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civil society
Page 165
Infrastructure: The Utility Of
Past As Prologue?
Amy Friedlander
Corporation for National Research Initiatives, Reston,
Virginia
NOTE: The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the
author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Corporation for
National Research Initiatives (CNRI). © 1997 by the
Corporation for National Research Initiatives. Reprinted by
permission.
In 1890, advocates of direct current (DC) electric power systems
employed alternating current (AC) to electrocute first a dog and
then a condemned criminal at the Auburn (New York) state prison in
a flamboyant attempt to demonstrate that AC was unsafe. The
incident is perhaps the best-known episode in the so-called "War of
the Systems," which came to an end with the invention of the rotary
converter in 1892, which enabled existing DC distribution systems
to be integrated into the more efficient AC systems, and completion
of the Niagara Power Project in 1895, which showed that large
generating plants and associated transmission lines capable of
meeting regional needs could, indeed, be built.1
Electric power is one of four infrastructure history studies
sponsored by the Corporation for National Research Initiatives
(CNRI). The others address railroads, telephones and telegraphs,
and banking; a fifth, radio, is in progress. These studies
collectively examine attributes of infrastructure through
literature reviews in American history, economics, political
science, and sociology. Initially, three questions were posed:
• When and how did take-off occur?
• What were the public and private roles?
• And, how did an infrastructure—characterized by access,
"shareability," and economic advantage—emerge?
These questions worked well for the first three studies: rail,
telegraphy/telephony, and electricity. But the unspoken assumption
behind these questions is technology—the application of
engineering and science to accomplish a purpose. In the course of
the fourth study, banking, which turned out to be about
information, we began to look at the problem of infrastructure
somewhat differently, examining properties of ubiquity,
interdependence, and reciprocity, independent of a given technology
or set of technologies. This focused attention on the
Page 166
organizational and management structures, which had formed
important elements of all of the preceding studies but had not
occupied center stage.
Finally, all four of the infrastructures were subject to
regulation during the New Deal. Indeed, much of the current
deregulation is designed to dismantle the world that the New Deal
put in place. From a policy perspective, then, the studies not only
delineate more clearly what the relative and changing public and
private roles were but also explain how the New Deal approaches to
regulatory policy came to be, at least with respect to these four
industries.
The Perils of Drawing Historical
Analogies
The remainder of this paper discusses themes and observations
common to all four of the subject infrastructures. But a word or
two is necessary on the perils of drawing historical analogies. All
four of these infrastructures obtained shape and form during a
period of extraordinary growth. Between 1790 and 1850, the western
boundary of the United States moved from the Mississippi River to
the Pacific Ocean; population in the same period grew by an average
of about 30 percent per decade. After 1860, population growth fell
off to a mere 20 percent or so per decade until 1910.2 Urbanization increased dramatically
after 1870. In 1890, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that the
frontier was closed, and three years later, historian Frederick
Jackson Turner proposed his frontier thesis, which was at least
partially a eulogy for this period in American history. By 1920,
more than half of the nation's population lived in cities. This
meant that through the second half of the nineteenth century and
into the twentieth, there was a growing concentration of demand for
networked technologies such as water, power, and communications as
well as for inter- and intra-regional transportation and financial
services. Moreover, the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries saw prices fall so that construction of the physical
infrastructure of electricity, for example—the generating
plants, transmission lines, power stations, and
substations—took place in an environment of declining real
costs which could be passed off to consumers as lower rates while
the companies still turned a profit.
The flip side was wages. Real wages increased in the 1920s, the
period in which recognizably modern suburbia proliferated, creating
an environment of new construction and consumer demand that made
extension of power and phone lines attractive, easy, and relatively
cheap. Indeed, the residential market for electricity, with its
demand in the evening hours, now became more attractive as a means
of continuing to balance peak load. The distribution system was
largely in place, and the marginal cost of the "last
mile"—that is, connections to individual residences—was
relatively low compared with the total construction cost of the
system, including the generating plant and long-distance
transmission lines. Economies of scale based on improvements to
generating and transmission technologies were increasing, and the
cost as well as the price of electricity fell.3
Page 167
This stands in marked contrast to current debates over
strategies for funding construction of the "last mile" for the
digital communications infrastructure.
The second cluster of differences concerns public/private roles.
At the birth of the republic, most people thought of the government
as local— parish or country—and perhaps as the state. The
federal government was a dim presence, known to most of the people
in the form of the postal system. Eligibility requirements, imposed
by the states, meant that many men could not vote; universal
suffrage for men was not the norm until the 1820s, and women were
first granted the vote at the territorial level—in Wyoming in
1869. (Wyoming granted women the vote at the state level in 1890
when it entered the Union.) African Americans, enslaved or free,
were denied the vote until passage of the 15th Amendment in 1870,
and again, restrictive eligibility requirements excluded most
blacks from the vote, particularly in the Deep South, until the
twentieth century.
