Technology and the US Congress: Looking back and looking forward

Issue title: Use of ICT by Members of Parliament

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Frantzich, Stephen^a

Affiliations: [a] Department of Political Science, US Naval Academy, 589 McNair Road, Annapolis, MD 21054-5030, USA. Tel.: +1 410 293 6865; Fax: +1 410 293 6876; E-mail: frantzic@usna.edu | University of Copenhagen, Denmark | Oxford Internet Institute, UK | University of Klagenfurt, Austria | I.S.C.T.E., Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract: The US Congress with its almost forty years of utilizing information and communications technology (ICT) serves as an appropriate vehicle for studying the degree to which information ICT has a revolutionary, minimalist or only potential impact on the politics and procedures of a significant political institution. As the "core technology" of political institutions, information processing stands out as a likely change facilitator. The inherent characteristics of new technologies tend to represent processes which are inconsistent with Congress' historical behavior patterns. Using historical, impressionistic and empirical data, the following analysis attempts to raise the key questions for assessing impact and determining the degree to which the inherent characteristics of the technology and patterns of usage bear out the various predictions. The generic nature of key aspects of Congress, and of the technologies in question, increase the possibility that findings from this realm will have wider applicability to other political and social institutions.

DOI: 10.3233/IP-2004-0047

Journal: Information Polity, vol. 9, no. 1-2, pp. 103-113, 2004