| Abstract: | The digital era, often lauded as a watershed moment for governance, promises enhanced transparency, accountability, and efficiency through advanced technological integration. However, this techno-optimism conceals inherent contradictions: digital mechanisms that ostensibly democratize participation frequently entrench surveillance, exclusion, and power asymmetries. This article critically interrogates the paradoxical nexus between technology and good governance, contending that while digital infrastructures streamline service delivery and facilitate participatory processes, they concurrently engender vulnerabilities undermining democratic integrity. Central to this tension are algorithmic governance, data monopolization, and opaque digital architectures that prioritize efficiency at the expense of equity and justice. The overreliance on such technology’s risks replicating authoritarian modalities cloaked in innovation, eroding the ethical and constitutional foundations of democratic societies. Employing comparative policy analysis and critical governance theory, the study exposes digital interventions’ ambivalence: they may promote inclusive citizenship or exacerbate systemic inequalities by marginalizing digitally disenfranchised populations. The ascendancy of algorithmic decision-making raises profound epistemic challenges concerning transparency, accountability, and the attenuation of deliberative policymaking. The article advocates for a reimagined governance paradigm transcending mere digitization, emphasizing digital justice where technological adoption is embedded within participatory, equitable, and normatively grounded democratic frameworks. By unpacking technology’s dual capacity to empower and subjugate, this work offers a critical lens essential for reconfiguring twenty-first-century governance, compelling a recalibration of “good governance” that reconciles technological innovation with democratic ideals. |
