Digitalization of Public Administration in federal countries : challenges, opportunities, and a look ahead Silvana Gomes, Eric Champagne, André Lecours [Recurso electrónico]

Bibliografía: p. 15-19

The digital transformation of the public sector has been reshaping how governments function and deliver public services worldwide. However, the effects of this digital-oriented shift on federal countries remain largely unaddressed. We need to know more about the impacts of digitalization on the distribution of power, intergovernmental relations, coordination, and policymaking in multi-tiered systems. Fundamentally, an important question still lacks a clear answer: is digitalization favoring the empowerment of central governments in federal government settings? Based on a comprehensive desk research, this paper aims to analyze whether the advancement of digitalization policies has been giving room to centralizing devices in federal countries. To this end, we explore the impacts of digitalization across levels of government in four domains: intergovernmental relations, collaborative action, digital policies implementations, and accountability. We study the main challenges and opportunities that federations face to thrive in the digital era, and the interplay between digitalization and centralization. We conclude that while there seems to be a trend towards centralization in certain areas, these centralizing devices usually coexist with devolved mechanisms.