The State of Open Data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Open Access Book edited by Tim Davies, Stephen B. Walker, Mor Rubinstein and Fernando Perini: “It’s been ten years since open data first broke onto the global stage. Over the past decade, thousands of programmes and projects around the world have worked to open data and use it to address a myriad of social and economic challenges. Meanwhile, issues related to data rights and privacy have moved to the centre of public and political discourse. As the open data movement enters a new phase in its evolution, shifting to target real-world problems and embed open data thinking into other existing or emerging communities of practice, big questions still remain. How will open data initiatives respond to new concerns about privacy, inclusion, and artificial intelligence? And what can we learn from the last decade in order to deliver impact where it is most needed? 

The State of Open Data brings together over 60 authors from around the world to address these questions and to take stock of the real progress made to date across sectors and around the world, uncovering the issues that will shape the future of open data in the years to come….(More)”.

Belgium’s democratic experiment

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

David van Reybrouck in Politico: “Those looking for a solution to the wave of anger and distrust sweeping Western democracies should have a look at an experiment in European democracy taking place in a small region in eastern Belgium.

Starting in September, the parliament representing the German-speaking region of Belgium will hand some of its powers to a citizens’ assembly drafted by lot. It’ll be the first time a political institution creates a permanent structure to involve citizens in political decision making.

It’s a move Belgian media has rightly hailed as “historic.” I was in parliament the night MPs from all six parties moved past ideological differences to endorse the bill. It was a courageous move, a sign to other politicians — who tend to see their voters as a threat rather than a resource — that citizens should be trusted, not feared, or “spun.”

Nowhere else in the world will everyday citizens be so consistently involved in shaping the future of their community. In times of massive, widespread distrust of party politics, German-speaking Belgians will be empowered to put the issues they care about on the agenda, to discuss potential solutions, and to monitor the follow-up of their recommendations as they pass through parliament and government. Politicians, in turn, will be able to tap independent citizens’ panels to deliberate over thorny political issues.

This experiment is happening on a small scale: Belgium’s German-speaking community, the country’s third linguistic region, is the smallest federal entity in Europe. But its powers are comparable with those of Scotland or the German province of North Rhine-Westphalia, and the lessons of its experiment with a “people’s senate” will have implications for democrats across Europe….(More)”.

A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Peter Coy at Bloomberg Business Week: “An intriguing new tool of democracy just had its first test in the real world of politics, and it passed with flying colors.

The tool is called quadratic voting, and it’s just as nerdy as it sounds. The concept is that each voter is given a certain number of tokens—say, 100—to spend as he or she sees fit on votes for a variety of candidates or issues. Casting one vote for one candidate or issue costs one token, but two votes cost four tokens, three votes cost nine tokens, and so on up to 10 votes costing all 100 of your tokens. In other words, if you really care about one candidate or issue, you can cast up to 10 votes for him, her, or it, but it’s going to cost you all your tokens.

Quadratic voting was invented not by political scientists but by economists and others, including Glen Weyl, an economist and principal researcher at Microsoft Corp. The purpose of quadratic voting is to determine “whether the intense preferences of the minority outweigh the weak preferences of the majority,” Weyl and Eric Posner, a University of Chicago Law School professor, wrote last year in an important book called Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society. ….

This spring, quadratic voting was used in a successful experiment by the Democratic caucus of the Colorado House of Representatives. The lawmakers used it to decide on their legislative priorities for the coming two years among 107 possible bills. (Wiredmagazine wrote about it here.)…

In this year’s experiment, the 41 lawmakers in the Democratic caucus were given 100 tokens each to allocate among the 107 bills. No one chose to spend all 100 tokens on a single bill. Many of them spread their votes around widely but thinly because it was inexpensive to do so—one vote is just one token. The top vote-getter by a wide margin turned out to be a bill guaranteeing equal pay to women for equal work. “There was clear separation” of the favorites from the also-rans, Hansen says.

