Twenty-Five Years of Digital Governance Research (2000–2025): A Comprehensive Bibliometric and Science Mapping Analysis

Digital infrastructures have become integral to public administration, but their rapid expansion has introduced governance challenges ranging from privacy breaches in sensor-based systems to uneven digital capacities across institutions. Although scholarly interest in digital governance has accelerated, the field remains theoretically fragmented, leaving its internal structure and developmental trajectory insufficiently mapped. This study addresses that gap through a bibliometric and science-mapping analysis of 2,314 Scopus-indexed publications produced between 2000 and 2025. Drawing on performance trends, collaboration networks, co-citation structures, and keyword-based thematic evolution, the study reconstructs how knowledge in this domain has clustered and transformed over time. The findings reveal a shift from early e-government and service delivery concerns toward broader socio-technical debates involving data governance, interoperability, civic digital literacy, and AI-driven accountability. Despite substantial growth, collaboration remains uneven and dispersed. Conceptual evolution indicates increasing integration of privacy, inclusion, and institutional capability as core governance mechanisms. The study provides a consolidated map of the field and offers implications for regulatory design, administrative capacity, and future research pathways.