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Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better
by Jennifer Pahlka
A bold call to reexamine how our government operates - and sometimes fails to - from President Obama's former deputy chief technology officer and the founder of Code for America.
Just when we most need our government to work―to decarbonize our infrastructure and economy, to help the vulnerable through a pandemic, to defend ourselves against global threats―it is faltering. Government at all levels has limped into the digital age, offering online services that can feel even more cumbersome than the paperwork that preceded them and widening the gap between the policy outcomes we intend and what we get.
But it's not more money or more tech we need. Government is hamstrung by a rigid, industrial-era culture, in which elites dictate policy from on high, disconnected from and too often disdainful of the details of implementation. Lofty goals morph unrecognizably as they cascade through a complex hierarchy. But there is an approach taking hold that keeps pace with today's world and reclaims government for the people it is supposed to serve. Jennifer Pahlka shows why we must stop trying to move the government we have today onto new technology and instead consider what it would mean to truly recode American government.
"[A]n eye-opening and accessible examination of why online interactions with government in America work—or, often, do not...Throughout this empowering book, the author makes compelling, clear arguments, revealing inefficiency, bureaucracy, and incompetence, whether it stems from legislators, administrators, or IT professionals...An incredibly readable look at the fraught intersection of technological innovation and government bureaucracy." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[An] impassioned debut...[Pahlka] enriches her lucid technical discussions with concise history lessons and vivid profiles of government employees pushing for reform. Comprehensive and persuasive, this call for change inspires." —Publishers Weekly
"If you've ever wondered how government can get better, you'll love Pahlka's fresh take on the solutions to our bureaucratic dysfunction. Everyone can learn something from this wonderful book: How to strengthen democracies, how to lead with more wisdom, how to make government work for all of us. The future of our society—and even our planet—depends on our ability to recode the American government." —Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better
"Every American who cares about our democracy should read this book. We all know government doesn't work the way it should, but we chalk it up to bureaucratic dysfunction. Taking us behind the scenes in the best and the worst of our bureaucracies, Pahlka lays bare not only what's wrong, but what to do about it. An engaging and compelling read on a problem we can't afford to ignore." —Eric Schmidt, former Chairman of Alphabet
"Recoding America will rattle some cages, but Pahlka's engaging and vivid accounts of policy rhetoric crashing onto the rocks of implementation will convince you those cages need a little rattling. A compelling argument to focus on the underappreciated art of delivery in our digital era." —Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
This information about Recoding America was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jennifer Pahlka is the former deputy chief technology officer of the United States and the founder of Code for America, a nonprofit that believes government can work for people in the digital age. Pahlka is the winner of a Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, among others, and has been selected by Wired magazine as one of the people who have most shaped technology and society in the past twenty-five years.
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