The computer interface and other logistics were provided by Democracy Earth, which describes itself as a borderless community and “a global commons of self-sovereign citizens.” The lawmakers had more immediate concerns—hammering out a party agenda. “Some members were more tech-savvy,” Hansen says. “Some started skeptical but came around. I was pleasantly surprised. There was this feeling of ownership—your voice being heard.”

I recently wrote about the democratic benefits of ranked-choice voting, in which voters rank all the candidates in a race and votes are reassigned from the lowest vote-getters to the higher finishers until someone winds up with a majority. But although ranked-choice voting is gaining in popularity, it traces its roots back to the 19th century. Quadratic voting is much more of a break from the past. “This is a new idea, which is rare in economic theory, so it should be saluted as such, especially since it is accompanied by outstanding execution,” George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen wrote in 2015. (He did express some cautions about it as well.)…(More)”.

Revisiting the causal effect of democracy on long-run development

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog post by Markus Eberhardt: “In a recent paper, Acemoglu et al. (2019), henceforth “ANRR”, demonstrated a significant and large causal effect of democracy on long-run growth. By adopting a simple binary indicator for democracy, and accounting for the dynamics of development, these authors found that a shift to democracy leads to a 20% higher level of development in the long run.1

The findings are remarkable in three ways: 

  1. Previous research often emphasised that a simple binary measure for democracy was perhaps “too blunt a concept” (Persson and Tabellini 2006) to provide robust empirical evidence.
  2.  Positive effects of democracy on growth were typically only a “short-run boost” (Rodrik and Wacziarg 2005). 
  3. The empirical findings are robust across a host of empirical estimators with different assumptions about the data generating process, including one adopting a novel instrumentation strategy (regional waves of democratisation).

ANRR’s findings are important because, as they highlight in a column on Vox, there is “a belief that democracy is bad for economic growth is common in both academic political economy as well as the popular press.” For example, Posner (2010) wrote that “[d]ictatorship will often be optimal for very poor countries”. 

The simplicity of ANRR’s empirical setup, the large sample of countries, the long time horizon (1960 to 2010), and the robust positive – and remarkably stable – results across the many empirical methods they employ send a very powerful message against such doubts that democracy does cause growth.

I agree with their conclusion, but with qualifications. …(More)”.

Reconnecting citizens with EU decision-making is possible – and needs to happen now

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Opinion piece by Anthony Zacharzewski: “Maybe it’s the Brexit effect, or perhaps the memories of the great recession are fading, but in poll after poll, Europe’s citizens are saying that they feel more European and strongly supportive of EU membership. …

While sighs of relief can be heard from Schuman to Strasbourg, after a decade where the EU has bounced from crisis to crisis, the new Parliament and Commission will inherit a fragile and fractious Europe this year. One of their most important tasks will immediately be to connect EU citizens more closely to the institutions and their decision making….

The new European Commission and Parliament have the chance to change that, by adopting an ambitious open government agenda that puts citizen participation in decision making at its heart.

There are three things on our wish list for doing this.

The first thing on our list is an EU-wide commitment to policy making “in the open.” Built on a renewed commitment to transparency, it would set a unified approach to consultation, as well as identifying major policy areas where citizen involvement is both valuable and where citizens are likely to want to be involved. This could include issues such as migration and climate change. Member states, particularly those who are in the Open Government Partnership, have already had a lot of good practice which can help to inform this while the Open Government Network for Europe, which brings together civil society and government voices, is ready to help.

Secondly, the connection to civil society and citizens also needs to be made beyond the European level, supporting and making use of the rapidly growing networks of democratic innovation at local level. We are seeing an increasing shift from citizen participation as one-off events into a part of the governing system, and as such, the European institutions need to listen to local conversations and support them with better information. Public Square, our own project run in partnership with mySociety and funded by Luminate, is a good example. It is working with local government and citizens to understand how meaningful citizen participation can become an everyday part of the way all local decision-making happens.

