Digital Transformation of Public Administration in Argentina

Introduction. Digital transformation of public administration is one of the key challenges of modern public authority development. The relevance of the chosen topic is determined by the illustrative nature of Argentina’s experience, which reflects the contradictory character of such reforms in Latin American countries, where high technological potential coexists with systemic governance dysfunctions, economic instability, and deep social inequality, thus providing rich empirical material for studying the factors of success and failure in digital modernisation. The aim of this study is a comprehensive analysis of Argentina’s digital transformation policy in public administration for the period 2016−2024. The research problem is the dissonance between the formal institutional maturity of Argentina’s digital state and its actual instability in digital transformation, driven by the high sensitivity of reforms to changes in administration, weak interagency and interregional coordination, and the persistence of structural digital inequality.
Methods and materials. The study employs qualitative case study methods, as well as techniques for analysing legal acts, national strategies and plans, reports from international organisations (UN, World Bank, ITU), and expert publications for the specified period. The analysis covers key regulatory acts (Decrees 434/2016, 733/2018, and 996/2018) and specific projects (the unified public services portal «Argentina.gob.ar», the GDE electronic document management system, the digital identity card DNI Digital, the Boti chatbot in Buenos Aires, the National Artificial Intelligence Plan ArgenIA, and the «Federalisation of Innovation» programme).
Results. It is revealed that, despite Argentina’s impressive positions in international e-government rankings, digital transformation in the country is intermittent and fragmented. Empirical evidence includes a sharp drop in the E‑Participation Index (EPI) and a decline in Buenos Aires' position in the LOSI ranking. Three main groups of barriers are identified: digital inequality (about 10% of the population lacks Internet access, and a gap persists between the capital and the provinces); insufficient coordination between levels of government and among agencies; and political uncertainty in the regulation of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. Successful technical solutions (the portal, GDE, Boti) do not translate into sustainable governance quality due to the lack of institutional continuity and the high sensitivity of reforms to changes in administration.
Discussion and Conclusion. The findings can contribute to the development of practical recommendations for enhancing the sustainability of digital reforms in a turbulent political‑administrative environment and offer insights into the debate on the drivers of success and failure of digital transformation in developing economies. Moreover, they can serve as an empirical model for Russia’s digital transformation practice to diagnose risks of institutional discontinuity, regional inequality, and weak coordination, as well as to devise measures for increasing the resilience of digital reforms under administrative changes.