How the past shapes the digitalization of public administration

Although scholars have started to analyse the digital innovation of Italian public administrations only recently, this innovation is the result of a slow process of change that began in the 1960s. The article tracks the steps of this process to highlight the fact that the current strategies for digital transformation of the public sector are, to a large extent, the result of the basic characteristics of the Italian administrative system and of the events forming part of this long process.