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Digital Era Government and Politics

Academic Year 2017-18, Hilary Term

Day and Time Mondays, Weeks 1-9, 09:15-11:15

Location Seminar Room, Oxford Internet Institute, 1 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3JS

Course Providers Dr Victoria Nash, OII, victoria.nash@oii.ox.ac.uk

Professor Philip Howard, OII, Philip.howard@oii.ox.ac.uk

Professor Helen Margetts, OII, helen.margetts@oii.ox.ac.uk

Prerequisites None

Background

In the digital era, political institutions, activities and relationships are increasingly mediated and shaped by the

technologies of information and communication. This paper examines the impact of the Internet and related

technologies on the core activities and institutions of government and politics and considers whether the

developing use of these technologies serves to reinforce, undermine or otherwise alter traditional political models

or patterns of behaviour.

Commentators have disagreed about the effect and importance of the internet and related technologies for

politics and government. Utopian accounts predict the transformation of political life through Internet-based

mediation, with ‘peer production’ and on-line networks enhancing political participation and technological

innovation driving policy innovation. In contrast, dystopian arguments emphasise the risks and dangers of

technologically strengthened government and the ‘database state’. A number of ‘politics-as-usual’ accounts

underplay the likelihood of technology-driven change and the importance of the internet for politics and political

theory, stressing that technologies reinforce existing relationships and inequalities. Meanwhile, mainstream

political science has tended to ignore the phenomenon, appearing to view technological development as policy

neutral with no profound implications for contemporary government and politics; many interesting questions

remain consequently under-explored, for example, regarding the changing viability of pluralist, elitist, market

liberal and cosmopolitan models of democracy.

This course aims to equip students with the theoretical tools and empirical evidence necessary to identify,

evaluate and critique these various positions and debates. It will enable students to investigate the implications of

the Internet and related technologies for political participation and government, reviewing available evidence and

new methodological approaches to the study of politics in the digital-era. Students will be asked to question and in

some cases re-assess traditional approaches to the study of government and democracy in the light of such

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evidence. The course thereby provides students with the toolkit of concepts, theories, methods and principles to

carry out ‘e-literate’ analysis of politics and policy and to conduct further postgraduate research in this field.

Course Objectives

By the end of the course, students should have an in-depth understanding of the changing nature of digital-era

governance and politics and the theoretical, practical and ethical questions surrounding the role of the Internet

and related technologies in political life. Specifically, students will:

Be able to understand and critically review theoretical approaches to digital-era governance and politics

and be aware of the key arguments and debates surrounding its implications for political participation,

policy-making and the shape of the contemporary state.

Have a sophisticated understanding of the potential for Internet technologies to shape political

relationships, activities and outcomes.

Be aware of the empirical evidence available to assess the role of Internet technologies in politics and

policy-making and to use it to question key micro-foundations of mainstream theoretical approaches.

Be familiar with the methodological tools necessary to research digital-era governance and politics

nationally and internationally, and be in a position to embark on further research in this field.

This paper does not assume prior knowledge or study of politics and government. Students will thus be introduced

to core concepts, theories and texts and will be expected to develop a significant degree of political fluency. In

addition, students will be required to read emerging approaches to digital-era governance and politics and will be

expected to critically assess this literature in the light of available empirical evidence. Reading lists and teaching

will be organized in such a way that students are exposed to traditional texts and new and emerging studies in

relation to each topic.

The course is international in scope. Due to the focus on democratic institutions and politics, the main countries

covered in readings and discussions will be liberal democratic states; however, students are welcome to bring in

examples from other states where appropriate.

Teaching Arrangements

The course is taught in eight weekly classes, each consisting of a lecture followed by student presentations and seminar discussion. The classes will meet in weeks 1-4 and 6-9 of Hilary term. Each student will be required to give one ten minute presentation on a specific aspect of the session topic or to

review the argument of one or more of the books under the additional readings for each session topic. Details of

these presentations will be agreed in Week 1.

