ABSTRACT
To what extent can information technology be used to eliminate government corruption? In this paper, I examine an ambitious experiment by a South Indian state in the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) within a bureaucracy to reduce corruption. In this initiative, the senior bureaucrats built a digital network to remotely control the implementation of a public rural employment scheme. Focusing on the technology-based implementation for this paper, I show that centralization of implementation that the technology enabled could significantly overcome the endemic corruption that tends to happen in the local "last mile" of such schemes. I also find how technology designed for control can be subverted at the local level. My work suggests that the future of such government programs lies in incrementally resolving the conflicting forces and interests involved and that the move towards technical is as much a political project.
- Benjamin, S., Bhuvaneswari, R., and Rajan, P. 2007. "Bhoomi: 'E-Governance', Or, An Anti-Politics Machine Necessary to Globalize Bangalore?" CASUM-m Working Paper at http://casumm.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/bhoomi-e-governance.pdf, accessed 7, October, 2013.Google Scholar
- Corbridge, S., Williams, G., Srivastava, M., and Veron, R. Seeing The State: Governance And Governmentality In India. Cambridge University Press, 2005.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Deshingkar, P., Johnson, C., & Farrington, J. (2005). State transfers to the poor and back: The case of the food-for-work program in India. World Development, 33(4), 575--591.Google Scholar
- Ferguson, J. The Anti-Politics Machine: "Development," Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. University of Minnesota Press, 1994.Tavel, P. 2007.Google Scholar
- Foucault, M. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Pantheon Books, 1977.Google Scholar
- Du Gay, P. The values of bureaucracy. Oxford University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
- Gupta, A. Blurred Boundaries: the Discourse of Corruption, the Culture of Politics, and the Imagined State. American Ethnologist 22, 2 (1995), 375--402.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Gupta, A. (2012). Red tape: Bureaucracy, structural violence, and poverty in India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
- Heeks, R. (1999). Information technology and the management of corruption. Development in Practice, 9(1--2), 184--189.Google Scholar
- Kreiss, D., Finn, M., and Turner, F. The limits of peer production: Some reminders from Max Weber for the network society. New Media & Society 13, 2 (2010), 243--259.Google Scholar
- Kuriyan, R. and Ray, I. E for express: "Seeing" the Indian State through ICTD," in Proc. 3rd International Conference on Information Communication Technologies and Development, Doha, 2009, pp. 66--73. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Li, T. M. The will to improve: governmentality, development, and the practice of politics. Duke University Press, 2007.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Lyon, D. (1994). The electronic eye: The rise of surveillance society. U of Minnesota Press. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Radaphat, C. and Pal, J. ICTs and development in the thai bureaucracy: an examination of decentralization and organizational change. In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 36--45. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Scott, J. C. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Yale University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
- Sharma, A. and Gupta, A. The anthropology of the state: a reader. Blackwell, 2006.Google Scholar
- Toyama, K. Technology as amplifier in international development. in Proceedings of the 2011 iConference. 2011. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Weber, M. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Oxford University Press, 1958.Google Scholar
- Weinstein, J. and Goldstein, J. UCLA LAW REVIEW DISCOURSE The Benefits of a Big Tent: Opening Up Government in Developing Countries A Response to Yu & Robinson's The New Ambiguity of "Open Government". 38, 2012, 38--48.Google Scholar
- Yu, H. and Robinson, D. G. UCLA LAW REVIEW DISCOURSE The New Ambiguity of "Open Government". 178, 2012, 178--208.Google Scholar
- Winner, L. (1980). Do artifacts have politics? Daedalus, 109(1), 121--136.Google Scholar
- Mathur, N. (2012). Transparent-making Documents and the Crisis of Implementation: A Rural Employment Law and Development Bureaucracy in India. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 35(2), 167--185.Google Scholar
- Gerth, Hans H./Mills, Wright C. (eds.) (1946): From Max Weber. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Dealing with the digital panopticon: the use and subversion of ICT in an Indian bureaucracy
Recommendations
ICT for governance in combating corruption: the case of public e-procurement in Portugal
ICEGOV '14: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic GovernanceLiterature has highlighted the potential of information and communication technology (ICT) in building new models of public governance that promote fairness and accountability, which are key requirements in the fight against corruption. In this context, ...
The e-Procurement Condition of Sustained Development: Case of Madagascar
ICEGOV '15-16: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic GovernanceIn the process of modernization of public procurement, the Government of Madagascar is committed to integrating ICT within the public administration, in particular, the Ministry of finance and Budget (MFB) through the PPRA. Although the main challenges ...
IT in Governance in the 21st Century
Can IT and the Internet promote and strengthen global civil society and democracy? How does the Internet create conditions for improving the delivery of services to the common public? Reviewing ICT initiatives in India leads to a set of recommendations ...
Comments