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A review by _chaoticbooknook
Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better by Jennifer Pahlka
5.0
4.5 rounded up.
What a tremendous book! I almost feel like this was tailored to me: I love policy implementation, so many case studies focus on public health initiatives that have and have not rolled out well (healthcare.gov, MACRA, CovidTest.gov, etc.). Make this book into a whole class please!
This focuses a lot on the implementation side of policy, particularly in the digital realm, but I found it to be more broad strokes why policy implementation is so important especially in today’s digital age. The public’s expectations on what sort of service to receive has changed dramatically with the leaps and bounds in technology over the past two decades, and the government has not caught up despite many policies and regulations and promises to change.
Pahlka lays out her argument well in a digestible, unpatronizing, passionate, and clear manner. Even I was somewhat baffled to learn the inner machinations of how things worked within the government, but what I came away with is that 1) we are so fucking lucky to have the passionate, capable civil servants we do have, and 2) this is not easy but feels surmountable in an incremental and deliberate way that most other policy issues aren’t.
I found this book so hopeful in a sea of dire policy books and it felt like it was speaking to me - hence the nudge over the edge of a 9. I think everyone who is interested in current events should read this book.
What a tremendous book! I almost feel like this was tailored to me: I love policy implementation, so many case studies focus on public health initiatives that have and have not rolled out well (healthcare.gov, MACRA, CovidTest.gov, etc.). Make this book into a whole class please!
This focuses a lot on the implementation side of policy, particularly in the digital realm, but I found it to be more broad strokes why policy implementation is so important especially in today’s digital age. The public’s expectations on what sort of service to receive has changed dramatically with the leaps and bounds in technology over the past two decades, and the government has not caught up despite many policies and regulations and promises to change.
Pahlka lays out her argument well in a digestible, unpatronizing, passionate, and clear manner. Even I was somewhat baffled to learn the inner machinations of how things worked within the government, but what I came away with is that 1) we are so fucking lucky to have the passionate, capable civil servants we do have, and 2) this is not easy but feels surmountable in an incremental and deliberate way that most other policy issues aren’t.
I found this book so hopeful in a sea of dire policy books and it felt like it was speaking to me - hence the nudge over the edge of a 9. I think everyone who is interested in current events should read this book.