Paper by Anu Bradford: “This Article challenges the common view that more stringent regulation of the digital economy inevitably compromises innovation and undermines technological progress. This view, vigorously advocated by the tech industry, has shaped the public discourse in the United States, where the country’s thriving tech economy is often associated with a staunch commitment to free markets. US lawmakers have also traditionally embraced this perspective, which explains their hesitancy to regulate the tech industry to date. The European Union has chosen another path, regulating the digital economy with stringent data privacy, antitrust, content moderation, and other digital regulations designed to shape the evolution of the tech economy towards European values around digital rights and fairness. According to the EU’s critics, this far-reaching tech regulation has come at the cost of innovation, explaining the EU’s inability to nurture tech companies and compete with the US and China in the tech race. However, this Article argues that the association between digital regulation and technological progress is considerably more complex than what the public conversation, US lawmakers, tech companies, and several scholars have suggested to date. For this reason, the existing technological gap between the US and the EU should not be attributed to the laxity of American laws and the stringency of European digital regulation. Instead, this Article shows there are more foundational features of the American legal and technological ecosystem that have paved the way for US tech companies’ rise to global prominence—features that the EU has not been able to replicate to date. By severing tech regulation from its allegedly adverse effect on innovation, this Article seeks to advance a more productive scholarly conversation on the costs and benefits of digital regulation. It also directs governments deliberating tech policy away from a false choice between regulation and innovation while drawing their attention to a broader set of legal and institutional reforms that are necessary for tech companies to innovate and for digital economies and societies to thrive…(More)”.
Strategies, missions and the challenge of whole of government action
Paper by Geoff Mulgan: “Every government is, in reality, a flotilla of many departments, agencies, tiers rather than a single thing. But all aspire to greater coherence. ‘Whole of government’ approaches – that mobilise and align many ministries and agencies around a common challenge – have a long history: during major wars, and around attempts to digitize societies, to cut energy use, to reduce poverty and to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. These have been described using different terms – national plans, priorities, strategies and missions – but the issues are similar.
This paper, linked to a European Commission programme on ‘whole of government innovation’ (launching on 16 April in Brussels) looks at the lessons of history and options for the future. Its primary focus is on innovation, but the issues apply more widely. The paper outlines the tools governments can use to achieve cross-cutting goals, from strategic roles to matrix models, cross-cutting budgets, teams, targets and processes, to options for linking law, regulation and procurement. It looks at partnerships and other structures for organising collaboration with business, universities and civil society; and at the role of public engagement…(More)”.
The generation of public value through e-participation initiatives: A synthesis of the extant literature
Paper by Naci Karkin and Asunur Cezar: “The number of studies evaluating e-participation levels in e-government services has recently increased. These studies primarily examine stakeholders’ acceptance and adoption of e-government initiatives. However, it is equally important to understand whether and how value is generated through e-participation, regardless of whether the focus is on government efforts or user adoption/acceptance levels. There is a need in the literature for a synthesis focusing on e- participation’s connection with public value creation using a systematic and comprehensive approach. This study employs a systematic literature review to collect, examine, and synthesize prior findings, aiming to investigate public value creation through e-participation initiatives, including their facilitators and barriers. By reviewing sixty-four peer-reviewed studies indexed by Web of Science and Scopus, this research demonstrates that e-participation initiatives and efforts can generate public value. Nevertheless, several factors are pivotal for the success and sustainability of these initiatives. The study’s findings could guide researchers and practitioners in comprehending the determinants and barriers influencing the success and sustainability of e-participation initiatives in the public value creation process while highlighting potential future research opportunities in this domain…(More)”.
How Belgium is Giving Citizens a Say on AI
Article by Graham Wetherall-Grujić: “A few weeks before the European Parliament’s final debate on the AI Act, 60 randomly selected members of the Belgian public convened in Brussels for a discussion of their own. The aim was not to debate a particular piece of legislation, but to help shape a European vision on the future of AI, drawing on the views, concerns, and ideas of the public.
They were taking part in a citizens’ assembly on AI, held as part of Belgium’s presidency of the European Council. When Belgium assumed the presidency for six months beginning in January 2024, they announced they would be placing “special focus” on citizens’ participation. The citizen panel on AI is the largest of the scheduled participation projects. Over a total of three weekends, participants are deliberating on a range of topics including the impact of AI on work, education, and democracy.
The assembly comes at a point in time with rising calls for more public inputs on the topic of AI. Some big tech firms have begun to respond with participation projects of their own. But this is the first time an EU institution has launched a consultation on the topic. The organisers hope it will pave the way for more to come…(More)”.
Next Generation Evidence: Strategies for More Equitable Social Impact
Book edited by Kelly Fitzsimmons and Tamar Bauer: “Evidence is remarkably powerful; it helps us understand the needs of communities, make decisions in times of change and scarcity, and build and do more of what works. However, practitioners face a number of structural and practical hurdles to building and using evidence. Traditional evaluation and research methods are often not timely, affordable, meaningful, or inclusive for helping practitioners make decisions to increase their impact for people and communities. Too often and for too long, evaluation was a thing done to practitioners and the communities they serve, relegating them to a passive role when they should be regarded as leaders of this work. Worse, their data and evidence has been used against them in disempowering thumbs-up, thumbs-down circumstances, rather than for learning and improvement that leads to impact.
