Journal of Economic Policy Reform

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Competing perspectives on the Big Data

revolution: a typology of applications in public
policy

Wilson Wong & Charles C. Hinnant

To cite this article: Wilson Wong & Charles C. Hinnant (2022): Competing perspectives on the Big
Data revolution: a typology of applications in public policy, Journal of Economic Policy Reform, DOI:
10.1080/17487870.2022.2103701

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JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC POLICY REFORM
https://doi.org/10.1080/17487870.2022.2103701

Competing perspectives on the Big Data revolution:

a typology of applications in public policy
a
Wilson Wong and Charles C. Hinnantb
a
Data Science and Policy Studies Programme, Faculty of Social Science, The Chinese University of
Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong; bSchool of Information, College of Communication and Information, Florida
State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

While the Big Data revolution is transforming public policy, some Received 4 February 2021
debates and competing perspectives on the impact of the disruptive Accepted 11 July 2022
technology of Big Data analytics remain. Although trade-offs among KEYWORDS
objectives are inevitable in Big Data applications, its ultimate impact AI; Big Data; data science;
would depend on the moderating factors, which vary across contexts data-driven public sector;
such as policy areas and national systems. Integrating the literature smart city; disruptive
from multiple disciplines, this article identifies some of the critical technology; comparative
moderating factors accounting for the differentials of Big Data public policy
impacts and develops a typology of its applications in public policy
as a heuristic to understand and reconcile competing perspectives.

Introduction
The rise of Big Data and its related disruptive technologies including artificial intelligence
(AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) present both threats and opportunities for actors
and stakeholders in the policy environment, including government, citizens, and busi-
ness (Boyd and Crawford 2012; Manyika et al. 2011; Schonberger and Cukier 2013;
Snijders, Matzat, and Reips 2012). One of the major puzzles, however, is that the
predicted outcomes of the Big Data revolution often conflict, describing two completely
different scenarios of the future of human society. As such scenarios are mutually
exclusive, their co-existence as predictions and discourses shows the limitation of our
current state of knowledge on the factors driving the divergence of Big Data impacts.
Governments often adopt new technologies to enhance their own agenda based on
their contexts of governance, which is a value-laden, negotiated and enacted process
(Stough and Mcbride 2014). Similar to many previous waves of information and com-
munication technologies (ICTs), it is likely that each actor and stakeholder would not
experience the same net benefit of Big Data as the impacts of new technologies often
involve clashes of competing values and interests (Lavertu 2014; Noveck 2009; Pirog
2014). Even under the same future scenario of the same technology, it is still possible that
the costs and benefits will not be distributed evenly among major actors that a win-win
outcome would not occur in all situations. For example, the expansion of the power of the
government and market through digital surveillance enabled by AI and Big Data could

CONTACT Wilson Wong [email protected]

© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 W. WONG AND C. HINNANT

occur at the expense of citizen privacy (Brayne 2017). The ability to unpack the complex-
ity of the impact of Big Data would depend on our understanding of how context or the
moderating factors affect the application of Big Data.
From this perspective, a critical step towards resolving this paradox of competing
perspectives is developing an analytical framework that accounts for the context and
nature of Big Data applications. Hence, this study has three objectives. First, it integrates
the literature on Big Data and public policy to identify the major promises and perils of
Big Data. Second, since many of predicted outcomes of Big Data are conflicting and
incompatible, it highlights the key moderating factors in the variation of Big Data
outcomes across contexts. Third, it illustrates the application of the proposed framework
for reconciling competing perspectives by developing a typology as a heuristic device for
guiding future policy and research.

