Rules of all types are increasingly enforced by technological mechanisms; from code-based restrictions on sharing digital files, to red-light cameras at intersections, to software programs that monitor activity online. Technological enforcement regimes appeal to policymakers because machines enforce rules more perfectly than humans do; human enforcement is messier due to the discretion, incentives, and biases of both enforcers and enforcees. Technological rule enforcement, then, appears to close the gap between rule and practice by minimizing the human element and compelling compliance with a rule. This project explores how technological enforcement regimes may, in fact, relocate and reshape gaps between "on the books" rules and "on the ground" practices by creating new sites of social contestation, bringing new parties into negotiation with one another, and resituating stakeholders' interests.
Using a combination of methods, including interviewing key stakeholders, analyzing documents in archives, and analyzing regulatory dockets, these dynamics are explored in the context of truck drivers' work time. For decades, truckers have kept track of their work hours, which are limited by federal regulations for safety reasons, using easily falsified paper logs. New regulations would mandate that drivers' time be automatically monitored by electronic devices integrated into trucks themselves, thus compelling drivers' compliance with timekeeping rules. This project examines the co-evolution of legal rules and technological capacities that shape enforcement practices, and the ways in which social relationships among employees, employers, and law enforcement are reconfigured when such systems are used.
Drawing from scholarship in legal studies and organizational sociology, this project updates and reorients our understanding of regulation, enforcement, and discretion for the age of ubiquitous computing. The project contributes to broad social debates about the role of technological surveillance in legal rulemaking and in social life, and will be of interest to audiences in multiple academic disciplines, to policymakers, and to organizations.
Rules of all types are increasingly enforced by digital mechanisms – from code-based restrictions on sharing digital files to red-light cameras at intersections. Technological enforcement regimes appeal to policymakers, in part, because machines can enforce rules more "perfectly" than humans do; human enforcement is messier due to the discretion, incentives, and biases of both enforcers and enforcees. Technological rule enforcement appears to shrink the gap between rule and practice by minimizing the human element and compelling compliance. This research suggests that in fact, technological enforcement regimes might relocate and reshape, rather than close, gaps between on-the-books rules and on-the-ground practices. When machines are used to enforce policies, new gaps open up – as new sites of social contestation are created, new parties are brought into negotiation with one another, and the interests of existing stakeholders are resituated. The study explores these dynamics in the context of new regulations that would mandate that truck drivers’ work time be electronically monitored—rather than recorded on easily falsified paper logs, as they have been for decades—to induce their compliance with legal hours-of-service limitations, as well as other organizational rules imposed by the firms for which they work (e.g., rules about how truckers conduct their day-to-day work tasks, fuel efficiency goals, routing, etc.). The advent of electronic monitoring in the trucking industry confronts a deeply held occupational culture of autonomy and independence, as well as truckers’ economic imperatives: since most drivers are paid by the mile, they are economically incentivized to "fudge" their hours-of-service logs in order to stay on the road longer. The analysis considers how legal rules, organizational mandates, and technical capacities interact to create surveillant regimes that transcend public/private distinctions, realign institutional interests, and challenge occupational identities. It considers how communities of interest—law enforcement, trucking firms, and truckers themselves—respond to digital monitoring "in the wild." The study finds that interaction with these systems constructs new spaces between regulatory intention and social practice, provides new tools for managerial and legal control, and reconfigures industrial and law enforcement relationships. Humanity and discretion persist in technological enforcement systems, in a number of ways. First, electronic monitoring reorients how much firms know (and when they know it) about their drivers’ activities and behaviors. These changes infringe on traditional spheres of worker autonomy, challenging their occupational identities. These efforts diminish the value of truckers’ traditional knowledge by divorcing data streams from their local and biophysical contexts. But they also bring about new social alignments, as those data are resocialized within truckers’ fleets and families in order to attach economic incentives and competitive pressures to them. These dynamics suggests the persistent, if reconfigured, importance of social factors in the technical system. Second, the study considers how law enforcement inspections change when analog vs. digital systems are used. The analysis suggests that, to the extent technological enforcement appears more "perfect," this perception may be in part be performative, due to the very human enforcement factors still at play (i.e., the more cursory examination inspectors give to digital accounts of truckers’ time) or their reluctance to inspect them at all. Even digital enforcement must still contend with human discretion, anxiety, and the need to save face in microinteractions. Third, we turn to issues of resistance to technological enforcement. A number of organizational and technical means of resistance have developed in response to the technology. These practices demonstrate that electronic monitoring doesn’t take noncompliance "off the table" (as one trucking company vice president opined). Rather, on-the-ground noncompliance is widespread, though it may take new forms and require mobilization of new skillsets and domains of knowledge. Along the way, resistance practices realign institutional interests within networks of actors, as stakeholders attempt to negotiate multiplex power relations among themselves. Finally, regarding the political discourse surrounding the enforcement regime, different stakeholders use very different frames in strategic discussions about the monitoring technology. Eventually, regulations may entrench and stabilize certain interpretations of what a technology is about, while discounting other possible interpretations, lived experiences, and cultural values. This research helps us conceptualize how enforcement and regulation may be reframed when technological solutions are relied upon to exact compliance. The project builds on previous scholarship, in legal studies and organizational sociology, about gaps between rules and practices, but updates and reorients them for the age of ubiquitous computing. As technological enforcement mechanisms come to pervade many experiences of daily life, it becomes imperative to examine how these regimes emerge and interact with the social world. Through an in-depth examination of the development and operation of an electronic monitoring device in one legal and organizational context, this projects aims to contribute to broad social debates about the role of technological surveillance in legal rulemaking and social life.