From Week 2 onwards, core reading is indicated for each session of the course. In addition, we have listed some

introductory or classic texts for each of the topics covered. We ask students who have not previously studied

politics at postgraduate level to read at least one of these texts each week.

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Note

Students should note that over the course of the year, small changes may be made to the content, dates or

teaching arrangements set out in this reading list, at the course provider's discretion. These changes will be

communicated to students directly.

Assessment

Students will be assessed through a final essay that is no longer than 5000 words which must be submitted via

Weblearn by 12 noon of Monday of Week 1 of Trinity term (23 April).

Formative Assessment

All students will have to complete one short essay on any of the 8 topics covered (advised length: 1500-3000

words) for the purposes of formative assessment. This essay must be submitted via Plato by the end of Week 6

(Friday by 5pm). This essay will provide a means for students to obtain feedback on their progress before they

submit the final essay. Students will also be given feedback on their oral presentations.

Submission of Summative Assignments

The summative assignment for this course is due on Monday of Trinity Term Week 1 (23 April) by 12.00pm and

should be submitted electronically via the Assignment Submission WebLearn Site. The assignment should also be

submitted electronically by 5:00 pm on the same day to teaching@oii.ox.ac.uk . If anything goes wrong with your

submission, email teaching@oii.ox.ac.uk immediately. In cases where a technical fault that is later determined to

be a fault of the Weblearn system (and not a fault of your computer) prevents your submitting the assessment on

time, having a time stamped email message will help the Proctors determine if your assessment will be accepted.

Please note that you should not wait until the last minute to submit materials since Weblearn can run slowly at

peak submission times and this is not considered a technical fault.

Full instructions on using WebLearn for electronic submissions can be found on Plato under General Information.

There is also an FAQ page on the Assignment Submission WebLearn Site. Please note that work submitted after the

deadline will be processed in the standard manner and, in addition, the late submission will be reported to the

Proctors' Office. If a student is concerned that they will not meet the deadline they must contact their college

office or examinations school for advice. For details on the regulations for late and non-submissions please refer to

the Proctors website at https://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/proctors/examinations/candidates/.

Any student failing this assessment will need to follow the rules set out in the OII Examining Conventions regarding

re-submitting failed work.

Weekly topics

1. The nature of politics and democracy in the digital era

2. Digital citizenship and political (in)equality

3. Political representation

4. Political communication, agenda setting and public opinion

5. (Week free for reading and assessments)

6. Formal processes of political participation: parties, campaigns and elections

7. Civic engagement, social movements and collective action

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8. Digital-era government and bureaucracy

9. The digital nation state

Key to Readings

A reading list is given below for each class. Weekly items marked with an asterisk (*) are essential reading and

MUST be read by all students in preparation for the class. Items which are not marked with an asterisk are

additional readings which need only be consulted in the preparation of student presentations or for essays.

General Readings

Chadwick, Andrew

Internet Politics: States, Citizens and New Communication Technologies.

2006. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bennett, W. Lance, and

Alexandra Segerberg

The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization

of Contentious Politics. 2013. Cambridge University Press.

Bimber, Bruce

Information and American Democracy: Technology in the Evolution of

Political Power. 2003. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Margetts, H., John, P.,

Hale, S., & Yasseri, T.

Political Turbulence. 2015. Princeton University Press.

Week 1: The nature of politics and democracy in the digital era Instructor: Vicki Nash

In this session we will introduce and discuss key concepts which will be used throughout the course. We will look

at politics, public goods and democracy in particular, exploring democratic principles of popular control and

political equality of that control, as well as alternative models of democracy (pluralism, elitism, market liberalism).

Democratic institutions: the role of elections, legislatures, elected representatives, parties, bureaucracy and the

media in a democracy. Finally, we will discuss the general dimensions of an internet ‘effect’, in terms of the way

the appearance of new communications technology affects previously settled social practices.

Question: How might we start to assess the influence of the Internet on the extent to which a state may be

regarded as democratic?

Introductory texts to political science and democracy

Beetham, David Defining and Measuring Democracy. 1994. ECPR Sage Modern Politics Series

Volume 36. London: Sage.