The vote is the most direct means of broad participation in
civil life. Just as this participation was circumscribed on a
number of grounds in the nineteenth century, so, too, was the
government's perception of its intervention in the life of its
citizens. The Civil War (1861 to 1865) represented a massive
intervention in daily life, calling up "volunteers" in both North
and South; levying direct taxation; and affecting the economy
significantly through the sale of bonds, federal regulation of the
currency, and procurement of goods and services, thus laying the
foundation for a number of private fortunes. But these were the
exception rather than the rule. Even the transcontinental land
grants to the railroads—which amounted to an area greater than
California and Nevada combined—were modest relative to the
total cost. Carter Goodrich concluded that combined state and
federal financial assistance to the transcontinental railroads
amounted to about 13.5 percent of their total construction cost,
and that this assistance was substantially less than that
provided for canals.4 Sustained
intervention by the government in American daily lives, as measured
by per capita increase in government revenues and expenditures,
appears to have increased consistently after 1890 and to have begun
with local—not federal—authority.5
Federal regulation, marked by the organization of the Interstate
Commerce Commission (ICC) in 1887 to regulate the railroads, was
initially a forum for resolving disputes and was embraced by some
figures in the industry as a way of setting uniform national policy
in an environment of competing state policies. However, by the New
Deal, the regulatory agency was seen as a more active instrument,
and the government, rather than acting as a mediator, was seen as
having a positive obligation to ensure a minimal standard of
security for its citizens. This is obvious in both social and
economic programs, e.g., the Social Security Administration and the
banking reform that expanded the scope of the Federal Reserve,
established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and
regulated the structure of the industry.6
Thus, for most of American history, government was a distant
presence. Research labs, like Thomas Edison's in Menlo Park, New
Jersey, arose with
Page 168
corporate support. His was dominated by the telegraph giant,
Western Union, itself controlled by William Vanderbilt, who had
financial interests in both rail and telegraphy. Not surprisingly,
Western Union sponsored research into domains that resonated with
its business goals. In 1873, Western Union announced its
willingness to reward handsomely any inventor who could achieve
multiplexing on its lines, thus increasing capacity without
additional investment in the wired plant. This led directly to the
simultaneous invention of the telephone by Elisha Gray and
Alexander Graham Bell. Edison also came up with a receiver design
at Western Union's behest. His lamp and associated DC generating
and distribution system represented the most successful in a series
of attempts to challenge the gas companies by producing superior
interior illumination at a competitive price.7 Thus, the great nineteenth-century
infrastructures arose by processes of competition, compromise, and
consensus in which the public presence was, at best, a facilitator
and at times a mediator.
What Falls Out?
Economic growth, deflation, and different expectations of
government are three important differences that shaped the
development of the infrastructures studied. But six themes do fall
out as common to all four of the studies:
• Period of experimentation,
• First-order substitutions and feedback effects,
• Evolution of new structures,
• Not always the ''best" technology,
• Natural monopolies, and
• Physical plant and service.
Each of these observations is discussed in greater detail in the
next sections.
Period of Experimentation: Winners
and Losers
All of these examples witnessed a period of experimentation in
which there were winners and losers and in which a new technology
or technologies per se were necessary but not sufficient for
take-off. Railroads are the obvious example. Most of the
technologies required for self-propelled steam engines on rails
(i.e., locomotives) were developed by the 1830s, but take-off,
measured by a leap in miles of rail construction, did not occur
until the 1850s. There were, moreover, numerous small railroad
companies that were gradually incorporated into larger corporate
systems. But this was a surprisingly slow and at times contentious
process that required decades.
The standardization of the gauge is a case in point. By 1860,
there were seven gauges for 30,626 miles of track. Of these seven,
the standard, 4-foot, 8.5-inch
Page 169
gauge represented the bare majority of mileage (53.3 percent).
The second most common gauge was the 5-foot gauge, which was
concentrated in the South, a region that was further isolated by
insufficient intra-regional rail links, including a critical lack
of bridges across major rivers. More generally, the effort by many
southern cities to secure an urban hinterland resulted in highly
localized lines emanating from the major cities but not connecting
them.8
Three considerations drove conformity to the "standard" gauge, a
precondition to interconnection: the big eastern railroad firms,
eager to tap into the rapidly expanding markets in the West,
particularly for western grain, which required transport across
many states and many independent rail lines; the outbreak of the
Civil War, which underlined the need for efficient east-west
transportation and communications from both political and military
perspectives; and finally, specification in 1862 of the 4-foot,
8.5-inch gauge for construction of the new transcontinental roads.
Between 1870 and 1880, most of the companies outside the South
adopted the uniform gauge; 3 percent merely built a third rail.
Following a meeting among leading railroad interests in the South
on February 2, 1886, the southern lines were brought into
conformity with the 4-foot, 8.5-inch gauge.9
Standardization of gauge as well as increasing conformity in
signaling, scheduling, and administrative procedures (e.g.,
cross-licensing access to track; through-ticketing and bills of
lading; inventory control and management) enabled freight to flow
across tracks and equipment controlled by competing interests. At
the same time, mergers and acquisitions meant that many of the
smaller companies built to service Portland, Maine, or Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, were incorporated into larger entities, resulting in a
pattern of many losers and a few big winners. Similar patterns
characterized both telephony and electricity.
The Bell interests had enjoyed a 20-year patent monopoly in
telephony, but with the expiration of key patents in 1893, the
number of telephone companies serving local or regional markets
exploded. Much to Bell's corporate dismay, the organization found
itself confronted by a potential welter of services, technical
standards, and lively competition. Indeed, in 1903, more than half
of the nation's 1,051 incorporated towns and cities hosted more
than one telephone company. In 1915, at least 40 percent of the
telephone exchanges in cities with a population of 5,000 or more
competed with another local exchange, and dual service continued to
exist in parts of the Midwest and Plains until 1924. By the end of
that year, however, AT&T, then under the jurisdiction of the
Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), had bought 223 of the 234
independent telephone companies subject to the agency's
jurisdiction.10
Electricity tells a similar story. Until the widespread adoption
of AC technology, service areas, limited by the short, one-mile
range of DC distribution, tended to be relatively compact. It was
fairly easy for a small electric utility to identify a market.
