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Chapter 8 Outline

digdom — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:49:58 +0000

Chapter 8 – Executives and Bureaucracies (E-government)

· The Origins of E-government

o Concept of Internet connectivity in public administration policy can be used to “improve efficiency, cut costs, and change the way governments have traditionally interacted with citizens

o Developed initially by US and UK and later on by EU

o Defining E-Governmant:

§ “the use of Internet technology and protocols to transform agency effectiveness, efficiency, and service quality” (Mark Forman, OMB)

§ “E-government, if implemented properly, can improve current government services, increase accountability, result in more accurate and efficient delivery of services, reduce administrative costs and time spent on repetitive tasks for government employees, facilitate greater transparency in the administration of government, and allow greater access to services due to the around the clock availability of the Internet.” (Chadwick)

§ Government-to-Government functionality

· Facilitate better coordination between government institutions

§ Government-to-Business functionality

· Increase awareness of and facilitate purchase of services between the public sector and private business.

§ Government-to-Citizen functionality

· Allow access to government information, government services, and channels of participation.

o The United States

§ National Performance Review (1993) initiated e-gov projects

§ Firstgov – gov portal – launched in 2000

§ E-government agenda developed heavily by executive branch

§ Clinton administration believed the Internet could transform citizen-government relations

§ Future speculation that customers would not need to have knowledge of the structure of government but would instead be able to transact on the basis of a number of clearly identifiable service themes

§ Adherence to ‘public management’ approach to e-government. Customer-driven model (not citizen/government/producer driven)

o The United Kingdom

§ Basic aims of e-gov project: to provide better and more efficient services to business and to citizens; improve the efficiency and openness of government administration, and secure substantial cost savings for the taxpayer.

§ Little consideration for how the Net might provide for greater citizen influence on policy making

§ Aim of government was to emulate private sector practices which involve innovative use of technologies in ‘knowledge management’

· The Promises and Paradoxes of E-government

o Popular systems in the 1970s included: databases, fiscal management systems, fiscal budgeting systems, and inventories of government property.

o E-government has roots outside of the scholarly domain, in institutional gray papers endorsing public management strategies

o Cost Reduction

§ Most savings supposedly arise from switches from paper-based to web-based systems

§ Some industrializing countries are embracing e-government in order to reduce corruption

§ Other countries such as China are seizing upon e-government’s ability to cut bureaucratic costs

§ Savings from reduction of staff levels

§ In reality costs have risen or stayed the same due to difficulties in implementing new technologies

§ Private sector experiences have not proved analogous to e-government

§ Public sector cannot justify job losses as easily

§ In developing countries, workers are cheaper than technology

o Coordination

§ E-government provides a means of integrating diverse components of the state bureaucracy through networked teamwork while simultaneously empowering workers by enhancing their ability to make decisions

§ Examples include www.business.gov, www.seniors.gov, and www.consumer.gov

§ Set-backs emerge due to departmental resistance and initial costs.

§ Also there are constitutional concerns when joining up separate parts of government.

o Effectiveness

§ Internet and E-government may result in a flattening of hierarchic power-structures and a more flexible and dynamic decision-making framework

§ Concerns for privacy and other civil rights when beefing up the government’s effectiveness

§ Networks within pre-existing institutional structures appear harder to integrate than between independent organizations

· E-government as Democratization

o Government Websites: Interactivity and Opportunities for Deliberation

§ Across all policy sectors, early studies found the scores for interaction and potential for deliberation to be low

o Outward facing networks

§ Systems should be outward facing networks in which the boundaries between an organization’s internal information processing and its external users effectively melt away.

o The blurring of Executive and Legislative functions

§ E-government raises issues of accountability along with the idea that elected representatives may become disintermediated.

§ Bureaucracies increasingly use administrative technologies to police themselves, decreasing the need for external accountability checks

o Democratization of Design

§ Possibility to allow citizens to design some of the e-government’s outward facing or non-sensitive utilities.

digdom — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:07:18 +0000

Research Paper

Quiz 1

digdom — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:36:02 +0000

Why do we study Internet politics?