Especially Chapter 2 by David Beetham

Dahl, Robert A. Democracy and its Critics. 1989. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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Core Reading

*Fung, A., Gilman,

H.R., & Shkabatur,

J.

“Six Models for the Internet & Politics”. 2013. International Studies Review. 15: 30-47.

*Farrell, Henry “The Consequences of the Internet for Politics” (2012) Annual Review of Political Science

15:35-52 (http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-polisci-030810-110815)

*Schmitter, P. C. &

Karl, T.L.

“What Democracy is…and Is Not.” 1991. Journal of Democracy, 2(3): 75-88.

Dahlberg, L. ‘Reconstructing Digital Democracy: An outline of four “positions”.’ (2011) New Media and

Society, 13 (6) 855-872

Week 2: Digital citizenship and political (in)equality Instructor: Vicki Nash

The expression of social differences as forms of political inequality have long been studied in political science. With

the advent of digital era government, the question arises whether traditional sources of inequality are reproduced

in digital form, or whether new patterns of political inequality have emerged. This question can be addressed at a

variety of levels, including longstanding debates about the persistence of digital divides and access to political

debate or services, as well as more nuanced consideration of how the voices of different groups are received in

online civic spaces, thus raising policy-relevant questions about how best to support equality in both formal and

informal opportunities for political engagement. This session will consider both examples of the available empirical

evidence as well as the potential policy implications of inequality in an era where government services and political

debate are increasingly ‘digital by default’.

Question: ‘Far from ensuring greater political equality, the move towards delivery of government services and

political engagement online will result in even more damaging forms of social and political exclusion’. Discuss.

Classic texts on citizenship, participation and (in)equality

S. Verba et al

Participation and Political Equality (1978)

R.J. Dalton Citizen Politics: Public Opinion and Political Parties in Advanced

Dryzek, John

Dunleavy, Patrick

Theories of the Democratic State. 2009. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Colomer, Joseph M. Political Science. 2010. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Goodin, R.E &

Klingemann, H-D.

A New Handbook of Political Science, esp. Chapter 1 (1996) (NB full text

available online via the Bodleian )

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Democracies, chapter 4 (2008 edition)

Burns, K. L Schlozman, S.

Verba

The Private Roots of Public Action (2001)

Core reading

*Robinson, L., Cotton, R.,

Ono, H., Quan-Haase, A.,

Mesch, G., & W. Chen.

(2015)

Digital Inequalities and Why they Matter. Information, Communication and Society,

18:5.

*Schlozman, K.L., Verba,

S. & Brady, H.E. (2010)

Weapon of the Strong? Participatory Inequality and the Internet in Perspectives on

Politics 8 (2): 487-509

*M. Xenos, A. Vromen &

B. D. Loader (2014)

The great equalizer? Patterns of social media use and youth political engagement in

three advanced democracies,

Information, Communication & Society, 17:2, 151-167

S. Levmore & M.C.

Nussbaum

The Offensive Internet: Speech, Privacy and Reputation 2012. Chapter by Nussbaum

Karen

Mossberger, Caroline J

Tolbert, Ramona S

Mcneal (2008)

Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society, and Participation.

D. Harp & M. Tremayne

(2006)

The Gendered Blogosphere: Examining Inequality using Network and Feminist Theory

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 83: 247

David S. Morris &

Jonathan S. Morris (2013)

Digital Inequality and Participation in the Political Process: Real or Imagined?

Social Science Computer Review

M.J. Stern & B.D. Rookey

(2013) The politics of new media, space and race: A socio-spatial analysis of the 2008

presidential election. New Media and Society 15 (4) 519-40

Week 3: Political representation Instructor: Vicki Nash

Democracy is about connecting popular will to the process of national government. The size of nations, and the

complexity of government, has meant that this connection has typically made through representation: appointing

individuals to make governing decisions on our behalf. Many of democracy’s fundamental problems result from

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the challenges that representation throws up: how can we appoint experts to act on our behalf, whilst

nevertheless retaining control over government? And many of the core institutions of democracy (such as

parliaments) are designed as ways of making representation work.

