Test and learn: a playbook for mission-driven government


Playbook by the Behavioral Insights Team: “…sets out more detailed considerations around embedding test and learn in government, along with a broader range of methods that can be used at different stages of the innovation cycle. These can be combined flexibly, depending on the stage of the policy or service cycle, the available resources, and the nature of the challenge – whether that’s improving services, testing creative new approaches, or navigating uncertainty in new policy areas.

Almost all of the methods set out can be augmented or accelerated by harnessing AI tools – from using AI agents to conduct large-scale qualitative research, to AI-enhanced evidence discovery and analysis, and AI-powered systems mapping and modelling. AI should be treated as a core component of the toolkit at each stage.  And the speed of evolution of the application of AI is another strong argument for maintaining an agile mindset and regularly updating our ways of working. 

We hope this playbook will make test-and-learn more tangible to people who are new to it, and will expand the toolkit of people who have more experience with the approach. And ultimately we hope it will serve as a practical cheatsheet for building and improving the fabric of life…(More)”.

The Future is Coded: How AI is Rewriting the Rules of Decision Theaters


Essay by Mark Esposito and David De Cremer: “…These advances are not happening in isolation on engineers’ laptops; they are increasingly playing out in “decision theaters” – specialized environments (physical or virtual) designed for interactive, collaborative problem-solving. A decision theater is typically a space equipped with high-resolution displays, simulation engines, and data visualization tools where stakeholders can convene to explore complex scenarios. Originally pioneered at institutions like Arizona State University, the concept of a decision theater has gained traction as a way to bring together diverse expertise – economists, scientists, community leaders, government officials, and now AI systems – under one roof. By visualizing possible futures (say, the spread of a wildfire or the regional impact of an economic policy) in an engaging, shared format, these theaters make foresight a participatory exercise rather than an academic one. In the age of generative AI, decision theaters are evolving into hubs for human-AI collaboration. Picture a scenario where city officials are debating a climate adaptation policy. Inside a decision theater, an AI model might project several climate futures for the city (varying rainfall, extreme heat incidents, flood patterns) on large screens. Stakeholders can literally see the potential impacts on maps and graphs. They can then ask the AI to adjust assumptions – “What if we add more green infrastructure in this district?” – and within seconds, watch a new projection unfold. This real-time interaction allows for an iterative dialogue between human ideas and AI-generated outcomes. Participants can inject local knowledge or voice community values, and the AI will incorporate that input to revise the scenario. The true power of generative AI in a decision theater lies in this collaboration.

Such interactive environments enhance learning and consensus-building. When stakeholders jointly witness how certain choices lead to undesirable futures (for instance, a policy leading to water shortages in a simulation), it can galvanize agreement on preventative action. Moreover, the theater setup encourages asking “What if?” in a safe sandbox, including ethically fraught questions. Because the visualizations make outcomes concrete, they naturally prompt ethical deliberation: If one scenario shows economic growth but high social inequality, is that future acceptable? If not, how can we tweak inputs to produce a more equitable outcome? In this way, decision theaters embed ethical and social considerations into high-tech planning, ensuring that the focus isn’t just on what is likely or profitable but on what is desirable for communities. This participatory approach helps balance technological possibilities with human values and cultural sensitivities. It’s one thing for an AI to suggest an optimal solution on paper; it’s another to have community representatives in the room, engaging with that suggestion and shaping it to fit local norms and needs.

Equally important, decision theaters democratize foresight. They open up complex decision-making processes to diverse stakeholders, not just technical experts. City planners, elected officials, citizens’ groups, and subject matter specialists can all contribute in real time, aided by AI. This inclusive model guards against the risk of AI becoming an opaque oracle controlled by a few. Instead, the AI’s insights are put on display for all to scrutinize and question. By doing so, the process builds trust in the tools and the decisions that come out of them. When people see that an AI’s recommendation emerged from transparent, interactive exploration – rather than a mysterious black box – they may be more likely to trust and accept the outcome. As one policy observer noted, it’s essential to bring ideas from across sectors and disciplines into these AI-assisted discussions so that solutions “work for people, not just companies.” If designed well, decision theaters operationalize that principle…(More)”.

Deliberative Approaches to Inclusive Governance


Series edited by Taylor Owen and Sequoia Kim: “Democracy has undergone profound changes over the past decade, shaped by rapid technological, social, and political transformations. Across the globe, citizens are demanding more meaningful and sustained engagement in governance—especially around emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), which increasingly shape the contours of public life.

From world-leading experts in deliberative democracy, civic technology, and AI governance we introduce a seven-part essay series exploring how deliberative democratic processes like citizen’s assemblies and civic tech can strengthen AI governance…(More)”.

Spaces for Deliberation


Report by Gustav Kjær Vad Nielsen & James MacDonald-Nelson: “As citizens’ assemblies and other forms of citizen deliberation are increasingly implemented in many parts of the world, it is becoming more relevant to explore and question the role of the physical spaces in which these processes take place.

