Participatory Budgeting: Does Evidence Match Enthusiasm?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Brian Wampler, Stephanie McNulty, and Michael Touchton at Open Government Partnership: “Participatory budgeting (PB) empowers citizens to allocate portions of public budgets in a way that best fits the needs of the people. In turn, proponents expect PB to improve citizens’ lives in important ways, by expanding their participation in politics, providing better public services such as in healthcare, sanitation, or education, and giving them a sense of efficacy.

Below we outline several potential outcomes that emerge from PB. Of course, assessing PB’s potential impact is difficult, because reliable data is rare and PB is often one of several programs that could generate similar improvements at the same time. Impact evaluations for PB are thus at a very early stage. Nevertheless, considerable case study evidence and some broader, comparative studies point to outcomes in the following areas:

Citizens’ attitudes: Early research focused on the attitudes of citizens who participate in PB, and found that PB participants feel empowered, support democracy, view the government as more effective, and better understand budget and government processes after participating (Wampler and Avritzer 2004; Baiocchi 2005; Wampler 2007).

Participants’ behavior: Case-study evidence shows that PB participants increase their political participation beyond PB and join civil society groups. Many scholars also expect PB to strengthen civil society by increasing its density (number of groups), expanding its range of activities, and brokering new partnerships with government and other CSOs. There is some case study evidence that this occurs (Baiocchi 2005; McNulty 2011; Baiocchi, Heller and Silva 2011; Van Cott 2008) as well as evidence from over 100 PB programs across Brazil’s larger municipalities (Touchton and Wampler 2014). Proponents also expect PB to educate government officials surrounding community needs, to increase their support for participatory processes, and to potentially expand participatory processes in complementary areas. Early reports from five counties in Kenya suggest that PB ther is producing at least some of these impacts.

Electoral politics and governance: PB can also promote social change, which may alter local political calculations and the ways that governments operate. PB may deliver votes to the elected officials that sponsor it, improve budget transparency and resource allocation, decrease waste and fraud, and generally improve accountability. However, there is very little evidence in this area because few studies have been able to measure these impacts in any direct way.

Social well-being: Finally, PB is designed to improve residents’ well-being. Implemented PB projects include funding for healthcare centers, sewage lines, schools, wells, and other areas that contribute directly to well-being. These effects may take years to appear, but recent studies attribute improvements in infant mortality in Brazil to PB (Touchton and Wampler 2014; Gonçalves 2014). Beyond infant mortality, the range of potential impacts extends to other health areas, sanitation, education, and poverty in general. We are cautious here because results from Brazil might not appear elsewhere: what works in urban Brazil might not in rural Indonesia….(More)”.

Augmented CI and Human-Driven AI: How the Intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Collective Intelligence Could Enhance Their Impact on Society

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog by Stefaan Verhulst: “As the technology, research and policy communities continue to seek new ways to improve governance and solve public problems, two new types of assets are occupying increasing importance: data and people. Leveraging data and people’s expertise in new ways offers a path forward for smarter decisions, more innovative policymaking, and more accountability in governance. Yet, unlocking the value of these two assets not only requires increased availability and accessibility (through, for instance, open data or open innovation), it also requires innovation in methodology and technology.

The first of these innovations involves Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI offers unprecedented abilities to quickly process vast quantities of data that can provide data-driven insights to address public needs. This is the role it has for example played in New York City, where FireCast, leverages data from across the city government to help the Fire Department identify buildings with the highest fire risks. AI is also considered to improve education, urban transportation,  humanitarian aid and combat corruption, among other sectors and challenges.

The second area is Collective Intelligence (CI). Although it receives less attention than AI, CI offers similar potential breakthroughs in changing how we govern, primarily by creating a means for tapping into the “wisdom of the crowd” and allowing groups to create better solutions than even the smartest experts working in isolation could ever hope to achieve. For example, in several countries patients’ groups are coming together to create new knowledge and health treatments based on their experiences and accumulated expertise. Similarly, scientists are engaging citizens in new ways to tap into their expertise or skills, generating citizen science – ranging from mapping our solar system to manipulating enzyme models in a game-like fashion.

