The Organisation of Policy Makers and the Use of E-governance Tools

Abstract

This chapter offers an account of the settings in which different kinds of policy makers find or put themselves, which, I shall argue, is the fundamental shaper of their willingness to use different kinds of e-governance tools, and of their ability to do so successfully to sustain political judgment. The chapter begins by distinguishing four typical institutional settings at the level of ideal types but in fairly empirical terms, before going on to show on theoretical grounds that the basic characteristics of the four ideal typical cases are indeed powerfully illustrative of the range of situations in which policy makers work, quite generally.⁷ At least three of these four can be readily discerned in the styles of political judgment sustained with the use of technology in the three case study authorities discussed in Chapter 6. The argument then moves to exploring the kind of institutional styles of or biases in exercising demand for information, use available information, cultivating and exercising judgment, learning and decision making that can emerge in each of these four basic settings. This analysis makes it possible, in the following Chapter 9 to look at the kinds of e-governance system that will most readily appeal, and that will most readily be rejected, in each of these four basic situations.