XVII IRSPM Conference, 10 – 12 April 2013, Prague
Panel 29: Innovative practices of public service delivery in the post-new public management-era
New institutional assemblages for borderless customs control in
the European Union
Arienne Naber¹, Wout Hofman², Bert Enserink¹ and Bas Kotterink² ¹ Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management
Delft University of Technology Delft, the Netherlands Email: a.c.naber@tudelft.nl ² TNO, Delft, the Netherlands
ABSTRACT.This article is based on a use case proposing a Single Window implementation for
borderless customs control in the European Union (EU). This EU e-Customs initiative proposes to combine trade facilitation from a customs perspective with secure trade based on supply chain risk analysis. To achieve this, government authorities would require access to the complete set of supply chain data, which is technically feasible as traders already have a lot of data available to meet customer requirements (Hofman 2011). Clearly, access to the full range of data of all actors in the trade chain, which also includes relevant member state authorities, improves transparency, accountability, and compliance with the rule of law. However, assuming that data are obtained directly from a trader or another government authority, security and privacy issues are a main concern. The new data-oriented approach to customs control of products (rather than the traditional process-driven control of cargo1) has implications for the relationship between authorities, traders, and technology providers, and consequently for the public values that are associated with service delivery. The e-Customs initiative is exemplary for the shift from new public management to digital-era governance (Dunleavy et al. 2006).
We use actor-network theory (ANT) to explore how the transition to a paperless environment for customs and trade creates new institutional assemblages for customs control in the EU. As ANT treats different actors, such as humans, things (ICTs, data, governments, firms) and ideas (information, scientific theories, reputation) on equal terms, it is well adapted to study the role played by knowledge and technology in institutional change.
1. Introducing the Single Window concept
The challenge for the European Union is to create a single market out of a collection of 27 different member states with originally very different policies and monitoring and sanctioning systems when it comes to customs control. To facilitate international trade and encourage coherent policy implementation throughout the EU the Single Window concept of coordinated border management is promoted, enhancing “the efficient exchange of information between trade and government” (UNECE 2005). The concept envisages a system that allows all participants in 1 For clarification purposes, products are the physical objects exchanged between a buyer and seller; cargo is the
packaging of those products for transportation, e.g. in boxes on pallets. A container is the equipment used for transportation of cargo.
international trade and transport to file information required by control bodies for import, export and transit operations “in one place, in a standard format, and to a single agency” that coordinates inspections. The implementation of a Single Window is expected to be highly beneficial for both governments and trade (ibid.):
For governments it can bring better risk management, improved levels of security and increased revenue yields with enhanced trader compliance. Trading communities benefit from transparent and predictable interpretation and application of rules, and better deployment of human and financial resources, resulting in appreciable gains in productivity and competitiveness.
To pave the way towards an integrated customs solution, the EU adopted the Multi-Annual Strategic Plan (MASP) in 2007, which includes binding advice on modernisation of customs legislation and ICT solutions, “requiring member states to implement specific systems that will transform current operations incrementally from the present through to 2013” (IBM 2008: 4). Aiming to establish a paperless environment for customs control, the EU Single Window project is exemplary of the shift from New Public Management (NPM) “towards 'digital-era governance' (DEG), which involves reintegrating functions into the governmental sphere (e.g. including supply chain risk analysis in customs control), adopting holistic and needs-oriented structures, and progressing digitalization of administrative processes” (Dunleavy et al. 2006).
As yet, the Single Window concept is just that, a concept of which the feasibility is under investigation by a number of customs, trade and technology related public and private
organisations. Several strategies are feasible to create a single access point for the exchange of data, prioritizing different considerations and setting different conditions for the organization of the network of actors. A great deal of debate and scholarly work on protecting public values followed in the wake of privatization and liberalization of government services under the heading of new public management (Beck Jørgensen and Bozeman 2002; de Bruijn and Dicke 2006). But what happens to these values in the information age and how can they be safeguarded? Besides the technical specifications of the ICT systems regarding interoperability and the availability of metadata that require further study—which is not the topic of this paper—it is relevant to
investigate how the transformation to an ICT-supported Single Window environment mediates the articulation of new institutional assemblages for customs control, and how the new institutions affect public values.
