Class notes
College aantekeningen Governance and Digitalisation
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These are my notes from all 7 courses in the Governance and Digitalisation course. The notes are in English.
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Lectures Governance andDigitalisation
Lecture 1 - Introducing governance and digitalisation
- Why do techniques have impact on governance?
- We think of something programmable, fast moving when we think of
digital.
- Digital technologies are contrasted with analogue technologies
-> most types of communication technologies and media until 30 years
ago were analogue transmitting information in complete form through
electric signals.
-> with digital you transmit very small components that together become
a whole made up of series of 0’s and 1’s
-> can be repeatedly broken down and reformed into new information.
-> can be stored for langer and more cheaply (e.g. on very small micro-
chips)
-> can be reused and combined in new forms (code reused to make new
apps) because fundamental basis is 0’s and 1’s.
-> possible to share at speed, to multiple devices over long distances on
the internet
so digital is much more powerful than analogue (quick, malleable, easily
stored on small devices and social) basis of digital revolution.
- Digitalisation is a digital transformation that “includes a number of
interconnected and evolving technologies” (OECD) sum product of using
these digital tools over time.
-> impact of digitalisation each day 500 million tweets, 294 billion
emails, 4 million gigabytes Facebook data, 65 billion WhatsApp messages,
3,5 billion Google Searches, etc.
-> we are producing masses of data because of the digital devices we
have.
- An exponential increase of data 59 increase each year.
-> Moore’s Law: 2 fold increase every 2 years (approximately)
-> so in about 150 years more energy than globe currently able to produce
for all activities environmental consequences (just to store and manage
all the data)
- Governance is a change in the role of the state from intervention and
control to steering and coordination.
-> less about government (more hierarchical concept), more about
governance (because scale of challenges require more collaboration with
other actors beside the government)
- How do digitalisations and governance intersect and overlap with each
other? Some questions that follow:
-> where do we see the best innovations taking place in the public sector?
-> what do governments need to do to control digitalisation and put it to
good use?
-> what role do tech companies play in governance? (control most of the
, data, do they play a bigger role in our future?)
-> are all citizens getting equal benefits from the digital revolution? (are
they affecting some people more than others?)
-> can we let technologies (such as AI) govern in place of humans? (so
much data and types of AI that can intelligently interpret data and make
decisions, maybe they are better than we are)
- Some digital technologies where governance and digitalisation meet:
- Blockchain technology that’s behind crypto-currency, but can be used in
every area you can think off, you can make a digital transaction that
becomes visible for everyone who makes the transaction, but that
information gets stores in the blockchain (record of all transactions) and
can’t be changed
-> removes the need for intermediaries, distributed network where
everyone who uses it has access to the data they need
-> no need for a bank in bitcoin for example, because of encryption
-> besides crypto, we can talk about university degrees (it would be a way
to give it validity, certify that someone is the owner and it is visible but
unchangeable), or marriage contracts.
- But also bodycams, robots, biometrics, apps, sensors
Substitute, replace or transform
- When we look at the impact of technologies, there are different levels of
success they can have.
1. Flop
-> the technology won’t work or won’t get much use.
-> for example: Google Glass, hoverboards
2. Substitute
-> the technology joins the existing technologies as a second option,
normally displacing it partially.
-> for example: e-mail (people still write letters), smart watches
(people still wear normal watches)
3. Replace
-> the technology rivals existing technologies to the extent that the
rivals disappear
-> for example: mobile phones (almost no one uses landlines), travel
cards
4. Transform
-> the technology offers something totally new that wasn’t available
before.
-> slightly fuzzy, something like social media can be transformative,
but it could also be a replacement of for example news sharing.
-> for example: social media, artificial intelligence
,Why do technologies have an impact?
- Technological determinism
-> happen because of the properties of the technology itself (blockchain
fact that it enables everything to be encrypted, unchangeable and
transparent)
-> can bring about powerful change
-> assumes that technology has its own agency
-> it is either a single independent variable or the main variable in a
causal mix
- Social determinism
-> that focus on technology itself not sufficient, way it is being used more
important
-> focus on the limiting factors of technologies (just a tool, in itself it
doesn’t do anything governments need to make legislation or
institutions need to bring it to use)
-> human action is always what creates social change
-> technology it itself a social product
Technological determinism
- Darrell West; looking back at history
-> hard to look at the impact without looking at what the technology did.
-> the institutions had a role, but the technology is what did it.
- A human society gets more and more technological and the impacts are
only going to be magnified.
- We know, for example, what impact the printing press had a what impact
television had.
- If we use it properly, we already know what kind of benefits technology will
give us.
- 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.
- Example, Amazon:
-> natural result of the technology (internet) determined what is possible
for Amazon.
-> with streaming and interactive systems that allow users to share their
own content and to use it in a social way (writing reviews, personalising
content) allows Amazon to be a huge conglomerate.
-> is applicable to government.
- West has fases of technological determinism in government:
, 1. Billboard phase
-> governments just use websites that aren’t interactive but just share
information.
2. Partial service delivery
-> start to enable you to get services through websites.
-> for example, apply for parking permit, make appointments
3. Portal stage
-> digital ID systems (whole range of systems brought to one place,
DigiD)
4. Interactive democracy
-> deliberation and co-production (just in the same way these changes
have enabled these earlier stages, we will be able to move to the
interactive democracy)
-> supposedly based on the ability of apps and social media to enable
more discussion and collaboration with citizens (make it more
democratic)
-> most controversial in West’s view, because this final stage has not
taken place not been happening anywhere.
Social-technical approach
- Ramon Gil-Garcia
-> if you have a different set of institutions, you will most likely not go
through the stages of West.
- Technologies are powerful, but so too is the way that we use them
-> sometimes the role of technology gets ignored (social determinism)
such as for example in discussion about fake news and polarization.
-> way that technologies are being used depends on the type of
institutions that there are in government (autocratic form of government,
the way we use and apply technology will be very different from what
West proposed with his evolutionary stages)
- Scholars have difficulty thinking about social and technical aspects of
technology together. As a result: technological determinism or social
determinism.
- Instead, we need the ‘ensemble view’ which views technology as an
embedded system dynamic interaction.
-> yes, we have all these kinds of technological capacities, but also social
and political institutions that make decisions about how these are used in
society.
- Technologies might substitute, replace or transform but it can only be
this if… there is the right government culture, institutions, etc.
-> so it combines social and technical determinism.
Conclusions
- Data and digital technologies are growing in sophistication and influence
- There are certain unique things (affordances) about digital technology that
make it powerful
- Digital technology can substitute, replace or transform governance
- We can evaluate the influence of digital technology on governance by
either looking at technical or social determinants
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