The Implementation of New Public Governance Through Blockchain: A Delphi-based analysis

Collaborative public service delivery and blockchain are perceived as important themes for developing public services. Thus far, each topic has generally been discussed separately. Additionally, most research on blockchain is conceptual and empirical work seems scarce to date. This paper seeks to theoretically and empirically substantiate the potentials and challenges of using blockchain to enable the paradigm of New Public Governance. Therefore, a theoretical analysis and a subsequent Delphi-based evaluation are conducted to map the theoretical ideals of New Public Governance against expert perceptions and experiences towards blockchain. Experts from public administrations, IT service providers, and science, who are all specialized in blockchain, contributed to this study. As this qualitative study demonstrates, blockchain can support public and nonpublic stakeholders in their efforts to create public services in co-producing networks. Furthermore, according to the findings of this research, stronger consideration of the mutual alignment between governance, process, and technology level requires more attention.