This article examines a method for diagnosing governance imbalances that arise in the context of a transforming social environment caused by the digital transition. It is shown that the sustainability of governance outcomes is increasingly determined not by individual regulatory instruments, but by the configuration of operating conditions—institutional rules, the spatial organisation of interactions, digital access and control procedures, support infrastructure, and the normative foundations of legitimacy. In this regard, social architecture is understood as a causally significant configuration of the social environment that distributes opportunities and constraints for participants in the governance process, thereby shaping stable patterns of interaction and social trajectories.

The purpose of this article is to develop and demonstrate a method for diagnosing interlayer imbalances applicable to the tasks of sociology of governance. The methodological framework is based on institutional analysis, a configurational approach to causality, and research into infrastructures and technologically mediated social practices. Interlayer coherence is defined as the consistency of the institutional, spatial, normative-semantic, and digital layers of the environment in terms of goals, procedures, and interpretations.

A typology of imbalances and a system of diagnostic variables are proposed to identify where exactly failures occur: in rules, accessibility, digital interfaces, feedback, or participant expectations. A demonstration analysis is conducted using the digitalisation of state and municipal services and access identification procedures. The case is considered as a social architecture of access, where regulatory requirements, the Unified Identification and Authentication System (ESIA), digital and offline channels, service support, and user expectations must work in concert. To interpret user effects, published works on digital public governance and the digitalisation of feedback loops are used, as well as the results of a pilot test of diagnostic logic in several digital environments, providing additional support for the methodological validation of the proposed approach.

It is demonstrated that digital transition should be analysed not only as the introduction of electronic tools but also as a change in the conditions for implementing management decisions. The method can be used in the analysis of public services, digital services, and organisational regulations in cases where the outcome depends on the consistency and coordination of rules, infrastructure, interfaces, and participant expectations.

sociology of governance, social architectures, interlayer coherence, governance, institutional environment, digital infrastructure, social diagnostics

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