Required Text

Patrick Dunleavy, Helen Margetts, Simon Bastow, and Jane Tinkler, Digital Era Governance: IT Corporations, The State, and E-Government (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2006).

Recommended Texts

Jane Fountain, Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change (Brookings Institution Press: Washington, 2001).  

Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and David Lazer, eds. Governance and Information Technology: From Electronic Government to Information Government (MIT Press: Cambridge MA, 2007).

Darrell West, Digital Government: Technology and Public Sector Performance (Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 2005).

These texts are in stock and available for purchase at reasonable price through all major online book sellers. Assigned sections from the Fountain, Mayer-Schonberger and Lazer, and West books will be made available in PDF form through the course Ctools site.  A copy of the Dunleavy et. al. book will be placed on 4 hour reserve in the library.

Week 2: Planning, Evaluation, and Citizen Engagement

Renée A. Irvin and John Stansbury, “Citizen Participation in Decision Making: Is It Worth the Effort?” Public Administration Review Jan/Feb 2004 (64:1), pp 55-65.

Mark Robbins, Bill Simonsen, and Barry Feldman, “Citizens and Resource Allocation: Improving Decision Making with Interactive Web-Based Citizen Participation,” Public Administration Review May/June 2008, pp 564-575.

Navdeep Mathur and Chris Skelcher, “Evaluating Democratic Performance: Methodologies for Assessing the Relationship between Network Governance and Citizens,” Public Administration Review March/April 2007, pp 228-237.

Plus one of the following:

Vera Schattan P. Coelho, Barbara Pozzoni, and Mariana Cifuentes Montoya, “Participation and Public Policies in Brazil,” in John Gastil and Peter Levine, eds.
The Deliberative Democracy Handbook: Strategies for Effective Civic Engagement in the 21st Century (John Wiley & Sons: San Francisco, 2005), pp 174-184.

Anthony Cheng and Janet Fiero, “Collaborative Learning and the Public’s Stewardship of Its Forests,” in John Gastil and Peter Levine, eds. The Deliberative Democracy Handbook: Strategies for Effective Civic Engagement in the 21st Century (John Wiley & Sons: San Francisco, 2005), pp 164-173.

Steven Jackson, “Water Models and Water Politics: Design, Deliberation, and Virtual Accountability,” Proceedings of the 7th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (San Diego, May 2006), pp 95-104.

[nb: there’s a practical skill-set around facilitation relevant to citizen engagement in planning (and some of  the deliberative initiatives explored in DG I) which we WON’T have the time and space to explore in depth; for those interested in highly practical tips and strategies around group facilitation processes, the following two resources may be of some use: Sam Kaner, Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making (Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, 1996) (coming out of U.S. work on participatory decision-making in formal and informal organizational settings); and Robert Chambers, Participatory Workshops: a sourcebook of 21 sets of ideas and activities (Earthscan: London, 2002) (coming out of participatory rural assessment and participatory action research traditions in the international development field)].   

Week 3: IT and Organizational Change, part 1

Sharon Dawes, “The Evolution and Continuing Challenges of E-Governance,” Public Administration Review Dec 2008 (68:1), pp 86-102.

Patrick Dunleavy et. al., Digital Era Governance: IT Corporations, the State, and E-Government (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2006), pp 9-82.

Jane Fountain, “Enacting Technology: An Institutional Perspective,” in Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change (Brookings Institution Press: Washington DC, 2001), pp 83-103.

*** In-class group assignment: EGov case analysis (details TBA) ***

Week 4: IT and Organizational Change, part 2

Dunleavy et. al., Digital Era Governance: IT Corporations, the State, and E-Government (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2006), pp 83-134.

Plus, read one of the following:

Dunleavy et. al., “Taxation: Re-Modernizing Legacy IT and Getting Taxpayers Online,” ibid, pp 135-162.

Dunleavy et. al., “Social Security: Managing Mass Payment and Responding to Welfare State Change,” ibid, pp 163-188.