The rise of Big Data: from private to public

Along with the wide application of Big Data analytics in the private sector to create
business value by enhancing the ability to predict market demand (Mariani and Wamba
2020), outperform rival competitors (Gupta and George 2016), strengthen dynamic
capacities for incremental and radical innovation (Mikalef et al. 2019) and generate
synergy with other critical variables of company performance such as entrepreneurial
orientation (Dubey et al. 2020), the discussion of how to apply the technology to public
policy is increasingly active and intense (Ferro et al. 2013; Stough and Mcbride 2014;
Schintler and Kulkarni 2014; Höchtl, Parycek, and Schöllhammer 2016). One generally
accepted definition of Big Data is the “5Vs” features that Misuraca, Mureddu, and Osimo
(2014) propose, namely: (1) Volume, (2) Velocity, (3) Variety, (4) Variability and (5)
Virality. Owing to the extent to which Big Data generates economic benefits, “Value” is
added to extend the original definition to “6Vs” (Wamba et al. 2015). Misuraca,
Mureddu, and Osimo (2014) explain that, without a quantitative threshold, Big Data
cannot be defined technically, and is simply a “dataset that cannot be stored, captured,
managed and analysed by means of conventional database software” (p. 173). Wamba
et al. (2015) call for an integrative definition to capture the multifaceted nature of Big
Data. Pirog (2014) echoes that Big Data is more of a general terminology that covers
a wide range of meanings, including being a data-intensive collection method and an
analytical approach. Big Data is not limited to the transformation in dataset structure but
includes how it evolves how people live, research and analyse (Metcalf and Crawford
2016; Schonberger and Cukier 2013).
The notion of Big Data interacting with public policy is seemingly, though not
actually, novel. The use of large datasets and quantitative analysis for evidence-based
policymaking is a well-discussed topic in public policy (Sanderson 2002). With Big Data
and advancements in data science, policymaking and public service delivery can be
increasingly evidence-based (OECD 2015; van Ooijen, Ubaldi, and Welby 2019).
Dunleavy et al. (2005) further point out how the digitalisation of information influences
public management reform and governance, leading to “digital-era governance”. As
government institutions possess more technological know-how on information collec-
tion and sharing among different government units and departments, departmental
functions could be more integrated and efficient (Bannister 2001). Klierink and Janssen
 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC POLICY REFORM 3

(2009) introduce the concept of “joined-up government”, where government depart-

ments could be “joined-up” by an information collecting and sharing system. This could
allow policymaking and public services to be more seamlessly connected, well integrated
and less prone to error (Janssen and Kuk 2016). This body of literature is vital to the
foundation of understanding a government’s enhanced capability of extracting intelli-
gence and insights from Big Data, and assimilating it into policy making and service
delivery.
Although Big Data and its technologies are new, explaining the impact of new
technology such as Big Data on organisations and institutions is not. Similar argu-
ments on the promises and perils of Big Data have been made in the discussions of the
impact of many previous ICT inventions such as microcomputers, the Internet, social
media and e-government. Drawing lessons from this literature, several moderating
factors representing the context often determine the impact of ICT. The technology
enactment framework set up by Fountain (2001) in her analysis of the impact of
Internet-driven technology on governments and public organisations is one pioneering
work. It helps clarify how the transformation of visions and perspectives of ICT into
real-world possibilities and scenarios is contingent upon organisational and institu-
tional contexts.
In the Management Information Systems (MIS) literature, Kraemer and King
(2006) make comparable arguments in their analysis of the organisational and
societal impacts of microcomputers and the Internet. Management research reports
that Big Data analytics adoption is related to coercive, mimetic and normative
pressures under institutional theory (Dubey et al. 2019). The same logic of analysis
also appears in the debate on globalisation and comparative public administration in
terms of the convergence and divergence led by administrative reforms such as those
under New Public Management (Haque 1996; Pollitt 2001; Wong and Kwong 2018).
As the contexts are dissimilar, the rise of globalisation and diffusion of global public
management reforms generates different impacts on different countries, causing
more divergence than convergence. In essence, the literature on the institutional
impact of technological change concludes that ICT adoption and impact is often
filtered by moderating factors that vary across contexts. This leads to the main thesis
of this article: instead of debating which of the competing perspectives of Big Data is
right or wrong, we should go beyond the existing dichotomous approach to identify
the contextual and underlying factors causing these contrasting outcomes.

