O(ver)-Government?: Emerging technology, citizen autonomy and the regulatory state

  • Authors:

  • Frank Bannister;Diana Wilson

  • Affiliations:

  • (Correspd. E-mail: Frank.Bannister@tcd.ie) Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland;Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

  • Venue:
  • Information Polity - The coming of age of e-government studies;papers from EGPA 2010
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

One of the core divides in politics is between those who believe government should have a greater role and those who want to restrict or roll back the state. Until relatively recently, this debate has been carried on at a broad or macro level; it was about levels of public expenditure, privatization of state functions, social welfare, government control of schools or workplace safety regulation. Developments in technology are now bringing this debate down to the micro level. Technology already enables a significant increase in the level of governmental interference in and control of the lives of citizens. Technologies that are now becoming available, or in some cases becoming economically feasible, will take the potential for government intervention in the lives of citizens to new levels and reify heretofore theoretical questions. Resulting from this there is risk of technical rationality and technological capabilities leading to developments in government and governance which will have long term undesirable consequences for the health of societies and individual citizens as well as of the public service and public administration. Two frameworks, the activating state and in particular the regulatory state, are used to analyse such possible developments and their implications.