About the Phenomenon of State Digital Platforms. Review of the Book by E. Styrin and N. Dmitrieva “Government Digital Platforms: Formation and Development”

The monograph under review is devoted to the study of the evolution of the formation of state digital platforms. A significant part of the book is a detailed review of academic research on information platforms, including international experience. An analysis of the experience of creating platforms revealed a number of significant differences between commercial and government platforms in terms of management, platform architecture, and network effects. The review notes that when analyzing international experience, the authors focus on generalizing the results, and not on spreading the “platform ideology”. When designing state digital platforms in Russia, the authors consider the incremental approach methodologically correct, which consists in gradually increasing the complexity of solutions, services, products provided by the platforms. The authors believe that the problem for our country is the development of tools for assessing social value to justify budget expenditures for the creation and development of platforms. The book proposes a classification scheme for government digital platforms based on compliance with basic criteria. The author’s description of the platform design process from the formulation of goals and objectives to the formation of the reputation of the platform and the preparation of projects for further changes is presented. The review noted the value of examples of platform development scenarios based on an analysis of thefunctioning of several existing and emerging platforms in Russia.