Thus, between 1887 and 1892, 28 separate firms offering electric
service were formed in Chicago alone—not including users who
purchased independent, self-contained plants. In their analysis of
the structure of the electric
Page 170
utility industry in 1897-1898, Hausman and Neufeld conclude that
most firms were only marginally profitable. Weaker firms found it
difficult to raise capital, which is one reason put forth for the
founding of municipally owned electric plants.11
The integration of DC into AC systems meant that economies of
scale and scope were technologically possible as well as desirable
since high-voltage AC transmission over distance was more efficient
but meant higher threshold costs. Hausman and Neufeld found that
strong power companies offering a higher rate of return tended to
be older and larger, to have bigger generators, to rely on hydro
rather than steam, to have a strong commitment to AC generation,
and to have a better load factor (i.e., the ratio of average to
peak demand). These firms had the potential to enjoy substantial
cost savings—conditions, the authors observe, "which would be
expected to presage a major period of consolidation," and which
did, indeed, occur. Power generation and transmission companies
evolved notions of holding companies as a way to leverage capital
and manage broad distribution. Led by Samuel Insull of Commonwealth
Edison, industry executives cultivated state regulatory agencies
that mandated standardized service and interconnection. By 1924, 7
holding companies controlled 40 percent of the nation's generating
capacity, and 16 holding companies generated three-fourths of the
nation's electrical power. Thus, even the publicly owned municipal
utilities, which provided service to end-users, were dependent on
private power providers and transmission line companies for access
to bulk power.12
First-Order Substitutions
So far, we have discussed the overall shape and form of these
industries. In each case, there was an initial period of expansion
and proliferation followed by consolidation into a few—or one,
in the case of telephony—corporate giants. This was in some
cases pushed by the requirements of the technology, e.g.,
electricity. But this was not necessary; telephony, for example,
could have existed as a series of interconnecting yet independent
companies—corporate consolidation and management were not
necessary.
In each of these cases, there was a product that let end-users
or consumers do something or have something better. The
substitution effect is most obvious in electricity. There already
existed a market in interior illumination provided by candles,
kerosene, and gas. Edison intentionally set out to provide a
superior product that was cost-competitive with the equivalent gas
service, and the pricing of electricity was established in terms of
competition with gas.13
Telephony was also an improvement on existing local
communications technologies. In 1873, Western Union enjoyed a
monopoly over telegraphic service, which was primarily between
cities. About 10 years earlier, the telegraph giant had begun to
experiment with combined telegraphic and delivery services as a way
to provide local communications connections. Western Union also
began to
Page 171
explore switching technologies that allowed financial
information to flow from several banks to a single clearinghouse
and then from the clearing house back out to the banks. The initial
market for telephony was believed to be local, thus filling the gap
in service. Telephony was initially constrained by signal
attenuation to a range of about 20 to 30 miles in urban
environments where cable was laid below grade, although
transmissions across distances of 800 miles could be achieved with
open-air lines. By 1890, Bell interests were already pursuing
interurban transmission in head-to-head competition with the
telegraph monopoly.
Rail transport was also conceived of as a substitution, in this
case, for transport via canal or overland. Although canals had
achieved the first major cost savings, rail held the advantage in
perishables and high-value goods, where the desire for speed
outweighed higher costs.14 The
differential between rail and water has been a matter of some
debate. In general, though, competition between rail and water
tended to lower all freight charges. Similar inter-product
competition also tended to keep electric utility rates relatively
low and encouraged utility executives to cooperate with regulatory
agencies, thus distancing themselves from the contentious and
adversarial positions taken by the gas companies.
Evolution of New Structures:
Niches, Organization, and Efficiency
Eventually, niches for different services formed and new
structures and services evolved. For example, early
nineteenth-century turnpike companies, never as profitable as
hoped, quickly gave way in the long-distance market to both canals
and railroads. On the other hand, expanding numbers of middle- and
long-distance routes via either rail or water increased the need
for short-distance overland services of 15 miles or less. This
increased demand more than offset the loss of long-distance
business. Plank roads, constructed on the same principle as wooden
sidewalks, were introduced after the mid-1830s, and wagons
dominated the short haul, that is, distances less than 15 to 20
miles long, where the rate was cheaper than either rail or canals
and time was not a constraint. This was seen as an advantage to
some entrepreneurs. John Murray Forbes of Boston, who controlled
the Michigan Central, avoided construction of branch lines and
encouraged local construction of plank roads affording access to
the railroad without his having to expend capital to reach markets.
Water transport via coastal, lake, or river steamer or by canal
barge had the advantage in medium to long hauls, averaging 650
miles, especially where the commodities shipped were high bulk and
low value. Innovations during the nineteenth century tended to
reduce costs mainly over medium to long distances. Waterways were
good albeit not perfect substitutes for rail and generally had the
advantage in shipping high-bulk/low-value goods over long
distances. Rail possessed the advantage in shipping high value
items over medium and long distances and in shipping
high-bulk/low-value commodities over medium distances.
Page 172
Similar differentiation characterized power. Competition with
electric companies spurred gas producers to cut prices and improve
the product. "Water" gas, introduced in 1880s, was considered
greatly superior to the earlier coal gas; it was cleaner and
provided better light. The manufacturing process required a larger
scale of operation, which increased the costs of entry but also
resulted in economies of scale. In a newly competitive environment,
Consumers Gas of Chicago was able to offer still lower prices, thus
forcing the price of gas to fall from $3.00 to $1.75 per 1,000
cubic feet. The new gas technology resulted in similar price
competition in Houston and a 40 percent decrease in local rates.
