Gran Bretaña

The process of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) diffusion today is one of the major determinants of a country’s economic growth and development. A greater understanding of the factors driving this is therefore critical in developing countries. Whilst the literature presents a range of potential factors that explain the difference in diffusion rates across countries, it is the relative level of economic development in one country compared with another that is cited most frequently. This would suggest that the diffusion of the telegraph and the telephone in Argentina should have been decidedly faster than in Mexico, given the former’s significant inherent economic advantage throughout the period. This was not found to be the case. Instead, Argentina underperformed while Mexico outperformed, giving rise to an interesting historical episode which I dub the ‘Double Paradox’.

Gran Bretaña

The use of the internet and related information and communication technologies (ICT) in public administration (known as ‘e-government’) has gained notable space within processes of public sector reform. Arguably, ICT provide an attractive strategy to reorganize internal government tasks, routines and processes, and to make them more efficient, responsive as well as accountable to citizens. Yet, the linkages between public values and e-government programmes remain understudied or taken for granted. My research focuses on this particular aspect of public sector reforms and organising. It engages with the debates towards modernisation of central government services while contributing to discussions of the relation between technologically induced programmes and public values over time. Using critical discourse analysis, I trace the discourses on public values and technology within a longitudinal case of a technology-enabled platform to facilitate foreign trade regulations in Mexico—the Mexican Single Window for Foreign Trade. In my empirical analysis, I examine a combination of key government texts and extensive data from fieldwork to address two related questions: what public values are presented, enacted or marginalized during the trajectory of the case, and how these values are enacted and operationalised into technology over time.