Toward a Digital Mainstreaming

Digital issues now concern all sectors of public intervention: health, education, security and culture have been impacted by the shift of economic and social activities to the Internet. What are the consequences of this unprecedented expansion of digital technology on the institutionalization of Internet policies? And what administrations and principles bring coherence to an increasingly disparate set of public actions? This chapter studies the trivialization of digital practices in public administration and the mainstreaming of digital instruments in policymaking. Using a few emblematic French programs as case studies—support for the start-up economy, the Digital Republic Act and the promotion of the Platform State—it uncovers the conditions of Internet policymaking in an increasingly competitive governmental sphere.