With electricity beginning to encroach upon the lighting market in
upper- and upper-middle-class households and commercial
establishments, gas seemed poised to capture the market of middle
and working class homes where kerosene light was still the
norm.
Discovery of natural gas fields and realization of the thermal
applications of gas led to further service and product
differentiation. Between 1900 and 1940, higher-income urban
households adopted electricity first and tended to prefer
electricity for lighting and natural gas for hot water and perhaps
cooking, with an oil burner for heat. Middle- and lower-income
residents converted to new energies more slowly. They selected
electricity for light first, then shifted from a coal to a gas
stove, and finally added a gas hot-water heater.15 Thus, consumers chose among multiple
energy technologies, and the urban energy landscape as late as the
1920s was characterized by a mix of coal, oil, gas, and
electricity.
Applications of electricity in the heavy industries took place
after World War I as a result of continued advances in technology
as well as soaring prices for both coal and labor. But the
implications of electrification were more profound than
substitution of one power source for another. Applications of
central station-generated electricity in manufacturing and industry
had begun in the 1890s among small users who realized the
advantages of the small AC electric motor in providing
fractionalized power in highly segmented, labor-intensive processes
where needs were historically too small to justify a large
investment in a steam engine: the apparel industries, chemicals,
printing, and several equipment manufacturers (electrical,
non-electrical, and transportation), and metal fabrication. This
cluster of industries remained at the forefront of electrification
through 1954. Large-scale enterprises, characterized by substantial
sunk costs in existing technology and by power- and heat-intensive
processes (lumber, paper, petroleum, stone/clay/glass, and primary
metals), consistently lagged in adopting electric power. Given the
scale of their facilities and the importance of the heat byproduct
(e.g., steam) to their industrial processes, managers of these
industries tended to install self-contained electric generating
plants when they did decide to go electric after 1919.16
Electricity thus offered small-scale enterprises access to power
that formerly they did not have. In both the heavy and light
industries and manufacturing plants, electrification revolutionized
the organization of work. Prior to the introduction
Page 173
of electricity, industry relied on centralized, belt-and-shaft
systems linked to a single prime mover (either water or
steam-powered). The advent of electricity and the electric motor
enabled a restructuring of industrial processes to a more
efficient, decentralized unit drive system where energy was made
available at the point of use. Unit drive systems possess numerous
advantages. Elimination of the centralized line shaft system
reduced fuel inputs and increased energy efficiency by reducing
friction losses implicit in belt-and-shaft distribution. Factory
structures no longer needed to support heavy mechanical systems,
permitting lighter, single-story factory layouts, which in turn
permitted better materials handling and flexible work flows.
Finally, components of the process became independent, and having
to fix a problem in one did not shut the entire system down. Walter
Devine, who has conducted the seminal work on electrification and
organization of industrial processes, argues that reduced energy
requirements resulting from efficient application of electricity in
unit-drive systems resulted in higher productivity of capital and
labor. And economist Harry Oshima finds that in textiles, six
labor-intensive mechanized processes in the era of steam were
reengineered to 25 processes without a concurrent increase in labor
inputs.17 Thus, electrification
enabled efficiencies in industrial and manufacturing processes.
Not Always the "Best"
Technology
The efficiency cum labor substitution argument set forth
by Oshima is part of a larger literature that addresses the
relationship between technology and growth in the American economy
in the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Two themes in
this literature resonate with contemporary concerns: one is the
relationship between technology and labor, and the second is the
so-called "productivity paradox." The productivity paradox consists
in the fact that although electricity was adopted as early as 1889,
measurable gains in aggregate national productivity began to
appear only in the 1920s, after large industrial
plants—metals, petroleum, transportation—shifted to
electric power. Why the lag?
For one thing, early adopters were small, labor-intensive
manufacturing plants where good light and access to fractionalized
power were important. But their impact on the total industrial
sector was small relative to the heavy industries, which did not
electrify until after 1919. According to economist Arthur Woolf,
this transition occurred in the context of rapidly falling prices
for electricity, escalating prices for coal, and increased costs of
labor. Woolf concludes that firms took advantage of cheaper energy
costs to offset higher labor costs by restructuring their
operations.18
His analysis has been criticized as overly reductionist and too
reliant on the costs of electricity and labor as the principal
determinants without taking into account the engineering
flexibility and efficiencies that electric power enabled or the
process of incremental adoption that began with smaller
enterprises.19 Finally,
Page 200
focus in this discussion is on the institutions involved in the
construction of democratic government, and on the relationships
between the people and government. We also address the process by
which individuals are elected and appointed to serve in
institutionally defined positions of influence and authority in the
democratic governance structure.
Democratic Governance
Computers and communications technologies have taken on a highly
visible role as tools of government and as symbols in the ongoing
debate about how government ought to function. There has been
considerable speculation over whether use of these technologies can
and will alter the functioning of democratic government. There are
a variety of forms of democratic government. We choose to focus our
discussion on the constitutional form of democratic government
found in the federated structure of the United States. The United
States is the oldest and greatest user of computers and
communications technologies among large democratic countries;
effects on its democratic institutions should by now be
apparent.
Our discussion covers three areas: effects on the fundamental
structure of democratic institutions predicated on separation of
powers and the concept of federalism; effects on the relationship
between government and the people; effects on the processes of
deliberation and constitutional operation. It also touches on risks
inherent in high levels of dependence on technology.
