Abstract: It is an important proposition that information technology promotes the innovation of governance. Existing studies focus on the approaches and effect, but do not fully explain how "promotion" occurs. Based on the different understanding of causality, this paper constructs a theoretical model about promotion types, and then takes it as a framework for systematic discussion combined with empirical materials. The research shows that information technology can play five basic roles in the innovation of governance, such as construction (as the independent variable), catalysis (as the moderating variable), bridging (as the mediating variable), synergy (as the covariant variable) and triggering (as the instrumental variable). In the future, the specific situation of innovation is worth paying attention to and the follow-up research on "what kind of promotion will occur under what conditions" will likely be carried out.

摘要： 信息技术促进政府治理创新是国家治理现代化视阈下的一个重要命题。既有相关研究侧重介绍了信息技术发挥作用的方式和效果，却并未充分阐明“促进”本身是如何发生。针对这一问题，本文从学界对因果关系的不同理解出发，基于变量类型构建了一个关于信息技术促进政府治理创新的理论模型，然后以此“促进”模型为框架，结合现实案例和经验材料进行了系统讨论。研究认为，信息技术之于政府治理创新，可以起到建构（作为自变量）、催化（作为调节变量）、桥接（作为中介变量）、协同（作为协变量）、触发（作为工具变量）等五种作用。展望未来，可以关注创新发生的具体情境，就“什么条件下会发生哪种促进”的问题开展后续研究。