From Machinery to Mobility

Government and Democracy in a Participative Age

verfasst von: Jeffrey Roy

Verlag: Springer New York

Buchreihe : Public Administration and Information Technology

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

The Westminster-stylized model of Parliamentary democratic governance is out of step with today’s digitally and socially networked world. The resulting context for public sector governance brings both promise and peril – with profound consequences for public servants, elected officials, and citizens alike. This book presents a timely and thorough examination of the main sources of tension between the political and administrative foundations of the traditional state apparatus, commonly referred to as ‘machinery’, and newly emerging alternative governance mindsets and mechanisms driven by the advent of ‘mobility’. Consistent with the emergence of Government 2.0, some of the critical technological and organizational dimensions of mobility include openness, cloud computing, privacy and security, and social media. Furthermore, a more informed, educated, and connected citizenry creates new pressures and opportunities for public engagement, particularly online. Blending conceptual and empirical perspectives from Canada and many other jurisdictions around the world, this book aims to provide scholars, students, and practitioners of democratic and public sector governance with fresh insight into both the prospects for reform and the critical choices that lie ahead for governments and citizens in an increasingly mobile and participative age.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. Introduction

Abstract

Governments around the world face are seeking to leverage digital technologies in order to improve operational and democratic governance: there are both promise and peril. The still nascent era of mobility, characterized by the expansion of cloud-computing platforms, social media venues, and smaller and more portable and powerful “smart” devices, challenges many of the traditional structures and values that have come to shape politics, public sector operations, and the changing interface between the two. Macro tensions between centralization and democratization, furthermore, are evident beyond the realm of government throughout much of the world.

Jeffrey Roy

Chapter 2. Bureaucracy Versus Mobility

Abstract

New forms of collaborative and open leadership are becoming an imperative as an increasingly networked and online society takes hold. Yet the political contours of political life in a digital world are often centralizing in many respects, constraining the emergence and traction of new forms of leadership and new governance models. Whereas mobility promotes and personifies openness and networks, the political and organizational foundations of the “machinery” of government are secrecy and bureaucracy. Understanding this clash is central to dissecting the challenges faced by the public sector today—a precursor to orchestrating any adaptation that must find ways to refurbish rather than abandon traditional public sector underpinnings with respect to behavioral values and culture and organizational and political structures.

Jeffrey Roy

Chapter 3. Cognition and Place

Abstract

Viewed through a bureaucratic prism, a mobile workforce is unwieldy, uncontrollable, and unproductive. Conversely, a central premise of mobility is precisely the opposite—namely that bureaucracy is poorly suited to collaboration and engagement, much as its ethos of control runs counter to today’s imperative of empowerment. An environment of heightened mobility and virtualization necessitates alterations to the intellectual, physical, and organizational dimensions of organizational activity for public servants working within the confines of government. Yet despite a growing online universe and widening virtualization, the importance of geographic proximity remains a central element of socioeconomic development and public sector organization. Such tensions between the traditional patterns of place (and the physicality of both organizational and jurisdictional governance models) and more virtual communications and interactivity are central to tensions between machinery and mobility.

Jeffrey Roy

Chapter 4. Openness and Ownership

Abstract

Despite the steady expansion of the Internet globally and corresponding promises of e-government to usher in a new era of public sector transparency and heightened accountability, there are widening signs of public distrust. The interplay between evolving societies in the still-nascent mobility era and their democratic systems is at the very least in flux, with contemporary forces for transparency and participation rooted in wider shifts in behavior and values being driven by the spreading of digital infrastructure. Moreover, it is not merely the existence of this infrastructure—but how it is assembled and shared in an environment increasingly characterized by technological contestation between proprietary ownership of information and intellectual property and open-sourced platforms, where secrecy and control are shunned and viewed as exceptions rather than norms.

Jeffrey Roy

Chapter 5. Cybersecurity

Abstract

The Internet facilitates a level of interoperability among individuals, organizations, sectors, and countries that generates widening opportunities for collaboration and innovation. Digital infrastructure is rapidly becoming the lifeblood of a more virtual and interdependent globalizing economy, as every major industrial sector widens its reliance on electronic systems and online connectivity. At the same time, online and virtual threats to organizations in all sectors have become a way of virtual life. Facing increasingly frequent threats externally, governments carry the dual responsibilities of safeguarding their own infrastructures and information holdings as well as overseeing the digital resilience of their jurisdictions as a whole.

Jeffrey Roy

Chapter 6. Payments and Privacy

Abstract

Electronic commerce is owed to a dynamic of competitive openness about product and service information on the one hand and the efficiency and convenience of transacting online on the other hand. The first point often distinguishes private sector offerings from those of government, whereas the latter enjoins both sectors in important ways such as the basic enabling requirement of cyber-security. The central nexus between online security and trust explains the multichannel realities of service architectures in both sectors. Confidence in online mechanisms for transacting payment and product and service information is essential. With the advent of mobility, the emergence of the so-called digital wallet creates new opportunities and challenges with respect to electronic payments, identity management, and information security and privacy.

Jeffrey Roy

Chapter 7. Deliberation and Engagement

Abstract

In parallel to more open and participative governance movements associated with mobility, there has been widening interest in linking the Internet with new forms of democracy. Underpinned by the wider canvas of the democratization of information across societies, proponents of reform and critics of the status quo have thus sought to foster an alternative paradigm less rooted in historical foundations and increments of change and more aligned with more virtual realities. Fueled by the widening capacities for spontaneous and grassroots mobilization, any such reform project nonetheless faces stiff head winds stemming from tensions between machinery and mobility. At the core of such tensions in terms of democratic processes is the challenge of deliberation.

Jeffrey Roy

Chapter 8. Austerity and Federalism

Abstract

Perhaps nowhere is the cleavage between novel forms of democratic engagement and the inertia of more entrenched and traditional practices greater than in the realm of fiscal planning and budgeting and the manner by which governments undertake and seek approval for their spending plans. On the one hand, over the past decade there have been widening calls for more participative experimentation in budgeting exercises. By contrast, with respect to the fundamental secrecy and top-down decision-making inherent to the Westminster model, governments have not strayed far from traditional practices—particularly at national levels. Accordingly, fiscal federalism and corresponding tensions between localized flexibility and innovation and national-centric models of democracy and government, often more rigid and traditionally hierarchical, are key determinants of public sector adaptation as mobility expands.

Jeffrey Roy

Backmatter

Titel: From Machinery to Mobility
verfasst von: Jeffrey Roy
Verlag: Springer New York
Electronic ISBN: 978-1-4614-7221-6
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-7220-9
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7221-6