Paper by Steve MacFeely, Angela Me, Friederike Schueuer, Joseph Costanzo, David Passarelli, Malarvizhi Veerappan, and Stefaan Verhulst: “Humanity collects, processes, shares, uses, and reuses a staggering volume of data. These data are the lifeblood of the digital economy; they feed algorithms and artificial intelligence, inform logistics, and shape markets, communication, and politics. Data do not just yield economic benefits; they can also have individual and societal benefits and impacts. Being able to access, process, use, and reuse data is essential for dealing with global challenges, such as managing and protecting the environment, intervening in the event of a pandemic, or responding to a disaster or crisis. While we have made great strides, we have yet to realize the full potential of data, in particular, the potential of data to serve the public good. This will require international cooperation and a globally coordinated approach. Many data governance issues cannot be fully resolved at national level. This paper presents a proposal for a preliminary set of data goals and principles. These goals and principles are envisaged as the normative foundations for an international data governance framework – one that is grounded in human rights and sustainable development. A principles-based approach to data governance helps create common values, and in doing so, helps to change behaviours, mindsets and practices. It can also help create a foundation for the safe use of all types of data and data transactions. The purpose of this paper is to present the preliminary principles to solicit reaction and feedback…(More)”.
Which Data Do Economists Use to Study Corruption ?
World Bank paper: “…examines the data sources and methodologies used in economic research on corruption by analyzing 339 journal articles published in 2022 that include Journal of Economic Literature codes. The paper identifies the most commonly used data types, sources, and geographical foci, as well as whether studies primarily investigate the causes or consequences of corruption. Cross-country composite indicators remain the dominant measure, while single country studies more frequently utilize administrative data. Articles in ranked journals are more likely to employ administrative and experimental data and focus on the causes of corruption. The broader dataset of 882 articles highlights the significant academic interest in corruption across disciplines, particularly in political science and public policy. The findings raise concerns about the limited use of novel data sources and the relative neglect of research on the causes of corruption, underscoring the need for a more integrated approach within the field of economics…(More)”.
What Autocrats Want From Academics: Servility
Essay by Anna Dumont: “Since Trump’s inauguration, the university community has received a good deal of “messaging” from academic leadership. We’ve received emails from our deans and university presidents; we’ve sat in department meetings regarding the “developing situation”; and we’ve seen the occasional official statement or op-ed or comment in the local newspaper. And the unfortunate takeaway from all this is that our leaders’ strategy rests on a disturbing and arbitrary distinction. The public-facing language of the university — mission statements, programming, administrative structures, and so on — has nothing at all to do with the autonomy of our teaching and research, which, they assure us, they hold sacrosanct. Recent concessions — say, the disappearance of the website of the Women’s Center — are concerning, they admit, but ultimately inconsequential to our overall working lives as students and scholars.
History, however, shows that public-facing statements are deeply consequential, and one episode from the 20-year march of Italian fascism strikes me as especially instructive. On October 8, 1931, a law went into effect requiring, as a condition of their employment, every Italian university professor to sign an oath pledging their loyalty to the government of Benito Mussolini. Out of over 1,200 professors in the country, only 12 refused.
Today, those who refused are known simply as “I Dodici”: the Twelve. They were a scholar of Middle Eastern languages, an organic chemist, a doctor of forensic medicine, three lawyers, a mathematician, a theologian, a surgeon, a historian of ancient Rome, a philosopher of Kantian ethics, and one art historian. Two, Francesco Ruffini and Edoardo Ruffini Avondo, were father and son. Four were Jewish. All of them were immediately fired…(More)”
2025 Ratings for Digital Participation Tools
People-Powered Report: The latest edition of our Digital Participation Tool Ratings evaluates 30 comprehensive tools that have been used to support digital participation all over the world. This year’s ratings offer more information and insights on each tool to help you select a suitable tool for your context and needs. We also researched how AI tools and features fit into the current digital participation landscape.
For the last four years, People Powered has been committed to providing governments and organizations with digital participation guidance, to enable people leading participatory programs and citizen engagement efforts to effectively select and use digital participation tools by providing guidance and ratings for tools. These ratings are the latest edition of the evaluations first launched in 2022. Further guidance about how to use these tools is available from our Guide to Digital Participation Platforms and Online Training on Digital Participation…(More)”.
Designing New Institutions and Renewing Existing Ones – A Playbook
UNDP Report: “The world has long depended on public institutions to solve problems and meet needs — from running schools to building roads, taking care of public health to defense. Today, global challenges like climate change, election security, forced migration, and AI-induced unemployment demand new institutional responses, especially in the Global South.
The bad news? Many institutions now struggle with public distrust, being seen as too wasteful
and inefficient, unresponsive and ineffective, and sometimes corrupt and outdated.
The good news? Fresh methods and models inspired by innovations in government, business, and civil
society are now available that can help us rethink institutions — making them more public results
oriented, agile, transparent, and fit for purpose. And ready for the future…(More)”.