2. On rules and actor-networks
2.1. Clarifying the term institution
Before continuing, it is useful to clarify what we mean with the word institution. We do so by referring to the work of Elinor Ostrom and colleagues of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University (Kiser and Ostrom 1982; Ostrom 1986; Ostrom 1990; Ostrom et al. 1994; Crawford and Ostrom 1995; Ostrom 2005). In her 1984 Presidential address to the Public Choice Society, Ostrom observed that a wide range of conceptions are held by scholars regarding the use of the term 'institution', such as 'preferences', 'rules', 'individual strategies', 'customs and norms', and the 'current structural aspects of on-going political systems',
and how these referents are related to one another (1986). As public choice theorist, she
considered 'rules' as the best term to denote institutions because of their configurational character. In short, according to Ostrom rules refer to which actions (or states of the world) are required,
prohibited, or permitted (1986: 5). As a minimum, Ostrom proposes to consider seven types of
rules to explain actions and outcomes in an institutional analysis (Ostrom et al. 1994). These seven rules are: 1) position; 2) boundary; 3) authority (choice); 4) aggregation; 5) scope; 6) information; and 7) payoff.
In our interpretation in this paper, rules, and hence institutions, are network effects. Whereas for Ostrom rules combine to build the structure of an action situation, we view rules as the resultant of the organisation of actors, human and nonhuman. To study network effects, we use actor-network theory. ANT has been used descriptively to explain power and organization in a wide variety of domains, such as for instance in The Pasteurization of France (Latour 1988) or “the Enronization of the USA” (Ekbia 2004)2.In this paper, we use ANT to identify how ICTs mediate the organisation of the actor-network in the transformation to digital-era governance and what this does to important public values such as equality, transparency, accountability, and serving the public interest.
2.2. Translation and technical mediation
Crucial to understanding how patterns of organisation are generated in a network of actors is the concept of “shared understanding” that Ostrom (2005: 18) uses to define the rules that affect the structure of incentives in action situations3. But shared understanding (consensus, mutual perceptions), as the policy network theorists concede as well, is not something that emerges spontaneously among actors (Klijn and Koppenjan 2000; de Bruijn and ten Heuvelhoff 2002). Actor-network theory takes the concept of creating a shared understanding as the lynchpin of its theory on the mechanisms of power (Callon and Latour 1981; Callon 1986; Law 1992; Latour 1993). The theoretic framework builds on the idea that institutional change, and thus policy change, is not the effect of social learning (Mostert et al. 2007), but a process by which micro-actors (individuals, groups, families) grow into macro-micro-actors (institutions, organisations, multinational corporations, parties, states) with all due power and influence “to speak or act on behalf of another actor or force” that comes with the increase in size (Callon and Latour 1981: 279). From this perspective, actors are viewed as heterogeneous networks; or more precisely, as “nodes that have as many dimensions as they have connections” (Latour 1999: 370). An actor's strength, according to Latour (ibid.) “does not come from concentration, purity and unity, but from dissemination, heterogeneity and the careful plaiting of weak ties.” In other words, micro-actors become macro-micro-actors when they are able to position themselves as a central node in otherwise disparate networks.
2 The titles of these studies are well selected to underscore the importance of framing in network ordering. Although ANT was not applied in the articles on the 'Berlusconisation' of Italy by Alexandra Wyka (2007) and The
Economist (30 April 2009), the expression is evocative, appealing to notions about a process, the effects of which, we believe, are commonly understood without even knowing about ANT.
3 “An action situation refers to the social space where participants with diverse preferences interact, exchange goods and services, solve problems, dominate one another, or fight (among the many things that individuals do in action arenas)” (Ostrom 2005:14).
