Governance In The Information Era

Policy informatics is a field of study that seeks to improve the effectiveness of governance systems. The book discusses a variety of challenges that governments are facing, and how technology can be used to help address them. It provides a roadmap for the transformation of government, and calls for more cross-disciplinary research in the field.

Policy informatics is addressing governance challenges and their consequences, which span the seeming inability of governments to solve complex problems and the disaffection of people from their governments. Policy informatics seeks approaches that enable our governance systems to address increasingly complex challenges and to meet the rising expectations of people to be full participants in their communities. This book approaches these challenges by applying a combination of the latest American and European approaches in applying complex systems modeling, crowdsourcing, participatory platforms and citizen science to explore complex governance challenges in domains that include education, environment, and health. Review: Governance in the Information Era is an excellent and comprehensive map of innovations in how we address systems-level challenges such as polio eradication and educational reform. Erik Johnston has brilliantly assembled a stellar community of scholars coming from diverse backgrounds but all committed to applying policy informatics to improve people's lives. The chapters are clear, insightful and show remarkable interconnections between technology's potential to transform public decision making and the public's capacity to co-create solutions. A much needed contribution to the existing literature. -Stefaan Verhulst, Co-Founder of the GovLab at NYU and Chief of Research of the MacArthur Research Network on Opening Governance This volume shines a light for policy professionals on those technologies that have the power to transform how we govern and for computer and data scientists on the application of such technology for tackling the most pressing challenges of our time. It offers a practical portrait of how government organizations can take advantage of new information and communication tools from big data to social media to govern more effectively, legitimately and efficiently. Its chapters combine engaging case studies with insightful scholarship and analysis that together provide a roadmap for the transformation of government. At the same time, Policy Informatics is an implicit call to action for graduate and professional schools to embrace cross-disciplinary research, scholarship and teaching. We need more books like this if we are to train the next generation of public manager and change agent! - Beth Simone Noveck , Jerry M. Hultin Global Network Visiting Professor at New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering and Director of The Governance Lab