This session will discuss the process of representation in the internet era. We will discuss general theory of how

representation should work, before moving on to look at the use of innovations such as open data and social

media, critically assessing the extent to which they improve representation.

Question: Does the internet increase or decrease the need for representation in political processes?

Introductory texts on political representation

Kreppel, Amie Looking ‘Up’, ‘Down’ and ‘Sideways’: Understanding EU Institutions in

Context, West European Politics 34 (1), 167-179

Pitkin, Hanna “Representation and Democracy: Uneasy Alliance”, 2004, Scandinavian

Political Studies, 27(3), 335-342

Jane Mansbridge Rethinking Representation

Strom, Kaare Delegation and accountability in parliamentary democracies, 2000, European

Journal of Political Research, 37(3), 261-289

Core reading

*Leston Bandeira,

C and Bender, D

How Deeply are Parliaments Engaging on Social Media? 2013. Information

Polity, 18 (4). pp. 281-297. ISSN 1570-1255

*Maguire, Sean Can Data Deliver Better Government?, 2011, The Political Quarterly, 82(4),

522–525

*Jackson, Nigel and

Lilleker, Darren

Microblogging, Constituency Service and Impression Management: UK MPs

and the Use of Twitter, 2011, Journal of Legislative Studies, 17(1), 86-105

Griffith, Jeffrey and

Leston-Bandeira, Cristina

How Are Parliaments Using New Media to Engage with Citizens?, 2012,

Journal of Legislative Studies, 18(3-4), 496-513

Karatzia, Anastasi The European Citizens Initiative: Giving Voice to EU Citizens.

http://kslr.org.uk/blogs/europeanlaw/2013/05/15/the-european-citizens-

initiative-giving-voice-to-eu-citizens/#_ftn18

Ostling, Alina Parliamentary Informatics Projects: Who are their users and what is their

impact?, JeDEM 2012, 4(2), 279-300

Coleman, Stephen and

Blumler, Jay.

The Internet and Democratic Citizenship. 2008. Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 3.

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Week 4: Political communication, agenda setting and public opinion Instructor: Phil Howard

The way we receive political information has long been a vital part of the process of democracy. Communication from the news media, politicians, friends and family all help shape what we think are the important political issues of the day. The internet has both simplified and complicated the systems of political communication. The business model of traditional media actors, especially print newspapers, is under increasing threat, with print sales declining rapidly and revenue from online advertising not filling the gap. At the same time, a variety of new actors and new platforms are emerging. Bloggers, citizen journalists, news aggregators, and hacktivists all have roles in contemporary political communication. At the same time, social media makes the way we receive news highly problematic. In this session, we will discuss the democratic and undemocratic features of contemporary political communication systems.

Question: What does it mean to be an “informed citizen”?

Introductory texts on political communication, agenda setting, and the crisis of the news media

Bennett, W. Lance, and

Alexandra Segerberg

The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics. 2013. Cambridge University Press.

Gitlin, Todd The whole world is watching. 1980. Berkeley: University of California Press.

McCombs, Maxwell E.

Setting the Agenda: The Mass Media and Public Opinion. 2004. London:

Polity.

Wells, Chris The Civic Organization and the Digital Citizen: Communicating Engagement in a Networked Age. 2015. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Core reading

* Bennett, W. Lance, and

Alexandra Segerberg

“The Logic of Connective Action.” 2012. Information, Communication & Society. 15 (5): 739–68. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2012.670661.

* Pasek, Josh “Predicting Elections: Considering Tools to Pool the Polls.” 2015. Public Opinion Quarterly 79 (2): 594–619. doi:10.1093/poq/nfu060.

* Song, Hyunjin, and

William P. Eveland Jr.

“The Structure of Communication Networks Matters: How Network Diversity, Centrality, and Context Influence Political Ambivalence, Participation, and Knowledge.” 2015. Political Communication 32 (1): 83–108. doi:10.1080/10584609.2014.882462.

Bennett, W. L. and

Iyengar, S.

