NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND THE MODERNIZATION OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT: AN ANALYSIS OF BIASES AND CONSTRAINTS LAWRENCE PRATCHETT In emerging structures of local governance the institutions of elected local govern- ment have the potential to fulfil three complementary roles: those of local democ- racy, public policy making and direct service delivery. Although ICTs (information and communication technologies) could effectively develop all three roles there is a systemic bias which favours service delivery applications and ignores others. This bias can be explained by reference to a network of actors who determine ICT policy in relative isolation from the other policy networks active at the local level. The ways in which this bias is perpetuated are explored through a case study of ICT policy making in UK local government. The implications of the systemic bias for the long-term future of local government, and indeed public administration, are both severe and profound. They suggest an over-emphasis upon performance measurement, a decline in democratic activity and a diminishing capacity among elected bodies to effect broad public policy initiatives. INTRODUCTION The importance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for contemporary public administration is often understated. Most authors con- centrate upon the ‘big issues’ affecting the public sector – issues such as emerging patterns of governance (Stoker 1997; Rhodes 1996), the impor- tance of managing networks for effective public policy making (Kickert, Klein and Koppenjan 1997), and an enduring concern with public sector ethics and standards of behaviour in public life (Gilman and Lewis 1996; Greenaway 1995; Chapman 1993). In this way the study of ICTs is often relegated by default, if not deliberately, to that of being a second order issue: one which is relevant to the detail of managing public organizations but which has little significance for the broader evolution of public adminis- tration. Yet new technologies can have an important effect in structuring and shaping the decision-making process in government and in providing institutional legacies which channel the day-to-day workings of public organizations. This article argues that far from being a second order issue the study of ICTs is of primary importance because these technologies have profound implications for the ways in which the institutions and organiza- tions of public administration are developing. In short, it is concerned with Lawrence Pratchett is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Public Policy at De Montfort University, Leicester. Public Administration Vol. 77, No. 4 1999 (731–750)  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.