The competing perspectives: gift or curse?

The academic debate on Big Data in public policy is divided into two contrasting views.
The embracing camp considers Big Data as a great opportunity to enhance policymaking
and public services, while the sceptical camp perceives it as a threat to citizen rights and
the future of human society. Many scholars and international organisations such as the
OECD (2015), who embrace Big Data technology, put forward the following arguments:
governments would be more efficient, effective and anticipatory; a data-driven public
sector would become more open, smart and innovative; and Big Data would create more
accountability, transparency and public engagement.
4 W. WONG AND C. HINNANT

Manyika et al. (2011) state that, to the public sector, having Big Data is like possessing
a “powerful arsenal of strategies and techniques for boosting productivity and enhancing
efficiency as well as effectiveness” (p. 54). Better and faster decisions could be made.
Public health is one of the leading examples of the positive application of Big Data for
social good. The rise of Big Data created to the new field of “precision public health”,
which allows granular predictions and better understanding of public health risks to
customise treatments for more specific and homogenous subpopulations (Dolley 2018).
Big Data also played a critical role in contact tracing in combating the COVID-19
pandemic (Wong and Wu 2021).
Before Big Data, government was often overwhelmed by the enormous quantity of
available data, which can be taken as “noise”. With the newly available analytical power,
not only could such “noise” be comprehended as meaningful information, the “fragmen-
ted yet heterogeneous” data could reveal previously unknown correlations. Using illegal
conversion in New York City as a case, Desouza and Jacob (2017) point out that “noise”
can translate into useful intelligence for smart city management.
Evidence-based policy making emphasises the policy decisions should be well-
informed by rigorous research and objectively established evidence (Cairney 2016). Big
Data enhances evidence-based policy making while making governance more forward-
looking and anticipatory. With more data or evidence, governments can also personalise
services for citizens. In the meantime, the public could enjoy a higher degree of partici-
pation in policy making and implementation processes by scrutinising the government
with Big Data. As more Big Data are available online through open data portals, citizens
could easily share their thoughts, promoting collaborative governance and open
innovation.
Besides upgrading the dynamic capacities of an organisation in driving incre-
mental and radical innovation and managing environmental uncertainty (Dubey
et al. 2019, 2020; Mikalef et al. 2019), Big Data technologies also empower policy
actors, including the public, with more tools and means to examine and evaluate
their governments’ performance (Wong and Chu 2020), leading to a higher parti-
cipation and citizen influence in the policy cycle. Höchtl, Parycek, and
Schöllhammer (2016) revise and update the policy cycle, which they call the
“e-policy cycle”. With Big Data, not only could more relevant information feed
into the policy process, every stage of the policy cycle can include a continuous
process of real-time information.
Sceptics make the following major counter-arguments: (1) bureaucrats’ inability to
realise the advantages of Big Data; (2) technology’s potential flaw that might lead to
biased or discriminating analytical outcomes; (3) impracticability for the public to
participate in the policy cycle and widened digital divide; and (4) threats to privacy,
citizen rights and other ethical concerns.
First, Dunleavy et al. (2005) argue that although technological advancement is always
welcome, government institutions have low technological literacy and face structural and
organisational obstacles that prevent them from tapping into the potential power and
benefits of Big Data. Many other scholars also share the same concern (Giest 2017).
Though Big Data is a promising technology, bureaucratic institutions can experience
difficulties resolving the existing technical problems (Snijders, Matzat, and Reips 2012),
let alone utilising it.
 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC POLICY REFORM 5

