international

Why Technology Hasn’t Delivered More Democracy

Curated on June 4, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Collection of POVs aggregated by Thomas Carothers at Foreign Policy: “New technologies offer important tools for empowerment — yet democracy is stagnating. What’s up?…

THe current moment confronts us with a paradox. The first fifteen years of this century have been a time of astonishing advances in communications and information technology, including digitalization, mass-accessible video platforms, smart phones, social media, billions of people gaining internet access, and much else. These revolutionary changes all imply a profound empowerment of individuals through exponentially greater access to information, tremendous ease of communication and data-sharing, and formidable tools for networking. Yet despite these changes, democracy — a political system based on the idea of the empowerment of individuals — has in these same years become stagnant in the world. The number of democracies today is basically no greater than it was at the start of the century. Many democracies, both long-established ones and newer ones, are experiencing serious institutional debilities and weak public confidence.

How can we reconcile these two contrasting global realities — the unprecedented advance of technologies that facilitate individual empowerment and the overall lack of advance of democracy worldwide? To help answer this question, I asked six experts on political change, all from very different professional and national perspectives. Here are their responses, followed by a few brief observations of my own.

1. Place a Long Bet on the Local By Martin Tisné

2. Autocrats Know How to Use Tech, Too By Larry Diamond

3. Limits on Technology Persist By Senem Aydin Düzgit

4. The Harder Task By Rakesh Rajani

5. Don’t Forget Institutions By Diane de Gramont

6. Mixed Lessons from Iran By Golnaz Esfandiari

7. Yes, It’s Complicated byThomas Carothers…(More)”

The Data That’s Hiding in Plain Sight

Curated on June 3, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Beth Noveck in Governing: “What makes open data a powerful tool for governing better is the ability of people inside and outside of institutions to use the same data to create effective policies and useful tools, visualizations, maps and apps. Open data also can provide the raw material to convene informed conversations about what’s broken and the empirical foundation for developing solutions. But to realize its potential, the data needs to be truly open: not only universally and readily accessible but also structured for usability and computability.

One area where open data has the potential to make a real difference — and where some of its current limitations are all too apparent — is in state-level regulation of nonprofits. In May, a task force comprising the Federal Trade Commission together with 58 agencies from all 50 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against the Cancer Fund group of nonprofits and the individuals who run them. The complaint alleges that the groups are sham charities that spend “the overwhelming majority of donated funds supporting the Individual Defendants, their families and friends, and their fundraisers.” State officials spotted telltale signs of abuse and fraud by studying information the organizations had submitted in their federal nonprofit tax returns and state-by-state registration forms.

Nonprofit tax returns and registration forms are the public’s (and government’s) primary window into the workings of America’s enormous and economically impactful nonprofit sector. Every year in the United States, approximately 1.5 million registered tax-exempt organizations file a version of the federal Form 990, the tax return for tax-exempt organization, with the Internal Revenue Service and state tax authorities. These forms collect details on the organizations’ financial, governance and organizational structure to the end of ensuring that they are deserving of their tax-exempt status. All but 10 states also require that nonprofits file state-specific registration forms. The information these filings contain about executive compensation, fundraising expenses and donation activities can help regulators spot possible bad actors and alert each other to targets for further investigation.

Yet despite the richness and utility of the information contained in these filings, major barriers prevent regulators from efficiently sharing and analyzing the data..(More)”

Nudging hits Berlin

Curated on May 28, 2015May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Hanno Burmester, Philipp Sälhoff and Marie Wachinger at Policy Network: “Despite suspicion, the nudge theory may have a place in the process of party reform. Ever since Germany’s Kanzleramt published a job ad in 2014 to recruit three behavioural scientists, “nudging” has become a political buzzword in Berlin. For people outside the Berlin bubble, this may come as a surprise: the British government established its Behavioural Insights Team in 2010 (the less Orwellian nickname is the Nudge Unit). The city of Copenhagen followed soon after and started experimenting with the concept in 2012. Still, nudging seems to have only hit Berlin in recent months, sparking fierce debate among political experts, as well as the German public….

It is not surprising, therefore, that the notions of nudging and libertarian paternalism has quickly found its enemies in the German political debate. Libertarianism here is understood as a radical political ideology which, with the disappearance from federal politics of the centre-right liberal FDP with its partly libertarian agenda, has no representatives at all on the national political stage. Paternalism evokes negative political connotations as well. Moreover, in contrast to the United States, extensive government regulation enjoys widespread public acceptance. At the same time, Germans harbour a deep distrust against opaque and/or seemingly manipulative government actions. The concept of nudging, which explicitly acknowledges that its subjects can be unaware of being consciously influenced, thus feeds into a cultural distrust that, with regards to German and European history, is more than understandable.

