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Politics on a Microchip*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Edwin R. Black
Edwin R. Black
Affiliation:
Queen's University
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Abstact

The widespread adoption of mainframe computers by all levels of governments is a phenomenon that has been seriously neglected by political scientists. While a few isolated, popular issues have been noticed, little academic attention has been paid within the discipline to the effects of computers on our political institutions and processes. The development of a cadre of data processing specialists is introducing a new and powerful set of values into public decision-making. Interest groups and political parties are scrambling to adjust their mobilization strategies. The growing employment of arcane and often questionable decision models diminishes even further the public's already limited ability to monitor their governments' activities. As a discipline, political science has much to do if it is to meet these challenges to its understanding of governments and how they work.

Résumé

L'utilisation de plus en plus répandue des ordinateurs à tous les niveaux de gouvernement est un phénomène fortement négligé par les politicologues. Bien qu'il s'agisse d'un sujet très discuté, on retrouve peu de travaux académiques portant sur les effets des ordinateurs sur le processus et les institutions politiques. La formation d'un groupe de spécialistes du traitement des données entraîne I'adoption de nouvelles valeurs pour la prise de décisions. Les parties politiques et les groupes d'intérêts essaient d'ajuster leurs stratégies de mobilisation. Le recours de plus en plus fréquent à des modèles de décision discutables et indéchiffrables réduit encore plus la capacité du public à intervenir pour contrêler les activités gouvemementales. Comme discipline, la science politique doit viser à incorporer ces nouveaux développements à sa compréhension des gouvernements et à leur fonctionnement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , December 1983 , pp. 675 - 690
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1983

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References

1 Haight, T. R. and Rubinyi, Robert M., “How Community Groups Use Computers,” Journal of Communication 33 (1983), 109–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Frantzich, Stephen E., Computers in Congress: The Politics of Information (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1982), 161.Google Scholar

3 National Association for State Information Systems, NASIS 1980–1981 Report. Information Systems Technology in State Government, n.d.

4 See discussions in Infoworld, vol. 5, no. 21 (May 13, 1983), passim.

5 Greenberger, Martin, Crenson, Matthew A. and Crissey, Brian L., Models in the Policy Process: Public Decision-making in the Computer Era (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1976)Google Scholar. See also Kling, Rob, “Social Analyses of Computing: Theoretical Perspectives in Recent Empirical Research,” Computing Surveys 12 (1980), 61–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Kraemer, Kenneth and Dutton, W., “The Automation of Bias,” in James M. Danziger, et al., Computers and Politics: High Technology in American Local Governments (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 172–73.Google Scholar

7 “Conclusions,” in Danziger et al., Computers and Politics, 240.

8 Automated Information Management in Public Administration (Paris: OECD Informatic Studies 4, 1973), 8.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., 60–62.

10 Lenk, Klaus, “Computer Use in Public Administration: Implications for the Citizen,” in Mowshowitz, Abbe (ed.), Human Choice and Computers (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1980), 194–202.Google Scholar

11 Kerstin Anér, “Privacy and Data Protection Legislation,” in Mowshowitz, Human Choice, 151–64.

12 Mowshowitz, Abbe, The Conquest of Will (Don Mills: Addison-Wesley, 1976), 176.Google Scholar

13 In Computers and Society 5 (1974), 6–11.Google Scholar

14 Winner, Langdon, Autonomous Technology: Technics Out of Control as a Theme in Political Thought (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977), 146–49.Google Scholar

15 The OHIP story was common currency around Queen's Park during the winter of 1982–83.