Towards a Participatory, Co-operative and Sustainable Information Society? A Critical Analysis of Swedish ICT Policy Discourses

Abstract

Sweden – like the other Nordic countries – is recognized as a leading IT nation. For this reason it is important to evaluate the specificities of Swedish policy discourses on the information society. The development of the information society has been a key topic in policy debates since the mid-1990s. More recently, new concepts such as ‘sustainable’ or ‘green knowledge society’ have emerged. This puts forward new questions about which type of information society we aim to achieve. The present article contributes to the theoretical foundations of information society poli cies by introducing the notion of a participatory, co-operative, and sustainable information society (PCSIS). We apply this notion to Swedish policymaking by investigating ICT policy discourses. We also make a comparison with the recently launched Digital Agenda, the grand vision of the European Commission regarding the future of the information society. Our overall conclusion is that Swedish and European visions can be labeled as dualistic and reductionist approaches, respectively. This means that both approaches fail to come up with a more elaborated perspective on the information society that links the key aspects participation, co-operation and sustainability in a convincing way. A dialectical approach, i.e. an approach that considers sustainability in multidimensional and interdependent aspects, is currently lacking in both Swedish and European policymaking.