Effects on Democratic
Institutions
The U.S. form of democratic government is predicated on two key
assumptions. The first is the separation of power horizontally
across the key functions of government—the legislative,
executive, and judicial—in order to ensure that each branch
holds the others in check. In principle, differential use of
computers and communications technologies by one of the branches
could undermine the checks, thereby providing substantive,
procedural, functional, or symbolic advantage compared to the other
branches. The second assumption is that power should be separated
vertically in order to keep as much of the authority of government
as close to the citizen as possible. In principle, the construction
of national information systems for criminal justice, taxation,
welfare, and so on might enhance the power of the central
government in comparison to the regional and local governments.
The introduction of computers and communications technologies in
the U.S. federal government was accompanied from the start by
speculation that power would accrue to the branch with the most
technology. Given the preponderance of technology in the executive
branch, one would expect it to gain advantage over the legislative
and judicial branches. In fact, no such power shift has
occurred.
Page 201
The separation of powers doctrine ensures that each branch has
separate functions, that each is constitutionally and politically
independent of the other, and that each has inviolate recourse
through which to check the others. Computers and communications
technologies do not and cannot fundamentally change these
constitutional relationships. Three examples serve to
illustrate:
• Example 1. Assume that, as a result of its greater
computing, information, and analytic capabilities, the executive
branch gains power over the smaller, less experienced, and diffuse
bureaucracies supporting the legislative branch. The legislative
branch can limit and control executive branch computerization by
stopping the purchase of new computer systems through legislation,
by strangling the procurement process through audits and inquiries,
and by raising politically damaging questions of faulty
procurement, cost overruns, mismanagement, and other evils
resulting from executive computerization. The legislative branch
can also request data from executive agencies, which are usually
willing to comply in exchange for favorable treatment of their
appropriations. Finally, the legislative branch can buy its own
computers, develop its own information systems, and operate its own
analytic models with its own staff. Through these mechanisms, the
legislative branch can readily establish parity with and
independence from the executive branch.
• Example 2. Assume that the executive branch tries to
influence judicial review or overload the judicial branch with data
from its vast stores of computer databases. The judiciary is the
least computerized of the three branches of government and so is
considered most vulnerable to the information that the executive
branch can amass in support of its legal and policy preferences.
The judiciary, in response, can use its tremendous power over legal
proceedings to hold the executive branch to answer for its actions.
The judiciary can grant or deny standing of parties, can determine
the materiality of information, and can in effect declare all or
part of the executive branch's information to be "non-information"
and therefore inadmissible in any of its proceedings. The
judiciary, alone among the branches, has the power to decide what
information "is" within its own house.
The judiciary can also force the executive branch to provide the
information it wants, when it wants it, and in the form it wants
it, regardless of whether the information yet exists or what it
costs the executive to get it. Finally, where violations of federal
law may be involved the judiciary can override executive branch
attempts to withhold information under claims of "executive
privilege." In summary, the judiciary's powers overwhelm any
advantage the executive branch may gain from computers and
communications technologies.
• Example 3. Assume that the legislative branch seeks to
gain advantage over the executive through the use of computers for
oversight. Even if an "ideal" computerized system for legislative
oversight were in place, the executive could stall in the provision
of information, could provide misinformation and disinformation,
and could refuse outright to provide information requested by
the
Page 202
legislative branch. In such a confrontation, only the judiciary
would have the power to mediate the disagreement. The most powerful
response of the executive branch is the ability of the executive to
take his or her viewpoint directly to the citizens, thereby
marshaling popular support and potentially nullifying the effects
of oversight by the legislature. The use of computers and
communications technologies is unlikely to produce power shifts
from the executive to the legislative branch in this area
either.
The branches are able to check one another in virtually any case
where computers and communications technologies play a role, simply
because the powers of democratic institutions transcend whatever
advantage the technologies can confer.
Another possibility is that acquisition of vast computer
databases could give one level of government exceptional power over
other levels. The most common speculation has been that the central
government gains power at the expense of the regional and local
governments. There is no evidence that this has happened, and
moreover, it is unlikely that such a shift could happen. For one
thing, the central government does not need computers and
communications technologies to gain a power advantage because it
already has the supremacy of federal law on its side. The states
have wide powers of autonomous action (i.e., the residue of powers
not conferred by the Constitution upon the federal government) but
not independence. Also, intergovernmental relationships seldom
involve the federal government "ordering" state and local
governments about. Instead, most federal actions affecting states
involve the federal government paying for national programs, such
as unemployment and social welfare, that are implemented by state
or local governments, or holding out carrots and sticks to induce
state and local governments to adopt particular policies or
programs.
It is conceivable that the careful use of computers could permit
the federal government to be more heavy-handed in its superior role
by enabling federal agencies to better monitor state compliance
with federal expectations. However, the current political trend is
in the opposite direction. The dominant trend of federalism is
toward devolvement of funding, administration, and oversight
responsibility to the state and local level. As in the case of
separation of powers across the branches of government, the
distribution of power across the levels of the federated government
system is itself a central part of democratic governance and the
institutions that ensure such governance. Use of computers and
communications technologies is highly unlikely to affect this as
time goes on.
Effects on Relationships Between
Government and the People
In the foregoing discussion we address the impacts of computers
and communications technologies on democratic institutions. At a
more fundamental level, there is concern that these technologies
can affect the relationship between
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government at all levels and the citizens of the country. A
central principle of the U.S. form of democratic government is the
desire to protect citizens from government tyranny. At issue is
whether the use of computers and communications technologies could
give government the power to overwhelm constitutional safeguards
against abuse of individuals or groups. Creating a well-balanced
distribution of power between individual citizens and the
government created by and for those citizens is a central problem
in the maintenance of civil society. The issue is not whether
individuals are imperiled by a faceless government armed with
computers, but rather whether duly elected representatives, working
through appropriate constitutional mechanisms, will engender
computer-dependent abuse of individual rights.