Second, Big Data analysis may not be as scientific and objective as perceived. Desouza
and Jacob (2017) point out that “sentiment analysis” on social media platforms can easily
lead to biased results caused by the accounts controlled by proxies. Brayne (2017)
provides another case in her field study in the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD),
which applied Big Data technology in law enforcement. She highlights that widespread
race-based social discrimination could be embedded in the analytical algorithmic pro-
cedures, which would eventually produce unfair outcomes. An Oxford study finds it
increasingly common that state actors, particularly authoritarian regimes, use organised
social media manipulation and computational propaganda to shape public attitudes in
their own country and the global community (Bradshaw and Howard 2019). The result of
Big Data analytics can be partial or even biased through intended or unintended actions
due to the over-amplification of a certain vocal groups and the exclusion of others.
Third, owing to the general public’s limited knowledge of the process and mechanisms of
governance, the effect of Big Data on public participation could has been exaggerated
(Lavertu 2014). The availability of Big Data does not necessarily lead to a functioning open
data portal available and useful to citizens (Veljkovic, Bogdanovic-Dinic, and Stoimenov
2014). Even when data are shared, there is no guarantee that they are made accessible to the
public in a meaningful and understandable form (Clarke and Margetts 2014). Data-driven
governance and smart urbanism could also widen the digital divide and cause higher
inequality, which would especially harm higher-risk classes with limited digital literacy and
resources (Curran and Smart 2021). Even for those who acquire the knowledge and know-
how, without a feedback mechanism in the government, the policy process still excludes
public opinion. As Noveck (2009, 74) argues, without a comprehensive system of data
availability and a feedback mechanism, “it doesn’t do anything to get anyone to do anything.”
Privacy of citizens can be violated as the state and the market gain more control and
access to citizen data (Clarke and Margetts 2014; Desouza and Jacob 2017; Mergel,
Rethemeyer, and Isett 2016). Although Big Data may grant citizens access to higher
quality goods and personalised services, the price of giving up part of their privacy should
also be considered (Galloway 2017). With the precision and accuracy of matching and
merging information through AI, many anonymous datasets such as those in social
media can be de-anonymised (Lewis et al. 2008). Even if all the datasets are publicly
available, a giant new, combined dataset still threatens privacy and has implications that
existing ethical and regulatory frameworks did not foresee or consider (Herschel and
Miori 2017).
With the rise of surveillance capitalism, Big Data can breed collusion to form
a “corporate-state nexus” to influence fundamental political events and dominate the
economic life of citizens (Liang et al. 2018). In some extreme cases, the state may be able
to exercise “big brother” political control, making a digital Orwellian state, making the
shift from a panoptic to a panspectric surveillance a reality (Jiang and Fu 2018). Such
a powerful digital state would mandate the transfer of power of data surveillance from the
private sector to the public sector (Aho and Duffield 2020). The Social Credit System
(SCS) of China is a well-known example of how the state can use Big Data and AI to
enhance its power of public surveillance and link it with a reward-and-penalty system
(Liang et al. 2018). Even for democratic countries, the unparalleled power of Big Data
created a conceptual gap in their ability to apply the definition of “private information”
under existing guidelines and frameworks to ensure privacy (Zimmer 2018).
6 W. WONG AND C. HINNANT

The moderating context: reconciling the differences

Table 1 summarises the positive and negative outcomes predicted for the Big Data
revolution in public policy after integrating the literature. The competing perspectives
represent two alternative universes, which in principle, could not co-exist in reality. For
example, citizen empowerment and the rise in state power to exert panspectric surveil-
lance should be in conflict and are mutually exclusive.
Big Data is not the first ICT that transformed society, and definitely will not be the last
one. Similar arguments on the promises and perils of technology were raised in the
discussion of the impact of many existing ICTs. One of the most precious lessons from
this stream of literature is that, for both private and public organisations, technological
change and digital transformation is seldom an exogenous process in which the new
technology is imposed externally without modification or filtering (Akter et al. 2016;
Dubey et al. 2019; Pollitt 2001; Wong 2018). It is at least partially an endogenous process
in which the technology is moderated in its adoption and application by actors inside the
system to reinforce the existing tendencies and inclinations (Fountain 2001). The mod-
erating factors, which reflect the filtering effect of the context, provide the key to reconcile
the competing perspectives underlying the predictions on Big Data. These contrasting
perspectives seem at first to be contradictory, but their conflicts can be resolved by
identifying the moderating factors that allow us to explain the differing impacts. Despite
their contradictions, both perspectives can be true and exist in reality across contexts in
different organisations, countries and policy areas according to their mix of moderating
factors.
As an initial attempt to construct a framework for analysing and resolving the conflicts
between the positive and negative outcomes of Big Data, based on the literature review,
Table 2 lists the major moderating factors. They can be divided into some major
dimensions, including political, economic, social, organisational, values and ethics, and
regulation. Each system or country may have different values in each dimension, thus

