Inside Governments: Digital Collaboration for Policy Design

by Julia Fleischer, András Molnar, Sara Svensson, Camilla Wanckel, Samuel Defacqz, and Claire Dupuy

This interactive special issue compiles our core findings from conducting case studies on novel digital tools for policy design that have been introduced in Germany, France and Hungary (see TROPICO WP4). It contributes a much-needed perspective on the prospects of using such tools in formulating government policy, thus enabling decision-makers to focus more on the substance of policies and evidence-informed decisions.

1. How does ICT influence decision-making in the public sector?

The digital transformation of public sectors and public services have initiated a wide-ranging debate among scholars and practitioners on the causes and effects of the accelerated use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in public sector organisations. Many focus on digital services and discuss the potentials of co-production, digital participation (see TROPICO WP5), open innovation, and civic tech. These debates over digital service delivery accelerate as policy-makers engage in introducing and regulating digital public services, e.g., by the recent EU Digital Service Act. Others discuss the virtues and pitfalls of big data and policy analytics as well as the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in service delivery and automation in policy delivery.

In contrast, this interactive issue focuses on policy design - the processes by which government officials formulate policies and identify solutions to policy problems. These policy officials also experience a digital transformation of their work. Yet, this crucial aspect of the digital era is oftentimes neglected and understudied. Accordingly, our interactive special issue showcases three digital tools for internal collaboration within the public sector for policy design (see figure 1).

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2. A new black box? Digital collaboration for central government policymaking

The digital transformation inside governments involving actors formulating government policies has received much less attention. There are several reasons for this mismatch in attention. First of all, these processes are rarely scalable, oftentimes not even across organisations within the same central government. What works in one ministerial department, may be rather unfeasible in another, let alone in a different central government organisation. This links to the distinct institutional and organisational context in which government policies are formulated, including the formal and informal structures and procedures and more general administrative traditions (see TROPICO WP2) and civil service systems that shape certain traits among public employees (see TROPICO WP3). Some overarching and cross-ministerial digital solutions exist, also to support inter-organisational collaboration in policy design, but the vast majority of novel digital tools and means in central governments is specific and tailored to the parent organisation.

Moreover, policy design is always shaped by issue-related specifics, that is the specific policy issue at hand. Depending on the policy problem, different actor constellations are relevant to incorporate in policy design, which also allow for different digital tools and means for the design process. In some policy areas, the formulation of new policies is more prone towards the application of novel ICTs than in others. Especially for policy issues arising from the rapid digital transformation in markets and society, such as data privacy or cybersecurity, digital tools for engaging stakeholders and citizens are rather common. In many others and more traditional policy sectors, however, digital tools for participation follow sectoral trajectories and oftentimes digitize pre-existing participatory tools rather than creating novel digital means for policy design (see TROPICO WP5).

To facilitate the digital component in policy design, many Western governments engage in digitalising their bureaucratic procedures, e.g., by introducing electronic filing and digital tools for collaboration or participation by external actors in policy formulation. Furthermore, many governments create distinct units or arenas (e.g. policy labs) for innovating policy design, yet with varying relation to a digital transformation of policy design.

3. Our cases

Our research was particularly interested in novel digital means beyond these digitising tools in government. Therefore, we focused on three different cases from France, Germany, and Hungary, which aim to accelerate joint work and collaboration in policy design in the areas of fiscal governance, sustainability impact, and crisis management and geo-information respectively. The three countries represent different administrative traditions and therefore provide different contexts for the introduction of digital solutions to policy design. Moreover, we picked different policy problems, whereas fiscal governance and sustainability impact are cross-cutting and therefore the ICT tool supports all ministerial departments, the geo-information tool is applicable across government levels. All cases have certain conditions in common that ultimately shape their (limited) success in moving policy design forward. These conditions include the policy problem and corresponding key mandate for the digital tool, the authority and competencies linked to the tool's application, and the linkage of the tool to other pre-existing tools of policy design (see figure 2).

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All three cases aim to support collaboration in policy design. However, the distinct policy sector and policy issue at hand varies considerably: The budgetary tool in France addresses primarily a classic yet highly relevant function of policy design - namely to (re)allocate resources and thus allow governments to pursue their substantial policy agenda. In contrast, the sustainability impact tool in Germany and the geo-information tool in Hungary provide key information for various policy designs within and across policy sectors.

Following this variation in policy problems, more precisely the fact that none of these digital tools addresses one particular policy problem alone, the applicability and usage of the tools are rather wide-ranging. The virtue of these digital means is to follow-up on pre-existing tools and being decided upon and rolled out merely as a novel way to organize the internal bureaucratic process of policy formulation, rather than to innovate the more complex policy design processes in distinct substantial policies.

As a result of these particular conditions, all analysed ICT tools are used frequently, they contribute to more speedy data and information processing, and inform and shape decision-making. Furthermore, individual attitudes matter especially for the German and the Hungarian tool, given that their roll-out (at the time of study) depended partly upon government officials deciding themselves how strongly they engage with these tools. Overall, the introduction of these novel digital tools in policy design - for processes cutting across the traditional boundaries of policy sectors and corresponding ministerial departments - shows their potential to facilitate digital transformation in other areas of policy design, and thus to contribute to more wide-spreading practices of digital collaboration in formulating government policies. As such, these and other tools can be regarded as potential carriers of governments' future digitalisation strategies reaching for areas such as policy design (see TROPICO WP6).

Click here for short versions of our case studies:

Find our full articles here:

Defacqz, S., & Dupuy, C. (2021). A Transformative Change Through a Coordination Process and a Steering Agency. The Case of the Financial Information System of the French Central State. International Review of Administrative Sciences. doi:10.1177/00208523211058859

Wanckel, C. (2021): Introducing a digital tool for sustainability impact assessments within the German Federal Government: A neo-institutional perspective. International Review of Administrative Sciences. doi:10.1177/00208523211047093

(upcoming) Molnár, A., & Svensson, S. (2021). Collaboration and policy-making in adaptation planning: the impact of a boundary organization in Hungary. The International Journal of Climate Change: Impacts and Responses.

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