“A New Era of Minimal Effects? The Changing Foundations of Political Communication. Journal of Communication, 58: 707–731. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2008.00410.x

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Vesa, Juho, Helena

Blomberg, and Christian

Kroll

“Minimal and Massive! Politicians’ Views on the Media’s Political Agenda-Setting Power Revisited.” 2015. The International Journal of Press/Politics, March, 1940161215575391. doi:10.1177/1940161215575391

Servaes, Jan, and Rolien

Hoyng

“The Tools of Social Change: A Critique of Techno-Centric Development and Activism.” 2015. New Media & Society, September. doi:10.1177/1461444815604419.

Valerie Belair-Gagnon Social Media at BBC News: The Re-Making of Crisis Reporting. 2016. New York, NY: Routledge.

Week 5: BREAK

Week 6: Formal processes of political participation: parties, campaigns and elections Instructor: Phil Howard

The question of when and why people participate in the democratic process is one of the most vexed in all of political science. Economic theory suggests that, as the potential pay-offs from voting are very small, rationally speaking, no-one should vote; but people always have done, often in dangerous and difficult circumstances. Widespread use of the Internet has changed the context of traditional modes of political activity—voting and party politics. Against a backdrop of overall decline in voter turnout and party membership, some have argued that the Internet holds the potential for increasing voter participation by re-invigorating election campaigning on-line and reconfiguring party systems. Others argue that change occurs only at the margins (by reducing the entry costs for smaller parties, for instance) or acts to reinforce existing inequalities (only larger political parties can dedicate the resources necessary for successful on-line campaigning). This session considers whether and how digital communication is shaping opportunities for formal political participation in political parties, elections and campaigns.

Question: Have social media and information technologies had an impact on elections and referenda?

Introductory texts

Barber, Benjamin R. “Three Scenarios for the Future of Technology and Strong Democracy.” 1998. Political Science Quarterly 113 (4): 573–89.

Bartels, L. “Uninformed Voters: Information Effects in Presidential Elections.” 1996. American Journal of Political Science 40: 194–230.

Bimber, Bruce A. Information and American Democracy: Technology in the Evolution of Political Power. Communication, Society, and Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Calhoun, Craig. “Community without Propinquity Revisited: Communications Technology and the Transformation of the Urban Public Sphere.” 1998. Sociological

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Inquiry 68 (3): 373–97. doi:10.1111/j.1475-682X.1998.tb00474.x.

Fung, Archon, Hollie

Russon Gilman, and

Jennifer Shkabatur.

“Six Models for the Internet + Politics.” International Studies Review 15 (1): 30–47. doi:10.1111/misr.12028.

Katz, Richard and Peter

Mair

Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy The Emergence

of the Cartel Party. 1995. Party Politics, 1(1), 5-28

Mair, Peter

"Party Membership in Twenty European Democracies, 1980-2000.” 2001.

Party Politics, 7(1): Pages 5-21.

Norris, Pippa. A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in Postindustrial Societies. 2000.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Core Reading

* Bastos, Marco T.,

and Dan Mercea

“Serial Activists: Political Twitter beyond Influentials and the Twittertariat.” 2015. New Media & Society, May, 1–20. doi:10.1177/1461444815584764.

* Bond, Robert, and

Solomon Messing

“Quantifying Social Media’s Political Space: Estimating Ideology from Publicly Revealed

Preferences on Facebook.” 2015. American Political Science Review 109 (01): 62–78.

* Hersh, Eitan Hacking the Electorate: How Campaigns Perceive Voters. 2015. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Burnett, Craig M.,

and Vladimir Kogan.

“When Does Ballot Language Influence Voter Choices? Evidence from a Survey Experiment.” 2015. Political Communication 32 (1): 109–26. doi:10.1080/10584609.2014.894160.

Kruikemeier, Sanne,

and Adam Shehata

“News Media Use and Political Engagement Among Adolescents: An Analysis of Virtuous Circles Using Panel Data.” 2016. Political Communication 0 (0): 1–22. doi:10.1080/10584609.2016.1174760.

Nielsen, Rasmus “The Ground War Enters the Twenty-first Century”, Chapter 2 in Ground Wars. Princeton:

Princeton University Press.