Interestingly, however, the political left seems less averse to the idea of stimulating behavioural change through government action. For instance, the German minister of justice and consumer protection, the Social Democrat, Heiko Maas, lauded the approach in an op-ed, saying that it would be wise to acknowledge that citizens do not act rationally all the time. Nudging thus could be a wise compromise “between over-regulation of everyday affairs and laissez-faire politics”.

Nudging is more than a tool for governments, though. We believe it offers advantages in fields that, from an ethical perspective, are less controversial. One of those is the reform of political parties. Since August 2014 we have been developing new approaches and to party reform in our projectLegitimation and Self-efficacy: Impulses for the Future of Party Democracy. The past decades have shown how hard it is to implement structural reforms in political parties, irrespective of the national context. On the left, for instance, the German Social Democratic party shows a remarkable institutional immunity to change, despite a widespread desire for parties to reflect the demands of rapidly changing societies.

Nudging may provide a tool to identify and analyse current practices of exerting political influence, thereby opening new prospects for changing organisational structures….(More)”

Participatory Governance

Curated on May 23, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book chapter by Stephanie L. McNulty and Brian Wample in “Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Interdisciplinary, Searchable, and Linkable Resource”: “Efforts to engage new actors in political decision-making through innovative participatory programs have exploded around the world in the past 25 years. This trend, called participatory governance, involves state-sanctioned institutional processes that allow citizens to exercise voice and vote in public policy decisions that produce real changes in citizens’ lives. Billions of dollars are spent supporting these efforts around the world. The concept, which harks back to theorists such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Stuart Mill, has only recently become prominent in theories about democracy. After presenting the foundational research on participatory governance, the essay notes that newer research on this issues falls into three areas: (i) the broader impact of these experiments; (ii) new forms of engagement, with a focus on representation, deliberation, and intermediation; and (iii) scaling up and diffusion. The essay concludes with a research agenda for future work on this topic….(More)”

Shifting from research governance to research ethics: A novel paradigm for ethical review in community-based research

Curated on May 21, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Jay Marlowe and Martin Tolich: “This study examines a significant gap in the role of providing ethical guidance and support for community-based research. University and health-based ethical review committees in New Zealand predominantly serve as ‘gatekeepers’ that consider the ethical implications of a research design in order to protect participants and the institution from harm. However, in New Zealand, community-based researchers routinely do not have access to this level of support or review. A relatively new group, the New Zealand Ethics Committee (NZEC), formed in 2012, responds to the uneven landscape of access for community-based research. By offering ethical approval inclusive of the review of a project’s study design outside institutional settings, NZEC has endeavoured to move beyond a gatekeeping research governance function to that of bridge-building. This change of focus presents rich possibilities but also a number of limitations for providing ethical review outside conventional institutional contexts. This paper reports on the NZEC’s experience of working with community researchers to ascertain the possibilities and tensions of shifting ethics review processes from research governance to a focus on research ethics in community-based participatory research….(More)”

What Is Community Anyway?

Curated on May 13, 2015May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

David M. Chavis & Kien Lee at Stanford Social Innovation Review: “Community” is so easy to say. The word itself connects us with each other. It describes an experience so common that we never really take time to explain it. It seems so simple, so natural, and so human. In the social sector, we often add it to the names of social innovations as a symbol of good intentions (for example, community mental health, community policing, community-based philanthropy, community economic development).

But the meaning of community is complex. And, unfortunately, insufficient understanding of what a community is and its role in the lives of people in diverse societies has led to the downfall of many well-intended “community” efforts.

Adding precision to our understanding of community can help funders and evaluators identify, understand, and strengthen the communities they work with. There has been a great deal of research in the social sciences about what a human community is (see for example, Chavis and Wandersman, 1990; Nesbit, 1953; Putnam, 2000). Here, we blend that research with our experience as evaluators and implementers of community change initiatives.

It’s about people.

First and foremost, community is not a place, a building, or an organization; nor is it an exchange of information over the Internet. Community is both a feeling and a set of relationships among people. People form and maintain communities to meet common needs….

People live in multiple communities.

Since meeting common needs is the driving force behind the formation of communities, most people identify and participate in several of them, often based on neighborhood, nation, faith, politics, race or ethnicity, age, gender, hobby, or sexual orientation….

Communities are nested within each other.

Just like Russian Matryoshka dolls, communities often sit within other communities. For example, in a neighborhood—a community in and of itself—there may be ethnic or racial communities, communities based on people of different ages and with different needs, and communities based on common economic interests….

Communities have formal and informal institutions.

Communities form institutions—what we usually think of as large organizations and systems such as schools, government, faith, law enforcement, or the nonprofit sector—to more effectively fulfill their needs….