Neither AI nor CI offer panaceas for all our ills; they each pose certain challenges, and even risks.  The effectiveness and accuracy of AI relies substantially on the quality of the underlying data as well as the human-designed algorithms used to analyse that data. Among other challenges, it is becoming increasingly clear how biases against minorities and other vulnerable populations can be built into these algorithms. For instance, some AI-driven platforms for predicting criminal recidivism significantly over-estimate the likelihood that black defendants will commit additional crimes in comparison to white counterparts. (for more examples, see our reading list on algorithmic scrutiny).

In theory, CI avoids some of the risks of bias and exclusion because it is specifically designed to bring more voices into a conversation. But ensuring that that multiplicity of voices adds value, not just noise, can be an operational and ethical challenge. As it stands, identifying the signal in the noise in CI initiatives can be time-consuming and resource intensive, especially for smaller organizations or groups lacking resources or technical skills.

Despite these challenges, however, there exists a significant degree of optimism  surrounding both these new approaches to problem solving. Some of this is hype, but some of it is merited—CI and AI do offer very real potential, and the task facing both policymakers, practitioners and researchers is to find ways of harnessing that potential in a way that maximizes benefits while limiting possible harms.

In what follows, I argue that the solution to the challenge described above may involve a greater interaction between AI and CI. These two areas of innovation have largely evolved and been researched separately until now. However, I believe that there is substantial scope for integration, and mutual reinforcement. It is when harnessed together, as complementary methods and approaches, that AI and CI can bring the full weight of technological progress and modern data analytics to bear on our most complex, pressing problems.

To deconstruct that statement, I propose three premises (and subsequent set of research questions) toward establishing a necessary research agenda on the intersection of AI and CI that can build more inclusive and effective approaches to governance innovation.

Premise I: Toward Augmented Collective Intelligence: AI will enable CI to scale

Premise II: Toward Human-Driven Artificial Intelligence: CI will humanize AI

Premise III: Open Governance will drive a blurring between AI and CI

…(More)”.

Most of the public doesn’t know what open data is or how to use it

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Jason Shueh at Statescoop: “New survey results show that despite the aggressive growth of open data, there is a drastic need for greater awareness and accessibility.

Results of a global survey published last month by Singapore’s Government Technology agency (GovTech) and the Economist Intelligence Unit, a British forecasting and advisory firm, show that open data is not being utilized as effectively as it could be. Researchers surveyed more than 1,000 residents in the U.S. and nine other leading open data counties and found that “an overwhelming” number of respondents say the primary barrier to open data’s use and effectiveness is a lack of public awareness.

The study reports that 50 percent of respondents said that national and local governments need to expand their civic engagements efforts on open data.

“Half of respondents say there is not enough awareness in their country about open government data initiatives and their benefits or potential uses,” the reports notes. “This is seen as the biggest barrier to more open government data use, particularly by citizens in India and Mexico.”

Accessibility is named as the second largest hurdle, with 31 percent calling for more relevant data. Twenty-five percent say open data is difficult to use due to a lack of standardized formats and another 25 percent say they don’t have the skills to understand open data.

Those calling for more relevant data say they wanted to see more information on crime, the economy and the environment, yet report they are happy with the availability and use of open data related to transportation….

When asked to name the main benefit of open data, 70 percent say greater transparency, 78 percent say to drive a better quality of life, and 53 percent cite better decision making….(More)”.

No risk, no innovation: the double-bind for the public sector

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Apolitical: “The political incentives to risk public money are non-existent – it’s too easy to see the short-term political consequences of initiatives gone wrong and debate whether taxpayers’ money is going down the drain. Public money is to be spent according to rules and regulations.”

This is how Jon Simonsson, Head of Innovation, Research and Capital at Sweden’s Ministry for Enterprise and Innovation, sees the potential for public servants to take risks. You may think that someone in Simonsson’s line of work – government innovation – would assume a more entrepreneurial mindset, but he’s hardly alone….

Government incentives for risk, meanwhile, don’t really exist. If you pull off a major improvement in service delivery, you don’t get a bump in compensation or promoted faster. It can feel really scary because any time you take a risk, you know that if you fail you’ll deal with criticism from the public,” said Reed.