Fundamental to network ordering is the process of translation (Callon 1986; Law 1992; Latour 1994). Translation here means “displacement, drift, invention, mediation, the creation of a link that did not exist before and that to some degree modifies two elements or agents” (Latour 1994: 32). It is a process during which a proponent imposes itself and its definition of the situation on others. In ANT terminology, translation modifies an actor's “program of action” (ibid.). By employing different devices—i.e. the “four moments of translation” of problematisation, interessement, enrolment and mobilisation—competing actor-networks attempt to 'frame' reality and enlist others (Callon 1986). Problematisation involves the definition of the problem and the establishment of an 'obligatory passage point' by the focal actor “which renders them
indispensable in the network” (Callon 1986: 201); interessement is a series of processes during which qualities and motivations (roles) are bestowed to other actors according to the focal actor's programme; enrolment is a set of strategies aimed at persuading others to invest in or follow the programme; finally, mobilisation is a series of methods used to ensure that the representativity of spokesmen of collectivities remains uncontested by those collectivities. All four moments of translation intend to overcome resistance and prevent other actors to follow their own proclivity. During successful translation the network strengthens internally, gains coherence and consistence, and so becomes a durable macro-actor. But, translation is a process that is never completed. Particularly relevant to our goal in this paper is the ANT concept of mediation to clarify the role of technology in network ordering. Bruno Latour (1995) defines technology, or rather more accurately, technique, as follows: “the essence of a technique is the mediation of the relations between people on the one hand and things and animals on the other”.Mediation is about “how goals are redefined by association with nonhuman actants4, and how action is a property of the whole association, not particularly of those actants called human” (Latour 1994: 36). Latour distinguishes four meanings of mediation: displacement, composition, blackboxing, and
delegation5. During displacement the original goal of an actor is modified by another actor, whose programme of action is displaced accordingly: A person is different with a gun in hand and the gun is different when held by a person. It is neither people nor guns that kill; the responsibility for action is shared. Composition takes places when various actors have to join forces to explain action. For instance, flying is a property of the whole association of entities that includes airports and planes, launch pads and ticket counters. In other words, B-52s do not fly, the U.S. Air Force flies. Blackboxing is the process that makes the joint production of actors and artefacts entirely opaque. All interests are aligned following an obligatory passage point. Take, for instance, a slide projector. When functioning without fault it is a “black box”. We are not interested in its various parts that are silently taken for granted. Even the existence of the projector itself recedes to the background during a presentation. When it breaks down, however, all the different components, the lens, the bulb, the connection to the laptop, are catapulted back into existence, each with its role and function and its relatively independent goals, including the various repairmen that come swarm around it to regain control over the crisis. Delegation happens when techniques find their own meaning and their own way of articulation, such as a speed bump that forces drivers to slow 4 Since the word actor in the case of non-humans is uncommon, Latour actually considers 'actant' to be a better
expression (1994). In this paper, however, we will continue to use the term 'actor'.
down on campus. The driver's goal is translated, by means of the speed bump, from "slow down so as not to endanger students" into "slow down and protect my car's suspension."
In the Single Window use case, all of the four above meanings of mediation can be identified in the mobilisation of allies around the adoption of e-Customs in Europe. They are summarized in Table 1 below.
ANT concept Application in this paper Obligatory
passage point The promotion of e-Customs in the mobilisation of allies by the EU
Displacement Using ICT to rewrite customs legislation and create an enabling legal basis for a safer and wealthier Europe; to mobilize the public
Composition
Relating ICT and the notion of 'government of the future' that is more efficient and flexible, cheaper, more transparent, and creates better interoperability between national administrations in a unified market; to mobilize the EU and national politicians
Blackboxing
Using ICT to create a Single Window, facilitating traders to file information in “one place, in a standard format, and to a single agency” (UNECE 2005); to mobilize member states and industry.
Delegation Using ICT to create a “simple and paperless environment” (EC 2003; IBM 2008) that does customs control for you; to mobilize operational level customs officers
Table 1: ANT concepts applied to the Single Window use case 3. Actor-network theory applied to the Single Window use case
3.1. From process-oriented to data-driven customs control in Europe
Current systems for international trade have developed since the eighteenth century to cater for general cargo and paper-based transactions. They are designed to minimize the liability of the major carriers, protect the financial interests of both buyer and seller, but shield the consignor from taking full responsibility for sending goods into the supply chain (Van Stijn et al. 2011b). Within this process-driven concept of customs control (Heskhet, 2010), an exit declaration needs to be submitted at a port of loading and an entry summary declaration at a port of call of the particular vessel by a shipping line or his representing agent. The export declaration preceding the exit declaration and the import declaration succeeding the entry summary declaration do not contain the relation between products, cargo (packaging) and containers. Export and import declarations are currently performed by the seller as the shipper of the cargo and the buyer as the recipient or consignee respectively, or a forwarder as their representative. Because of the earlier mentioned liability issues (United Nations 2008), shipping lines or their agents are not aware of the relation between cargo or containers and products, thus government authorities are not aware of the ‘packaging’ and ‘stuffing/stripping’ relations (Hofman 2011). These relations are simply not present in the current declarations; shipper, consignee, shipping line, forwarder or agent of a shipping line do not provide the required information. Under the current law, they are simply not obliged to submit a declaration containing these relations. Thus, government authorities have insufficient information for proper security risk analyses. To obtain such information
governments can either decide to carry out additional on-site controls of goods, which is cumbersome and costly for both authorities and traders, or adopt a data perspective, which not only reflects business transactions, but the physical objects and their status as well (Hofman 2011; Van Stijn et al. 2011b). Hence, rather than focussing on the actual control of goods (or, more
accurately, cargo and containers), governments have to assure that traders produce the correct data and have the proper controls implemented in their business processes to assure correctness and completeness of data.