Table 1. The promises and perils of big data: contrasting visions and perspectives.
Gift: Positive Outcomes Curse: Negative Outcomes
● Anticipatory Governance: better forecasting and fore- ● State surveillance and control; digital Orwellian state-
sight; improved planning, predictions and identifica- shift from panoptic to panspectric surveillance
tion of service needs and policy directions ● Privacy threats and security concerns; misuse of perso-
● Policy design and delivery: evidence-based policymak- nal information in both legal (including research and
ing; personalised services to citizens using real-time analysis) and illegal activities
data ● Government limitations and bureaucratic inability to
● Joined-up government: better integration across units fully utilise the potential of Big Data and related
and seamless coordination among governmental technologies
functions ● Surveillance capitalism: profit-making opportunities
● Better performance management: efficient resource for the market at the expense of citizens; danger of
management, higher quality and continuous transfer of power of data surveillance from the private
improvement sector to the public sector
● Innovation: open data, open innovation and co- ● Over-estimated practicability of citizen participation;
innovation; dynamic capacities (incremental and widening digital divide and inequalities, emergence
radical innovation) of high-risk classes
● Open government: more transparency and account- ● Lack of ethical guidelines and systems of data govern-
ability for higher trust and greater public engagement ance for ensuring informed consent while limiting risk
● data-driven public sector, smart city initiatives: AI, and harm
Internet of Things (IoT) and other disruptive technol- ● Flaws and overconfidence in the power and unbiased
ogies to improve quality of life results of Big Data analytics
 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC POLICY REFORM 7

Table 2. Moderating factors of big data across contexts.

Dimension Main Factors and Implications
Political ● Structural power dynamics
● Checks and balances; accountability system
● Politics and configurations of policy subsystems
● Influence of public participation
Economic ● Competition among corporations as a check and balance
● Government-market collusion, “privatised” state power, state entrepreneurship and state
capitalism
● Corporate social responsibility
Social ● Awareness of citizen rights; civic culture and values; privacy paradigm
● Data literacy and ICT capacity of the citizenry
● Civil society and public interest groups, including international NGOs (to overcome collective
action problems)
Organisational ● Data-driven culture and socio-materialism
● Role of chief information officer and departmentalism
● Technical management capacity and technical engagement capacity
Values and ● Dominant principles and approaches in society: Kantianism, Utilitarianism, Social Contract Theory
Ethics and Virtue Theory
● Privacy as contextual integrity
Regulation ● Major regulations on: source and generation of data; aggregation and dis-aggregation of data;
access to data (among stakeholders and actors, including the State (S), Market (M), and Citizens
(C)); format and nature of data availability
● Information asymmetry, policy uncertainty and errors in interventions
● Pressures from external and international organisations (institutional theory and isomorphism:
coercive, mimetic and normative)

