Visualization Practice and Government: Strategic Investments for More Democratic Governance

Evert A. Lindquist ()
Additional contact information
Evert A. Lindquist: University of Victoria

A chapter in Policy Analytics, Modelling, and Informatics, 2018, pp 225-246 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Practitioners and advocates see great potential to lever visual tools of all kinds to illuminate complex challenges, share information, create collective insight, and more efficiently show the results of meetings, data-dives, scans of social media, etc. Advocates of using visualization in public sector contexts typically focus on its potential for: describing and analyzing complex challenges; tracking social media and other streams of big data; and using infographics and other techniques to communicate information, insights, and messages to elected leaders and various publics. However, with the exception of digitally-driven services, little interest has focused on how visualization can better show how government works, its fabric, shifting contours, and complexity. This paper reviews different visual practice domains and their underlying craft logics and motivations. It makes a distinction between the application of visual tools in support of the ‘instrumental’ functions of government (associated with competing for, securing, and wielding the power) as opposed to ‘democratic functions’ (advising elected leaders, engaging citizens, and furthering accountability). It argues that the greatest inroads for visual tools has been in the more ‘instrumental areas’—supporting political parties and sitting governments for monitoring and service delivery—as opposed to furthering the larger aspirations of ‘democratic governance’. It concludes that for governments to invest more in visual tools for democratic governance will require political leadership and improved capacity inside government, and that sustained, systematic research will is required to monitor the take-up and influence of digital tools in these areas.

Keywords: Visualization; Visual tools; Visual practice; Information visualization; Policy-making; Government; Democratic governance; Engagement; Accountability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:paitcp:978-3-319-61762-6_10

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783319617626

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-61762-6_10

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Public Administration and Information Technology from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().