Akhlaque Haque is an associate professor of government at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA. His scholarship has appeared widely in peer-reviewed journals, among them Public Administration Review, Administration and Society, Social Science Computer Review, Public Administration Quarterly, and the International Journal of Public Administration.
"Surveillance, Transparency, and Democracy addresses a key question
for today's public administrators. The Janus-faced nature of
emerging social media and IT breakthroughs are apparent. On one
face, these technologies can both liberate societies and
individuals and give citizens a more meaningful voice in public
policy-making. On the other, the very same technology can stifle,
monitor, and control individuals, agencies, and societies in
unprecedented ways. Haque makes a clarion call for scholars and
practitioners not only to be alert to the 'two faces' of technology
but also to take steps to ensure that what de Tocqueville called
'democratic administration' triumphs over the field's dominant
focus on bureaucratic administration."
--Robert F. Durant, author of Why Public Service Matters: Public
Managers, Public Policy, and Democracy and editor of The Oxford
Handbook of American Bureaucracy
"Akhlaque Haque has provided us with a long overdue work focused on
the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in a
Democracy. He provides a critical linkage between the democratic
traditions and values of public administration and the rapidly
unfolding explosion of data and information that threatens to
overwhelm the connection between citizens and their government. He
ties the robust theoretical literature surrounding the dichotomy
between practice and administration and infuses that research with
the challenges resulting from rapid growth of data collection,
analysis, and dissemination."
--B. J. Reed, coauthor of Public Finance Administration and
Budgeting for Public Managers
"Where will our technology lead us? Transporters or Cylons? This
question makes for fascinating science fiction. However, until we
get the transporters, we get places incrementally, one step at a
time. We are on this journey every day. How we manage today's
information technology is very much a part of setting our long-term
course. Public administrators have become the steward of vast
amounts of data. This data has the potential to greatly improve
effective decision-making and promote democratic governance. It
also can expose every aspect of our history, habits, health, and
heredity to those with enough power, money or hacking skill to
obtain and exploit them. Surveillance, Transparency, and Democracy
implores us to make well-considered decisions regarding our
stewardship of public data. The decisions we make today have
immediate impact in our information-infused world. They mean even
more as the precedents for life in tomorrow's information-saturated
world."
--Mark C. Hoffman, director of the MPA Program at Grand Valley
State University
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