Developing the Vectorial Glance

Infrastructural Inversion for the New Agenda on Government Information Systems

Bibliographic Data

ID5338327
AuthorsAnnalisa Pelizza (0000-0002-7720-5659, University of Twente, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume41
Issue2
Pages298-321
Publication date2016-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243915597478
OpenAlexW2269138787
LanguageEN
Citations received21
References cited38

Integrating information systems (IS) has become a key goal for governments worldwide. Systems of "authentic registers," for instance, provide government agencies with information from databases acknowledged as the only legitimate sources of data. Concerns are thus arising about the risks for democratic accountability constituted by more and more integrated governmental IS. Studies call for a new research agenda that investigates the redistribution of authority and accountability entailed by interoperable IS. This article contributes to this endeavor by suggesting the "vectorial glance" as a research framework that works along two lines. First, by recovering the science and technology studies notion of "infrastructural inversion," it looks at the technical minutiae of interoperability projects as strategic sites where institutional shifts-and eventually state transformation-can become visible. Second, by defining interoperability as a performative process of boundary reordering, it opens research to the possibility that institutional identities be reconstituted along different lines. Just as vector graphics are based on paths that lead through control points without being bound to underlying pixels, so the vectorial glance runs across boundaries without implicitly assuming that they are immutable and/or a priori relevant for the analysis. This article draws on a case study observed while working at a major project of civil registers integration in Italy

Accountability · Epistemology · Interoperability · Performative utterance · Political science · Public relations · Sociology · World Wide Web · Computer Science · E-Government and Public Services · Information Systems Theories and Implementation · Law · Public Policy and Administration Research

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