Extrusive effects of digital government: Reframing the citizen–state relationship

Digital government systems are widely adopted to improve public sector performance, yet concerns persist about their potential to undermine privacy and expand governmental control. This study challenges that prevailing narrative by introducing the concept of extrusive effects—instances where digital government implementations actively enhance citizen autonomy and reduce governmental discretion. Drawing on a unique dataset of 205 implementations across 70 countries from 1999 to 2022, we use text mining and evidence-based coding to identify 674 empirically verified effects. Our analysis reveals that extrusive effects are not isolated anomalies but constitute a systematic phenomena shaped by emerging technologies such as distributed ledgers, decentralized computing, and cryptographic protocols. Building on this discovery, we expand existing classifications of digital government effects to better reflect the evolving relationship between citizens and public administrations—capturing both intrusive effects that expand governmental discretion and extrusive effects that constrain it. These findings provide a more comprehensive foundation for evaluating digital government’s welfare implications and offer new tools for aligning technological design with democratic governance.