Abstract: The construction of digital government is an important lever for promoting the modernization of governance system and governance capacity. The “National Pilot Project of Information Benefiting the People” policy is adopted as an exogenous policy shock for digital government construction, and the empirical analysis of the mechanism of digital government empowering social governance is conducted using methods such as double difference-in-differences (DID) and regression discontinuity (RD). The study found that after the implementation of the “National Pilot Project of Information Benefiting the People” policy, the level of social governance in the pilot areas has been significantly improved. The construction of digital government will promote the participation of social subjects in public affairs decision-making by improving the use of the Internet, improve the efficiency of social governance, reduce the perception of uncertainty, and amplify the social governance effect of “National Pilot Project of Information Benefiting the People”. At the same time, the impact of digital government on social governance will be restricted by factors such as policy lag effect and show significant heterogeneity. In order to continuously and efficiently empower social governance, in the future, China should promote and improve the construction of a digital government by ensuring comprehensive digital governance coverage, strengthening digital empowerment, motivating officials to take proactive actions, and enhancing public participation.

Key words: Digital government, Social governance, National trial of information benefiting the people, Quasi-natural experiment, Internet use