Outsourcing response-ability: Tales from ‘agile’ governance

This chapter discusses the governance consequences of the alleged ‘agile transformation’ of digitalising Western states. This transformation process, a consequence of the widespread digitalisation efforts of Western states, builds on a set of values and routines from software engineering which advocate for change in the project management logics of digital public service provision. An ‘agile’ public sector promises to deliver not just more thoroughly digitalised public services, but also better digitalisation by enhancing the speed, flexibility, and innovative capabilities of IT project management. However, such an agile transformation is not easily accomplished, and its implications for the welfare state and traditionally bureaucratic state apparatuses remain unclear. Through the prism of response-ability, we problematise the state's attempted agile transformation from four perspectives – governance, sourcing, legacy and maintenance, and citizenship and user involvement – drawing on empirical studies of the public sectors in the Nordic countries and the UK.