The last item on our wish list would be greater coherence between the institutions in Brussels and Strasbourg to better involve citizens. While the European Parliament, Commission and Council all have their different roles and prerogatives, without a co-ordinated approach, the attention and resources they have will be dissipated across multiple conversations. Most importantly, it will be harder to demonstrate to citizens that their contributions have made a difference….(More)”.

How Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly helped climate action

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog post by Frances Foley: “..In July 2016, the new government – led by Fine Gael, backed by independents – put forward a bill to establish a national-level Citizens’ Assembly to look at the biggest issues of the day. These included the challenges of an ageing population; the role fixed-term parliaments; referendums; the 8th Amendment on abortion; and climate change.

Citizens from every region, every socio-economic background, each ethnicity and age group and from right across the spectrum of political opinion convened over the course of two weekends between September and November 2017. The issue seemed daunting in scale and complexity, but the participants had been well-briefed and had at their disposal a line up of experts, scientists, advocates and other witnesses who would help them make sense of the material. By the end, citizens had produced a radical series of recommendations which went far beyond what any major Irish party was promising, surprising even the initiators of the process….

As expected, the passage for some of the proposals through the Irish party gauntlet has not been smooth. The 8-hour long debate on increasing the carbon tax, for example, suggests that mixing deliberative and representative democracy still produces conflict and confusion. It is certainly clear that parliaments have to adapt and develop if citizens’ assemblies are ever to find their place in our modern democracies.

But the most encouraging move has been the simple acknowledgement that many of the barriers to implementation lie at the level of governance. The new Climate Action Commission, with a mandate to monitor climate action across government, should act as the governmental guarantor of the vision from the Citizens’ Assembly. Citizens’ proposals have themselves stimulated a review of internal government processes to stop their demands getting mired in party wrangling and government bureaucracy. By their very nature, the success of citizens’ assemblies can also provide an alternative vision of how decisions can be made – and in so doing shame political parties and parliaments into improving their decision-making practices.

Does the Irish Citizens’ Assembly constitute a case of rapid transition? In terms of its breadth, scale and vision, the experiment is impressive. But in terms of speed, deliberative processes are often criticised for being slow, unwieldly and costly. The response to this should be to ask what we’re getting: whilst an Assembly is not the most rapid vehicle for change – most serious processes take several months, if not a couple of years – the results, both in specific outcomes and in cultural or political shifts – can be astounding….

In respect to climate change, this harmony between ends and means is particularly significant. The climate crisis is the most severe collective decision-making challenge of our times, one that demands courage, but also careful thought….(More)”.

Many Across the Globe Are Dissatisfied With How Democracy Is Working

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Pew Research Center: “Anger at political elites, economic dissatisfaction and anxiety about rapid social changes have fueled political upheaval in regions around the world in recent years. Anti-establishment leaders, parties and movements have emerged on both the right and left of the political spectrum, in some cases challenging fundamental norms and institutions of liberal democracy. Organizations from Freedom House to the Economist Intelligence Unit to V-Demhave documented global declines in the health of democracy.

As previous Pew Research Center surveys have illustrated, ideas at the core of liberal democracy remain popular among global publics, but commitment to democracy can nonetheless be weak. Multiple factors contribute to this lack of commitment, including perceptions about how well democracy is functioning. And as findings from a new Pew Research Center survey show, views about the performance of democratic systems are decidedly negative in many nations. Across 27 countries polled, a median of 51% are dissatisfied with how democracy is working in their country; just 45% are satisfied.

Assessments of how well democracy is working vary considerably across nations. In Europe, for example, more than six-in-ten Swedes and Dutch are satisfied with the current state of democracy, while large majorities in Italy, Spain and Greece are dissatisfied.

To better understand the discontent many feel with democracy, we asked people in the 27 nations studied about a variety of economic, political, social and security issues. The results highlight some key areas of public frustration: Most believe elections bring little change, that politicians are corrupt and out of touch and that courts do not treat people fairly. On the other hand, people are more positive about how well their countries protect free expression, provide economic opportunity and ensure public safety.

