Abstract: The interactive relationship between digital technology and state governance constitutes a pivotal issue in public governance reform during the digital era. The efficacy paradox, characterized by the intertwined phenomena of burden reduction with efficiency gains and burden increase with efficiency losses, permeates all stages of China’s digital governance reform. During the stage of governmental office informatization, digital technologies aimed to dismantle internal operational silos within government agencies. However, tensions between data connectivity and data rights protection engendered a paradox of inter-departmental collaboration. During the stage of governmental governance digitalization, the application scope of digital technologies expanded continuously, capable of lowering barriers to accessing public services. Nevertheless, influenced by algorithmic bias, a paradox of equal access to public services emerged in government-citizen interactions. During the stage of smart digital governance, the breadth and depth of public participation in governance advanced further. Yet, the superficiality of symbolic participation exacerbated the participation paradox in digital governance. Overall, the three developmental stages of digital governance substantively reflect a progressive deepening: shifting from the construction of digital infrastructure to digital stratification within social structures, and subsequently to the allocation of authority and responsibility in digital governance. Amidst the overlapping and mutual constitution of three logics—namely, the illusions and divides at the technical level, the personalized and centralized tensions at the organizational level, and the value-level gaming alongside selective distortions in implementation—the efficacy paradox in digital governance exhibits characteristics of a stepwise evolution.

Key words: digital governance, efficacy paradox, “technology-organization” mutual constitution, digital transformation