“Similarly, when a policy problem is divided in smaller parts, so that it can be distributed and worked on by collaborative teams, the drive toward openness and innovation begins.” (Wiki Government 33).
That’s a huge claim just sitting in the open. My first quibble is about the adjective collaborative – what does it mean to have a collaborative team? If it means that each team works with the others, how does this create “openness and innovation” instead of barter-style political compromise? (eg. pork barrel politics)
Second, distributing policy problems can lead to strife and division as much as centralized decisions. See, for example, the recent healthcare debate: everyone is “collaborating,” right? Someone still needs to make sense of all the noise.
Which leads to the question — who defines legitimacy and power for the distributed groups?
Openness and innovation are certainly not the necessary results of distributed work. There’s no reason why distributed policymaking will be more open. Even with a legal framework for sharing information, such as Freedom of Information or Open Meetings Acts, individual teams can still choose to go dark and not communicate with others.
Both terms are very vague — what is policy innovation, really? Can it not begin outside of distributed policy?
Having many pieces all over the place also makes it more difficult to see the big picture. In fact, it may be that it makes it harder, as interest group or individual experts stake their territory and claim issues/subtopics.
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