Technology, law and regulation : the creation of a framework for a “sustainable” state and social justice

Comunicação apresentada à 18ª Conferência Internacional - SPT 2013, realizada no ISEG de 4-6 de julho de 2013The paper aims at defining a central issue of state reform and social and public policies through the use of legal techniques, management tools and technology. The central question is the definition of a new framework for public, collective and individual action, similar to the factory system or Fordism of the first and third industrial revolutions. What is at stake is a complex issue of defining the framework for action embedded in two technologies: (1) law and lawmaking and (2) reform of the state and regulation of activities through the implementation of new management techniques and technology and the definitions of criteria and benchmark to assess the action of workers, consumers (and even citizens, often reduced or idealized to the former), trade unions, associations, public servants, political parties and decision-makers, not to mention stakeholders (a keyword in discourse related to the process that I try to describe)