Municipalities too eager to digitalize, expert warns

Dutch municipalities are racing to digitalize, introducing virtual services, fraud-detection algorithms and more. The digital city may not always serve its residents, warns Professor Jiska Engelbert. In her inaugural lecture, she calls for civil servants who dare to push back.

Dutch municipalities are investing heavily in digitalization, says Engelbert. Local authorities are appointing Chief Technology Officers, often from the tech sector, to lead them into the digital era. This reflects a broader trend, she says. Since the 1980s, municipalities have increasingly been run like businesses, with digitalization as the logical next step. Citizens are treated like clients, and civil servants must deliver measurable results.

Business mindset

The priority is making the city attractive to investors, says Engelbert. Digitalization reinforces this business mindset. Civil servants are expected to be "agile" according to consultancy logic. "Doing the right thing is equated with following protocols and ticking technological boxes."

Public interest

Engelbert isn't opposed to digitalization, she stresses, but wants to question its inevitability. Too little thought is given to whether a certain technology should be adopted and whether it serves the public interest. Are all residents digitally literate enough to participate? Does it hand too much power to the private tech companies managing the data flowing from our cities?

That's why Engelbert praises civil servants who dare to ask critical questions and say no to tech companies. "Critical civil servants are often dismissed as dwarsliggers [contrarians, Ed.] who cause the organization unnecessary delay. But these dwarsliggers actually deserve recognition for safeguarding the public interest."

Ethnographer

In her inaugural lecture, Engelbert will share inspiring examples from Rotterdam. The Stadsluisteren010 project, for instance, creatively encourages civil servants to take citizen participation seriously rather than rushing to implement their own agendas.

As a kind of ethnographer, Engelbert plans to follow such initiatives and engage with civil servants and resident collectives in their everyday environments.

"I want to know how much space civil servants have and give one another. What obstacles do they face? Are they under too much pressure to meet targets? Is there an institutional fear of critical debate?"

She is also studying the digital culture of municipalities to uncover why tech visionaries and digital analysis tools thrive in this environment.

Badge of honor

As far as Engelbert is concerned, dwarsligger should be a badge of honor and a metaphor: on railway tracks, dwarsliggers [dwarsligger means contrarian and railway sleeper, Ed.] hold the rails together. "Without them, the public interest would derail."

Provided by Leiden University