Enacting Technology in Networked Governance: Developmental Processes of Cross-Agency Arrangements

and Hirokazu Okumura as well as from participants at several lectures, seminars and conferences at which portions of this paper have been presented. The author acknowledges the research assistance of Robin McKinnon and Amanda Coe and, in particular, access to case materials and interviews with civil servants, government officials and others involved in the U.S. Presidential Management Initiative. The studies reported in this paper are supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0131923. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Introduction The term, virtual state, is a metaphor meant to draw attention to the structures and processes of government organizations that are becoming more and more deeply designed with digital information and communication systems. Digitalization of information and communication allows decisionmakers in the institutions of the state to rethink the location of data, decisionmaking structures, services and processes that include not only government organizations but also nonprofits and private firms which increasingly work in partnership with governments. I have called states that make extensive use of information technologies virtual states to highlight what may be fundamental changes in the nature and structure of the state in the information age. This paper discusses the technology enactment framework, an analytical framework to guide exploration and examination of information-based change in governments. The original technology enactment framework is extended in this paper to delineate the distinctive roles played by key actors in technology enactment. I then examine institutional change in government by drawing from current initiatives in the U.S. federal government to build cross-agency relationships and systems. The U.S. government is one of the first central states to undertake not only back office integration within the government but also integration of systems and processes across agencies. For this reason its experience during the past ten years may be of interest to e-government researchers and decision makers in other countries, particularly those in countries whose governments are likely to pursue similar experiments in networked governance. The summary of cross-agency projects presented here introduces an extensive empirical study, currently in progress, of these projects and their implications for governance. I present two brief case studies, focused on the management of federal grants and on electronic rulemaking, to illustrate and ground the analytical framework. The central argument of the paper is that technology …