We also asked respondents about other topics, such as the state of the economy, immigration and attitudes toward major political parties. And in Europe, we included additional questions about immigrants and refugees, as well as opinions about the European Union….(More)”.

Trivialization and Public Opinion: Slogans, Substance, and Styles of Thought in the Age of Complexity

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Oldrich Bubak and Henry Jacek: “Centering on public discourse and its fundamental lapses, this book takes a unique look at key barriers to social and political advancement in the information age. Public discourse is replete with confident, easy to manage claims, intuitions, and other shortcuts; outstanding of these is trivialization, the trend to distill multifaceted dilemmas to binary choices, neglect the big picture, gloss over alternatives, or filter reality through a lens of convenience—leaving little room for nuance and hence debate.

Far from superficial, such lapses are symptoms of deeper, intrinsically connected shortcomings inviting further attention. Focusing primarily on industrialized democracies, the authors take their readers on a transdisciplinary journey into the world of trivialization, engaging as they do so the intricate issues borne of a modern environment both enabled and constrained by technology. Ultimately, the authors elaborate upon the emerging counterweights to conventional worldviews and the paradigmatic alternatives that promise to help open new avenues for progress….(More)”.

Selling civic engagement: A unique role for the private sector?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Rebecca Winthrop at Brookings: “Much has been written on the worrisome trends in Americans’ faith and participation in our nation’s democracy. According to the World Values Survey, almost 20 percent of millennials in the U.S. think that military rule or an authoritarian dictator is a “fairly good” form of government, and only 29 percent believe that living in a country that is governed democratically is “absolutely important.” In the last year, trust in American democratic institutions has dropped—only 53 percent of Americans view American democracy positively. This decline in faith and participation in our democracy has been ongoing for some time, as noted in the 2005 collection of essays, “Democracy At Risk: How Political Choices Undermine Citizen Participation, and What We Can Do About It.” The essays chart the “erosion of the activities and capacities of citizenship” from voting to broad civic engagement over the past several decades.

While civil society and government have been the actors most commonly addressing this worrisome trend, is there also a constructive role for the private sector to play? After all, compared to other options like military or authoritarian rule, a functioning democracy is much more likely to provide the conditions for free enterprise that business desires. One only has to look to the current events in Venezuela for a quick reminder of this.

Many companies do engage in a range of activities that broadly support civic engagement, from dedicating corporate social responsibility (CSR) dollars to civically-minded community activities to supporting employee volunteerism. These are worthy activities and should certainly continue, but given the crisis of faith in the foundations of our democratic process, the private sector could play a much bigger role in helping support a movement for renewed understanding of and participation in our political process. Many of the private sector’s most powerful tools for doing this lie not inside companies’ CSR portfolios but in their unique expertise in selling things. Every day companies leverage their expertise in influence—from branding to market-segmentation—to get Americans to use their products and services. What if this expertise were harnessed toward promoting civic understanding and engagement?

Companies could play a particularly useful role by tapping new resources to amplify existing good work and build increasing interest in civic engagement. Two ways of doing this could include the below….(More)”

Technology-facilitated Societal Consensus

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Timotheus Kampik and Amro Najjar: “The spread of radical opinions, facilitated by homophilic Internet communities (echo chambers), has become a threat to the stability of societies around the globe. The concept of choice architecture–the design of choice information for consumers with the goal of facilitating societally beneficial decisions–provides a promising (although not uncontroversial) general concept to address this problem.

The choice architecture approach is reflected in recent proposals advocating for recommender systems that consider the societal impact of their recommendations and not only strive to optimize revenue streams.

However, the precise nature of the goal state such systems should work towards remains an open question. In this paper, we suggest that this goal state can be defined by considering target opinion spread in a society on different topics of interest as a multivariate normal distribution; i.e., while there is a diversity of opinions, most people have similar opinions on most topics. We explain why this approach is promising, and list a set of crossdisciplinary research challenges that need to be solved to advance the idea….(More)”.