Schradie, Jen. “Labor Unions, Social Media, and Political Ideology: Using the Internet to Reach the Powerful or Mobilize the Powerless?” 2015. International Journal of Communication 9 (0): 21.

Week 7: Civic engagement, social movements and collective action Instructor: Vicki Nash

Early theorists of democracy such as Mill and de Tocqueville recognised that healthy democratic political

institutions depended upon the existence of a vigorous civil society in which the habits of participation might be

developed and the dangers of political and social dogmas challenged. Modern democratic theory has continued to

embrace this idea, and many proponents of the Internet have claimed that the new communication tools and

networks it supports have the potential to invigorate civil society. Other theorists have countered such optimism

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with fears that online engagement will lead to a narrowing of personal interests and connections or that it is a

shallow substitute for more effective forms of offline activism. This session will consider the theoretical

underpinnings of both hypotheses and will ask what empirical evidence might be required to support or reject

either view.

Question: What reason, if any, do we have to believe that the Internet might strengthen civil society?

Classic texts on the relationship between democracy and civil society

De Tocqueville, Alexis

Democracy in America (volumes 1 & 2). 2000. New York: Bantam Books.

(Original work published 1835/1840)

Dahl, Robert A. Democracy and its Critics. 1989. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. 2000. New

York: Simon & Schuster.

Core reading

*Neuman, W.R., Bimber, B.

& Hindman, M. (2011)

“The Internet and Four Dimensions of Citizenship” in Jacobs, L.R., & Shapiro

R.Y. The Oxford Handbook of American Public Opinion and the Media.

* Margetts, H., John, P.,

Hale, S., & Yasseri, T.

Chapter Two ‘Tiny Acts of Political Participation’ in Political Turbulence, Princeton University Press.

*Tufecki, Z. (2014) Social Movements and Governments in the Digital Age: Evaluating a Complex Landscape. Journal of International Affairs 68:1.

Boulianne, S. (2015) Social Media Use and Participation: a meta-analysis of current research”, in Information, Communication & Society, 18:5.

Freelon, D., McIlwain, C., &

M. Clark (2016).

Quantifying the power and consequences of social media protest. In New

Media and Society (online first).

Zuckerman, E ‘New Media, New Civics’. Policy and Internet. 6:2 151-168. (To be read together with responses from other academics in same journal)

Papacharissi, Z. (2010) A Private Sphere: Democracy in the Digital Age

Chapter 6

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Week 8: Digital-era government and bureaucracy Instructor: Helen Margetts

Digital technologies have been regarded by many as the key to the modernization of government, from a radical

strengthening of Weberian rationality and bureaucracy, to the facilitation of decentralized power and alternative

forms of state organization resting on crowdsourcing and digital ‘co-production’. Some claim that a model of

‘essentially digital governance’ has replaced ‘new public management’ (NPM) as the dominant paradigm for public

management reform, where digital technologies take centre stage and digital channels become the default. In

practice, all governments in the industrialised world and beyond are reliant for their operations on a large digital

presence and complex network of large-scale information systems which go beyond being critical for policy

implementation to shaping the whole context within which policy and service delivery choices are made. But

governments can struggle to negotiate the rapidly changing digital world and to capitalize on the potential of

internet-related technologies to deliver innovative public policy solutions and efficient, effective and equitable

public services.

In many departments, the organizational and cultural legacies of Weberian and NPM models co-exist uneasily or

clash with internet-based cultures and failed or stalled attempts to introduce digital government. This session will

explore the key approaches in practice and scholarship to digital era change in government and also the implicit

approach of mainstream public administration and public policy – that digital technology is policy neutral with little

importance for the fundamentals of policy and administration.

Question: ‘The history of digital government is littered with failures, disasters and disappointed expectations in

terms of efficiency and innovation.’ Discuss.

Introductory texts on government and bureaucracy

Gerth, Hans H.

Mills, Charles W.

From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. 1948. London: Routledge. London. VII

‘Bureaucracy’.

Runciman, Walter G.

