Unit 1

What is Digital Era Government?

Overview of this Unit

The purpose of Unit 1 is to get students to recognise what is different about governing in an era filled with pervasive digital technologies.

This material, developed by Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age, has been prepared to help university faculty to add digital era skills to the teaching of Masters in Public Policy and Masters in Public Administration programs. All these materials are based on our eight Digital Era Competencies.

This unit is one of eight units that make up a full semester course. The units have also been designed to be used by educators independently, without students taking the rest of the course. This unit can be taught in either one or two classes.

Learning Outcome 1

By the end of Unit 1 students will be able to situate the emerging theories and practices of 'Digital Era' government as just the latest in a wave of government practices, and explain the key values-based differences between the current wave and the last.

The key preceding phases students should know about are:

  • Weberian

  • Taylorism

  • New Public Management (NPM)

Learning Outcome 2

By the end of Unit 1 students will be able to understand why governments seek to make use of digital technologies. Governments do this to achieve various goals, including:

  • A desire to keep up with citizen's expectations that tend to be set by interactions with the private sector.

  • Reputation - 'Wanting to be modern' and 'wanting to be an international leader'

  • Increased speed of operations

  • Equity

  • Efficiency & cost effectiveness

  • Accessibility

  • To grow power and control over citizens, organisations and rival powers

  • To increases the capacities of citizens and organisations

Learning Outcome 3

By the end of Unit 1 students will be able to identify several challenges that governments face as being 'digital era challenges'. These include:

  • Culture

  • Security

  • Privacy

  • Equity

  • Access

  • Hiring and procurement

  • Shared, modular infrastructures

Learning Outcome 4

By the end of Unit 1 students will be able to Identify the capabilities that governments should develop to succeed in the digital age.

Learning Outcome 5

By the end of Unit 1 students will be able to define what is meant by digital for the purposes of this syllabus.

Digital in this course refers both to information and communications technologies, and new ways of working.

  • Digital practices are so called partly to differentiate them from 'IT' practices.

  • Digital is not a synonym for Social Media.

Summary of Key Arguments in this Unit

  • Argument 1 - Digital is the latest in a series of waves of government practice

The last 150 years has seen several different epochs of information technology. Each period was accompanied by a dominant public administration theory - e.g. Taylorism or New Public Management - that defined the ideal of 'good government'.

This course outlines a new approach, 'Digital Era Government' which is driven by technological changes, but is about much more than just technology.

Key reading on Argument 1: Technology and Public Management Information Systems: Where we have been and where we are going, (2011) - Ines Mergel & Stuart Bretschneider

  • Argument 2 - The Digital Era brings new challenges to government, not just opportunities

Governing in a Digital Era brings new opportunities: meeting citizens expectations better than ever before, and doing so with unprecedented speed, quality and accessibility. This is possible because the rise of pervasive computing and an associated wave of new management practices.

However, it also creates new challenges - how will governments deal with privacy and security as they collect vast amounts of data that let them customize services? What new problems of equity and access will emerge - and how will they be managed? How will governments make policy in response to exogenous digital challenges that simply didn't exist before, such as innovations in ride sharing and property rental? These are some of the questions government officials already wrestle with and to which clear policy and administrative answers are needed.

Key reading on Argument 2: Unacceptable IT is pervasive (2012) - Chris Chant

  • Argument 3: Digital Era government is still evolving

This new approach to public administration is still nascent. Students will need new skills to understand the meaning of digital and its practical applications. And they will need yet more skills to help their workplaces to evolve, and solve digital-era problems. Over the semester, we'll debate and expand on what 'Digital Era Government' is, and we'll explain the practices that underpin it.

Key reading on Argument 3: Digital government units: what are they, and what do they mean for digital era public management renewal? (2019), Amanda Clarke