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Communications of the Association for Information Systems

Author ORCID Identifier

Parijat Upadhyay: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9969-3377

Manas Paul: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5611-9647

Baidyanath Biswas: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0609-3530

Abstract

Digital technologies are essential to modern governance, as governments rely on them to deliver vital public services. Although these initiatives aim to enhance efficiency, scalability, and transparency, they also raise concerns about digitally mediated access for citizens with varying levels of capability. When access to entitlements depends on technology, barriers can arise that constrain citizens’ freedom to realise their entitlements and affect their sense of dignity. Despite increasing focus on digital inequality, the dignity implications of digitally enforced public services remain unexplored in Information Systems (IS) research. Drawing on CARE Theory and Sen’s Capability Approach, this study examines how digitally mediated governance reshapes citizens’ freedoms and generates dignity tensions. Through an interpretive multiple-case study of two large-scale public digital governance systems in India: the CoWIN vaccination platform and the Jeevan Pramaan digital life certificates, we develop the concept of digital enforcement to explain how institutional reliance on digital infrastructure reconfigures access to benefits. The findings uncover a mechanism in which narratives of reform translate into technology-conditioned access that limits capability conversion and creates a dignity disequilibrium. The study advances IS research by extending CARE Theory to digital governance and conceptualising digital enforcement as a governance mechanism shaping citizens’ lived experiences.

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