Books
A list of books exploring different issues like how civic tech can be used to meet challenges in the cities, how to increase democratic participation, or what are the best ways to combat ethical concerns.
A Lever and a Place to Stand: How Civic Tech Can Move the World
This book takes a close look at civic apps and general-purpose tech platforms and services.
A New City O/S: The Power of Open, Collaborative and Distributed Governance
A New City O/S: The Power of Open, Collaborative, and Distributed Governance (Brookings / Ash Center Series, Innovative Governance in the 21st Century)
A City Is Not a Computer: Other Urban Intelligences
A bold reassessment of "smart cities" that reveals what is lost when we conceive of our urban spaces as computers, by Shannon Mattern
Community Rules: Simple Templates for Great Online Communities
A free e-book covering common patterns in open project governance
Democracy Studio: Practical guide to artificial intelligence on citizen engagement
Julien Carbonnell's thesis, featuring case studies in Taiwan, Israel, and Estonia
Design for Social Innovation: Case Studies from Around the World
The United Nations, Australia Post, and governments in the UK, Finland, Taiwan, France, Brazil, and Israel are just a few of the organizations and groups utilizing design to drive social change.
Open Data Now: The Secret to Hot Startups, Smart Investing, Savvy Marketing, and Fast Innovation
Get unprecedented access to thousands of databases. It's called Open Data, and it's revolutionizing business.
Civic Power: Rebuilding American Democracy in an Era of Crisis
The book looks at organizing models, civic tech, governance, citizen engagement and how to fund, staff, and train the next generation of leaders to revitalize democracy.
Opening the Government of Canada
The Federal Bureaucracy in the Digital Age. By Amanda Clarke
The Open Data Handbook - Everything You Need To Know About Open Data
Guides, case studies and resources for government & civil society on the "what, why & how" of open data.
Ours to hack and own: The Rise of Platform Cooperativism, a New Vision for the Future of Work and a Fairer Internet
Edited by Trebor Scholz and Nathan Schneider: Ours to Hack and to Own, the rise of platform cooperativism, a new vision for the future of work and a fairer Internet.
Citizenville: How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government
A rallying cry for revolutionizing democracy in the digital age, Citizenville reveals how ordinary Americans can reshape their government for the better.
Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government
Democracy for Realists assails the romantic folk-theory at the heart of contemporary thinking about democratic politics and government, and offers a provocative alternative view grounded in the actual...
Black Software: The Internet and Racial Justice, from the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter
The Internet & Racial Justice, from the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter
How to talk to civic hackers
This book is meant for public servants and people working inside government who want to connect with innovators and technologists outside of the bureaucracy.
The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age
From a cutting-edge cultural commentator, a bold and brilliant challenge to cherished notions of the Internet as the great leveler of our age The Internet has been hailed as an unprecedented democrati...
Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor
A powerful investigative look at data-based discrimination—and how technology affects civil and human rights and economic equity
Heartificial Intelligence: Embracing Our Humanity to Maximize Machines
Embracing Our Humanity to Maximize Machines
The Responsive City: Engaging Communities Through Data-Smart Governance
The Responsive City is a guide to civic engagement and governance in the digital age that will help leaders link important breakthroughs in technology and data analytics with age-old lessons of small-...
Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution—and Why America Might Miss It
2018 Book by Susan Crawford
Beyond Transparency: Open Data and the Future of Civic Innovation
This book is a resource for (and by) practitioners inside and outside government—from the municipal chief information officer to the community organizer to the civic-minded entrepreneur.Â
Fearless Cities: A Guide to the Global Municipalist Movement
In a world in which fear and insecurity are being twisted into hate, and inequalities, xenophobia and authoritarianism are on the rise, a renewed municipalist movement is emerging to defend human righ...
Democracy Reinvented: Participatory Budgeting and Civic Innovation in America
by Hollie Russon Gilman. Democracy Reinvented is the first comprehensive academic treatment of participatory budgeting in the United States, situating it within a broader trend of civic technology and...
Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass
How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass
The CUTgroup book
Civic User Testing Group as a New Model for UX Testing, Digital Skills Development, and Community Engagement in Civic Tech By Daniel X. O’Neil and the Smart Ch…