Reed believes that the best way for governments to champion innovation is for them to institute programs and spaces designated for experimentation. San Francisco does this with several projects designed for collaboration between startups and government employees, like Startup in Residence, through which public agencies work with entrepreneurs. The startup employees give city officials a fresh perspective on long-standing civic problems, and help them prototype and user-test solutions. “[The government] tells public servants that this is sanctioned risk, and they’ll have moral support,” said Reed.

The City of West Hollywood, in Los Angeles, takes a similar approach. It recently instituted a two-person innovation division to act as consultants for its entire staff.

“Working with an innovation lab challenges your assumptions. That journey can be confronting and quite challenging to many people”

“I think government has a responsibility to take risks – we need to cultivate a culture of innovation, and sometimes that means spending money on projects that support staff ideas,” said Kate Mayerson, the city’s Innovation Analyst. “There’s something a little magical here: leadership that supports innovation and risk-taking from the top down.”…(More)”.

Ethical questions in data journalism and the power of online discussion

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

David Craig, Stan Ketterer and Mohammad Yousuf at Data Driven Journalism: “One common element uniting data journalism projects, across different stories and locations, is the ethical challenges they present.

As scholars and practitioners of data journalism have pointed out, main issues include flawed data, misrepresentation from a lack of context, and privacy concerns. Contributors have discussed the ethics of data journalism on this site in posts about topics such as the use of pervasive data, transparency about editorial processes in computational journalism, and best practices for doing data journalism ethically.

Our research project looked at similar ethical challenges by examining journalists’ discussion of the controversial handling of publicly accessible gun permit data in two communities in the United States. The cases are not new now, but the issues they raise persist and point to opportunities – both to learn from online discussion of ethical issues and to ask a wide range of ethical questions about data journalism

The cases

Less than two weeks after the 2012 shooting deaths of 20 children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, a journalist at The Journal News in White Plains, New York, wrote a story about the possible expansion of publicly accessible gun permit data. The article was accompanied by three online maps with the locations of gun permit holders. The clickable maps of a two-county area in the New York suburbs also included the names and addresses of the gun permit holders. The detailed maps with personal information prompted a public outcry both locally and nationally, mainly involving privacy and safety concerns, and were subsequently taken down.

Although the 2012 case prompted the greatest attention, another New York newspaper reporter’s Freedom of Information request for a gun permit database for three counties sparked an earlier public outcry in 2008. The Glen Falls Post-Star’s editor published an editorial in response. “We here at The Post-Star find ourselves in the unusual position of responding to the concerns of our readers about something that has not even been published in our newspaper or Web site,” the editorial began. The editor said the request “drew great concern from members of gun clubs and people with gun permits in general, a concern we totally understand.”

Both of these cases prompted discussion among journalists, including participants in NICAR-L, the listserv of the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, whose subscribers include data journalists from major news organizations in the United States and around the world. Our study examined the content of three discussion threads with a total of 119 posts that focused mainly on ethical issues.

Key ethical issues

Several broad ethical issues, and specific themes related to those issues, appeared in the discussion.

1. Freedom versus responsibility and journalistic purpose..

2. Privacy and verification..

3. Consequences..

….(More)”

See also: David Craig, Stan Ketterer and Mohammad Yousuf, “To Post or Not to Post: Online Discussion of Gun Permit Mapping and the Development of Ethical Standards in Data Journalism,” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

How Americans Perceive Government in 2017

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Gallup: “Overall, Americans’ views of government remain negative. Most U.S. adults are dissatisfied with how the executive and legislative branches are doing their jobs, and majorities hold unfavorable views of both major political parties. Even Republicans rate Congress negatively, despite their party being in control of both chambers.

