How does the connectivity of information and communication technology (ICT) transform governance in areas of limited statehood (ASL)? This is the central question animating Steven Livingston and Gregor Walter-Drop’s edited volume. The work successfully brings together a mix of scholars and development practitioners grappling with the intersection of technology and politics. Combined, the contributions show how a new abundance of information, enabled by mobile phones and a range of mapping and messaging techniques across societies, is changing the character of governance.

Livingston and Walter-Drop present nine cases of ICT’s transformation of governance in ASL, defined as “geographical entities, policy fields, and social groups for which states either cannot maintain a monopoly of force or experience significant problems with regard to rule-making, implementation, and enforcement” (p. 1). These cases highlight either instances of local populations and development practitioners harnessing the power of ICT to hold states accountable or the ways in which modern states leverage ICT to deny opposition. The cases show the promise of ICT as locals catalyze transparency and state action through crisis mapping, develop alternative modes of governance through mediums like FrontlineSMS, and enable collective action in the case of the Arab Spring uprisings through mobile technology. Other cases show that states like Vladimir Putin’s Russia harness ICT to create “digital Potemkin villages” that deny collective action (pp. 30–46). These chapters highlight a wide range of methods, from fuzzy sets and field experiments to loose ethnographic accounts. The majority of chapters are less focused on advancing scholarship through isolating causal factors and testing across cases than they are on portraying emerging observations from the field. The work is more inductive and interested in capturing a particular moment than it is in proving a set of hypotheses.

Bits and Atoms illustrates that the promise of ICT is in diffusion, enabling the spread of information across loose networks in order to catalyze collective action. Philip Howard and Muzammil Hussain show how mobile phone penetration played a crucial role in the Arab Spring. Multiple chapters chronicle how locals and development practitioners used technologies ranging from FrontlineSMS to crisis maps to encourage state accountability and transparency and to enable the alternative delivery of public goods.

The volume also captures how ICT enables new, nonstate governance networks. Sharath Srinivasan chronicles how ICT enables nonstate governance. Gregory Asmolov shows the intersection of social networks and crowdsourcing in responding to natural disasters. Primoz Kovacic and colleagues explore the potential of crisis mapping, crowdsourcing, and crowdseeding. Of particular interest, Patrick Meier examines cases ranging from the 2010 Haitian earthquake to Libyan political unrest in 2011, finding in each case that ICT proved a catalyst for existing social networks. ICT increases the possibility of collective action. It does not produce it.

A good book makes a compelling argument. A great book maps the tensions defining a particular historical moment or idea. Where Bits and Atoms is great is in the sections that show the fundamental tensions between ICT and governance: exploring both the potential for positive local collective action by marginalized groups and the capacity of states to manipulate information as a form of coercion. Two chapters map how classes and repressive states harness the power of ICT to serve their own interests. J. P. Singh chronicles how “e-government” initiatives can tend to favor middle, as opposed to lower, classes. Asmolov builds on the idea of Potemkin villages to show how modern Russia uses the illusion of transparency to sustain a repressive state. In these chapters, one sees the coercive potential of ICT, a theme present but not developed in sufficient detail throughout the work.

Furthermore, the volume engages only episodically with foundational theorists of the state and governance. Multiple authors engage with James Scott and his classic Seeing like a State (1998) as well as making passing reference to Manuel Castells’s concepts of network society. In a framing chapter, the authors are more interested in the distinction between forms of statehood (i.e., from failed or fragile to areas of limited statehood) and governance than in a larger theoretical engagement with questions of power and order in the making of the state. Readers interested in this work should read the volume alongside reviews like Tuong Vu’s treatment in World Politics (“Studying the State through State Formation,” World Politics 62 [January 2010]).

Bits and Atoms makes significant contributions to multiple audiences. It is a must-read for development practitioners and students. If these dynamic chapters do not help them think of new, creative ways to harness the power of local voices, they are probably in the wrong field. While not its target audience, the volume also is of interest to national security professionals and scholars working in peace and security broadly defined. Arguably, nonstate actors working in crisis mapping and crowdseeding are realizing the potential of ICT to increase situational awareness faster than well-funded actors like the U.S. military. Of particular interest, the volume provides an interesting point of departure for scholars working in political violence and state repression. The cases provide new evidence that future researchers could examine in exploring how ICT enables collective action and challenges the state. The cases also provide new evidence of interest to scholars interested in the ways that ICT enables repression and denies collective action.