Government as a Platform: How Policy Makers Should Think about the Foundations of Digital Public Infrastructure
By David Eaves, Richard Pope and Ben McGuire
For all the promise of digital government, it has done very little in the Western world to fundamentally alter the structure or processes of the state. Through much of its history, the primary goal of modernization and digitization has been to automate repetitive work or back-office tasks. The paper form became an electronic survey; the accounting book became a spreadsheet. Even new headline-grabbing groups such as the United States Digital Service have mainly focused on improving user experiences or putting out fires—and have not changed the underlying structure of government.