explaining the dissimilar effects. This creates the potential for a comparative analysis of
technological impacts across institutional settings, international boundaries and policy
areas.
Each major dimension consists of sub-dimensions. For example, the political context
can be further divided into the sub-dimensions of structural power dynamics, checks and
balances, accountability among political institutions, politics and configurations of policy
subsystems, and the power of citizens to influence policies through public participation
(Taeihagh, Ramesh, and Howlett 2021). Since technology tends to reinforce existing
inclinations and tendencies, if state power is taken as superior to citizen power in an
institutional or constitutional context, then Big Data is expected to enhance state power,
probably in the form of increased digital control and state surveillance at the expense of
citizen rights and autonomy.
In the economic dimension, checks and balances can also exist among market players
(Mikalef et al. 2019). If the market has more free and keen competition, then it would be
easier to balance their power to benefit citizens and protect their rights. However, the
state and market actors could collude and fuse together under crony capitalism, state
entrepreneurship, state capitalism and surveillance capitalism (Aho and Duffield 2020).
In those contexts, the government has a close linkage or inseparable identity with
business, which could further tighten the control of society through Big Data. It is also
possible that the market can be self-constraining or self-correcting to offset some of the
negative effects through corporate social responsibility (Wong 2020).
The social and organisational dimensions are equally important in driving the diver-
gent impacts of Big Data. Citizens can be empowered with skills and knowledge to fight
the state to protect their rights and interest. Similarly, civil society, including local and
international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can play a critical role in the
8 W. WONG AND C. HINNANT

process (Goyal, Howlett, and Taeihagh 2021). They can differ in their reactions to ICT
because of differences in organisation culture, technical and management capacities
(Wamba et al. 2015), and privacy paradigms (Bennett and Raab 2020). Besides data-
driven culture (van Ooijen, Ubaldi, and Welby 2019), public-private differences should
also be considered. While private organisations may face a decline in market competition
by rejecting the latest ICT, public organisations often have much more room to man-
oeuvre in adopting and applying Big Data as they do not face economic competition in
the absence of market (Dunleavy et al. 2005).
The regulatory dimension is interesting and has a mixed role. On the one hand, policy
infrastructure is important for technological development because the absence of rele-
vant and supportive policies and regulations can adversely affect the development of Big
Data (Mikalef et al. 2020; OECD 2015). On the other hand, the contextual factors of
regulation such as information asymmetries, policy uncertainty and errors, and institu-
tional and regulatory pressures must be focused on to channel the adoption of technology
in the desirable direction (Taeihagh, Ramesh, and Howlett 2021). In consonance with the
theory of contextual integrity, the effects and implications of Big Data on privacy and
citizen rights cannot be determined outside its context (Zimmer 2018). In this connec-
tion, how the principles and approaches are envisioned, articulated and enforced in
a specific context under the values and ethics dimension should never be ignored
(Herschel and Miori 2017). For example, social contract-oriented values would push
for the preservation of individual rights against the abuse of state power under the Big
Data regime. On the contrary, a context dominated by utilitarianism will lead to an
opposite development of sacrificing individual rights to maximise the benefits to society.
The regulation dimension is an interesting one with a mixed role. On the one hand, it
shows the importance of policy infrastructure for technological development because the
absence of relevant and supportive policies and regulations can adversely affect the
development of Big Data (Mikalef et al. 2020; OECD 2015). On the other hand, it
illustrates the contextual factors of regulation such as information asymmetries, policy
uncertainty and errors, institutional and regulatory pressures which should be focused on
in order to channel the adoption of the technology towards the desirable direction
(Taeihagh, Ramesh, and Howlett 2021). In consonance with the theory of contextual
integrity, the effects and implications of Big Data on privacy and citizen rights could not
be determined out of its contexts (Zimmer 2018). In this connection, how the principles
and approaches are envisioned, articulated and enforced in a specific context under the
values and ethics dimension should never be ignored (Herschel and Miori 2017). For
example, social contract-oriented values would push for preserving the rights of indivi-
duals against the abuse of state power under the Big Data regime. On the contrary,
a context dominated by utilitarianism will lead to an opposite development of sacrificing
individual rights for maximizing the return of benefit to society.

