Change of State: Information, Policy, and Power

Sandra Braman
MIT Press
569 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0262513241

In Change of State: Information, Policy, and Power, Sandra Braman presents a wealth of information on perspectives of viewing, interpreting, and managing information policy. Her central thesis is that the United States is evolving from a bureaucratic welfare state into an information state and that this transformation is having negative impacts on citizen interests. Braman details the dynamics of this shift over 500 pages of legal, social, and political analysis all through the frame of information policy as an avenue of power in historical and modern terms. At its base, information is the precursor to power and Change of State makes it clear that information policy is truly the politics of modern power.

Braman begins her analysis with the meaning and scope of information policy. Information, according to Braman, can be defined from multiple perspectives but she sees information as a constitutive social force as being the most important from a policy-making perspective, “…those that see information as a constitutive force emphasize the ability of information to actively shape context” (p. 19). The remainder of the book keys off this contextual function of constitutive force. After introducing and attempting to define and outline the scope of information policy, Braman grounds her arguments in twenty information principles found in the US Constitution. She then expands on how these principles are being threatened through the perspectives of information policy on identity, systems, borders, and change. To close her work, Braman  has included a number of highly referenced bibliographic essays that add extensive academic support to the four perspectives she outlines.

The scope of information policy, from an individual, social, and political perspective, is a very important detail that Braman spends considerable time outlining. As with defining information, bounding the scope of information policy also has multiple definitive perspectives, some highly refined with others broadly encompassing; depending on your position within the decision-making process. It is here that Braman contributes an analytical framework, through the lenses of the information production chain; constitutive force; and legacy law, that students and scholars can build upon. She outlines a five-step process for bounding the domain of information policy:

1. The policy issue and the information production chain
2. Link analytically to related information policy issues
3. Examine the social impact of current policy
4. Develop policy recommendations
5. Translate recommendations into terms of legacy law

Braman calls her approach a “theoretically pluralist” one that defines, “more causally, policy for information, communication, and culture” (p. 77).

In what to this reviewer seems slightly high-level in relation to the rest of the text, Braman includes a lengthy chapter on the interplay of constitutional principles and the effects upon the information policy spaces they create. She outlines twenty constitutional principles like “the public good”, “due process”, and “spaces defined by war and peace”; each section serving the purpose of making the reader aware of the interaction between the foundational principles of this nation and information policy. These principles, as Braman writes, serve as, “a constitutional foundation for protecting every stage of the information production chain…” (p. 116).

With constitutional justifications outlines, Braman finally dives deep into the rationale for her thesis. The ensuing four chapters covering information policy and identity, structure, borders, and change all present justification for the argument that the evolving American information state is detrimental to citizen rights, social progress, and participatory democracy itself.

From an identity perspective, Braman argues that as government becomes an active collector of personal information, a personal (and collective) identity (within the realm of political representation) becomes difficult to construct. She roots this argument in information policies related to privacy, citizenship, education, and others that use statistics and probabilities to define the population:
As a consequence, the relationship between the individual and the state is being redefined in ways that may strengthen the identity of the informational state-but undermine the social cohesion upon which its effectiveness and vitality rest (p. 166).

From within the structural perspective, Braman sees the interrelations of systems and networks as another avenue of concern. More specifically, she focuses on the complexity of information policy to distinguish and regulate separation of informational, social, and technological systems. To these ends, she offers antitrust, copyright, patent, and freedom of information access and use policies to demonstrate the challenges in regulating the structures of the information state. Each of these areas have experienced dramatic challenges and changes in response to the adoption of modern information technologies and each is still in a state of regulatory flux.

The borders perspective is perhaps the most interesting perspectives to theorize about, simply because traditional physical borders differ greatly from the concept of borders in the information state. Braman identifies social, technological, and informational borders as all constituting barriers to information in one form or another:
Changes in the nature of the informational borders of the United States … particularly in the areas of restrictions on the flows of scientific, technical, and political information, can undercut governmental efforts to effect other types of change in social, technological and informational systems (p. 257).
Thus, within the information state, the concept of a border is highly elastic in nature and can be delineated whenever regulation of information becomes desirable thus creating a dynamic state driven censorship capability.

Finally, Braman approaches problems with the information state from the perspective of change. There are three primary concerns that Braman focuses on: change in social systems, change in technological systems, and change in information systems. Within each she makes the argument that regulations of the information state may be hindering social progress and limiting the freedoms as outlined by the constitution. This effect is, of course, contrary to what many believe the information technology revolution is supposed to bring. She relies upon analysis of freedom vs. security, limitations on free research, and federal control over dissemination of information in proving her respective points.

Some criticisms this reviewer has regarding Change of State is that it is highly focused on the political and social realities of Bush Administration policies. Being one year into the Obama Presidency, some of the issues that Braman rails against are being either lessened or reversed entirely (especially issues having to do with government transparency and dissemination of information). This over reliance on a specific chronological and political period reduces somewhat the applicability of Braman’s arguments.

Additionally, Braman, from the outset explains that in order to maker her text as readable as possible, she has abstained from making in-text references in all but a few cases. This is somewhat unusual and annoying as not all readers will be familiar with the topics presented and some may wish to read further on specific ideas and/or theories. While there is an extensive reference list, the absence of in-text citations is something that I feel takes away from the usability of the text as a academic tool.

While not exactly a criticism of Braman’s work, it should also be noted that she relies heavily on the traditional legal framework as the primary method of regulation in the information state. However, recent works by Lawrence Lessig (Code 2.0, 2006) have outlined other methods by which regulation of an information state could be had. Specifically, Lessig places focus on the realms of law, market, architecture, and code as all having equal regulatory influence over the behaviors of social and political interactions in a connected world. It would be interesting to see how Braman would incorporate these ideas into her work and how their influence might change her central thesis.

Change of State is an extensive and thought provoking piece that would be at home in the library of anyone interested in the challenges of formulating information policy in our precarious world. While the text is definitely written for an advanced audience, graduate students, legal professionals, and policy makers would certainly find guidance in this work. While the text is somewhat socially and politically constrained to the state of affairs during the Bush Administration, its lessons and analysis of that period of American history are salient and valuable non-the-less.

Tags: administration, Book Review, braman, change of state, information policy, law