Organization and Information Processing: Elements of a History of Early Digitization in the Swiss Federal Administration.

Since the founding of the Swiss federal state in 1848, government and administration have been constantly reorganized. One important change occurred between the 1960s and 1980s: the automation and standardization of information management. Through two cases, the Zentrales Ausländerregister (ZAR) and the Zentralstelle der Bundesverwaltung für Organisationsfragen (ZOB), this article examines the organization and mechanization of information in Swiss Federal Administration by focusing on data processing as the predominant measure for the operationalization of administrative workflows. The period between the 1960s and 1970s proved decisive in the incremental development of data processing that ultimately led to the digitization of ever larger parts of administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]