A Review of Digital Era Governance Research in the First Two Decades: A Bibliometric Study

Dejan Ravšelj, Lan Umek, Ljupčo Todorovski and Aleksander Aristovnik
Additional contact information
Dejan Ravšelj: Faculty of Public Administration, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Lan Umek: Faculty of Public Administration, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Ljupčo Todorovski: Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Future Internet, 2022, vol. 14, issue 5, 1-27

Abstract: The emergence of digital technologies has profoundly affected and transformed almost every aspect of societal relations. These impacts have also reached public administration, including its governance. Digital technologies’ rise has paved the way for the surfacing of a new public governance model called the Digital Era Governance (DEG) model (often referred to as e-government, digital government, e-governance, or digital governance) in which digital technologies play a central role. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive and in-depth examination of DEG research over the past two decades. Bibliometric analysis is based on the Scopus database that contains 9175 documents published between 2001 and 2020. In this context, several established and innovative bibliometric approaches are applied. The results reveal the growth of DEG research over the last two decades, especially in recent years, as accelerated by several of the most relevant documents published in reputable journals such as Government Information Quarterly. Most DEG research has been conducted in Anglo-Saxon countries, as confirmed while examining the most relevant authors’ affiliations and collaborations. The results also indicate that DEG has advanced from conventional public services to citizen-oriented e-services by including citizens’ participation and, most recently, even to smart services by facilitating emerging and disruptive technologies. The findings add to the stock of scientific knowledge and support the evidence-based policymaking needed to successfully pursue a sustainable future.

Keywords: bibliometric analysis; citation analysis; digital era governance; digital government; dynamic evolution; e-governance; e-government; mapping; public administration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/14/5/126/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/14/5/126/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jftint:v:14:y:2022:i:5:p:126-:d:798665

Access Statistics for this article

Future Internet is currently edited by Ms. Grace You

More articles in Future Internet from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().