POLITICAL GOVERNANCE: A HYBRID SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

Political governance has become a strategic issue in contemporary governance studies, in light of political transformation, the digitalisation of government, challenges to democracy, and growing demands for transparency and public accountability. However, the literature on political governance remains fragmented across themes such as collaborative governance, digital governance, sustainability governance, political economy, and public policy. This study aims to map the intellectual structure, thematic evolution, research trends, and future research directions through a hybrid approach combining a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) and bibliometric analysis. The study utilises the PRISMA framework and bibliometric analysis based on Scopus data with the aid of VOSviewer. The analysis focuses on publication trends, co-occurring keywords, collaboration networks, influential authors, and dominant thematic clusters. The results indicate that research on political governance has shifted from traditional public administration towards a more collaborative, participatory, digital, and sustainability-oriented form of governance. The dominant themes include governance approaches, democracy, political economy, policy-making, local government, transparency, and digital governance. The bibliometric mapping also reveals links between governance and AI, public health, decentralisation, and global governance. Furthermore, this study identifies significant gaps regarding algorithmic governance, AI ethics, cybersecurity, and the integration of sustainability into modern governance. This research contributes to mapping the intellectual structure and direction of development in political governance whilst providing theoretical and practical implications for the development of governance in an increasingly complex global era.