Governments directly accessing traders' data would represent a radical break with current customs control practices and legal frameworks. The Modernised Customs Code (Communities 2008) allows for System Based Auditing (SBA) with occasionally sampling trader’s data.
However, within the proposed Single Window concept such a control system would not suffice to ensure compliance with (inter)national laws and regulations to protect the security and safety of the Community and its residents. Current law clearly states that traders have to push data to a government authority, which implies that crawling is not allowed (Hofman 2011). However, the 2004 Draft Multi-Annual Strategic Plan (MASP) is quite clear concerning necessary legal changes and simplification of the Customs Code (EC 2004, Art. 2.1):
The use of IT for the benefit of customs authorities and economic operators requires changes to the Customs Code to bring it into accord with the electronic environment (emphasis added). It also offers an opportunity to simplify and harmonise the customs processes across the Community.
The EU vision for a modernised Customs Code includes the objective that the selection of goods for customs controls is based on risk analysis to protect the Union from unfair and illegal trade, to protect the environment, and to ensure the security and safety of the Union and its residents (ibid.).
Bringing the Customs Code into accord with the electronic environment—hence associating itself closely with developments in ICT—creating unity in a fragmented Europe, and making Europe safer, while simplifying operations are all the result of technical mediation.
3.2. E-Customs: an obligatory passage point
The obligatory passage point (OPP) is a key concept in actor-network theory; the OPP mediates all interactions between actors in a network by translating their 'action program' into a programme that particularly suits the focal actor. All actors in the network are persuaded that adopting this programme serves their interests, addresses their needs, solves their problems, and results in a better end situation. The transformation from a process-driven, paper-based environment for the control of cargo to a digitalized, data-driven system for customs control of products has such a translating effect. In other words, ICTs are used by the focal actor to structure the network of e-Customs in Europe, bringing together a wide range of otherwise disparate actors.
A good ordering strategy is to embody relations in durable materials such as buildings, texts, laws, devices, or software. Accordingly, a relatively stable network is one that is embodied in and performed by a variety of durable materials (Callon and Latour 1981; Law 1992). In the Single Window use case (remember it is still partly a hypothetical case as no Single Window exists at the moment), standards and protocols are developed, legislation rewritten, hardware and software designed, devices constructed, and reputations created; all to facilitate the automation of product identification and tracking across international borders—and all of this to make the EU a safer,
more secure, and more prosperous place to live and work. The focus of this paper is to illustrate the mediating role of ICTs in creating the actor-network.
For the EU, e-Customs is the way forward to a unified market and the promise of more
prosperity. Digitization of the customs system is presented to member state governments and EU citizens as leading to better standards and control and hence a safer, more secure future.
Supported by a robust e-Customs system, civil servants will be better able to carry out their jobs, while traders will benefit from a transparent and predictable interpretation and application of rules as well as better deployment of human and financial resources. Technology providers will have ample opportunity to develop software, hardware and a range of devices. Finally, better compliance with the rule of law, an image as politician-of-the-future, and the promise of more prosperity and jobs will help politicians to boost their image and improve their chances for re-election. Using ANT in the identification of the actor-network that is created, at least on paper, we identified the EU as the focal actor. However, considering the critical role of ICTs in the process, the prime mover in this story must rather be the main supplier of “strategic consulting, hardware, software and integration capabilities” for the transition to e-Customs in Europe, which is IBM (IBM 2008). This is what we term meta-mediation of the EU by technology providers in general and IBM more in particular; in terms of ‘translation’, the technology providers enrol the EU to ensure their long-term survival.
The mobilisation of different allies through the establishment of the obligatory passage point of e-Customs and the multiple mediations through ICTs is illustrated in Table 2 below.
Table 2: e-Customs as obligatory passage point in the EU’s strategy to mobilise allies
In the next sections we will discuss in more detail how the multiple mediations of ICT pan out in the Single Window use case.