The typology
To illustrate how to apply the analytical framework of mediating factors to reconcile the
competing perspectives, this section develops a typology (see Figure 1) as a heuristic
device to guide policy and research. To a considerable extent, the typology is
a classification and systemisation of government responses to disruptive technology.
 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC POLICY REFORM 9

Disruptive innovation, a term coined by Bower and Christensen (1995), describes the
process by which a newly emerging technology disrupts the status quo and displaces
dominant players. Big Data technologies are disruptive as they entail both threats and
opportunities for actors and stakeholders in public policy. The major question is what
characterises the major approaches observed in the application of this new technology
across contexts.
By integrating and crystalising the discussion of moderating factors, the dimensions in
the typology are two fundamental orientations guiding the application of Big Data in
public policy. As a typology of only two dimensions, it is not perfect and all-inclusive. At
this stage, it is proposed mainly for two purposes: to demonstrate the potential imple-
mentation of the framework of moderating factors and to offer a heuristic device for
providing a practical and useful means of enhancing the understanding of various Big
Data impacts. Each dimension should be taken as a continuum rather than a binary
category. Any particular context can be rated according to the level and intensity of its
position along the dimension. Thus, the number of variations and combinations can be
more than four (the number of quadrants).

● Regulatory Orientation (public vs. private) refers to the question of “to whom”/
“for what” Big Data is being adopted and applied. As information is power, it is
often zero-sum (Welch and Wong 2001). As a game-changing technology, Big
Data has the capability of re-distributing power to empower actors and it can be
regulated such that it enhances the knowledge and power of either the state and
government or citizens and the private sector in the governing process.
Information as a power-shifting commodity, by nature, could not be transferred
to the state without affecting privacy, personal freedom and autonomy (Herschel
and Miori 2017).

Public

1. State-Centric 2. “Big Brother”

Big Data Big Data

Information Information
Reciprocity Non-
Reciprocity
3. Society-Centric 4. Limited and
Big Data Fragmented “Big”
Data

Private

Figure 1. A typology of heuristic approaches in the application of big data.

10 W. WONG AND C. HINNANT

● Information Reciprocity refers to whether information is shared between the stake-

holders and participants and the authorities or agents which collect the information.
Under information reciprocity, information flows two ways (Clarke and Margetts
2014). Hence, the same information should be available for both citizens and the
government, which is quite essential to balancing state power and citizen influence
in the Big Data era. To a certain extent, it reflects the trust and partnership among
citizens, government and other major and relevant actors in co-producing and co-
governing the Big Data regime (Welch, Hinnant, and Moon 2005).

In the axis of regulatory orientation, good information governance (Mikalef et al.

2020) or data governance (Verhulst 2021) can address and resolve the tension and
conflict between public and private to ensure sufficient accountability and oversight in
the public use of data provided by citizens for good purposes. A low level of information
reciprocity not only bars citizens from enjoying the benefits generated from the data, it
also reduces their incentives to voluntarily provide data and weakens their ability to hold
government accountable. Following the practice and principle of open data, the govern-
ment, citizens and other actors in society, including NGOs and economic firms, are
treated as equal, though the abuse of Big Data by private companies is also a concern
(Boyd and Crawford 2012). The state is also the most powerful actor in Big Data because
it possesses the exclusive authority to demand, access and use data from citizens,
companies and any organisations in society (Lyon 2014).
In applying the typology, specific and comparative cases can be identified for empirical
analysis. Some potential cases are highlighted and discussed here. The SCS of China can
be taken as a case belonging to quadrant 2. The SCS monitors and rates the trustworthi-
ness of Chinese citizens, businesses, organisations and government units (Kostka 2019)
and is seen as one of the extreme cases of a digital Orwellian state (Jiang and Fu 2018). It
gives government the capacity to use Big Data to track and dictate citizen behaviours,
including both political and non-political ones (Liang et al. 2018). This could match the
“big brother” Big Data approach in which the state is a dominant actor in collecting and
manipulating all data to enhance its power in major aspects (Brayne 2017), without
sharing sufficient information with citizens for synergy, accountability and co-
governance.
The Patriot Act of the US can be taken as following the approach of “government-centric
Big Data.” Since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack on the US and the subsequent
passing of the Patriot Act, Big Data is increasingly used more for state purposes at the
expense of individual freedom and liberty (Stough and Mcbride 2014). The use of Big Data
for technology-enabled massive surveillance introduced in the US prioritised the state’s
goals and values, such as national security, over concerns such as rights and privacy at the
personal level, as exemplified by Snowden revelations about National Security Agency
surveillance in 2013 (Lyon 2014). However, due to its democratic context and mechanisms
of checks and balances, information reciprocity still exists. This case should also remind us
that the typology represents a dynamic model whereby a case or a country can shift in its
approach and move within or across quadrants over time, subject to changes in context or
major events such as external shocks.
 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC POLICY REFORM 11

