Scholarship@WashULaw

Document Type

Report

Language

English (en)

Publication Date

2024

Publication Title

Redesigning the Governance Stack Project at Georgetown Law

Abstract

This document is part of a larger project aimed at reinventing the administrative state for effective governance of the digital, information-driven economy. It explores how the administrative state can more effectively equip itself with digital tools and systems that align with and improve government’s ability to serve public values. Established approaches to digital provisioning fail in many important respects. Among others, they introduce thorny coordination problems while doing little to ensure design for broader public values; they cause obsolete and/or poorly conceived requirements to cascade through the development process for new tools and systems; they magnify the potential for technology-driven lock-in and vendor capture at scale; and they are unacceptably opaque to policymakers and the public. We trace some of these dysfunctions to the private-sector preference that underpins federal govtech provisioning and others to a top-down mode of development in which “solutions” are decreed at the outset rather than after consultation and conversation. The paper recommends a series of changes to the current policy landscape for govtech provisioning to correct these dysfunctions. One important recommendation involves rethinking the traditional “make vs. buy” dichotomy in public procurement and the underlying presumptions that have animated the dichotomy. Recentering public values and outcomes in govtech development also requires measures for ensuring the interoperability and transparency of govtech tools and systems. Another important recommendation involves re-envisioning processes for govtech development and implementation.

Keywords

Administrative State, Governance of Digital Economy, Digital Provisioning, Public Procurement

Publication Citation

Julie E. Cohen et al., Provisioning Digital Tools and Systems for Government Use, Redesigning the Governance Stack Project at Georgetown Law (2024)

Comments

This work was developed with the support of the Tech & Public Policy program at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, the Fritz Family Fellowship at Georgetown University, the Ford Foundation, the Reset Foundation, and the Economic Security Project.

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