3.3. Displacement: An enabling legal framework for a centralized European Union
During displacement the original goal of an actor (EU citizen) is modified by another actor (ICT), whose programme of action is displaced accordingly: The EU citizen is different with the help of ICTs and ICTs are different when used for European government. When we consider the
original programmes of action takes place. Criticism of the EU and opposition to the process of political integration exists throughout the Union and throughout the political spectrum. It is generally fed by the notion that integration weakens the nation state, that national identity is lost, and that the Union is largely undemocratic and bureaucratic. As a result, directions from
'Brussels' are often met with scepticism and reluctance. Refocusing the objective of customs legislation from revenue collection to protecting citizens, trade and the environment is a potential winner when it comes to legal changes as part of political and economic integration. No EU citizen could possibly be against a safer and more prosperous Europe. This reform process can only be made possible by the complex calculations supported by big data and the formidable processing power of modern ICTs.
3.4. Composition: Creating an image of government-of-the-future
Composition takes places when human and nonhuman actors are brought together to achieve a goal. The resulting action is a property of the entire association of entities. How this works in the e-Customs case can be illustrated as follows. In MASP Revision 11 of December 2012, legal requirements stipulate that (EC 2012):
All exchanges of data, accompanying documents, decisions and notifications between customs authorities and between economic operators and customs authorities required under the customs legislation, and the storage of such data as required under the customs legislation, shall be made using data-processing techniques.
Mustering modern ICTs and referring to its Digital Agenda 2020 (ibid.), the EU presents itself as an organisation that is more efficient and flexible, cheaper, more transparent, while creating improved interoperability between national administrations in a unified market. Relating ICTs with all the positive connotations of transparency, and efficiency and flexibility, normally
associated with big and booming businesses, the EU creates an image of itself as the government-of-the-future, ready to take on all the challenges that lie ahead.
3.5. Blackboxing: Creating a unified Union
Blackboxing makes the joint production of human actors and artefacts entirely opaque. The Single Window concept reduces the complexities and irregularities that exist among 27 member states and a collection of very diverse actors to a seamless environment in which the rule of law prevails and prosperity and progress are inevitable. Interoperability is the key word or, indeed, obligatory passage point. Without ICTs such strides towards standardization, integration and unification would not be possible. By equating interoperability with unification, the EU blackboxes such heterogeneous actors as norms and standards, technologies, technology providers and legal frameworks into a Single Window concept. The proposed architectures are distinctly geared towards centralization of power, firmly reinforcing the authority of the EU. This effect is shielded from view, however.
While blackboxing reinforces the strength of the European Commission, it is a process that is always reversible because associations betweens actors are unstable. For example, while the Commission favours “a single central functionality”, member states have reasons to resist this policy direction. Currently, 93% of customs declarations in the EU are being processed
electronically (EC 2012). This high degree of automation poses restrictions on what is legally and technically possible:
Bearing in mind this high degree of automation, it is obvious that any change of the legislation has to be examined carefully as most of these changes imply profound changes in the related IT systems.
Indeed, extending e-Customs legislation with safety and security policy affects more than a 1000 operational systems in member states, sometimes triggering the need for a total reconstruction. To keep expenditures under control, member states hence favour a more modular approach (ibid.). While recognizing the validity of the argument, the EU nevertheless notes in its 2012 MASP:
This hybrid architecture is of course more complex to design and implement by the Commission than in the case of a single central functionality and is less agile to change (emphasis added).
Service architectures that are more modular, or would use open standards based on the minimum necessary agreements, are in turn resisted by the EU: such architectures are “of course more complex”, while the whole point was to simplify operations, as well as “less agile to change”, while the objective was to improve flexibility (ibid.). Whatever is considered true concerning interoperability depends on who wins the argument, on who controls the black box.
In his investigation of the manufacture of facts and machines Latour describes the process of blackboxing as follows (1987: 29): “Buying a machine without question or believing a fact without question has the same consequence: it strengthens the case of whatever is bought or believed, it makes it more of a black box. To disbelieve or, so to speak, to 'dis-buy' either a machine or a fact is to weaken its case, interrupt its spread, transform it into a dead end, reopen the black box, break it apart and reallocate its components elsewhere” . As controversies can always arise, translation is a process that is never completed, especially when we approach the places where facts and machines are made (ibid.).
