Introducing a digital tool for sustainability impact assessments within the German Federal Government: A neo-institutional perspective

Abstract

This study examines the institutionalization of information technologies for policy formulation by investigating the case of eNAP. The digital tool was introduced in the spring of 2018 with the aim of supporting and improving sustainability impact assessments (SIAs) within the German Federal Government. Applying a neo-institutional perspective, this study shows how a tool like eNAP is embedded into prevailing regulative, normative, and cultural–cognitive structures. Findings from 10 semi-structured interviews indicate that the application of eNAP varies according to intra-ministerial coordination practices and portfolio-specific information-processing schemata. Overall, the tool serves to translate the abstract regulation to conduct an SIA, as well as to translate the vague norm of “sustainability” into a concrete assessment requirement, thereby helping increase policy officials’ awareness of sustainability goals. However, consistent with previous studies, great importance is not attached to SIAs in policy formulation, and prevailing norms and routines make the implementation of eNAP to increase the use of evidence or in-depth considerations of policy alternatives and their consequences unlikely. Points for practitioners Information and communication technologies (ICTs) provide new opportunities to support ex-ante policy evaluations. Practitioners enforcing ICTs for impact assessments should take a comprehensive perspective on the institutional context because both formal organizational structures and implicit expectations, habits and routines affect how policy officials use these tools. Technology alone does not improve policy evaluations, and a misfit between regulative, normative and cultural–cognitive institutional elements can lead to merely symbolic displays of impact assessments through the means of digital tools.