Digital Federalism: Information, Institutions, Infrastructures (1950-2000)

The history of federalism in the digital age unfurls against a complex backdrop of dreams and expectations, cooperation and conflict, and preservation and change. Throughout this history, a range of individual and institutional actors in pursuit of a common goal are forced to grapple with a constantly shifting balance of resources, technologies, and responsibilities. Contributions deal with topics such as the relationship between and among states, information, and computers; federal dealings with respect to migration and university policy; and the social and political coordination required both locally and nationally by high-performance computing. The editors’ introduction reflects on how different forms of autonomy and authority were negotiated to achieve the benefits of digital technologies within social and material spaces.