| dc.description.abstract | Digitalisation and innovation are two terms that have become increasingly more popular in discourse related to the welfare state in Norway. Digital technology has been accredited (and fetishized as) a one-size-fits-all solution to the welfare state’s issue of efficiency. However, innovation and bureaucracy can be said to hold contradictory values. In this thesis, I investigate what happens when a bureaucratic institution such as the kommune takes on the project of innovative digitalisation. My findings were informed by five months of fieldwork at the municipality of Trondheim’s Digital First Choice program (Digitaltførstevalg): a body responsible for carrying out and implementing digitalisation projects at the municipality. My informants were consultants (hired through private acquisition) and municipal employees in different roles (including developers). What I found was that organisational contradictions emerged. Innovation was conceptualised as a central aim of the program, yet the bureaucratic structures of the municipality which framed the program impeded the risk-taking practices tied to innovation. So, through different performances and practices, the actors at the Digital First Choice program attempted to create distance from the bureaucracy they were a part of, while at the same time positioning themselves closer to the competitive information and technology industry. Faced with organisational contradictions that impeded the work they wanted to do, the actors at the program used the concepts of digitalisation and innovation to imagine a utopian bureaucracy where innovation was not only welcomed and encouraged, but allowed. Thus, they used these concepts as tools to navigate the perceived inflexibility of bureaucracy. These prevalent contradictions gave shape to uniquely positioned digital technologies, opening up to a myriad of questions concerning which biases, values, and preconceptions were embedded in these digital tools that carried out the responsibilities of the welfare state. | eng |