Digitalization & Legibility

Governments worldwide increasingly use digitalization, often in an attempt to make government structures more efficient and facilitate citizens’ access to state services. In this research project, I study the implications of digital IDs for state-citizen relations.

Together with researchers at the WZB, Vanderbilt University, and MIT, we conducted a survey experiment to analyze the effect of different policies governing biometric identification on citizens’ willingness to register for such a program across different ethnic groups in Kenya.

Together with researchers at WZB, we examine citizen attitudes toward the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDIW) through a survey experiment similar to the one conducted in Kenya, with data collection scheduled for March 2026.