  1. Americans’ frustration with government is focused on Washington, D.C. This is seen in trust and approval ratings they give to the executive and legislative branches — especially Congress. U.S. adults maintain higher levels of trust in the judicial branch as well as state and local government.
  2. Barely a quarter of Americans, 28%, currently say they are satisfied with the way the nation is being governed. This is below the average of 38% found in the 22 times Gallup has asked this question since 1971 but still above the low point of 18%, recorded during the federal government shutdown in October 2013.
  3. Americans’ low trust in many aspects of their government is part of a general trend of declining trust in U.S. institutions. But even in this broad context, the government is particularly suspect in the public’s eyes. The federal government has the least positive image of any business or industry sector measured, Congress engenders the lowest confidence of any institution that Gallup tests, and Americans rate the honesty and ethics of members of Congress as the lowest among 22 professions in Gallup’s most recent update.
  4. Another longtime indicator of citizen frustration with government comes from Gallup’s monthly updates on the most important problem facing the nation. Government was the most frequently occurring single problem mentioned during all of 2014 and 2015, was the second most frequently mentioned problem in 2016, and has been at the top or near the top of the list throughout 2017.
  5. The issues that Americans raise when they talk about government as the top problemcenter more on the process of government and political personalities — particularly infighting and bickering — than on worries about government power, size, or specific policies or tendencies.
  6. Americans continue to have more trust in the government to handle international than domestic problems, although both are down substantially since Gallup began measuring them routinely 17 years ago. Even with these overall declines, a majority continue to have at least a fair amount of trust in the government to handle international issues.
  7. Americans’ declining trust in the government is also reflected in the finding that both presidential and congressional job approval ratings are low on a historical basis. Just 13% say they approve of Congress, slightly above the all-time low of 9% recorded in the fall of 2013. Rank-and-file Republicans are essentially as down on the legislative branch of government as are Democrats, even though the GOP is in control of both houses. Presidential job approval is in the 35% to 40% range, well below historical averages as well as averages for elected presidents in their first year in office.
  8. One consistent finding in recent decades: Americans have a relatively higher level of trust in the judicial branch than either the executive or legislative branch. The higher regard in which Americans hold the judicial branch is also reflected in the approval rating they give the Supreme Court — now 49%, and the highest in five years. Still, trust in all three branches is down on a longer-term basis.
  9. Trust in the men and women in political office is also low. The majority of Americans, however, continue to have trust in the people of the country themselves, in essence the bedrock of democracy, and this is up slightly this year….(More)”.

The UN is using ethereum’s technology to fund food for thousands of refugees

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Joon Ian Wong at Quartz: “The United Nations agency in charge of food aid—often billed as the largest aid organization in the world—is betting that an ethereum-based blockchain technology could be the key to delivering aid efficiently to refugees while slashing the costs of doing so.

The agency, known as the World Food Programme (WFP), is the rare example of an organization that has delivered tangible results from its blockchain experiments—unlike the big banks that have experimented with the technology for years.

The WFP says it has transferred $1.4 million in food vouchers to 10,500 Syrian refugees in Jordan since May, and it plans to expand. “We need to bring the project from the current capacity to many, many, more,” says Houman Haddad, the WFP executive leading the project. “By that I mean 1 million transactions per day.”

Haddad, in Mexico to speak at the Ethereum Foundation’s annual developer conference, hopes to expand the UN project, called Building Blocks, from providing payment vouchers for one camp to providing vouchers for four camps, covering 100,000 people, by next January. He hopes to attract developers and partners to the UN project from his conference appearance, organized by the foundation, which acts as a steward for the technical development of the ethereum protocol….

The problem of internal bureaucratic warfare, of course, isn’t limited to the UN. Paul Currion, who co-founded Disberse, another blockchain-based aid delivery platform, lauds the speediness of the WFP effort. “It’s fantastic for proving this can work in the field,” he says. But “we’ve found that the hard work is integrating blockchain technology into existing organizational processes—we can’t just hand people a ticket and expect them to get on the high-speed blockchain train; we also need to drive with them to the station,” he says….(More)”.

 

The Illusion of Freedom in the Digital Age

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Mark Leonard at Project Syndicate: “Over the last few weeks, media around the world have been saturated with stories about how technology is destroying politics. In autocracies like China, the fear is of ultra-empowered Big Brother states, like that in George Orwell’s 1984. In democracies like the United States, the concern is that tech companies will continue to exacerbate political and social polarization by facilitating the spread of disinformation and creating ideological “filter bubbles,” leading to something resembling Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World….

Big tech companies, worth more than some countries’ GDP, seek to maximize profits, not social welfare. Yet, at a time when attention is supplanting money as the most valuable commodity, the impact of their decisions is far-reaching. James Williams, a Google engineer turned academic, argues that the digital age has unleashed fierce competition for our attention, and few have benefited more than Trump, who is for the Internet what Ronald Reagan was for television….

