The sample includes 176<sup>7</sup> countries for which data was available.

# **_Dependent Variables_**

The dependent variables (which are used one by one) are the V-dem<sup>8</sup> variables for: (i) Civil Society Participation Index (CSPI); and (ii) engaged society (ES). The CSPI is a V-Dem mid-level index developed using a range of V-Dem indicators, which measures, the extent to which civil society organizations (CSOs) are involved in government decision-making,<sup>9</sup> and the values range from 0 (low) to 1 (high). The V-Dem variable ES assesses how wide and how independent are public deliberations when important policy changes are being considered, and the values range from 0 (no public deliberation) to 5 (large numbers of public deliberation). This study uses the ordinal scale version of these two variables.<sup>10</sup>

# **_Variables of Interest_**

The study uses data from the GovTech Maturity Index (GTMI) dataset, for the digital platforms’ implementation variable. Developed by the World Bank Group in 2020 and 2022, GTMI covers 198<sup>11</sup> economies and includes 48 key indicators. For this study, GTMI indicators I-30 and I-31 are used. I-30<sup>12</sup> considers whether there are national web-based platforms that allow citizens to participate in policy decision-making, whereas I-31<sup>13</sup> assesses the existence of government platforms that enable citizens to provide feedback on service delivery. I-30 and I-31 are dummy variables that take the value 1 if the platforms exist and 0 otherwise. The present study constructs a GovTech variable taking 1 when the countries have implemented at least one of I-30 or I-31 and 0 otherwise.

The main analysis focuses on 2020 GTMI data extracted from the 2022 version of the dataset, which includes both 2020 and 2022 data. The 2020 GTMI data were collected remotely by the GTMI team during the COVID-19 period and were displayed in the 2022 dataset after converting to some of the relevant 2022 sub-indicators and including new sub-indicators. By contrast, the 2022 GTMI data were collected mainly based on an online survey completed by government officials. There are more positive responses in the 2022 GTMI data regarding the implementation of GovTech platforms (15 for I-30, 34 for I-31, and 39 for the GovTech variable). However, some improvements in the 2022 data compared with that of 2020 may be related to undetected relevant websites that the GTMI team were unable to spot remotely. To consider these aspects, this paper uses both GTMI 2020 data (in the main analysis) and GTMI 2022 (in a robustness check) extracted from the 2022 version of the dataset.

> 7 This is the number of countries for which data are available for the dependent variable and the variables of interest. This number can be reduced in the different estimations due to data unavailability for the matching and/or control variables.

> 8 Varieties of Democracy is a database of multidimensional and disaggregated data related to measuring democracy and other factors. It contains three general types of data: (i) variables coded by country experts; (ii) factual data based on existing sources, pre-calculated indices based on these two data sources; and (iii) variables from external sources.

> 9 The questions that constitute this indicator are whether policy makers regularly consult key CSOs; how much participation is by individuals in CSOs; whether women are prevented from participating; and whether the nomination of legislative candidates within the party organization is highly decentralized or is done through party primaries.

> 10 Annex A presents the complete list the variables used, their definitions, and the data sources.

> 11 The number of countries covered by this study is limited to 176 due to a lack of information on the other variables (dependent and control variables).

> 12 This GTMI indicator measures whether there are national platforms that allow citizens to participate in policy decisionmaking. It takes the value 1 if such a platform exists and 0 otherwise.

> 13 This GTMI indicator measures whether there are government platforms that allow citizens to provide feedback (e.g., compliments, complaints, suggestions, info requests) on service delivery.  This captures the availability of a platform that allows citizens to provide feedback, make suggestions, collect information, or complain about the delivery of public services.  It also takes 1 if such a platform exists and 0 otherwise.

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