Most of the concern over this issue is expressed in the debate
about computers, databanks, and personal privacy. There has been
considerable speculation and discussion of scenarios about the
potential problems for privacy due to the computerization of
government record-keeping activities, but there has been little
empirical evaluation of the privacy-related consequences of the use
of computers and communications technologies. The debate has at
times been largely ideological. With enough data and the right
computer systems, authorities will be able to monitor the behavior
of large numbers of individuals in a systematic and ongoing
fashion. The issue is no longer what authorities can do, but what
they choose to do in surveillance of the population.
Privacy is a politically sensitive topic, but as a concept in
society and law it is surprisingly not well developed. Existing
uses of computerized databanks have not yet abridged personal
privacy sufficiently to require constitutional action or even
substantial Supreme Court action on the matter. Nevertheless, the
privacy issue is being played out in the realms of rhetoric,
legislation, and executive action. The controversy is likely to
persist due to the creation and interconnection of large systems
containing personal information and the relatively weak enforcement
of existing privacy legislation.
Effects on the Political
Process
Computers and communications technologies do not appear to be
serious agents of change in democratic government, at least as seen
thus far. However, there is a chance that these technologies will
have a very substantial influence on the political processes that
lead to the election of representatives and the mobilization of
national political movements. Much has been written about the
effects of communications media, particularly the mass media of
radio and television, on the processes by which public opinion is
formed and guided, and on the political contests that determine who
will govern. The addition of advanced forms of public opinion
sensing and computerized direct-mail systems has created a package
of tools that are transforming the nature of the political process.
There is concern that the extensive manipulation of public moods
through the use of
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technology will decrease the electorate's overall awareness of
the issues, and increase the tendency toward the election of
individuals on the grounds of media image and single-issue
direct-mail advertising. The ultimate concern is the deliverance of
the role of political opinion making, and thereby the mobilization
of political bias, into the hands of technicians who stand between
actual political leaders and the electorate. This can result in
reduced influence of the electorate over political leaders, and
potentially, the means for wholesale distortion of the issues by
political leaders with skilled "image-making" technocrats.
The impact of computers and communications on political fund
raising and campaigning could prove to have significant effects on
the political process, not because of any particular weakness of
the Constitution itself or as a result of changes in the structure
or function of the governmental system, but because changes would
be part of larger effects of automation on the mobilization of bias
among interest groups in the population. The concept of
constitutional democracy depends on an informed electorate, capable
of discriminating among candidates based on their overall
strengths. Critics contend that extensive use of television in
campaigns has decreased the quality of debate and reduced attention
to the issues. Highly targeted, single-issue fund raising and
campaigning conducted through computer-assisted direct mail or
targeted telephone solicitation could contribute to such a trend.
The Constitution itself addresses only the major offices and issues
of enfranchisement, and not the protocols of party behavior or
campaigning. It is possible that computing-based changes in the
conduct of political contests will eventually have an effect on the
ways the Constitution is interpreted and implemented.
An orthogonal view of technology and its impact on social life
implies more subtle and possibly more important concerns for
democratic government. This view engages concern over the
application of computers and communications technologies to mass
surveillance, national information systems, and political
campaigning—in particular, to the question of what is really
important in the determination of who should govern. This concern
is manifest in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, in which
technological advancements were deliberately, and to a large
measure democratically, applied toward elimination of need and
stabilization of the social order. The new world was the epitome of
successful technocracy, to the point that circumstances that gave
rise to jealousy were preempted through ubiquitous use of
technology. Technology was used not to give expression to malicious
and destructive tendencies, but rather to support well-intentioned
efforts to eliminate the causes of strife. In the process, the
removal of strife eliminated existential choice, and thereby,
freedom. Technology maximized efficiency in exchange for
unavoidable limitations on individual privacy, choice, and
freedom.
This story is useful for considering the ultimate impacts of
computers and communications technologies on democratic government.
The world depicted by Huxley evolved over a protracted period of
time, and each step along the way
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posed a choice: to live with the contradictions of the present,
or to remove them with technical solutions. To the extent that
democratic government is threatened by the application of
information technology, the threat does not come from weaknesses in
the Constitution or the government it shapes. Rather, the threat
comes when the governed fail to protect and defend their rights to
personal privacy. Whether the growing use of information
technologies in mass social surveillance or in partisan political
contests is leading to this end remains to be seen. However, this
analysis gives sufficient evidence to warrant renewed concern and
to prompt increased monitoring of computing activities conducted by
government or used in political processes.
Technology, Dependency, and
Risk
A civil engineer working on the large California Water Project,
which brings water from the Sacramento/San Joaquin river delta to
Southern California, once remarked, "If we don't build this canal,
we won't need it." The creation of vital infrastructure ensures
dependence on that infrastructure. As surely as the world is now
dependent on its transport, telephone, and other infrastructures,
it will be dependent on the emerging information infrastructure. In
a sense, this is an inevitable price of technological
progress—dependency occurs only when the thing depended on is
very valuable to the dependent. At issue here is the character of
dependence that is likely to evolve, and the institutional
responses to that dependency.
Dependency on technology can bring risks. Failures in the
technological infrastructure can cause the collapse of economic and
social functionality. Regional blackouts of electricity service in
the Northeast during the 1970s and 1980s resulted in significant
economic losses. Blackouts of national long-distance telephone
service, credit data systems, electronic funds transfer systems,
and other such vital communications and information processing
services would undoubtedly cause widespread economic disruption.
