The effect of information and communication technologies (ICT) on the policy-making process in governments

The use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the public sector is linked to the expectation of improved decision-making. However, the focus often remains on citizenstate interactions or the efficiency of internal administrative processes. Less attention is paid to the ministerial administration as an actor in executive policy formulation. This dissertation examines the effect of ICTs on policy formulation capacities in ministerial bureaucracies at the central government level. It derives from the concept of policy capacity to consider not only the analytical but also the creative and political capacity dimension of policy formulation processes. The cumulus encompasses four publications and is based on a triangulation of research data that analyzes data from semi-structured interviews and a comparative survey. The first research article contains a case study on the application of artificial intelligence (AI) for early crisis detection within the German Federal Government. Based on the theory of neoinstitutionalism, the role of existing institutional structures and arrangements for the development of such analytical capacities in the Federal Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry of Defense is examined. The data from semi-structured interviews shed light on the interdependencies between the systemic, organizational, and individual level in capacity building for big data algorithm systems (BDAS). The second research article takes a neoinstitutional perspective to examine the introduction of an electronic sustainability assessment tool (eNAP) in the context of regulatory impact assessments in Germany. The analysis of semistructured interviews shows how existing patterns of action can influence or restrain the introduction and use of ICTs against the background of firmly established rules, norms, and cultural-cognitive systems of meaning. After the first two articles have focused on the analytical capacities of policy formulation and purposefully introduced ICTs in bureaucracy, the third and fourth articles focus on the influence of social networking services (SNS) on the creative and political capacity dimension for government officials. These articles extend the analysis beyond the German-Weberian ideal type bureaucracy to Italy and Norway. The analyses of survey data particularly highlight the potentially negative consequences of social media stress. Although SNS can increase the use of information for policy formulation purposes, the social media stress that can arise from using these services can reduce policy creativity and undermine the positive effects of increased information use and individual political capacities in intra- and interministerial coordination. The results of this cumulative work emphasize that capacity building for ICTs to enhance analytical capability is less generic than often-prevailing managerial perspectives suggest. Furthermore, the behavioral effects of SNS that complement the institutional framework of ministerial officials in digital-era policy formulation constitute a notable deficiency in the existing knowledge.