Global population data is in crisis – here’s why that matters
Article by Andrew J Tatem and Jessica Espey: “Every day, decisions that affect our lives depend on knowing how many people live where. For example, how many vaccines are needed in a community, where polling stations should be placed for elections or who might be in danger as a hurricane approaches. The answers rely on population data.
But counting people is getting harder.
For centuries, census and household surveys have been the backbone of population knowledge. But we’ve just returned from the UN’s statistical commission meetings in New York, where experts reported that something alarming is happening to population data systems globally.
Census response rates are declining in many countries, resulting in large margins of error. The 2020 US census undercounted America’s Latino population by more than three times the rate of the 2010 census. In Paraguay, the latest census revealed a population one-fifth smaller than previously thought.
South Africa’s 2022 census post-enumeration survey revealed a likely undercount of more than 30%. According to the UN Economic Commission for Africa, undercounts and census delays due to COVID-19, conflict or financial limitations have resulted in an estimated one in three Africans not being counted in the 2020 census round.
When people vanish from data, they vanish from policy. When certain groups are systematically undercounted – often minorities, rural communities or poorer people – they become invisible to policymakers. This translates directly into political underrepresentation and inadequate resource allocation…(More)”.
How social media and online communities influence climate change beliefs
Article by James Rice: “Psychological, social, and political forces all shape beliefs about climate change. Climate scientists bear a responsibility — not only as researchers and educators, but as public communicators — to guard against climate misinformation. This responsibility should be foundational, supported by economists, sociologists, and industry leaders.
While fake news manifests in various forms, not all forms of misinformation are created with the intent to deceive. Regardless of intent, climate misinformation threatens policy integrity. Strengthening environmental communication is thus crucial to counteract ideological divides that distort scientific discourse and weaken public trust.
Political polarisation, misinformation, and the erosion of scientific authority pose challenges demanding rigorous scholarship and proactive public engagement. Climate scientists, policymakers, and climate justice advocates must ensure scientific integrity while recognising that climate science operates in a politically charged landscape. Agnosticism and resignation, rather than resisting climate misinformation, are as dangerous as outright denial of climate science. Combating this extends beyond scientific accuracy. It requires strategic communication, engagement with advocacy groups, and the reinforcement of public trust in environmental expertise…(More)”.
Political Responsibility and Tech Governance
Book by Jude Browne: “Not a day goes by without a new story on the perils of technology: from increasingly clever machines that surpass human capability and comprehension to genetic technologies capable of altering the human genome in ways we cannot predict. How can we respond? What should we do politically? Focusing on the rise of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), and the impact of new reproductive and genetic technologies (Repro-tech), Jude Browne questions who has political responsibility for the structural impacts of these technologies and how we might go about preparing for the far-reaching societal changes they may bring. This thought-provoking book tackles some of the most pressing issues of our time and offers a compelling vision for how we can respond to these challenges in a way that is both politically feasible and socially responsible…(More)”.
Cloze Encounters: The Impact of Pirated Data Access on LLM Performance
Paper by Stella Jia & Abhishek Nagaraj: “Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in text generation, but their performance may be influenced by the datasets on which they are trained, including potentially unauthorized or pirated content. We investigate the extent to which data access through pirated books influences LLM responses. We test the performance of leading foundation models (GPT, Claude, Llama, and Gemini) on a set of books that were and were not included in the Books3 dataset, which contains full-text pirated books and could be used for LLM training. We assess book-level performance using the “name cloze” word-prediction task. To examine the causal effect of Books3 inclusion we employ an instrumental variables strategy that exploits the pattern of book publication years in the Books3 dataset. In our sample of 12,916 books, we find significant improvements in LLM name cloze accuracy on books available within the Books3 dataset compared to those not present in these data. These effects are more pronounced for less popular books as compared to more popular books and vary across leading models. These findings have crucial implications for the economics of digitization, copyright policy, and the design and training of AI systems…(More)”.
Getting the Public on Side: How to Make Reforms Acceptable by Design
OECD Report: “Public acceptability is a crucial condition for the successful implementation of reforms. The challenges raised by the green, digital and demographic transitions call for urgent and ambitious policy action. Despite this, governments often struggle to build sufficiently broad public support for the reforms needed to promote change. Better information and effective public communication have a key role to play. But policymakers cannot get the public to choose the side of reform without a proper understanding of people’s views and how they can help strengthen the policy process.
Perceptual and behavioural data provide an important source of insights on the perceptions, attitudes and preferences that constitute the “demand-side” of reform. The interdisciplinary OECD Expert Group on New Measures of the Public Acceptability of Reforms was set up in 2021 to take stock of these insights and explore their potential for improving policy. This report reflects the outcomes of the Expert Group’s work. It looks at and assesses (i) the available data and what they can tell policymakers about people’s views; (ii) the analytical frameworks through which these data are interpreted; and (iii) the policy tools through which considerations of public acceptability are integrated into the reform process…(More)”.