Communities are organized in different ways.

Every community is organized to meet its members’ needs, but they operate differently based on the cultures, religions, and other experiences of their members. For example, while the African American church is generally understood as playing an important role in promoting health education and social justice for that community, not all faith institutions such as the mosque or Buddhist temple are organized and operate in the same way….(More)

The Quiet Power of Indicators: Measuring Governance, Corruption, and Rule of Law

Curated on May 9, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

New book edited by Sally Engle Merry, Kevin Davis, and Benedict Kingsbury: “Using a power-knowledge framework, this volume critically investigates how major global indicators of legal governance are produced, disseminated and used, and to what effect. Original case studies include Freedom House’s Freedom in the World indicator, the Global Reporting Initiative’s structure for measuring and reporting on corporate social responsibility, the World Justice Project’s measurement of the rule of law, the World Bank’s Doing Business index, the World Bank-supported Worldwide Governance Indicators, the World Bank’s Country Performance Institutional Assessment (CPIA), and the Transparency International Corruption (Perceptions) index. Also examined is the use of performance indicators by the European Union for accession countries and by the US Millennium Challenge Corporation in allocating US aid funds…(More)”

Toward a Research Agenda on Opening Governance

Curated on May 7, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Members of the MacArthur Research Network on Opening Governance at Medium: “Society is confronted by a number of increasingly complex problems — inequality, climate change, access to affordable healthcare — that often seem intractable. Existing societal institutions, including government agencies, corporations and NGOs, have repeatedly proven themselves unable to tackle these problems in their current composition. Unsurprisingly, trust in existing institutions is at an all-time low.

At the same time, advances in technology and sciences offer a unique opportunity to redesign and reinvent our institutions. Increased access to data may radically transform how we identify problems and measure progress. Our capacity to connect with citizens could greatly increase the knowledge and expertise available to solve big public problems. We are witnessing, in effect, the birth of a new paradigm of governance — labeled “open governance” — where institutions share and leverage data, pursue collaborative problem-solving, and partner with citizens to make better decisions. All of these developments offer a potential solution to the crisis of trust and legitimacy confronting existing institutions.

But for the promise of open governance, we actually know very little about its true impact, and about the conditions and contingencies required for institutional innovation to really work. Even less is known about the capabilities that institutions must develop in order to be able to take advantage of new technologies and innovative practices. The lack of evidence is holding back positive change. It is limiting our ability to improve people’s lives.

The MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance seeks to address these shortcomings. Convened and organized by the GovLab, and made possible by a three-year, $5 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Network seeks to build an empirical foundation that will help us understand how democratic institutions are being (and should be) redesigned, and how this in turn influences governance. At its broadest level, the Network seeks to create a new science of institutional innovation.

In what follows, we outline a research agenda and a set of deliverables for the coming years that can deepen our understanding of “open governance.” More specifically the below seeks:

to frame and contextualize the areas of common focus among the members;
to guide the targeted advancement of Network activities;
to catalyze opportunities for further collaboration and knowledge exchange between Network members and those working in the field at large.

A core objective of the Network is to conduct research based on, and that has relevance for, real-world institutions. Any research that is solely undertaken in the lab, far from the actual happenings the Network seeks to influence and study, is deemed to be insufficient. As such, the Network is actively developing flexible, scalable methodologies to help analyze the impact of opening governance. In the spirit of interdisciplinarity and openness that defines the Network, these methodologies are being developed collaboratively with partners from diverse disciplines.

The below seeks to provide a framework for those outside the Network — including those who would not necessarily characterize their research as falling under the banner of opening governance — to undertake empirical, agile research into the redesign and innovation of governance processes and the solving of public problems….(More)”

Governing the smart city: a review of the literature on smart urban governance

Curated on May 7, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Review by Albert Meijer and Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar in International Review of Administrative Sciences: “Academic attention to smart cities and their governance is growing rapidly, but the fragmentation in approaches makes for a confusing debate. This article brings some structure to the debate by analyzing a corpus of 51 publications and mapping their variation. The analysis shows that publications differ in their emphasis on (1) smart technology, smart people or smart collaboration as the defining features of smart cities, (2) a transformative or incremental perspective on changes in urban governance, (3) better outcomes or a more open process as the legitimacy claim for smart city governance. We argue for a comprehensive perspective: smart city governance is about crafting new forms of human collaboration through the use of ICTs to obtain better outcomes and more open governance processes. Research into smart city governance could benefit from previous studies into success and failure factors for e-government and build upon sophisticated theories of socio-technical change. This article highlights that smart city governance is not a technological issue: we should study smart city governance as a complex process of institutional change and acknowledge the political nature of appealing visions of socio-technical governance….(More)”