transparency have not achieved the desired results by conducting an interpretive piece of research and adopting a multi-case study approach, whereby incidences of corruption in Brazil will serve as the cases. It aims to go against the stream of normative work and produce an actual theoretical framework to explain this phenomenon, thereby contributing to the advancement of the IS field, more specifically, the area of e-government, and providing a guide for policy-makers' investments.

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  • (2020)Dimensions that characterize and mechanisms that cause the misuse of information systems for corrupt practices in the Nigerian public sectorTHE ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES10.1002/isd2.1213686:6Online publication date: 13-Apr-2020

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        ICEGOV '14: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance
        October 2014
        563 pages
        ISBN:9781605586113
        DOI:10.1145/2691195
        Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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        • Macao Foundation, Macao SAR Govt: Macao Foundation, Macao SAR Government
        • Municipio de Guimarães: Municipio de Guimarães

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        Association for Computing Machinery

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        Published: 27 October 2014

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        Author Tags

        1. accountability
        2. corruption
        3. transparency

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        • Macao Foundation, Macao SAR Govt
        • Municipio de Guimarães

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        • (2020)Dimensions that characterize and mechanisms that cause the misuse of information systems for corrupt practices in the Nigerian public sectorTHE ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES10.1002/isd2.1213686:6Online publication date: 13-Apr-2020

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