Digital Transformation in Government:  Policy Diffusion, Administrative Capacity, and Discretion

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Digital transformation has become a central pillar of public sector reform, yet significant gaps persist between policy proposals and design outcomes. This panel examines the evolution of digital government policies through an integrated framework that links policy narratives, policy diffusion mechanisms, and administrative discretion in algorithmic governance.The panel advances a shared argument: digital transformation is not only a technical or organizational process, but also a discursive and deliberative design outcome, in which policy narratives shape reform trajectories, while emerging feedback mechanisms, existing digital infrastructure ecology, and bureaucratic capacity influence these policy designs and outcomes. In this context, the first paper develops a comparative analysis of digital governance narratives across five European countries, introducing the concept of discursive silence to explain how omissions in policy discourse shape perceived administrative capacity and contribute to implementation gaps. In this, governments frequently emphasize innovation, modernization, and strategic commitment while remaining comparatively silent about coordination problems, institutional bottlenecks, staff capabilities, and accountability arrangements. The second paper examines how AI technology policy adoption diffuse across state governments in the United States. This paper advances the need for a technology policy ecosystem to pre-exist to facilitate newer innovative technology policies like AI to be adopted. Unlike existing literature, the paper emphasizes that AI policies do not emerge only through policy learning, competition, emulation or coercion. The third paper analyses the emerging tension between administrative discretion and algorithmic governance across four policy domains in smart cities in the United States and Europe. The paper proposes a framework organized around a discretion spectrum based on risk and provides two institutional concepts to operationalize this framework--discretion-aware algorithms and algorithm-aware administrations. Mapping smart city policies onto this decision spectrum enables more principled algorithmic governance design than blanket automation or reflexive resistance. Together, the panel offers a multi-level diagnosis of the emerging digital state, demonstrating that alignment between narratives, policy design mechanisms, and accountability structures is critical for achieving effective digital capacity and institutional resilience.

Policy Area

• Innovations in Science and Technology

Chair

• Catalin Vrabie, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration

Discussant

• Michael J Ahn, The Blue Tree Foundation

Individual Presentations

• Digital Transformation, Discursive Silence, and Administrative Capacity - Presenting Author: Diana Camelia Iancu, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration

• Administrative Discretion versus Algorithmic Governance in Smart City Policies - Presenting Author: Milena I Neshkova, Florida International University

• Diffusion of AI Policies across State Governments in the United States - Non-Presenting Co-Author: Susannah Bruns Ali, Florida International University; Presenting Author: Sukumar Ganapati, Florida International University

Organizer

• Sukumar Ganapati, Florida International University