We study internet politics because content and activity on the Internet is becoming increasingly more politicized. New actors are using the Internet in innovative ways in growing numbers. Studying Internet politics aims to understand how this new communication medium affects politics.

What is the Internet?

The Internet is a decentralized network of networks which allows users to access and create content online using established standards and protocols.

What are push technologies?

Push technologies force content from producers to consumers who do not have much ability to control or influence the nature of what they consume.

What are pull technologies?

Pull technologies allow consumers to also be producers so that they can create and influence the content they desire.

Is the Internet a technology of Freedom or a technology of control?

Social determinists would argue that the Internet and technology in general is not inherently liberating or enslaving. Instead, the Internet has been used by individuals in ways which both promote democracy, such as in Scandinavia, and also to control information, such as in China. Nevertheless, the way in which the Internet has taken form in most of the world, due to the creation of certain standards and protocols which regulate how the Internet works, has enabled many users the freedom to explore and create content on the Web.

Putnam argues that the process of generational change in America has eroded the mass membership of voluntary associations and reduced (S… C… ), debilitating the ability of communities to work together to solve common problems.

Social Capital

We assume that parliamentary websites should ideally serve two primary functions in a democratic political system: Identify them

The top-down function of providing information about the nature and activities of the parliament and…

The bottom-up function of facilitating debate and communication from the public to members of the parliament.

What is Fragmentation thesis in the political communication studies?

Fragmentation is the polarization of thought and debate into secluded “schools of thought” or Internet cultures which, instead of promoting open argument, simply reinforce their own ideology. Individuals seek out “like-minded” communities and do not attempt to understand other perspectives. Forums become “echo chambers” instead of spaces for deliberation.

Define post industrialism thesis in Internet politics

Post-industrial societies have witnessed the emergence of new values and new non-material needs. These new values ignore traditional institutions and instead coalesce, often through the Internet’s communicative structure, around more specific and personal issues. Thus, politics on the Internet in post-industrial societies will see more engagement with special interest topics, such as campaigns against land-mines or genetically-modified foods.

What have you learnt from this course right now?

I have learned how theoretical approaches such as social and technological determinism attempt to explain the nature of the Internet and how this relates to the ‘democratic’ nature of the Internet. I have also learned of historical facts concerning the Middle East and the Internet, such as how Arab states have attempted to control and regulate information on the Internet, how Western entertainment is often easily pirated and distributed throughout the region, or how Moroccans are typically wary of purchasing anything online. The course has also taught me several skills in using such online tools as Google applications and blogs.