In contrast to the SCS, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the
European Union (EU) can be considered as a case of quadrant 3, as it adopts a more
“society-centric” approach that prioritises citizen privacy. The EU is also actively
considering banning the use of facial recognition enabled by Big Data and AI technol-
ogies in public areas for a proper protection of individual rights. Aho and Duffield
(2020) argue that the EU’s GDPR asserts individual privacy while China’s SCS is for
purposes of statecraft. They point out that two different paradigms have already
emerged; the EU is trying to limit the power of surveillance capitalism but the
Chinese government is trying to assert its dominance over individuals and private
enterprises by applying Big Data. In this regard, an economic analysis of the effects of
Big Data would also benefit from the typology to clarify the ultimate force shaping the
use of Big Data in society.
The smart city development of Hong Kong, a possible case for quadrant 4, presents
a very interesting and ironic situation. While it has a strong tradition of citizen-
focused civic liberty, the confrontation and distrust between state and society caused
by social movements and political controversies made information reciprocity difficult,
hindering its Big Data application. Despite the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic,
citizens in Hong Kong are extremely reluctant to adopt data-driven measures such as
contact tracing apps promoted by the government. Its effectiveness in overcoming the
COVID-19 crisis is mainly attributed to a society-centred and non-technology
approach which relies heavily on citizens’ voluntary self-restraining behaviours
(Wong and Wu 2021).

Conclusions
Big Data holds many promises for promoting economic growth and improving policy-
making, but like most disruptive technologies, its application may bring positive and
negative changes which often conflict. In this regard, this article integrates the discussion
in the literature on the impacts of Big Data on public policy, identifies the moderating
factors driving their variations across contexts, and proposes a typology of two of the
critical dimensions as a heuristic devise for guiding policy and research. The two
dimensions reflect the key trade-off in the government-citizen interaction and state-
society relations.
Some argue that the many changes brought by ICT are endogenous rather than
exogenous in nature and therefore have a stronger tendency to reinforce the existing
tendencies of a specific institution. In addition to taking the contradictory prescriptions
and competing perspectives of Big Data as either right or wrong, we should go beyond
the existing scope to explore the factors leading to the realisation of a particular vision of
Big Data. The competing perspectives are credible real-world scenarios hinging on the
moderating factors which reflect the contexts under which the technology is adopted and
applied. It is entirely possible that the contrasting visions and predictions can all be
correct as parallel realities under different configurations of factors.
Ultimately, consistent with the concept of socio-materiality (Akter et al. 2016), the
impact of Big Data and the responses of governmental actors depend on the existing
moderating factors, their strength within the system (structure) and the ability and
commitment of the actors inside the system to create and facilitate those enabling factors
12 W. WONG AND C. HINNANT

(agency). Hence, policymakers are neither helpless nor fully in control in the face of
disruptive technologies. They should first identify the moderating factors to focus on the
areas they can control so they can exercise the greatest leverage in mastering technolo-
gical changes to create public value. The typology set up in this article is one of the many
examples of how to integrate and aggregate the moderating factors into a heuristic device
to guide policymaking. In terms of contribution to theory development, future research
should incorporate those contextual factors and integrate them with powerful and
established social science theories, such as institutional theory, for a more in-depth
analysis of the effects. In this process, the analysis can include mediating effects such as
how the technology changes the structure of the moderating institutions in the long run
to develop a theoretical model. Furthermore, testable and verifiable hypotheses can be set
up to generate more evidence-based and empirically-grounded insights to further revise,
modify and enhance such a model.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID
Wilson Wong http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8109-5846

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