Building information infrastructures for smart cities: The e-CODEX infrastructure and API for justice project experiences

The case of the Digital Service Infrastructure, developed by the European Union and its Member States to enable the deployment of trans-European digital judicial services, provides the occasion to investigate from a theoretical and empirical perspective the complex features that pertain the creation of the infrastructures that enable the rise of smart cities. The case explores the heterogeneous nature and emergent, non-linear evolution of large-scale information infrastructures. It helps develop a better understanding of the infrastructural components and dynamics that allow to integrate fast evolving technology into everyday people living environment providing new and smart services and to foster public value creation in Smart Cities. Finally, it exposes the relevance of legal components, helping reflecting on their role in addition to that of the technological, human and governance ones already identified by the smart cities literature.