**1. Introduction**

Blockchain technology (BT) is an emergent technology that is being adopted and considered for its key features of decentralisation, peer-to-peer authentication, persistency, anonymity and auditability [1]. Other attractive features include its openness, extensibility and anonymity in transactions [2, 3]. Some authors have even suggested that blockchain is comparable to a legal institution in its own right [4].

These BT features are value-laden as each feature presupposes certain belief systems, meaning that BT adoption is accompanied by the social meanings embedded in the technology [5]. There is, therefore, bound to be a clash of social structures when BTs are implemented [6–8].

This study illustrates BT adoption through the lens of actor-network theory (ANT) [9, 10]. ANT represents the complex socio-technical world [11] in which new technologies such as blockchains are introduced based on the interests of different actors – human and non-human [12, 13]. More specifically in the public sector, the adoption of BT as part of digital government efforts, though seemingly ideal, has mainly focused on the technological aspects at the expense of the transformatory potential inherent in the technology [14]. Institutionalising such technologies as part of digital government efforts implicitly involves introducing extrinsic social structures that are embedded in the digital technologies [15, 16]. For example, BT is recommended by the United Nations as an essential low-cost approach to digital government in low-income countries without considering the associated social transformatory effects and the resistance to such changes [14, 17].

The primary objective of this chapter, therefore, was to identify the suitability of ANT as a tool to holistically adopt BT in the context of digital government. The secondary objective was to assess the influence of ANT as an organising theory for the adoption of blockchain in digital government efforts. Specifically, the study seeks to answer the question, 'How can ANT inform the implementation of BT in the public sector?'

The remainder of the chapter is structured as follows: The next section presents the literature on ANT and BT. It is followed by a section that maps BT to ANT terminology and then offers an illustration using a case study from Sudan's land registration. Analysis and discussion of the illustration are then presented. The final section provides conclusions and recommendations on the efficacy of ANT as a lens through which to introduce BT into digital government.