Max Weber: Selections in Translation. 1978. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Pollitt, Christopher

Bouckaert, Geert

Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis. 2011. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

Core reading

*O’Reilly, T. (2011) ‘Government as a Platform’, Innovations 6(1) pp. 13-40

MIT Press)

*Margetts, Helen,

Dunleavy, Patrick (2013)

‘The second wave of digital-era governance: a quasi-paradigm for

government on the Web’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A,

371(1987)

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*Pollitt, Christopher

(2010)

‘Technological Change: a Central yet Neglected Feature of Public

Administration’, NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy, 3(2),

2010

Patrick Dunleavy and

Helen Margetts (2015)

Essentially Digital Governance: Designing the Information State , Paper to

APSA Annual Meeting, San Francisco, September

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/64125/

Dunleavy, Patrick,

Margetts, Helen Z.,

Tinkler, Jane, Bastow,

Simon

“New Public Management is Dead – Long Live Digital-Era Governance.” 2005.

Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 16(3): 467-494.

Noveck, Beth (2009) Wiki Government, Washington: Brookings Institution Press.

Margetts, Helen Z. Information Technology in Government: Britain and America. 1999. London:

Routledge.

Fishenden, Jerry and

Thompson, Mark (2013)

Digital Government, Open Architecture, and Innovation: Why Public Sector

IT Will Never Be the Same Again, Journal of Public Administration Research

and Theory 23(4). Pp.977-1004

Dunleavy, Patrick,

Margetts, Helen Z.,

Tinkler, Jane, Bastow,

Simon

Digital-era Governance: IT Corporations, the State and e-Government. 2006.

Oxford: Oxford University Press (revised paperback edition 2008).

Christopher Hood and

Helen Margetts

The Tools of Government in the Digital Age, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Week 9: The digital nation state Instructor: Vicki Nash

From the early days of the Internet, commentators have speculated on its contribution to the phenomenon of globalization, forecasting ‘the death of distance’, the increasing irrelevance of space and place, the incapability of governments to control the flow of information and capital across national boundaries and the evolution of a global information society or ‘regime’. At the same time, political revelations in many states have revealed the extraordinary prevalence and scope of the ‘control’ or ‘surveillance’ state, driven by a technologically strengthened security services with greater capacity to protect and control citizens within state boundaries and also beyond.

On the international stage, grand claims about the embrace of e-diplomacy or ‘digital statecraft’ suggest that the potential of the Internet can easily be harnessed to support the goals of foreign policy actors without risk, yet from an academic perspective it remains to be seen whether any meaningful change can yet be observed in the day-to-day activities of this oldest branch of government activity. This session highlights some of the various ways in which national governments find their policies subverted or strengthened by the growth of the Internet.

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Question: ‘Claims that the Internet and digital technologies would lead to the end of the nation state were fatally

flawed; rather, such technologies have allowed national governments to strengthen power and control over their

jurisdictions.’ Discuss.

Introductory texts on globalization

Held, D. Global Transformation: Politics, Economics and Culture. 1999. Polity.

Cambridge.

Keohane and Nye, (1989) Power and Interdependence: World politics in transition, 2nd

edition. Scott,

Foresman. London.

Core reading

*Cull, Nicholas (2013) The Long Road to Public Diplomacy 2.0: The Internet in US Public Diplomacy,

International Studies Review, 15(1), 123-139

* Nye, Joseph (2010)

Cyber-Power. Available at:

http://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/files/cyber-

power.pdf

*Owen, T. (2015) Disruptive Power: the Crisis of the State in the Digital Age, esp. Chapter 9.

OUP.

Beniger, J. The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society. Harvard University Press.

Brenner, Susan W. (2009) Cyberthreats: The Emerging Fault Lines of the Nation State Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

Milton Mueller, Andreas

Schmidt and Brenden

Kuerbis (2013)

Internet Security and Networked Governance in International Relations,

2013, International Studies Review, 15(1), 86-104

Morozov, E.

The Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate the World. 2011. Penguin

Please note: Option papers will only run if selected by at least four students.