Politics, governance, and technology : a postmodern narrative on the virtual state / P.H.A. Frissen ; translation, Chris Emery.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Frissen, Paul.

Series:

New horizons in public policy

Standardized Title:

Virtuele staat, politiek, bestuur, technologie. English

Language:

Dutch

English

Subjects (All):

Political science.

Public administration.

Information society--Political aspects.

Information society.

Information technology--Political aspects.

Information technology.

Postmodernism--Political aspects.

Postmodernism.

Public administration--Technological innovations.

Local Subjects:

Political science.

Public administration.

Public administration--Technological innovations.

Physical Description:

xii, 299 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cheltenham, UK ; Northampton, MA : Edward Elgar, [1999]

Contents:

1.1 Politics, Administration, Technology: Connections 1

1.2 Postmodernisation and Postmodernism 4

1.3 The Narrative 6

2 Public Administration 9

2.1 Change, Experiment, Innovation: an Impression 9

2.2 The New Governance: Characteristics 11

2.3 The Antipode: Classical Governance 13

2.4 The Tradition: Sovereignty, Subsidiarity, Corporatism 14

2.5 A Case: Independent Agencies 16

2.7 Amendments to Bureaucracy 23

2.8 Differentiating the Bureaucracy 28

2.9 Reversing Bureaucracy 30

3 Technology 36

3.1 Informatisation: an Outline 36

3.2 Informatisation: Developments 38

3.3 Informatisation: Characteristics 40

3.4 The Technological Debate: Positions 42

3.5 Advanced Constructivism or Determinism? 44

3.6 Networks, Connectivity and Virtual Reality 46

3.7 Organisational Meaning 50

3.8 Cultural Meaning 56

3.9 Digital Ambiguities I 61

4 Public Administration and Technology 64

4.1 Informatised Bureaucracy: an Impression 64

4.2 Characteristics of Informatisation 70

4.3 Bureaucratisation and Technocratisation: the Perspective of Modernisation 73

4.4 Informatisation, Change, Experiment and Innovation 78

4.5 Transformations 83

4.7 The Primacy of Politics 91

4.8 Digital Ambiguities 2 92

5 Politics 95

5.1 Crisis and Continuity: Introduction 95

5.2 Debate and Self-Reflection 96

5.3 Restored Values 101

5.4 Bureaucracy and Technocracy: the New Politics 110

5.5 The Empty Place of Power I 117

5.6 Political Strategies 121

5.7 And yet ... the Great Silence 126

6 The Social Decor: Modernisation and Postmodernisation 128

6.1 Economic Transformations 129

6.2 Organisational Changes 132

6.3 Cultural Patterns 136

6.4 Images 141

6.5 Advanced Modernisation 144

6.6 Nuances and Discontinuities 151

7 Theoretical Intermezzo 160

7.1 Postmodernisation, Postmodernity, Postmodernism 161

7.2 We Postmodern Bourgeois Liberals 164

7.3 Yuppies, Ephemera and Kitsch 169

7.4 Hyperdifferentiation and Fragmentation 175

7.5 Centre and Linearity 180

7.6 Ambiguities 187

8 Administration and Politics in Postmodern Cyberspace 190

8.1 Technoculture 191

8.2 Virtualisation 195

8.3 Governance: Intelligence and Aesthetics 202

8.4 Politics: Primacy or the End? 207

8.5 Politics, Governance and Technology: Fragmentation and Connections 213

9 Fragmenting and Connecting Governance 219

9.1 Fragmentation and Contingency 220

9.2 Autonomy and Horizontalisation 224

9.3 Once again: Infrastructure 229

9.4 Forms and Styles 235

9.5 Postmodern Administrative Theory 238

10 Politics without Properties 244

10.1 Political Theory: a Modern Project 245

10.2 Fragmentation, Contingency, Indifference 249

10.3 The Apolitical Public Domain 255

10.4 Postmodern Politics 259

10.5 Political Postmodernism 264

10.6 Digital Ambiguities 4: the Virtual State 268.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 272-291) and index.

ISBN:

1858988772

OCLC:

41674435