When the State Goes Digital

Gopal, Ganesh. When the State Goes Digital. New York: Institute for the Cooperative Digital Economy, 2026.

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Gopal’s report thinks through the expanding role of the state in digital platform economies, focusing on public and cooperative alternatives to investor-owned platforms. Through comparative case studies across India, South Korea, Brazil, and China, Ganesh Gopal suggests that outcomes depend less on state involvement itself than on governance design, infrastructural autonomy, and market conditions. Stalled platforms such as Kerala Savaari (India) and BaedalTeukgeup (S Korea) demonstrate constraints including bureaucratic centralization and market dominance. At the same time, Coomappa (Brazil) shows infrastructural dependence despite democratic ownership. Successful models like Shouqi Yueche (China) and Taxi.Rio (Brazil) achieve scale but sacrifice worker governance. This ICDE report concludes that viable hybrid platform cooperatives requires institutional designs that enable state support without undermining democratic control.