dc.contributor.author	Yaccarino, Elizabeth Kay
dc.coverage.spatial	Georgia	en_US
dc.coverage.temporal	2024-2025	en_US
dc.date.accessioned	2025-07-15T18:16:02Z
dc.date.available	2025-07-15T18:16:02Z
dc.date.issued	2025-07-03
dc.identifier.other	ae15b481-78b4-4979-b8b0-4445126dc6ab	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10428/7549
dc.description.abstract	The Founding Fathers of the United States, concerned with protecting individual rights and responsibilities, provided checks and balances to ensure wise governance. As the nation matured, laws reinforcing the rights of citizens were passed to mandate that government functions be conducted in an open manner. As technology evolved, the legislative mandates did as well and today, the internet is considered an integral part of government, both utilitarian in its functions but also with respect to openness and transparency. The internet is also an integral part of direct government-to-citizen contact and interaction. Given that counties function as government entities, imbued with powers mandated by the state that exceed those granted to cities, and serving as the closest level of governance to all citizens in Georgia, 36 county websites are studied: three in each of the 12 Regional Commission districts, based on population size: small, median, and large. Each website is studied and graded according to a unique checklist developed specifically for this purpose, utilizing established guidelines for open governance and transparency. The results vary between the counties and regions, with factors such as size, location, education and affluence potentially affecting the outcomes. As no other transparency project of this scale has yet been conducted at the county-level in Georgia, this dissertation will fill gaps in knowledge for local, state and national governments and organizations seeking this knowledge.	en_US
dc.format.extent	1 electronic record. PDF/A document, 93 pages, 2047458 bytes.	en_US
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en_US
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US
dc.rights	This dissertation is protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States (Public Law 94-553, revised in 1976). Consistent with fair use as defined in the Copyright Laws, brief quotations from this material are allowed with proper acknowledgement. Use of the materials for financial gain with the author's expressed written permissions is not allowed.	en_US
dc.subject	Dissertations, Academic--United States	en_US
dc.subject	Electronic records	en_US
dc.subject	Georgia	en_US
dc.subject	Local government	en_US
dc.subject	County government	en_US
dc.subject	Public administration	en_US
dc.subject	Transparency (Ethics) in government	en_US
dc.subject	Websites	en_US
dc.title	E-Government and Transparency in Georgia: An Analysis of County Websites as Citizen Portals to Democracy	en_US
dc.type	Dissertation	en_US
dc.contributor.department	Department of Political Science of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences	en_US
dc.description.advisor	Merwin, Gerald
dc.description.committee	Bennett, John
dc.description.committee	Kellner, Rob
dc.description.degree	D.P.A.	en_US
dc.description.major	Political Science	en_US