Chapter 2 – Internet Politics

digdom — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:30:04 +0000

The Political Nature of Technologies
- Technological Determinism
  - Certain technologies “embody specific norms”
  - The idea that technological forms have their own inherent properties and that these are beyond the scope of human intervention.
  - Some Marxist aspects – “the material basis of society is the primary motor of social, economic, and ultimately political change”
- Social Determinism
  - Technologically is initially politically neutral. Technology is shaped by social and political processes.
  - Only necessary to examine the power struggles and the influential groups, classes, individuals, and institutions which initiated and subsequently shaped technological change.
- Having it Both Ways
  - Exemplified by philosophy of Langdon Winner:
    - “The issues that divide or unite people in society are settled not only in the institutions and practices of politics proper, but also, and less obviously so, in tangible arrangements of steel and concrete, wires and semiconductors, nuts and bolts.”
- Code as Law
  - Lessig, Shapiro, and Reidenberg are scholars who have studied how the Internet’s architecture regulates Internet activity.
  - “In cyberspace we must understand how code regulates-how software and the hardware that make cyberspace what it is regulate cyberspace as it is.” (Lessig 1999)
  - Implies technology is powerful but not uncontrollable by human design. Code can be created and modified by humans, but once created, re-exerts influence over human behavior.
  - Term: means of architectural production
Eight Key Themes
- Decentralization
  - Emphasizes the Internet’s ability to remove traditional middle-men from social, political, and economic activity.
  - New middle-men, or gatekeepers, have also emerged to service new demands.
  - Fewer elite gatekeepers because of the Internet’s “low barriers of entry”
- Participation
  - Internet is seen, according to writers such as Barber (Strong Democracy), Habermas, and Dahl, to have the potential to increase citizen engagement in democracy, mobilizing a highly inclusive form of deliberative democracy, as opposed to representative democracy.
  - Nevertheless, the high rate of participation on the Internet has been thought to contribute to produce deeply segmented political associations, “echo chamber” forums, and an overload of information.
  - Blogs particularly appear to have increased participation and lowered apathy.
- Community
  - Following the premise “political apathy is a result of the withering away of community,” some believe the Internet can “reinvent community in cyberspace and greater levels of political participation will follow”
  - Internet also as the uncanny ability to create anonymity and detachment – a feature some users enjoy.
  - Faces the problem, “what is a desirable basis for community?”
    - Assumption 1: a healthy public sphere is a universal one in which opinions clash and conventional wisdom is challenged. (Sunstein)
    - Assumption 2: identity is the source of cohesion in any community and characterized by identity construction rituals, rule writing, and enforcement
  - Sustein, a critic, believes the fragmentation of the public sphere, due to narrowcasting, will erode the quality of the debate.
- Globalization
  - While cyberspace is a space where boundaries and topography exist, they are much weaker constraints on behavior than those in the physical world. This opens up new possibilities for forms of political action that subvert attempts by the powerful to control the spaces in which politics is conducted as well as refoncifugre the “geography of access”
- Postindustrialization
- Rationalization
- Governance
- Libertarianism

Is the Internet inherently democratic?

digdom — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:27:12 +0000

The Internet is not inherently anything. It is a product of its environment, of its technology, and of its time – all of these being variables. Those who praise the Internet for being inherently democratic are all also products of their environment and their time. They cannot remove themselves from their own context and imagine what the Internet could be. The Internet could have been nationalized into an American weapons platform. The Internet is still largely privatized and susceptible to undemocratic market forces. China’s political policies very effectively suppress a democratic Internet. It is questionable international legal bodies such as ICANN are representative of users emerging at the edge of the Digital Divide. The nature of the technology from which the Internet is built can also potentially restrict and limit user access and control. Cisco, a large networking company, provides essential hardware to China allowing the government to filter and block large amounts of information from the populace. Even software companies such as Google have had authoritarian terms dictated to them by China. As individual privacy becomes threatened more and more by governments and technology, so too will the liberties and privacy of Internet users. The Internet is still rooted in a physical reality which, given conceivable conditions, could create a very undemocratic virtual world.

Chapter 1 Outline

digdom — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:03:27 +0000

Chapter 1 – Introduction

Why Internet Politics?
- Because “the Internet is now more heavily politicized than at any time in its short history, and this trend is only likely to intensify.”
- Wide range of actors – political actors, states, economic actors, and internet-based subcultures
- Importance of political issues involving the Internet itself
  - Regulation of the Internet and Intellectual Property
  - Digital Divide
  - Online terrorist networks
- The internet modifies existing institutions
- The internet creates new institutions and is an institution
What is the Internet? Two Preliminary Answers
- Technical Answer
  - “Network of networks” linked together and communicating using standards and protocols.
- Comparative Answer
  - “Many-to-many” and “many-to-one” form of communication
- Possible platform for “convergence” where all previous forms of media are combined
- Empowers the marginalized
- Notoriously difficult medium to regulate (China as an exception)
The Size and Scope of the Internet
- Difficult to gather reliable, standardized data.
- Nevertheless, there is an undeniable and explosive trend in the growth of internet users and hosts
- China not as “world wide web” but as “China wide web” – see Economist article