The political economy of digital government: How Silicon Valley firms drove conversion to data science and artificial intelligence in public management

Abstract

IMPACT The relationships between digital governments and private digital technology corporations shape investments that endure for years, even decades. Yet recent changes have been under-researched in public management and accountability studies. Until the 2010s systems integrators (SIs) were dominant, producing proprietary legacy computer systems that still shape government technologies today. Since that time, governments have become increasingly reliant on the online tools and cloud technologies developed by Silicon Valley (SV) firms and platform corporations. To keep digital investments in line with business and civil society progress, governments have had to catch up and innovate with the latest generation of data-intensive technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), and to adopt some SV organizational culture and practices in government. However, previous long time-lags in public sector responses highlight many lessons for today’s digital government change pioneers. In particular, the article illustrates the importance for digital managers of accelerating change in government organizational cultures, and developing the expertise to manage contractual diversity.