Dependency can also result in unanticipated, downstream
consequences in the form of negative externalities such as
pollution. Reliance on nuclear weapons as a key component of
strategy during the Cold War resulted in an at-any-cost development
and production program that left large areas of the United States
terribly polluted, perhaps so badly that they must eventually be
entombed and sacrificed as a cost of the war. Although it is
difficult to imagine dependence on information technology producing
an equivalent environmental catastrophe, toxic materials used in
the manufacture of semiconductors and other hardware components
have polluted manufacturing sites throughout the country that must
now be cleaned up.
Perhaps most important, high levels of technological dependency
create more than the risk of economic difficulty from failure. When
technologies are instrumental in the construction and maintenance
of institutions, and workable substitutes are not available in the
event of failure, institutional collapse is possible. A
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useful example of this is the uni-modal transportation
infrastructure of the Los Angeles region. The entire region is
dependent on a single transportation infrastructure: vehicles on
roadways. The failure of any major component of that
infrastructure—fuel availability, roadways, traffic
controls—for any lengthy period of time would bring the entire
region of 12 million people to a halt. The Los Angeles region is at
risk not only because the existing infrastructure constitutes a
single point of failure capable of threatening the region, but also
because commuting long distances to work using that infrastructure
is a widespread and accepted cultural norm. The failure of
transportation would strike at the heart of a nondiscretionary
social institution. The collapse of two bridges on the Santa Monica
Freeway during the 1993 Northridge earthquake was minor given the
hundreds of miles of freeway in the region, yet the cost to the
city's economy was at least a $1 million per day during the
reconstruction, even after every available alternative transport
mode and scheme was implemented.
In summary, technological dependency is not necessarily
something to be avoided; in fact, it is probably impossible to
avoid altogether. What must be considered is the exposure brought
from dependency on technologies with a recognizable probability of
failure, no workable substitutes at hand, and high institutional
and social costs as a result of failure.
Conclusions and Implications
Research Issues
Computerization Is a Complex Social Phenomenon. The
process of automation involves more than the acquisition and
implementation of discrete components of technology. Automation is
a social phenomenon involving a "package." The adoption and
diffusion of information technology are influenced by both
demand-pull and supply-push factors. Demand forces dominate the
evolution of large, complex, custom applications, while supply
forces appear to exert a major influence on the evolution of
smaller packaged applications.
The Impacts of Computers Are Seldom as Predicted. Common
predictions about the effects of using information technology
frequently fail to materialize as expected. The failure of a
prediction is not a signal that the outcome is negative. Rather, it
is a sign that the impacts are richer and more complex than
anticipated. Computerization has not resulted in widespread job
displacement of middle managers because it has actually increased
their job scope and roles in many cases. And, while management
information system skill bureaucracies do not fit the ideal-type
service bureaucracy, they frequently produce leading-edge
applications of the technology. The important lesson from the
research, then, is that failures of expectation and prediction are
commonplace in the world of automation. The technology and its
applications are best characterized as evolutionary
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in impact rather than revolutionary. Indeed, many organizational
managers desire stability and work against surprises. Therefore,
new information technology is generally introduced slowly so that
it can be adapted to meet the organization's needs, and so that the
staff can adapt to the technology's introduction.
Technology Is Political. Rational perspectives on change
seldom acknowledge the explicitly political character of
technology. They emphasize organizational efficiency, concentrate
on the positive potential of technology, and assume
organization-wide agreement on the purposes of computing use. In
contrast, political perspectives see efficiency as a relative
concept, embrace the notion that technology can have differential
effects on various groups, and reflect the belief that
organizational life is rife with social conflict rather than
consensus. From a political perspective, organizations are seen as
adopting computing for a variety of reasons, including the desire
to enhance their status or credibility, or simply in response to
the actions of other organizations. Moreover, applications of the
technology can cause intra-organizational conflicts. Decisions
about technology are inherently political, and the politics behind
them may be technocratic, pluralistic, or reinforcing, with
different consequences for different groups in each case.
Political perspectives are essential for understanding
technology's role in organizations. Technocratic politics helps
explain the relationships between the technologists and end-users;
pluralistic politics helps explain the relationships among various
user interests vying for access to computing resources; and
reinforcement politics helps understand the effects of computing on
power and authority in organizations. Reinforcement politics has
proven to be important in explaining decisions about
computerization in organizations, wherein the technology is used
primarily to serve the interests of the dominant organizational
elites. Reinforcement occurs sometimes through the direct influence
of the elites, but more often it occurs through the actions of
lower-level managerial and technical staff in anticipation of the
interests and preferences of the elites. The political mechanisms
used to determine the course of organizational automation will
vary, depending on the broader political structure of the
organizations themselves, and these mechanisms tend to remain
stable over time.
Management Matters in Complex Ways. Prescriptive
literature is full of admonitions about the importance of
management in effective use of information technology. However,
empirical research into the role of management and the efficacy of
management policies is lacking. Research of the Irvine School has
demonstrated the crucial role of management action in determining
the course of automation, even in cases where major environmental
changes were present. Moreover, there are distinct patterns of
management action that yield different outcomes. Effective
management of computers and communications technologies is much
more difficult than suggested, however. Specific policies are
contingent in their effects on the state of computing management as
well as the characteristics
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of the organization. Policies recommended in the practitioner
literature have proven to be associated with serious problems in
the computing environment, and it is unclear whether the policies
are not working, whether they have not yet had time to work, or
whether they work only under special conditions.