Next Generation Evidence features innovative thinking from leaders across policy, philanthropy, research, and practice. Together, these leaders lay out a vision for a stronger, more equitable data and evidence ecosystem that centers on the voices of people and communities most directly impacted by the problems we seek to solve. Throughout the book, case studies featuring practitioners at various stages in their evidence-building journey highlight concrete illustrations of how continuous evidence building can benefit organizations and outcomes for communities…(More)”.
The Global State of Social Connections
Gallup: “Social needs are universal, and the degree to which they are fulfilled — or not — impacts the health, well-being and resilience of people everywhere. With increasing global interest in understanding how social connections support or hinder health, policymakers worldwide may benefit from reliable data on the current state of social connectedness. Despite the critical role of social connectedness for communities and the people who live in them, little is known about the frequency or form of social connection in many — if not most — parts of the world.
Meta and Gallup have collaborated on two research studies to help fill this gap. In 2022, the Meta-Gallup State of Social Connections report revealed important variations in people’s sense of connectedness and loneliness across the seven countries studied. This report builds on that research by presenting data on connections and loneliness among people from 142 countries…(More)”.
AI-driven public services and the privacy paradox: do citizens really care about their privacy?
Paper by Based on privacy calculus theory, we derive hypotheses on the role of perceived usefulness and privacy risks of artificial intelligence (AI) in public services. In a representative vignette experiment (n = 1,048), we asked citizens whether they would download a mobile app to interact in an AI-driven public service. Despite general concerns about privacy, we find that citizens are not susceptible to the amount of personal information they must share, nor to a more anthropomorphic interface. Our results confirm the privacy paradox, which we frame in the literature on the government’s role to safeguard ethical principles, including citizens’ privacy…(More)”.
The impact of generative artificial intelligence on socioeconomic inequalities and
policy making
Paper by Valerio Capraro et al: “Generative artificial intelligence, including chatbots like ChatGPT, has the potential to both exacerbate and ameliorate existing socioeconomic inequalities. In this article, we provide a state-of-the-art interdisciplinary overview of the probable impacts of generative AI on four critical domains: work, education, health, and information. Our goal is to warn about how generative AI could worsen existing inequalities while illuminating directions for using AI to resolve pervasive social problems. Generative AI in the workplace can boost productivity and create new jobs, but the benefits will likely be distributed unevenly. In education, it offers personalized learning but may widen the digital divide. In healthcare, it improves diagnostics and accessibility but could deepen pre-existing inequalities. For information, it democratizes content creation and access but also dramatically expands the production and proliferation of misinformation. Each section covers a specific topic, evaluates existing research, identifies critical gaps, and recommends research directions. We conclude with a section highlighting the role of policymaking to maximize generative AI’s potential to reduce inequalities while
mitigating its harmful effects. We discuss strengths and weaknesses of existing policy frameworks in the European Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom, observing that each fails to fully confront the socioeconomic challenges we have identified. We contend that these policies should promote shared prosperity through the advancement of generative AI. We suggest several concrete policies to encourage further research and debate. This article emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary collaborations to understand and address the complex challenges of generative AI…(More)”.
Co-Designing Urban Futures: Innovation and partnerships for improved service delivery in intermediary cities
Report by GSMA: “Cities across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are grappling with the concurrent challenges of rapid urbanisation, climate change and widening inequalities. For intermediary cities, which account for more than half of the urban population in LMICs, these challenges are more pronounced. There is growing evidence that partnerships, collaboration and innovative service delivery models can address these challenges. The GSMA, Connected Places Catapult and UN-Habitat have come together to support cities by driving collaboration between the public and private sectors and enabling the adoption of these innovative models.
This report first outlines the state of urbanisation and the challenges of urban service provision associated with the rapid pace with which cities are growing. It then delves into the unique challenges that intermediary cities face: Governance, digital development, financial capacity and climate change, making the case to accelerate innovation and partnerships in these cities…(More)”.
Social Movements and Public Opinion in the United States
Paper by Amory Gethin & Vincent Pons: “Recent social movements stand out by their spontaneous nature and lack of stable leadership, raising doubts on their ability to generate political change. This article provides systematic evidence on the effects of protests on public opinion and political attitudes. Drawing on a database covering the quasi-universe of protests held in the United States, we identify 14 social movements that took place from 2017 to 2022, covering topics related to environmental protection, gender equality, gun control, immigration, national and international politics, and racial issues. We use Twitter data, Google search volumes, and high-frequency surveys to track the evolution of online interest, policy views, and vote intentions before and after the outset of each movement. Combining national-level event studies with difference-in-differences designs exploiting variation in local protest intensity, we find that protests generate substantial internet activity but have limited effects on political attitudes. Except for the Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd, which shifted views on racial discrimination and increased votes for the Democrats, we estimate precise null effects of protests on public opinion and electoral behavior…(More)”.