▢ About

New technologies emerge continuously, with promises of new affordances and opportunities for digital governance. Emerging technologies are still under development and, therefore, not fully formed and matured. These are often associated with disruption, meaning that, if applied, they carry the potential to fundamentally change the way digital governance is carried out. Such a change could alter the nature of the public sector organisations and citizen-government relationships altogether. Artificial Intelligence, robotisation, data analytics, blockchain, and open data are only a few examples of technologies that can be considered emerging and potentially disruptive. This Track invites papers that deal with issues related to emerging and potentially disruptive technologies for digital governance. The track welcomes empirical studies of government organisations’ work and experimentation with new technologies, such as machine learning, algorithmic decision-making, face recognition, new forms of automation and robotisation, blockchain, and more. The Track also welcomes conceptually oriented papers that further the field’s understanding of emerging technologies and disruption for digital governance. Papers that critically discuss the role of emerging technologies for digital governance and their potential impact on public sector organisations are particularly welcome.