3.6. Delegation: Simplifying customs control
Delegation happens when techniques find their own meaning and their own way of articulation: An actor's goal is translated, by means of the technology—so delegating authority to that
technology—while the end result of the action remains all the same. The Single Window concept is consistently presented as a “simple and paperless environment” (EC 2003; MASP 2007; IBM 2008; MASP 2012) to address the challenges of the present customs landscape in Europe as painted by IBM (2008):
The European Union (EU) is the largest Customs union in the world, with an internal market of some 500 million citizens. EU Customs services handle nearly 20% of world imports, some 1,545 million tonnes of sea cargo and 3 million tonnes of air cargo each year. In 2007, EU Customs offices processed 183 million declarations. In addition to collecting over €12 billion annually, EU member states administrations (MSAs) have to guard against smuggling, fraud, environmental contamination and counterfeiting. They protect endangered species, the area’s cultural heritage, and intellectual capital rights. And they collect trade statistics to help policymakers detect economic trends. Most of these operations have been document- and paper-intensive – that is, until the coming of the EU’s e-Customs initiative.
While paper-based customs control requires the on site verification of the content of cargo (the above sketch of the European customs landscape only underscores how cumbersome that is), the e-Customs solution 'simply' involves the remote verification of the correctness and completeness of traders' data. The e-Customs initiative would hence create a more efficient and modern customs environment in which it is easier for Customs departments and their officials to (ibid.):
collect and safeguard Customs duties; to control the flow of goods, animals, personal effects and hazardous items in and out of member states; and to provide security from crime.
As much as the function of the control of goods is delegated to ICT-systems, the very design, construction, operation and maintenance of those systems is very often delegated to contractors (Dunleavy et al. 2006). (Admittedly, the term delegation is used here not so much as a 'meaning of technical mediation', but still involves the delegation of authority to another actor.) Larger businesses conceivably have in-house capabilities to build, operate and maintain their own ICT-systems for internal communication and data storage. Yet smaller firms usually have their data storage as well as networking and distribution activities contracted out to a dedicated service provider. Either way, as trade data are already stored somewhere, and with the need for cost-savings and efficiency in mind, governments will want to avoid duplicating the effort and not invest in human resources and technology to produce similar systems6. The reality is that despite in-house capacity of some of the trade partners, many of them rely on third parties for data storage7. Governments certainly rely heavily on external ICT professionals to provide the necessary expertise, hardware and software to support customs control. As IBM proudly writes about their “transformational role” in the transition towards e-Customs in Europe (2008:2):
IBM is well suited to play a significant a role in the transition to e-Customs in Europe. The IBM Customs, Borders and Revenue Management (CBRM) organisation is dedicated to bringing a strategic framework and leadership expertise to e-Customs solutions. The IBM Customs team of industry experts and solution architects has delivered consultancy services and open solutions in Europe, Asia and the United States. As a market leader in Customs transformation, IBM provides strategic consulting, hardware, software and integration capabilities.
As Dunleavy, Margetts and co-authors (2006) observe, the impact of large-scale contractor involvement in delivering ICT-related services has a major influence on organizational change in government. The reliance on ICT-solutions providers by governments and traders introduces a major actor into the mix who plays a defining role in ordering the e-Customs actor-network because of its control over relevant knowledge and technologies. For IBM, as market leader in 6 Moreover, “data that is increasingly becoming too big to process conventionally is generally too big to transport
anywhere as well. As a result, ICT is undergoing an inversion of priorities: it’s the program that needs to move, not the data” (Dumbill 2012, strata.oreilly.com/2012/01/what-is-big-data.html). “Because of this, we’re seeing the increasing integration between cloud computing facilities and data markets” (Dumbill 2012,
strata.oreilly.com/2012/03/data-markets-survey.html). Here too, we see a new actor-network unfolding, around big data in this case.
7 For example, Switch Communications is a privately held technology company which owns and operates seven data centers or colocation facilities in the Las Vegas valley: NAP1 (recently consolidated into NAP7), NAP2 (the former Enron Broadband building), NAP3, NAP4, NAP5, NAP6, and NAP7, the largest data center in the world today, also known as SuperNAP. NAP8 is currently under construction. All data centers are connected diversely and redundantly by Switch owned fiber. Source: www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/08/11/a-look-inside-the-vegas-supernap/, last accessed 8 March 2013.
customs solutions, as well as other technology providers, the adoption of the Single Window environment will make them indispensable in the EU for decades to come. In fact, IBM enrols the EU.