In the digital age, the biggest danger is not that technology will put free and autocratic societies increasingly at odds with one another. It is that the worst fears of both Orwell and Huxley will become manifest in both types of system, creating a different kind of dystopia. With many of their deepest desires being met, citizens will have the illusion of freedom and empowerment. In reality, their lives, the information they consume, and the choices they make will be determined by algorithms and platforms controlled by unaccountable corporate or government elites….(More)”.

Public Brainpower: Civil Society and Natural Resource Management

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Indra Øverland: ” …examines how civil society, public debate and freedom of speech affect natural resource governance. Drawing on the theories of Robert Dahl, Jurgen Habermas and Robert Putnam, the book introduces the concept of ‘public brainpower’, proposing that good institutions require: fertile public debate involving many and varied contributors to provide a broad base for conceiving new institutions; checks and balances on existing institutions; and the continuous dynamic evolution of institutions as the needs of society change.

The book explores the strength of these ideas through case studies of 18 oil and gas-producing countries: Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Libya, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Qatar, Russia, Saudi, UAE, UK and Venezuela. The concluding chapter includes 10 tenets on how states can maximize their public brainpower, and a ranking of 33 resource-rich countries and the degree to which they succeed in doing so.

The Introduction and the chapters ‘Norway: Public Debate and the Management of Petroleum Resources and Revenues’, ‘Kazakhstan: Civil Society and Natural-Resource Policy in Kazakhstan’, and ‘Russia: Public Debate and the Petroleum Sector’ of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com….(More)”.

What public transit can learn from Uber and Lyft

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Junfeng Jiao, Juan Miró and Nicole McGrath in The Conversation: “…New technologies and business models can inspire us to reconsider how we move through society. “Sharing economy” companies use digital technologies to connect customers who want something with people offering it directly – in the case of Uber and Lyft, transportation services. Applying this approach to public transit offers new solutions to mobility problems. “Uberizing” public transit services – bringing them to customers on demand – can transform our approach to transportation issues….

In fact, public transit “Uberization” has already begun. Many U.S. cities are teaming up with ride-hailing companies to provide on-demand public transit, as well as so-called first- and last-mile connections to transit services. These offerings appeal to riders’ desire for individual flexibility. By connecting ride-hailing apps with public buses and rail, cities can help residents seamlessly move from one form of transportation to another.

Among many examples, in mid-2017 Capital Metro, the regional public transit agency for Austin, Texas, piloted the Pickup app, which allows customers to request rides to anywhere within its service zone in a section of northeast Austin from their phones. In Central Florida, five cities have launched a unique pilot program that offers discounted intercity Uber trips. And the city of Centennial, Colorado recently partnered with Lyft to provide transit users free trips to and from their Dry Creek light rail station.

Another option is offering fixed-route, on-demand bus service, like Ford’s Chariot, which is currently available in New York City, Austin, Seattle and San Francisco. This approach, which is a cross between a ride-hailing app and a bus route, provides more flexibility than traditional public transit while keeping costs low. Chariot operates during commuter hours, guarantees riders a seat once they reserve a ride online, and accepts employer-paid commuter benefits. Not to be left behind, Lyft and Uber are also trying to fill this hybrid bus/on-demand type service with Lyft Shuttle and UberPool.

This idea is not as new as it may seem. For years Americans have relied on a dependable on-demand, door-to-door public transportation system: The yellow school bus. According to the American School Bus Council, every school day in 2015 nearly 484,000 school buses transported 27 million children to and from school and school-related activities.

However, most school buses are used only twice a day, in the early morning and again in the afternoon. Local governments, transit agencies and private enterprises should consider partnering with school systems to turn school buses into on-demand transit services during idle hours.

We can also look to other countries for innovative ideas, such as colectivos – buses in South America that operate as shared taxis running on fixed routes. Via, a new ride-hailing vanpool service operating in New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C., was inspired by “sherut” shared taxis in Israel. Other forms of informal transit, such as Thailand’s tuk-tuks or jeepneys in the Philippines, may also inspire ways of filling transit gaps here in the United States. The beauty of Uberizing transportation services is that it can take many different forms.

Importantly, Uberization is not a replacement for traditional public transit. While there is some indication that ride-hailing apps reduce transit ridership, shared mobility services actually complement public transit….(More)”