Assessing the Academic Grounding of Popular Digital Government Rankings

E-Government rankings are viewed as a legitimate tool for countries to measure their success in the area of digital transformation, although the indicators used as part of these indices are not chosen or weighted based on academic findings. Instead, those indicators are chosen by committees consisting of the respective organisation’s member states, thus rendering rankings susceptible to political influence and measuring what governments wish to be measured, rather than measuring what would arguably lead to more successful digital transformation. This article provides an overview of the academic discussion around more or less impactful factors for digital transformation and contrasts those findings with the methodologies used by three major rankings: The United Nations’ E-Government Development Index, the OECD’s Digital Government Index, and the European Union’s Digital Economy and Society Index. Following a thorough analysis, it is found that there are several indicators the usefulness of which is academically not supported, either being ineffective in improving e-government or quality or even being counterproductive.