Rethinking e-government failure: a readiness-based assessment of Indonesia’s digitalization efforts

This research aims to investigate the factors affecting the success and failure of e-government implementation in four Indonesian regions—South Papua, Papua Highlands, West Java, and Yogyakarta—by analyzing social, economic, and infrastructural influences according to Ibn Khaldun’s social changes theory. Employing a qualitative, exploratory case study approach, data were collected from government documents, scientific articles, online sources, and policy reports, with data triangulation ensuring validity. Data analysis involved thematic synthesis, correlating qualitative insights with socio-economic variables such as access to basic services and regional development indices. Findings indicate that regions with higher socio-economic and infrastructural development, such as West Java and Yogyakarta, exhibit more successful e-government practices, while regions facing economic injustice, societal instability, and infrastructural deficiencies, like South Papua and Papua Highlands, encounter significant challenges, this conditions in line with some studies that stated the countries with high prosperity percentage and basic service access more succeeded in e-government implementation. Previous research has shown that factors contributing to e-government failure include a lack of digital literacy, trust, and limited internet access. Meanwhile, this study, which views e-government as a form of social change, highlights that meeting basic needs, promoting social cohesion, and reducing disparities are crucial to increasing e-government effectiveness. This research offers a new perspective on the effective implementation model of egovenment as a social transformation in public services, the implementation of this model encourages technological innovation while providing fulfillment of basic needs in public services, to overcome structural gaps in digital governance.