4. Discussion
To make e-Customs work, all trade partners have to provide the authorities with access to their supply chain data; it is after all these data that will be used to achieve the efficiency gains that are key to the Single Window concept. Openness of information which is encouraged by the Single Window concept, and which has always been at the heart of the modernizing state8 (Achterhuis 1988; Scott 1998), allows for the proper implementation of policies to safeguard such public values as consumer health and safety, and security from crime. The downside of improved control through more transparency, of course, is the infringement of privacy. From the perspective of the firm, complete supply chain visibility also represents a commercial and financial risk. Another— public and perhaps more fundamental—concern is that even though local monopolies of
information will be eliminated, new positional advantages will be created for those at the apex who have the knowledge, technology and access to easily decipher the new government-created format. Access to rich data, representing extremely high market values—and hence unaffordable to governments—is increasingly in the hands of private industries in the absence of proper regulatory control. As private industry is not subject to political accountability nor is it required to serve the public interest, to mention but two important public values (Beck Jørgensen and
Bozeman 2002: 64), a new information asymmetry threatens to contradict Europe's aim towards more equality, transparency and accountability.
Because the EU relies on ICT professionals such as IBM to develop and implement MASP solutions, these professionals are entrusted the responsibility of embedding desired values into the design of e-Customs technologies. IBM certainly sees itself playing such a role (IBM 2008: 5):
As a market-leading Customs solutions architect, integrator and service provider, IBM and its Business Partners have the capabilities necessary to not only help implement MASP solutions but to also provide services necessary to transform current systems and architectures. This approach is incremental, introducing solutions that can be integrated seamlessly with existing systems. To facilitate the transition to e-Customs, IBM has developed a solution framework to be a guide for integrating components on a standard platform (emphasis added).
Madeleine Akrich (1992) and Bruno Latour (1992; 1994) argue that artefacts are deliberately designed to both replace human action and constrain and shape the actions of other humans (remember the speed bump). Akrich and Latour introduce the concept of script—and respectively 8 Michel Foucault used the metaphor of the Panopticon (In: Achterhuis 1988: 259) to describe the emerging
nation-state as an institution that sees everything without being seen. The Panopticon is a collection of writings by Jeremy Bentham dating back to 1787. It proposes a circular structure as the design for a prison with an inspection house at its centre from which an observer can see all inmates in their cells without being seen. Source:
cartome.org/panopticon2.htm, last accessed 13 March 2013. Metaphorically, the Panopticon represents an information asymmetry between the observer (the state or the corporation) and the observed (citizens, consumers, employees).
the processes of 'inscription' and 'delegation'—to describe how technologies influence human behaviour and action. Like a script for a movie, technologies possess a script that prescribes the stage and the actions of the actors involved. As a consequence, Peter-Paul Verbeek argues, technologies give material answers to the moral question ‘how to act?’ (2006). This implies that engineers “materialize morality” (ibid.).
It is fair to conclude that ICT contractors, be they IBM or others, are at the heart of the kind of e-Customs solution that the EU is keen to adopt, and to such an extent that it is rather difficult for governments to exercise moral (or financial) control over proposed technological developments. Again, important public values are at stake. If proposed architectures favour rigid standardization and centralization over a modular approach based on open standards, the values of openness, participation, user orientation and efficiency are compromised. Also, is privacy sufficiently protected from unwanted perusal, for instance by the data industry? As behaviour is blackboxed, democratic control over design is seriously restricted in the absence of in-house expertise in relevant government departments. The situation is exacerbated because the EU has a preference to opt for a single solution, developed and implemented by a single provider, hence locking itself into a relationship for decades to come, potentially contradicting its own policies on trade, competition and industry (EC/Competition 2007; EC/TFEU 2008).
The above considerations concerning the Single Window concept raise such questions as: How do we avoid a new information asymmetry? And how do we ensure the proper embedding of
treasured public values into an e-Customs environment? In short, how do we avoid “public value failure” (Bozeman 2002; Bozeman and Sarewitz 2011)9?
5. Conclusions
Making the case for digital-era governance, Patrick Dunleavy and co-authors (2006: 478) argue that ICTs are
conditioning in important ways the whole terms of relations between government agencies and civil society.
We agree, hence our focus in this paper on the role of technology in network ordering. The aforementioned authors seem, however, to have a slightly different take on the performativity of ICTs as Dunleavy et al. (p. 468) see this influence as
having effects not in any direct technologically determined way (emphasis added).
