Hoorcollege 1 – Governance and digitalisation
What is governance?
“Governance is a change in the role of the state from intervention and control, to steering and
coordination.” (Bevir, 2010)
What is digitalisation?
“Digitalisation is a digital transformation that includes a number of interconnected and evolving
technologies.” (OECD)
Digital technologies
Examples:
Bodycams
Robots
Apps
Sensors
Digitalisation
Each day:
o 500 million Tweets
o 294 billion emails
o 4 million gigabytes of Facebook data
o 65 billion WhatsApp messages
o 3,5 billion Google searches
o 4 TBs of data produced by connected cars
59 times increase each year
o = 463 EB of data created everyday by 2025
o In about 150 years More energy than globe is currently able to produce for all
human activities.
Substitute, replace or transform? (Lember, 2018)
Substitute = The technology joins the existing technologies as a second option, normally
displacing it partially.
o Emails, smartwatches.
Replace = The technology rivals existing technologies to the extent that the rivals disappear.
o Mobile phones, travel cards.
Transform = The technology offers something totally new that wasn’t available before.
o Social media, artificial intelligence.
What is it about digital that makes it special?
Digital affordances:
It is faster and cheaper.
It is programmable using code. You can recode it into something else.
It is more accommodating to a different range of types of data and technologies being
incorporated into the same network. This is often referred to as the ‘Internet of Things’.
Instantaneous communication possible through multiple platforms.
Digital code is traceable and replicable.
,How does digitalisation influence governance?
Adoption Evolution Impacts
(Homburg) (West) (Gil-Garcia et al.)
The adoption perspective – Vincent Homburg
Advocates a ‘social shaping of technology-perspective’.
Factors that drive adoption (why would government adopt technologies?):
o Citizens.
o Stakeholders pressure and organisational search.
o Interaction between the two above.
Framing where ideas get embedded.
o Policy makers are motivated to do things in a way that frames them to the public. So,
every time a policy maker is speaking, they think very carefully about how the public
will perceive what they tell. They’re trying to make it sound as good as they can
(within a bad situation).
o If the government is doing something impressive (like online voting for a
referendum), policy makers are going through a process of normative framing on
how these technologies are working and how they should work.
Social integration where staff and public accept the changes.
The evolutionary perspective – Darell West
As human society gets more and more technological, the impacts are only going to be
magnified.
o “We’re going through different steps of evolution.”
We know, for example, what impact the printing press had and what impact television had.
Set standards about what technology should be able to deliver for us if we are using it
correctly.
o Helpful because they give us a way to prepare and they also provide a kind of
benchmark to see how we are performing against expectations.
The evolutionary steps:
1. Billboard phase.
o Website and email.
o They tell you things, but you can’t do anything with it.
2. Partial service delivery phase.
o Pay parking and buy library card.
o You can actually do something with it, like filling in a form and submit it.
3. Portal stage.
o Digital ID systems.
o Government has evolved to a stage where lots of departments collaborate.
4. Interactive democracy.
, o Deliberation and co-production.
The impacts perspective – Ramon Gil-Garcia et al.
“Governments depend on the collection, storage, and processing of information to fulfil their
mission.”
Thus, there is a huge potential, but real impacts depend on how institutions and
organisations use the technology.
Scholars have difficulty thinking about socials and technical aspects of technology together.
o As a result: technological determinism or social determinism.
o Instead, we need the ‘ensemble view’ which views technology as an embedded
system. A dynamic interaction.
Concluding the three perspectives
So, there are three perspectives who all look at different aspects, but they all have one idea in
common. They all think that technological and social dimensions of governance should be
considered together.
Two different deterministic approaches
1. Technological determinism:
o Can bring about powerful change.
o Assumes that technology has its own agency.
o It is either a single independent variable or the main variable in a causal mix.
2. Social determinism:
o Focuses on the limiting factors of technology.
o Human action is always what creates social change.
o Technology is itself a social output.
Conclusions
Digital technologies are growing in sophistication and influence.
There are certain unique things (affordances) about digital technology that make it powerful.
We can evaluate the influence of digital technology on governance by either looking at
technical or human factors.
Digital technology can substitute, replace or transform.