Dunleavy et. al., “Immigration: Technology Changes and Administrative Renewal,” ibid, pp 189-215.

Week 5 & 6: Institutions, Partnerships, and Networks

Jane Fountain, “Challenges to Organizational Change: Multi-Level Integrated Information Structures (MIIS),” in Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and David Lazer, eds. Governance in Information Technology: From Electronic Government to Information Government (MIT Press: Cambridge MA, 2007), pp 63-93.

David Lazer and Maria Christina Binz-Scharf, “It Takes a Network to Build a Network,” in Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and David Lazer, eds. Governance in Information Technology: From Electronic Government to Information Government (MIT Press: Cambridge MA, 2007), pp 261-278.

Plus, read one of the following:

Naim Kapucu, Maria-Elena Augustin, and Vener Garayev, “Interstate Partnerships in Emergency Management: Emergency Management Assistance Compact in Response to Catastrophic Disasters,” Public Administration Review March-April 2009 (69:2), pp 298-313.

Edward Weber, “Explaining Institutional Change in Tough Cases of Collaboration: “Ideas” in the Blackfoot Watershed,” Public Administration Review March-April 2009 (69:2), pp 314-327.

Robert Behn, “The Challenge of Evaluating M-Government, E-Government, and P-Government: What Should Be Compared with What?,” in Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and David Lazer, eds. Governance in Information Technology: From Electronic Government to Information Government (MIT Press: Cambridge MA, 2007), pp 215-238.

Week 7: Government Online: Websites, Transactions, and Interaction

Darrell West, Digital Government: Technology and Public Sector Performance (Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 2005), pp 1-70, 101-139, 194-199 (please also browse some of the sites identified as best practice cases by West on pp 194-199).

Plus, read one of the following:

Priscilla Regan, “Privacy in an Electronic Government Context,” in Hsinchun Chen, et. al. eds. Digital Government: E-Government Research, Case Studies, and Implementation (Springer: 2007), pp 127-140.

Shirley Ann Becker, “Accessibility of Federal Electronic Government,” Digital Government: E-Government Research, Case Studies, and Implementation (Springer: 2007), pp 141-155.

Beth Weitzman, Diana Silver and Caitlyn Brazil, “Efforts to Improve Public Policy and Programs through Data Practice: Experiences in 15 Distressed American Cities,” Public Administration Review, May/June 2006, pp 386-399.

*** In-class group assignment: Egov web analysis (details TBA) ***

Week 8: Global E-Government: Rankings, Metrics, and Development

Derick Brinkerhoff, “The State and International Development Management,” Public Administration Review Nov/Dec 2008 (68:6), pp 985-1001.

Danish Dada, “The Failure of E-Government in Developing Countries: A Literature Review,” Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries 26:7 (2006), pp 1-10.

United Nations Public Administration Network, UN E-government Survey 2008: From E-Government to Connected Governance, available online at:
http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan028607.pdf (nb: while you are expected to browse the narrative and statistical parts of this report, you are not required to read it in its entirety).

Plus, read one of the following:

Tino Schuppan, “E-Government in developing countries: Experiences from sub-Saharan Africa,” Government Information Quarterly 26 (2009), pp 118-127.

Awdhesh Singh and Rajendra Sahu, “Integrating Internet, telephone, and call centers for delivering better quality e-governance to all citizens,” Government Information Quarterly 25 (2008), pp 477-490.

Blessing Mukabeta Maumbe, Vesper Owei, and Helen Alexander, “Questioning the pace and pathway of e-government development in Africa: A case study of South Africa’s Cape Gateway project,” Government Information Quarterly 25 (2008), pp 757-777.

Week 9: Review, Make-up, and Emerging Directions in Digital Government Research and Practice

Dunleavy et. al., Digital Era Governance: IT Corporations, the State, and E-Government (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2006), pp 216-259.