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Transparent qualitative model-building in high-stakes digital governance: a methods protocol for tracing
Ahmad Nur Hidayat1, Nina Karlina1, Ramadhan Pancasilawan1
1Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, Indonesia.
Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics
|August 11, 2026
Summary
This study introduces a qualitative methods protocol for transparently tracing how institutions govern digital systems in election administration. It details a transparent process for linking evidence to institutional explanations for digital governance mechanisms.
Area of Science:
- Digital Governance
- Qualitative Research Methods
- Election Administration
Background:
- Digital governance research often describes system functions but lacks explanation of institutional control mechanisms.
- This gap is critical in election administration, impacting voting rights, eligibility, and result credibility.
- Existing evaluations offer data but rarely inspect the institutional pathway to mechanism-based explanations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a critical realist qualitative methods protocol for transparent institutional mechanism tracing in high-stakes digital governance.
- To reconstruct how organizational capacities translate into specific governance functions like validation, accountability, and learning.
- To provide an inspectable route from qualitative evidence to institutional explanation in digital governance.
Main Methods:
- A novel qualitative protocol integrating purposive sampling, process-oriented interviews, document mapping, and mechanism-oriented coding.
- Utilizes cross-arena matrices, evidence-strength decisions, rival-explanation assessment, and negative-case analysis.
- Includes audit trails, expert validation, positionality documentation, and tiered transparency for reviewability.
Main Results:
- Demonstrates the protocol's application using a pilot vignette from Indonesia's 2024 electoral administration.
- Shows how regulatory evidence and institutional explanations can be transformed into actionable codes and graded mechanisms.
- Establishes an operationally explicit, reviewable, and ethically safeguarded pathway from evidence to explanation.
Conclusions:
- The developed protocol offers a transparent and rigorous method for analyzing digital governance mechanisms in critical sectors like elections.
- Enhances the inspectability and accountability of digital systems within institutional contexts.
- Contributes a vital tool for understanding and improving the governance of digital technologies in public administration.
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