Digital technologies have been used in public administration for a considerable time. While Russia possesses considerable experience and high rates of digitalization, it initially relied on foreign models, as in many other domains, primarily from Western European countries, the United States, and some of the most technologically advanced Asian nations.

In the United States, information technologies have enhanced the efficiency of government authorities for more than two decades. The Clinton administration made the first attempts to incorporate digital systems into public administration as early as 1999. To ensure the effectiveness of digital technologies, the government undertook large-scale efforts to connect citizens to the internet and provide broad access to the public services portal. In 2001, the administration launched the presidential "Expanding Digital State" program (Kirilenko, Fotopoulou, 2019).

The E-Government Act of 2002 provided the legislative framework for equipping the government with digital technologies. Within the government, authorities established the Office for Electronic Government, headed by the Federal Chief Information Officer (Kirilenko, Fotopoulou, 2019). However, despite significant successes, the U.S. government still faces certain issues related to the application of digital technologies. The primary concern is the lack of equal access to electronic portals for all citizens. Another problem involves the duplication of operations when legislation requires paper-based completion and signing of applications and documents, which diminishes the value of using electronic resources.

France has a substantial administrative apparatus, and the problem of bureaucratization across all spheres and levels of public administration remains unresolved. Consequently, digital technologies hold significant importance for optimizing the work of government authorities. According to Law No. 2016-1321 of October 7, 2016, "For a Digital Republic," France embarked on a path of information openness, facilitated by electronic portals, websites, and other digital technologies (for example, the Order of the Minister of Economy of April 14, 2017, "On the Publication of Information on Public Procurement in Open Data Format") (Talapina, 2019). In France, citizens can also apply for public services through the portal mon.service-public.fr. At the same time, France faces two major obstacles slowing the digitalization of public administration: the absence of universal citizen access to the Internet and a generally low level of public trust in innovations, stemming from insufficient education in digital technologies.

Singapore surpasses many countries in the efficiency of information technology use. In particular, the public services portal ecitizen.gov.sg functions successfully, providing transactional services, identification services, and more. The portal grants access through a digital identity card.

In Japan, the digitalization process began at the end of the 20th century with the creation of the WAN Kasumigaseki platform in 1997. Regulatory support was provided by Law No. 144 of December 6, 2000, "On the Formation of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society," and the e-Japan program for building a digital state. Currently, Japan applies digital technologies in the provision of public services, taxation, trade, and other areas. Japan also operates an online voting system that employs blockchain technology.

In the Russian Federation, public administration continues to develop continuously with the aid of digital technologies. For example, the government portal undergoes constant updates within the framework of the Federal Project “Digital Public Administration” and the national program “Digital Economy of the Russian Federation.” On January 18, 2022, authorities announced the introduction of a new user authentication tool for the portal – a biometric system. These measures aim to enhance the security of citizens' personal data.

The implementation of digital technologies in public administration has produced observable changes in the work of government bodies. However, experience has shown that continuous corrective measures are necessary to optimize and improve the functioning of these technological innovations.

Main Issues of Digital Technology Integration

The digital revolution is forging new societal foundations that government authorities must consider. While it promotes democratic values and rules, it also compels stronger government regulation and intervention to protect public goods and interests. This has given rise to the concept of “smart governance” or “Smart Government” (Schedler, Guenduez and Frischknecht, 2019), which implies a new direction in state-citizen relations that activates innovative digital instruments and technologies to enhance public sector efficiency. Studies have emerged (Palmisano, Sacchi, 2024) confirming that digital interaction between citizens and public administration acts as a mitigating factor, helping to reduce the adverse impact of inequality on institutional trust, which represents a significant positive development for public administration. Research has also examined the formation of public trust through the digital transformation of government (Virnandes, Shen and Vlahu-Gjorgievska, 2024).

According to foreign scholars (Schedler, Guenduez and Frischknecht, 2019), Smart Government face operational challenges such as lack of legitimacy, legal foundations, policy coherence, technical infrastructure, understanding of costs and benefits, and innovation potential. Authors distinguish organizational and institutional barriers. Foreign authors define limiting factors for long-term application of artificial intelligence by public administration bodies: absence of internal technical knowledge for maintaining and updating AI systems, legal problems in applying developed AI systems, and limitation of capabilities for making changes to maintain system operability (van Noordt, Tangi, 2023).

According to foreign scholars (Schedler, Guenduez and Frischknecht, 2019), “smart governance” faces operational challenges such as a lack of legitimacy, legal foundations, policy coherence, technical infrastructure, understanding of costs and benefits, and innovation potential. The authors distinguish between organizational and institutional barriers. Other limiting factors for the long-term application of artificial intelligence by public administration bodies include: a lack of internal technical knowledge to maintain and update AI systems, legal problems in applying developed AI systems, and limited capacity to make changes to maintain system operability (van Noordt, Tangi, 2023).

Several primary types of state digitalization problems can be identified:

The unevenness of digitalization across governance levels becomes apparent upon examining national projects for digital technology integration – most projects and government programs operate at the national level and are implemented federally. The execution of these plans in the regions faces difficulties due to uneven regional development and insufficient information provision. Success is primarily achieved in the most developed regions. To solve this problem, experts recommend providing all regions with necessary information and methodological materials when delegating new projects and tasks and conducting joint organizational measures with federal authorities to establish a unified understanding of digitalization goals and strategy.

Technological issues result in low efficiency of digital technology integration and low levels of citizen trust in innovation. These problems require a comprehensive solution: on the one hand, optimizing website operations, consolidating related information systems, and unifying federal and regional systems; on the other hand, providing digital training for both civil servants and the public regarding technology, personal data, and formulating requests for public services. Authorities must also ensure equal citizen access to digital services, including for those below the poverty line and people with disabilities.

The problem of digital security is among the most acute and requires increased attention. To minimize the negative effects of cyberattacks, it is essential to organize rapid response to breaches and limit attacker capabilities. This requires multi-layered protection with reinforced defenses for locations housing particularly important data.

Integrating digital transformation into public administration also alters social relations between parties involved in the production and consumption of public goods and services, leading to new challenges at human, organizational, and political levels. These may include growing inequality, decreased social mobility, corruption, differentiation in service provision coverage, and impact on government employment.

Conclusion

Thus, one can assert that applying digital technologies in public administration enhances the efficiency of government authorities at various levels and improves interaction between the state and citizens. Creating digital platforms and transferring G2G, G2C, and G2B processes to a digital environment has become highly relevant in the present context, including during the pandemic period with its forced self-isolation. The research results include an interpretative review of existing scholarly approaches to implementing digital technologies in public administration and an identification of features from foreign experiences in development of Smart Government. The article also identifies such problems of state digitalization and Smart Government development as the uneven distribution of digitalization across areas and levels of governance, technological difficulties, and information security issues. These problems require prompt solutions at the management level to achieve genuinely high results in public administration. The study proposes recommendations for eliminating these problems; for example, providing all regions with necessary information, supplying methodological materials when delegating new projects and tasks to regional government authorities, and implementing organizational measures jointly with federal authorities to form a unified understanding of goals, digitalization strategy, and other aspects.