This paper builds on existing literature that considers the relationships between space and democracy. In the literature, this relationship has been studied with a focus on the architecture of parliament buildings, and on the role of urban public spaces and architecture for political culture, both largely within the context of representative democracy and with little or no attention given to spaces for facilitated citizen deliberation. With very limited considerations of the spaces for deliberative assemblies in the literature, in this paper, we argue that the spatial qualities for citizen deliberation demand more critical attention.

Through a series of interviews with leading practitioners of citizens’ assemblies from six different countrieswe explore what spatial qualities are typically considered in the planning and implementation of these assemblies, what are the recurring challenges related to the physical spaces where they take place, and the opportunities and limitations for a more intentional spatial design. In this paper, we synthesise our findings and formulate a series of considerations for the spatial qualities of citizens’ assemblies aimed at informing future practice and further research…(More)”.

Democratic Resilience: Moving from Theoretical Frameworks to a Practical Measurement Agenda


Paper by Nicholas Biddle, Alexander Fischer, Simon D. Angus, Selen Ercan, Max Grömping, andMatthew Gray: “Global indices and media narratives indicate a decline in democratic institutions, values, and practices. Simultaneously, democratic innovators are experimenting with new ways to strengthen democracy at local and national levels. These both suggest democracies are not static; they evolve as society, technology and the environment change.

This paper examines democracy as a resilient system, emphasizing the role of applied analysis in shaping effective policy and programs, particularly in Australia. Grounded in adaptive processes, democratic resilience is the capacity of a democracy to identify problems, and collectively respond to changing conditions, balancing institutional stability with transformative. It outlines the ambition of a national network of scholars, civil society leaders, and policymakers to equip democratic innovators with practical insights and foresight underpinning new ideas. These insights are essential for strengthening both public institutions, public narratives and community programs.

We review current literature on resilient democracies and highlight a critical gap: current measurement efforts focus heavily on composite indices—especially trust—while neglecting dynamic flows and causal drivers. They focus on the descriptive features and identify weaknesses, they do not focus on the diagnostics or evidence to what strengths democracies. This is reflected in the lack of cross-sector networked, living evidence systems to track what works and why across the intersecting dynamics of democratic practices. To address this, we propose a practical agenda centred on three core strengthening flows of democratic resilience: trusted institutions, credible information, and social inclusion.

The paper reviews six key data sources and several analytic methods for continuously monitoring democratic institutions, diagnosing causal drivers, and building an adaptive evidence system to inform innovation and reform. By integrating resilience frameworks and policy analysis, we demonstrate how real-time monitoring and analysis can enable innovation, experimentation and cross-sector ingenuity.

This article presents a practical research agenda connecting a national network of scholars and civil society leaders. We suggest this agenda be problem-driven, facilitated by participatory approaches to asking and prioritising the questions that matter most. We propose a connected approach to collectively posing key questions that matter most, expanding data sources, and fostering applied ideation between communities, civil society, government, and academia—ensuring democracy remains resilient in an evolving global and national context…(More)”.

‘We are flying blind’: RFK Jr.’s cuts halt data collection on abortion, cancer, HIV and more


Article by Alice Miranda Ollstein: “The federal teams that count public health problems are disappearing — putting efforts to solve those problems in jeopardy.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s purge of tens of thousands of federal workers has halted efforts to collect data on everything from cancer rates in firefighters to mother-to-baby transmission of HIV and syphilis to outbreaks of drug-resistant gonorrhea to cases of carbon monoxide poisoning.

The cuts threaten to obscure the severity of pressing health threats and whether they’re getting better or worse, leaving officials clueless on how to respond. They could also make it difficult, if not impossible, to assess the impact of the administration’s spending and policies. Both outside experts and impacted employees argue the layoffs will cost the government more money in the long run by eliminating information on whether programs are effective or wasteful, and by allowing preventable problems to fester.

“Surveillance capabilities are crucial for identifying emerging health issues, directing resources efficiently, and evaluating the effectiveness of existing policies,” said Jerome Adams, who served as surgeon general in the first Trump’s administration. “Without robust data and surveillance systems, we cannot accurately assess whether we are truly making America healthier.”..(More)”.

Statistical methods in public policy research


Chapter by Andrew Heiss: “This essay provides an overview of statistical methods in public policy, focused primarily on the United States. I trace the historical development of quantitative approaches in policy research, from early ad hoc applications through the 19th and early 20th centuries, to the full institutionalization of statistical analysis in federal, state, local, and nonprofit agencies by the late 20th century.

I then outline three core methodological approaches to policy-centered statistical research across social science disciplines: description, explanation, and prediction, framing each in terms of the focus of the analysis. In descriptive work, researchers explore what exists and examine any variable of interest to understand their different distributions and relationships. In explanatory work, researchers ask why does it exist and how can it be influenced. The focus of the analysis is on explanatory variables (X) to either (1) accurately estimate their relationship with an outcome variable (Y), or (2) causally attribute the effect of specific explanatory variables on outcomes. In predictive work, researchers as what will happen next and focus on the outcome variable (Y) and on generating accurate forecasts, classifications, and predictions from new data. For each approach, I examine key techniques, their applications in policy contexts, and important methodological considerations.

