Digitalization in Practice

Chapter 1 Between bureaucracy and agility: the quiet transformation of the Danish digital state

Irina Papazu

1 Introduction

Already in 2006, Dunleavy et al. claimed that the then new paradigm of public digitalization would require the state to implement ‘agile government processes’ These would replace traditional bureaucratic processes and instead focus on “achieving speed with flexibility and responsiveness, in the process making government decision-making competitive with best practice in the business sector” (Dunleavy et al. 2006, 235). Dunleavy et al. foreshadowed a need for “fundamental changes of management styles and information systems, and new modes of responding agilely to emerging problems” (Dunleavy et al. 2006, 233). So popular ...