BOOK
COVER SYNOPSIS: Computer and electronic data processing
are a major technological innovation in the operations of governments
and business and organizations across America. Computers
and Politics empirically analyzes the politics related to
this innovation, using data collected in American local governments
as part of the Urban Information Systems (URBIS) Project carried
out from 1973 to 1978.
Computers and Politics examines the control
of and the interests served by computers in American local governments.
Focusing on questions of power and influence, the authors evaluate
the impacts of computing on government services and management
decision-making. The authors also provide those managers
and officials who make policies with insight and guidance for
the better use of information technology.
This book begins by looking at the concept
of technology, then develops a definition of computer technology
as a "package.: Four alternative perspectives for understanding
the politics of computing are explicated---managerial rationalism,
technocratic elitism, organizational pluralism, and reinforcement
politics. Then, considering these perspectives, the authors
provide a theoretical framework as a means of analyzing the
current effects of technology within the context of computer
use by local governments. Incorportating extensive empirical
research, later chapters examine the scope of understanding
each of these perspectives provides for the key issues--whether
there is a differential distribution of benefits from computing;
the identification of those benefits with major decisional control
over computing; the uses of computer-based information by policy
makers; the impact of the external environment on development
of the government's computer package; and the selective use
of computing across urban public services.
A central conclusion of this informative study
is that computing reinforces prevailing structures of control
and prevailing biases within the government. The authors
intelligently argue for a reversal of these existing patterns
and for some "democratization" of computer technology.
This penetrating analysis conclucdes with the authors' suggestions
on who should govern computer technology in local government
and whose interests should be served.
