- Email: [email protected]
Information Intensive Britain: A critical analysis of the policy issues
Book
terested in the use of a quantum perspective for the modelling of entropy in systems. Her principal point is that ‘political stability can be frutifully considered as a system dynamic run as a static descriptor.’ ‘Change,’ she says, ‘is not a hostile agent to the system.’ (Both quotes on page 142.) Probably the chapter closest to being a true ‘thought experiment’-and certainly the cleverest chapter in the book-is by E. Sam Overman. Though dryly titled ‘Policy physics’, it is cast as a fictional discussion between the seminal quantum physicist, Niels Bohr, and the seminal political scientist, equally Harold Lasswell (who can be credited for instigating almost everything new in political science before and after World War II, including an idea of policy sciences which is very compatible with a quantum perspective). Auguste Comte, who must be viewed as the grandfather of the entire social physics perspective, also gets some positivistic licks in at the end of this imaginary conversation. However, the article that will have everyone talking is by Laurence Tribe, the distinguished professor of law at Harvard Law School. The article originally appeared in the Harvard Law Review in 1989 (all other chapters in this book were written expressly for it). Subtitled, ‘What lawyers can learn from modern
reviews
281
physics’, it is the first attempt I am aware of to apply quantum physics to lawprimarily constitutional law-in the USA. While the article is a great tour de force, the chances of it being taken seriously by the US Supreme Court within the next quarter century or more are slim, given the recent appointments to that Court by Presidents Reagan and Bush, all of whom are at best Newtonians-and probably Ptolemaists! John Heilman then concludes the volume with a piece which attempts to state what the quantum perspective has to say about ‘the methodology of political research’. While useful in its own right, it does not add much to the overall discussion. As well as being required reading this book is easy reading too, especially given the importance and novelty of the message. It is clear that Becker-one of the few lucid writers in the American political science profession-exercised a helpful editorial hand, and thus added substantially to the utility of the volume. Where the writing is obtuse, it is my bet that the author resisted Becker’s suggestions for change. I said at the outset that I am no neutral observer of this book. But big deal! While I’ve tried to be fair, from a quantum perspective who can observe anything neutrally?
Sketch map of information
policy
Kevin Robins Information Intensive Britain: Analysis of the Policy Issues Nick Moore and Jane Steele 249 pages, 1991)
(London,
Policy
Studies
A Critical
Institute,
Information Intensive Britain is a report commissioned by the British Library ReKevin Robins is at the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK.
FUTURES
April 1992
search and Development Department, aiming to identify the key policy issues in the use of information in the UK today. The book is divided into four sections. In the first, ‘Information and the British economy’, Moore and Steele try to show how information is central to future productivity developments and to improvements in the UK’s competitive position. There are chapters on the economics of information, the economic geography of information, the information services sector and the information
282
Book
reviews
infrastructure. The second section, ‘Information and organizations’, explores the ways in which both private and public sector organizations have made of information use resources and invested in information systems. Case studies in individual chapters cover central government, local government, the health service, manufacturing industry, commerce and the service sector. In the third section of the report, the authors take up the question of ‘Information and citizenship’. ‘Without access to information’, they argue, ‘people cannot play their full part as citizens, nor can they take advantage of the benefits which citizenship can offer’. Here the focus is on personal social services, consumer health information and social security benefits. The final section of the report considers ‘Legislation and the regulation of information’, dealing with such issues as copyright, privacy and data protection, freedom of information, legal liability in the context of information products and services, standards, and, finally, the Net Book Agreement. In general the report has sought ‘to define the boundaries of our concern with information policy’, and, within those boundaries, ‘to provide a rough sketch map of the territory and its main features’. It has also sought ‘to identify the key documents which relate to information policy’, and it has an extensive bibliography. The report concludes with an overview of information policies.
Japan
:
That is the scope of what remains very much a report, rather than a book. It is no more than a preliminary literature search. Unfortunately, I cannot say that I found it useful. The authors provide a rather superficial skim across the surface of the issues, and what is very much missing is a ‘critical’ analysis of those issues (I note that the sub-title on the cover is ‘a critical analysis’, whilst on the inside title page it is more modestly ‘an analysis’). The report is like a long shopping list. There is no attempt to look at difficulties, debates, differences and disagreements within this sphere. There is no sense of an agenda emerging from the report, other than the bland and obvious argument that information is important and we had better do something about it. I could go on, but in essence what I’am saying is that, in my view, this report adds little to the existing literature on information policy. Information policy will become an increasingly important issue across the economy and society. The kind of contribution Moore and Steele are making comes rather too late in the day (it could have been written in the early 1980s). What is needed now is actual research, rather that further reiterations about the importance of information and the need for research. What is also needed is a more serious confrontation of the real problems and contestations that are likely to emerge in an informationintensive Britain.
taking over and staying ahead
Ian Inkster The Market and Beyond. Cooperation and Competition in Information Technology in the Japanese System Martin Fransman 333 pages (Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 1990)
Ian lnkster is Visiting Professor of Social Science and Policy, University of NSW, Sydney, PO Box 1, Kensington, NSW, 2033, Australia.