This position is reiterated throughout the article, suggesting a “technological coloration of these processes but not any simple technological determination of them” (p. 478) and “[t]he feeding through of technological changes in government in itself has no direct effects on policy
outcomes” (p. 479) or “simple or direct technological impacts are often overhyped” (p. 486). This 9 Barry Bozeman and Daniel Sarewitz define public value failure as occurring “when efficient markets may not do”
(Bozeman 2002) or “when neither the market nor public sector provides goods and services required to achieve public values” (Bozeman and Sarewitz 2011). For a detailed discussion of public value mapping so as to avoid the marginalization of public values in decision making, we refer to the two aforementioned articles.
is exactly opposite of what ANT argues, namely that technologies affect the organisation of the network, and hence policy outcomes. Indeed, for ANT theorists, the very essence of technology is that it mediates the relations between people on the one hand and things and animals on the other (Latour 1995).
But upon reading the following phrase, Dunleavy et al. appear to come to the same conclusion as we have—and hope to have successfully demonstrated with our discussion of the four meanings of mediation of ICT in the e-Customs case (p. 468):
In fact, the chief impacts of digitization processes are achieved via organizational and cultural changes inside the government sector plus behavioral shifts by civil society actors outside—changes in which technology shifts play relatively small if critical roles.
The organizational and cultural changes in government as well as the behavioural shifts by civil society actors, in our view, have been brought about by displacement, composition, blackboxing and delegation. Clearly, ICT is just one of the actors, playing a small if critical role. The law, different cultures and habits in member states, data (especially big data), firms, standards and protocols, and so on all play a part in structuring the actor-network.
Further to considering the impact of digital-era governance practices, Dunleavy et al. distinguish three main themes. They are: “reintegrating functions into the governmental sphere, adopting holistic and needs-oriented structures, and progressing digitalization of administrative processes”. Interestingly, we recognize the four meanings of mediation in these themes. “Reintegration” is described as follows (2006: 481):
These seemingly conventional [...] changes [to redress the deficiencies of agency fragmentation under NPM - ACN] in fact have a novel character chiefly because of the IT convergences involved in them. For instance, the planned U.K. tax agencies’ merger rests on an extensive IT integration program.
What we see happening can be explained as displacement (when a new organisation is established) as well as composition (in the case of mergers). “Needs-based holism” can be interpreted as a form of blackboxing and delegation if we look at the characterization of this theme (p. 480):
Holistic reforms seek to simplify and change the entire relationship between agencies and their clients.
The simplification of the action, which happens when techniques find their own way of articulation, involves (ibid.):
‘‘end to end’’ reengineering of processes, stripping out unnecessary steps, compliance costs, checks, and forms. It also stresses the development of a more ‘‘agile’’ government that can respond speedily and flexibly to changes in the social environment.
The third theme, “digitization changes, broadly construed”, as typified by Dunleavy et al., represents blackboxing and delegation as well (p. 480):
Instead of electronic channels being seen as supplementary to conventional administrative and business processes, they become genuinely transformative, moving toward a situation where the agency ‘‘becomes its Web site’’.
Concealed behind the facade of a website—to the extent that the “agency becomes its Web site”—all the different parts of government recede to the background, just like the slide projector during a presentation.
Finally, for Dunleavy and co-authors digital-era governance
holds out the promise of a potential transition to a more genuinely integrated, agile, and holistic government, whose organizational operations are visible in detail both to the personnel operating in the fewer, broader public agencies and to citizens and civil society organizations.
Among UN agencies, businesses and the research community alike, the general interpretation of ICT is as an enabler10. But what ICT enables depends on how it is allowed to mediate relations. An integrated government potentially is also a more centralized government with an even stronger grip on citizens than ever before. Moreover, ICTs have the potential of delegating preciously held values, such as democracy and equality to complex architectures and so conceal their adherence from public perusal. Finally, ICTs may favour incumbent industries and stifle innovation coming from start-ups.
Public value failure and policy disasters partly explain the shift from new public management towards digital-era governance (Dunleavy et al. 2006). However, what our actor-network analysis of the e-Customs case shows is that DEG is also prone to going awry. This is simply so because social relations, including power and organization, are network effects (Law 1992). Indeed, as Dunleavy and colleagues (2006) observed while studying the shift from NPM to DEG, “older trends are still playing out and apparently flourishing.” What actor-network theory helps us to do is provide insight into trends, which should be helpful when we consider new institutional assemblages.
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