Community Participation in Local Governance During Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0: Lampung Province

Purpose: This study examines how community participation can be strengthened in the administration of local government in Lampung Province as digital technologies associated with Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0 reshape the delivery of public services.

Research Methodology: A qualitative policy analysis design was applied. Four policy alternatives were formulated from problem identification, then assessed against four criteria, namely effectiveness, cost, ease of implementation, and impact on community participation, using documentary sources, regulatory texts, and forty recent journal articles as evidence. 

Results: Strengthening digital literacy, developing information technology infrastructure, and optimising e-government and smart city implementation each scored high on effectiveness, yet they differed sharply in cost and in how directly they touched participation. Digital participation scored lowest on cost and highest on ease of implementation while still producing a high participation impact.

Conclusions: No single alternative is sufficient. A combination of digital literacy strengthening, e-government and smart city optimisation, and digitally based participation offers the most balanced route to responsive local governance.

Limitations: The analysis relies on secondary material and normative assessment rather than primary survey data, so the scoring reflects informed judgement instead of measured citizen behaviour.

Contributions: The study offers regional administrators a defensible ranking of participation-oriented digital policies and extends the e-participation literature into a provincial Indonesian setting that remains thinly documented.