I then consider critical perspectives on quantitative policy analysis framed around issues related to a three-part “data imperative” where governments are driven to count, gather, and learn from data. Each of these imperatives entail substantial issues related to privacy, accountability, democratic participation, and epistemic inequalities—issues at odds with public sector values of transparency and openness. I conclude by identifying some emerging trends in public sector-focused data science, inclusive ethical guidelines, open research practices, and future directions for the field…(More)”.

So You Want to Be a Dissident?


Essay by Julia Angwin and Ami Fields-Meyer: “…Heimans points to an increasingly hostile digital landscape as one barrier to effective grassroots campaigns. At the dawn of the digital era, in the two-thousands, e-mail transformed the field of political organizing, enabling groups like MoveOn.org to mobilize huge campaigns against the Iraq War, and allowing upstart candidates like Howard Dean and Barack Obama to raise money directly from people instead of relying on Party infrastructure. But now everyone’s e-mail inboxes are overflowing. The tech oligarchs who control the social-media platforms are less willing to support progressive activism. Globally, autocrats have more tools to surveil and disrupt digital campaigns. And regular people are burned out on actions that have failed to remedy fundamental problems in society.

It’s not clear what comes next. Heimans hopes that new tactics will be developed, such as, perhaps, a new online platform that would help organizing, or the strengthening of a progressive-media ecosystem that will engage new participants. “Something will emerge that kind of revitalizes the space.”

There’s an oft-told story about Andrei Sakharov, the celebrated twentieth-century Soviet activist. Sakharov made his name working as a physicist on the development of the U.S.S.R.’s hydrogen bomb, at the height of the Cold War, but shot to global prominence after Leonid Brezhnev’s regime punished him for speaking publicly about the dangers of those weapons, and also about Soviet repression.

When an American friend was visiting Sakharov and his wife, the activist Yelena Bonner, in Moscow, the friend referred to Sakharov as a dissident. Bonner corrected him: “My husband is a physicist, not a dissident.”

This is a fundamental tension of building a principled dissident culture—it risks wrapping people up in a kind of negative identity, a cloak of what they are not. The Soviet dissidents understood their work as a struggle to uphold the laws and rights that were enshrined in the Soviet constitution, not as a fight against a regime.

“They were fastidious about everything they did being consistent with Soviet law,” Benjamin Nathans, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of a book on Soviet dissidents, said. “I call it radical civil obedience.”

An affirmative vision of what the world should be is the inspiration for many of those who, in these tempestuous early months of Trump 2.0, have taken meaningful risks—acts of American dissent.

Consider Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop who used her pulpit before Trump on Inauguration Day to ask the President’s “mercy” for two vulnerable groups for whom he has reserved his most visceral disdain. For her sins, a congressional ally of the President called for the pastor to be “added to the deportation list.”..(More)”.

Community Data: Creative Approaches to Empowering People with Information


Book by Rahul Bhargava: “…new toolkit for data storytelling in community settings, one purpose-built for goals like inclusion, empowerment, and impact. Data science and visualization has spread into new domains it was designed for – community organizing, education, journalism, civic governance, and more. The dominant computational methods and processes, which have not changed in response, are causing significant discriminatory and harmful impacts, documented by leading scholars across a variety of populations. Informed by 15 years of collaborations in academic and professional settings with nonprofits and marginalized populations, the book articulates a new approach for aligning the processes and media of data work with social good outcomes, learning from the practices of newspapers, museums, community groups, artists, and libraries.

This book introduces a community-driven framework as a response to the urgent need to realign data theories and methods around justice and empowerment to avoid further replicating harmful power dynamics and ensure everyone has a seat at the table in data-centered community processes. It offers a broader toolbox for working with data and presenting it, pushing beyond the limited vocabulary of surveys, spreadsheets, charts and graphs…(More)”.

Trump Wants to Merge Government Data. Here Are 314 Things It Might Know About You.


Article by Emily Badger and Sheera Frenkel: “The federal government knows your mother’s maiden name and your bank account number. The student debt you hold. Your disability status. The company that employs you and the wages you earn there. And that’s just a start. It may also know your …and at least 263 more categories of data.These intimate details about the personal lives of people who live in the United States are held in disconnected data systems across the federal government — some at the Treasury, some at the Social Security Administration and some at the Department of Education, among other agencies.

The Trump administration is now trying to connect the dots of that disparate information. Last month, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the “consolidation” of these segregated records, raising the prospect of creating a kind of data trove about Americans that the government has never had before, and that members of the president’s own party have historically opposed.

The effort is being driven by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and his lieutenants with the Department of Government Efficiency, who have sought access to dozens of databases as they have swept through agencies across the federal government. Along the way, they have elbowed past the objections of career staff, data security protocols, national security experts and legal privacy protections…(More)”.