Of nine in total, five chapters of this monograph are centred on specific hightechnology Japanese cooperative research programmes. This material is pursued as both an exercise in itself and as a basis for a conceptualization of the process of technological change in modern Japan. The two introductory chapters are general and historical, the two concluding chapters quantitative and theoretical, drawing out the extramural implications of the project data. This may strike
FUTURES
April 1992
terested in the use of a quantum perspective for the modelling of entropy in systems. Her principal point is that ‘political stability can be frutifully considered as a system dynamic run as a static descriptor.’ ‘Change,’ she says, ‘is not a hostile agent to the system.’ (Both quotes on page 142.) Probably the chapter closest to being a true ‘thought experiment’-and certainly the cleverest chapter in the book-is by E. Sam Overman. Though dryly titled ‘Policy physics’, it is cast as a fictional discussion between the seminal quantum physicist, Niels Bohr, and the seminal political scientist, equally Harold Lasswell (who can be credited for instigating almost everything new in political science before and after World War II, including an idea of policy sciences which is very compatible with a quantum perspective). Auguste Comte, who must be viewed as the grandfather of the entire social physics perspective, also gets some positivistic licks in at the end of this imaginary conversation. However, the article that will have everyone talking is by Laurence Tribe, the distinguished professor of law at Harvard Law School. The article originally appeared in the Harvard Law Review in 1989 (all other chapters in this book were written expressly for it). Subtitled, ‘What lawyers can learn from modern
reviews
281
physics’, it is the first attempt I am aware of to apply quantum physics to lawprimarily constitutional law-in the USA. While the article is a great tour de force, the chances of it being taken seriously by the US Supreme Court within the next quarter century or more are slim, given the recent appointments to that Court by Presidents Reagan and Bush, all of whom are at best Newtonians-and probably Ptolemaists! John Heilman then concludes the volume with a piece which attempts to state what the quantum perspective has to say about ‘the methodology of political research’. While useful in its own right, it does not add much to the overall discussion. As well as being required reading this book is easy reading too, especially given the importance and novelty of the message. It is clear that Becker-one of the few lucid writers in the American political science profession-exercised a helpful editorial hand, and thus added substantially to the utility of the volume. Where the writing is obtuse, it is my bet that the author resisted Becker’s suggestions for change. I said at the outset that I am no neutral observer of this book. But big deal! While I’ve tried to be fair, from a quantum perspective who can observe anything neutrally?
Sketch map of information
policy
Kevin Robins Information Intensive Britain: Analysis of the Policy Issues Nick Moore and Jane Steele 249 pages, 1991)
(London,
Policy
Studies
A Critical
Institute,
Information Intensive Britain is a report commissioned by the British Library ReKevin Robins is at the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK.
FUTURES
April 1992
search and Development Department, aiming to identify the key policy issues in the use of information in the UK today. The book is divided into four sections. In the first, ‘Information and the British economy’, Moore and Steele try to show how information is central to future productivity developments and to improvements in the UK’s competitive position. There are chapters on the economics of information, the economic geography of information, the information services sector and the information
282
Book
reviews
infrastructure. The second section, ‘Information and organizations’, explores the ways in which both private and public sector organizations have made of information use resources and invested in information systems. Case studies in individual chapters cover central government, local government, the health service, manufacturing industry, commerce and the service sector. In the third section of the report, the authors take up the question of ‘Information and citizenship’. ‘Without access to information’, they argue, ‘people cannot play their full part as citizens, nor can they take advantage of the benefits which citizenship can offer’. Here the focus is on personal social services, consumer health information and social security benefits. The final section of the report considers ‘Legislation and the regulation of information’, dealing with such issues as copyright, privacy and data protection, freedom of information, legal liability in the context of information products and services, standards, and, finally, the Net Book Agreement. In general the report has sought ‘to define the boundaries of our concern with information policy’, and, within those boundaries, ‘to provide a rough sketch map of the territory and its main features’. It has also sought ‘to identify the key documents which relate to information policy’, and it has an extensive bibliography. The report concludes with an overview of information policies.
Japan
:
That is the scope of what remains very much a report, rather than a book. It is no more than a preliminary literature search. Unfortunately, I cannot say that I found it useful. The authors provide a rather superficial skim across the surface of the issues, and what is very much missing is a ‘critical’ analysis of those issues (I note that the sub-title on the cover is ‘a critical analysis’, whilst on the inside title page it is more modestly ‘an analysis’). The report is like a long shopping list. There is no attempt to look at difficulties, debates, differences and disagreements within this sphere. There is no sense of an agenda emerging from the report, other than the bland and obvious argument that information is important and we had better do something about it. I could go on, but in essence what I’am saying is that, in my view, this report adds little to the existing literature on information policy. Information policy will become an increasingly important issue across the economy and society. The kind of contribution Moore and Steele are making comes rather too late in the day (it could have been written in the early 1980s). What is needed now is actual research, rather that further reiterations about the importance of information and the need for research. What is also needed is a more serious confrontation of the real problems and contestations that are likely to emerge in an informationintensive Britain.
taking over and staying ahead
Ian Inkster The Market and Beyond. Cooperation and Competition in Information Technology in the Japanese System Martin Fransman 333 pages (Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 1990)
Ian lnkster is Visiting Professor of Social Science and Policy, University of NSW, Sydney, PO Box 1, Kensington, NSW, 2033, Australia.
Of nine in total, five chapters of this monograph are centred on specific hightechnology Japanese cooperative research programmes. This material is pursued as both an exercise in itself and as a basis for a conceptualization of the process of technological change in modern Japan. The two introductory chapters are general and historical, the two concluding chapters quantitative and theoretical, drawing out the extramural implications of the project data. This may strike
FUTURES
April 1992