We should not fall into the trap of technological or social determinism.
What is governance?
“Governance is a change in the role of the state from intervention and control, to steering and
coordination.” (Bevir, 2010)
What is digitalisation?
“Digitalisation is a digital transformation that includes a number of interconnected and evolving
technologies.” (OECD)
Digital technologies
Examples:
Bodycams
Robots
Apps
Sensors
Digitalisation
Each day:
o 500 million Tweets
o 294 billion emails
o 4 million gigabytes of Facebook data
o 65 billion WhatsApp messages
o 3,5 billion Google searches
o 4 TBs of data produced by connected cars
59 times increase each year
o = 463 EB of data created everyday by 2025
o In about 150 years More energy than globe is currently able to produce for all
human activities.
Substitute, replace or transform? (Lember, 2018)
Substitute = The technology joins the existing technologies as a second option, normally
displacing it partially.
o Emails, smartwatches.
Replace = The technology rivals existing technologies to the extent that the rivals disappear.
o Mobile phones, travel cards.
Transform = The technology offers something totally new that wasn’t available before.
o Social media, artificial intelligence.
What is it about digital that makes it special?
Digital affordances:
It is faster and cheaper.
It is programmable using code. You can recode it into something else.
It is more accommodating to a different range of types of data and technologies being
incorporated into the same network. This is often referred to as the ‘Internet of Things’.
Instantaneous communication possible through multiple platforms.
Digital code is traceable and replicable.
,How does digitalisation influence governance?
Adoption Evolution Impacts
(Homburg) (West) (Gil-Garcia et al.)
The adoption perspective – Vincent Homburg
Advocates a ‘social shaping of technology-perspective’.
Factors that drive adoption (why would government adopt technologies?):
o Citizens.
o Stakeholders pressure and organisational search.
o Interaction between the two above.
Framing where ideas get embedded.
o Policy makers are motivated to do things in a way that frames them to the public. So,
every time a policy maker is speaking, they think very carefully about how the public
will perceive what they tell. They’re trying to make it sound as good as they can
(within a bad situation).
o If the government is doing something impressive (like online voting for a
referendum), policy makers are going through a process of normative framing on
how these technologies are working and how they should work.
Social integration where staff and public accept the changes.
The evolutionary perspective – Darell West
As human society gets more and more technological, the impacts are only going to be
magnified.
o “We’re going through different steps of evolution.”
We know, for example, what impact the printing press had and what impact television had.
Set standards about what technology should be able to deliver for us if we are using it
correctly.
o Helpful because they give us a way to prepare and they also provide a kind of
benchmark to see how we are performing against expectations.
The evolutionary steps:
1. Billboard phase.
o Website and email.
o They tell you things, but you can’t do anything with it.
2. Partial service delivery phase.
o Pay parking and buy library card.
o You can actually do something with it, like filling in a form and submit it.
3. Portal stage.
o Digital ID systems.
o Government has evolved to a stage where lots of departments collaborate.
4. Interactive democracy.
, o Deliberation and co-production.
The impacts perspective – Ramon Gil-Garcia et al.
“Governments depend on the collection, storage, and processing of information to fulfil their
mission.”
Thus, there is a huge potential, but real impacts depend on how institutions and
organisations use the technology.
Scholars have difficulty thinking about socials and technical aspects of technology together.
o As a result: technological determinism or social determinism.
o Instead, we need the ‘ensemble view’ which views technology as an embedded
system. A dynamic interaction.
Concluding the three perspectives
So, there are three perspectives who all look at different aspects, but they all have one idea in
common. They all think that technological and social dimensions of governance should be
considered together.
Two different deterministic approaches
1. Technological determinism:
o Can bring about powerful change.
o Assumes that technology has its own agency.
o It is either a single independent variable or the main variable in a causal mix.
2. Social determinism:
o Focuses on the limiting factors of technology.
o Human action is always what creates social change.
o Technology is itself a social output.
Conclusions
Digital technologies are growing in sophistication and influence.
There are certain unique things (affordances) about digital technology that make it powerful.
We can evaluate the influence of digital technology on governance by either looking at
technical or human factors.
Digital technology can substitute, replace or transform.
We should not fall into the trap of technological or social determinism.
