Smart City Governance and Digital Transformation: A Systematic Literature Review

Lanto Ningrayati Amali

Abstract


Digital transformation creates opportunities for urban services while raising questions about institutional capacity, inclusion, and control over infrastructure. This systematic review examines institutional and infrastructure drivers, implementation barriers and geopolitical risks, and inclusive governance strategies, with implications for the Global South. Scopus was searched on 1 May 2026 for literature within 2016–2026. Of 320 retrieved documents, 314 remained after year filtering, 148 after document-type filtering, and 144 after English-language filtering. Bibliometric analysis describes these 144 global records, while thematic discussion draws on 26 substantive references. The two sets are distinct, and study-level selection accounting between them is incomplete. Thematic findings emphasize coordination, financing, infrastructure readiness, administrative capacity, and meaningful citizen participation. Contextual publications on industrial sustainability, political change, and security inform interpretation but do not establish municipal governance effects. A conditional framework links readiness, accountability, participation, and distributional assessment. Its policy implications are propositions for local evaluation, rather than validated causal effects. Single-database coverage, heterogeneous evidence, unspecified screening and quality-appraisal procedures, and references published after the stated search date limit reproducibility and the strength of conclusions. The contribution is an integrated account of governance conditions and evidence boundaries rather than a universally applicable model.

Keywords


Digital transformation; Global South; Inclusive urbanization; Smart city governance; Sustainable development

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.37905/jji.v8i2.41744

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