Methodology
Research Requires the Use of Multiple Perspectives.
Review of the research shows that systematic research into social
impacts requires understanding and use of multiple disciplines for
viewing the interaction of technology, organizations, and society.
The work reviewed has used perspectives from the social sciences
(political science, economics, sociology, psychology,
communications, and management) and from the social analysis of
computing in the information and computer sciences. Perhaps more
important than the multidisciplinary character of this research,
however, is the value of drawing on multiple intellectual
perspectives when exploring fundamental causes of social
change.
All meaningful explanations of the social aspects of the use of
information technology proceed from an ideological base. All
scholars have interests and values that influence the theories and
explanations they construct. These interests are important not only
in prescriptive work; they also figure markedly in the descriptive
and explanatory work in the field. By recognizing the fact that
explanations are at least in part ideological, and that ideology is
an essential and required component of social analytic work, we are
able to ''triangulate" on a set of facts from several explanatory
positions. This approach permits explaining social phenomena more
comprehensively and precisely by gathering insight from various
points of view, and using contrasting elements from various
perspectives to test the intellectual coherence of alternative
perspectives. The multiple-perspectives approach leads to increased
self-consciousness during observation and explanation, and
increased precision, because explicit perspectives can be examined
in light of the facts and other perspectives for explaining the
facts.
The dominant analytical perspectives in the computer and
communications field have traditionally been tied to the
supply-push world of technical development, coupled with a
rational-economic interpretation of managerial behavior. These
explanatory perspectives have considerable power and have yielded
useful results. However, they have distinct limits. Technological
determinism and narrow managerial rationalism do not explain the
variance observed in the patterns and processes of adoption and
routinization of information technology in various tasks, and they
fall far short of explaining the considerable differences in
successful use of the technology across organizations. Indeed, such
perspectives are at a loss to explain the fact that "success" in
the use of information technology is singularly elusive. As
economist Eliot Soloway has stated so succinctly, the effects of
the information revolution have shown up everywhere but in the
profit figures.
There certainly are technical and economic-rational elements to
be considered
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in understanding use of information technology in organizations.
Missing, however, are the more finely grained explanations of
volition in shaping the behaviors of those that adopt and use the
technology, or that react to the effects of its use. While it is
clear that information technology has brought major opportunities
for change to organizations, it is the individuals and features of
the organizations within which they work that determine whether
given technologies are adopted and how they will be absorbed into
the complex of factors operating in modern organizations.
Organizations are political, social, and managerial constructions
that involve interactions among competing and cooperating groups,
each of which seeks to pursue some mix of its own and common
interests, within the framework of broader organizational and
social constructions of what is appropriate and expected. Since the
true consequences of using information technology are
unforeseeable, the actions of individuals in organizations are
always based to some extent on faith, social pressure, perceived
political advantage, and other factors, in addition to
"cost-benefit" calculi covering applications to given
activities.
Research Requires a Critical Perspective. Research
indicates that there is often a gulf between expectations and
subsequent experience with the use of information technology. It is
important, therefore, that research proceed from a critical stance.
It should be concerned with challenging existing ideas, examining
expectations about technology and organizations, and counteracting
unsubstantiated biases in both. It should focus particularly on the
important role played by ideology and expectations in the use of
information technology. The expectations of managers and others in
organizations influence the choices they make in adopting and using
technology. Managers who believe in technological solutions are
likely to introduce information technology on faith, while
discounting other considerations. And experiences with technology
shape future expectations about the efficacy of technology in
meeting organizational needs. The ongoing relationship between
expectations and outcomes is a crucial part of understanding the
dynamics of use of information technology in organizations.
In taking a critical stance, it is useful to start from common
expectations and accepted explanations, and then attempt to
corroborate them with empirical evidence. When the corroboration is
incomplete, explanations can be modified, expanded, or displaced in
order to develop a more accurate fit of theory with the facts. The
combination of the critical stance and the multiple-perspectives
approach reveals biases inherent in popular claims and provides
leverage to think critically about alternative explanations.
Social Analysis Requires Innovation in Research Design.
The Irvine School has produced methodological as well as
substantive contributions. Most are innovations in research design
that are especially suited to social analysis. The basic research
strategy of the group is that the scale of research has to match
the
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scope of the problem one seeks to address. Large, complex, and
multifaceted problems require similar approaches. Given customary
constraints (shortage of knowledge, resources, and talented
people), one is challenged to focus both energy and effort.
Five recommendations can guide research. The first is to focus
on leading adopters of the technology when studying the
effectiveness of policies for managing computing. This focus
enables determination of what works and what does not in the
process of innovating, and can lead to advice that will bring
others up to the level of the leading performers. The second, when
studying policies, is to sample sites at the extremes of policy
application (e.g., high and low centralization, insignificant and
extensive user training). This approach maximizes the variance on
the policies and provides a better indication of the basic
direction in the relationships. The third is to use census surveys
to investigate the extent of a technology's diffusion, the extent
of its use, and the nature of its organizational impact. In
addition to elimination of sampling bias, a census provides a good
indication of the distribution of patterns of diffusion throughout
a population of organizations. The fourth is to concentrate on
long-term study of organizational and social impacts. Such impacts
cannot be studied over the short term because changes occur slowly,
the effects of the use of technology are indirect more often than
direct, and the organization and the technology are interactive.
The fifth is to use a mix of methods—quantitative and
qualitative secondary data analysis, survey research, longitudinal
research, international comparative research—and a mix of
measures in the research in an effort to achieve better measurement
and to triangulate the results of various studies.
