GOVERNMENT'S COPING STRATEGIES OF PUBLIC VALUE CONFLICTS REGARDING ITS APPLICATION OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES: IMPLICATIONS FROM DIGITAL CONTACT TRACING DURING COVID-19

Abstract

Emergent technologies are widely used by governments across the globe. However, public value conflicts emerged in governments’ application of these technologies. Despite the significant role of public value in policymaking, existing studies have shown an inadequate understanding.

To address this gap, this thesis modified Institutional Analysis and Development framework and focused on the digital contact tracing (DCT) policies during COVID-19 to investigate three research questions: 1) What are the public values and value conflicts regarding DCT policies? 2) How did governments cope with these public value conflicts? 3) Why did governments use certain coping strategies to deal with value conflicts?

The thesis investigates three cases of government applications of DCT devices, including design choice, promotion, and cross-sector partnership. The analysis employed qualitative methodologies and found that governments confronted different value conflicts in specific application of DCT devices and selected different strategies and their combinations to resolve these conflicts.