chapter 22
...................................................................................................................................................THE TOOLS OF
GOVERNMENT IN THE
INFORMATION AGE
...................................................................................................................................................christopher hood
Whatdoes the arrival of contemporary information-age technology mean for older,
horse-age and railway-age, ways of thinking about the instruments used by govern-
ment for public policy? Do we need completely new ways of conceiving those
instruments in the twenty-Wrst century? Or on the contrary, do the older questions
and conceptions of government tools have just as much if not more analytic value in
an age of changing technology? This chapter argues the case for the latter propos-
ition. It begins by brieXy reviewing some of the standard strains in the policy
instruments literature of the last two decades, and then explores the case of e-
government and information-age technology to assess how far such developments
radically challenge earlier ways of thinking about the instrumentalities of the state,
and what we can learn about information-age technology in government through the
lenses of conventional tools of government analysis.