LIST OF PANELS

The panel aims at exploring the wide implications of technological change within two broad areas of investigation such as public policy and public sector organizations. The first theme looks at policy processes or at specific stages such as formulation, decision making, implementation or evaluation. Here, the focus will be on the role of ICT and technology in shaping and influencing actors’ interaction in specific policy fields. For example, the role of experts’ knowledge in policy design and implementation, based on the capacity of technology use (e.g. big data, ICT implementation, etc.), is an emerging issue which the workshop ideally aims to address, with particular attention on policy learning literature. Other contributions might build on the multi-level governance perspective to explore the implications that multi-layered policy arenas do have on policy outcomes: To what extent complex implementation structures represent a hurdle for technological innovation policies or, conversely, whether effective change is more likely to be developed from the bottom up is nowadays a crucial research dilemma. The second one concerns the way in which the adoption of ICT solutions reshapes the structure of bureaucracies, the centralizing and decentralizing strategies of national states and how these cope with sub-national governmental actors. The panel is organized and looks for both theoretical and empirical contributions. From the methodological point of view, the workshop organizers are committed to host papers adopting different methods ranging from small-N qualitative case studies to large-N quantitative analysis. Depending on the homogeneity of the contribution, the organizers are willing to submit special issue or edited book proposals. They also make available a position of third co-chair to scholars interested in building a network on the issues of technological impact on Public Administration and Public Policy.

PS

prof. Sehl Mellouli (sehl.mellouli@fsa.ulaval.ca) is part of the proposing team.

The panel looks for both theoretical and empirical papers which focus on the impact of technology on both public policies and public sector organizations. First of all, decision-making processes regarding public sector modernization involve experts and policy makers; these relations between the two communities are often difficult, because of the different rationalities and interests. The characteristics of the learning processes, i.e. the capacity of experts to influence actors in policies with a technological content, are at the centre of a relevant debate and it is a relevant focus of this workshop. Moreover, there are questions regarding the role of technologies and big data in decision-making processes.

Other sectorial themes regard the transformation of the design, implementation and delivering of public services. The E-government agenda is often associated to the re-shaping of Government-to-citizen relations, but it also represents a prism through which intra- and inter-governmental relations and bureaucratic politics can be analyzed, as the Digital government debate is underlining. This might lead to re-consider issues concerning the design and implementation of interventions based on ICT instruments; here the engagement of implementers and the compliance of beneficiaries, two factors that often undermines the effectiveness of policies, stand out as major research themes.

Another research filed considers Metropolitan areas and the Smart city/ Smart communities policies, aimed at improving existing services with the help of ICT solutions, in order to make them more efficient and responsive to citizens’ needs.

Moreover, cyber-security is emerging as a policy domain in which national states are called to give an innovative response to issues which are at the crossroad between, security, industrial and trade policies.

In this incomplete list, we consider also the rise of Big Data constitutes per se a topic with uncountable implications for policy studies. In the agenda setting and policy design processes, in particular, big data are acquiring centrality to introduce more rationality in decision making processes and to improve the policy effectiveness. It is relevant to detect the policy sectors more affected by the use of big data and the uncovered ones. At the same time, it is of value to analyze the impact of big data in influencing decision makers and policy learning. Finally, the big data turn introduces methodological questions in the evidence-based policy making debate, because of the different basis of the predictive analytics in respect to the traditional research instruments.

Papers are expected to deal with research questions such as the following: How and why policy makers learn or not from experts, during the design and/or implementation processes regarding policies with a relevant technological content? How can big data be used in policymaking in a more structural and effective manner? How and why a technological innovation has improved or perverted the outcome of a policy program? How and why technological change re-shaped organizational power in a given organization or within a policy field? Which lessons can we draw from researches regarding the design and implementation of policies characterized by a high role assigned to ITC?