Government Information Quarterly

User-centricity in e-government is a double-edged sword. While it helps governments design digital services tailored to the needs of citizens, it may also increase the burden on users and deepen the digital divide. From an institutional perspective, these fundamental conflicts are inevitable. To better understand the role and effect of user-centricity in e-government, this paper analyses academic literature on user-centricity and public values. The analysis leads to three main insights: First, there is a conflict in citizen representation that may result from the normative dominance of decision-makers. Second, we identify an accountability conflict that can prevent user-centric innovation from thriving in a highly institutionalized environment. Third, we identify a pluralism conflict that emerges from a clash between the reality of a diverse society and the assumed homogeneity of actors. The need to address these conflicts increases with rapid technological innovation, such as distributed ledger technologies, artificial intelligence, and trust infrastructures. These technologies put the user at the center stage and permeate aspects of social life beyond government. In response to these insights, we outline suggestions for further research and practice. Read more

Forthcoming

By now we have more than a decade worth of experience trying to build autonomous, code-driven, private ordering infrastructures, designed to complement, disrupt, or replace both private and public institutions. The revolution of these 'trustless' digital technologies is still yet to happen, raising concerns about their promises to address the existing trust challenges of centralized institutions, their capacity to eliminate the societal reliance on trust, and the potential consequences thereof. For this reason, in this chapter, we will pose the following questions: How does trustlessness through the elimination of more-or-less trusted middlemen impact our values and our sense of belonging? How does the decision to end trust maintenance through trustless technologies impact the cultivation of a sense of community within a society? This chapter will address these questions by critically reviewing the claims surrounding the trustlessness of automated, code-as-law-based governance systems in the field of digital identity management - an area that continues to command the attention of various organizations and institutions in its implementation. Read more

Government Information Quarterly

Ever-growing concerns over ‘Big Brother’ continue driving individuals towards user-centric identity management systems. Nascent innovations are framed as offering Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI). Because of the association with value-laden ideals and technical components like blockchain, SSI is caught up with both hype and idiosyncrasy. Competing interpretations of SSI damage the public discourse and risk misrepresenting affordances these systems might offer. Based on a qualitative inductive interview study and document analysis, this article extrapolates a constructivist theoretical frame – the Extended Model of Interpretive Flexibility – which combines insights from the Social Construction of Technology and the Structurational Model of Technology. The Extended Model of Interpretive Flexibility highlights malleability in the technical implementations and social representations, which in turn is affected by and influences institutional properties around SSI. This research further offers implications for practice around the implementation of SSI, in particular regarding policy, management, and design. For theory on public sector information systems, the proposed model has generalizable potential for the analysis of socio-technical systems and offers future research directions. Read more

Digital Society

For about a decade, the concept of ‘digital sovereignty’ has been prominent in the European policy discourse. In the quest for digital sovereignty, the European Union has adopted a constitutional approach to protect fundamental rights and democratic values, and to ensure fair and competitive digital markets. Thus, ‘digital constitutionalism’ emerged as a twin discourse. A corollary of these discourses is a third phenomenon resulting from a regulatory externalisation of European law beyond the bloc’s borders, the so-called ‘Brussels Effect’. The dynamics arising from Europe’s digital policy and regulatory activism imply increasing legal complexities. This paper argues that this phenomenon in policy-making is a case of a positive ‘policy bubble’ characterised by an oversupply of policies and legislative acts. The phenomenon can be explained by the amplification of values in the framing of digital policy issues. To unpack the policy frames and values at stake, this paper provides an overview of the digital policy landscape, followed by a critical assessment to showcase the practical implications of positive policy bubbles. Read more