In his opinion piece “Digital Ministry: What the federal government can learn from the states” on Table.Media, Prof. Christoph Bieber, head of the CAIS research program “Digital Democratic Innovations” at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies, contributes his expertise on digital state modernization to the current political debate. Against the backdrop of the planned establishment of a federal digital ministry, Christoph Bieber analyzes what lessons the federal government can learn from the experiences of the states.
The article makes it clear that many federal states have already established independent digital departments in recent years and gained valuable experience in the strategic management of digitization. Prof. Bieber points out that this federal preparatory work can serve as an important frame of reference for the federal government—for example, in terms of the organizational anchoring of digital policy responsibilities, interdepartmental coordination, and the development of long-term digital strategies.
At the same time, Bieber emphasizes that a digital ministry should not be understood solely as a technical innovation department. Rather, it is about fundamental questions of state modernization, administrative logic, and political control in a digital society. The decisive factor will be whether the federal government succeeds in systematically drawing on existing knowledge from the states while at the same time developing its own creative power.