What types of health evidence persuade actors in a complex policy system?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Geoff Bates, Sarah Ayres, Andrew Barnfield, and Charles Larkin: “Good quality urban environments can help to prevent non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, mental health conditions and diabetes that account for three quarters of deaths globally (World Health Organisation, 2022). More commonly however, poor quality living conditions contribute to poor health and widening inequalities (Adlakha & John, 2022). Consequently, many public health advocates hope to convince and bring together the stakeholders who shape urban development to help create healthier places.

Evidence is one tool that can be used to convince these stakeholders from outside the health sector to think more about health outcomes. Most of the literature on the use of evidence in policy environments has focused on the public sector, such as politicians and civil servants (e.g., Crow & Jones, 2018). However, urban development decision-making processes involve many stakeholders across sectors with different needs and agendas (Black et al., 2021). While government sets policy and regulatory frameworks, private sector organisations such as property developers and investors drive urban development and strongly influence policy agendas.

In our article recently published in Policy & Politics, What types of evidence persuade actors in a complex policy system?, we explore the use of evidence to influence different groups across the urban development system to think more about health outcomes in their decisions…

The key findings of the research were that:

  1. Evidence-based narratives have wide appeal. Narratives based on real-world and lived experiences help stakeholders to form an emotional connection with evidence and are effective for drawing attention to health problems. Powerful outcomes such as child health and mortality data are particularly persuasive. This builds on literature promoting the use of storytelling approaches for public sector actors by demonstrating its applicability within the private and third sectors….(More)”

Design in the Civic Space: Generating Impact in City Government

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Stephanie Wade and Jon Freach: “When design in the private sector is used as a catalyst for innovation, it can produce insight into human experience, awareness of equitable and inequitable conditions, and clarity about needs and wants. But when we think of applying design in a government complex, the complicated nature of the civic arena means that public servants need to learn and apply design in ways that are specific to the intricate and expansive ecosystem of long-standing social challenges they face, and learn new mindsets, methods, and ways of working that challenge established practices in a bureaucratic environment. Design offers tools to help navigate the ambiguous boundaries of these complex problems and improve the city’s organizational culture so that it delivers better services to residents and the communities in which they live.

For the new practitioner in government, design can seem exciting, inspiring, hopeful, and fun because over the past decade it has quickly become a popular and novel way to approach city policy and service design. In the early part of the learning process, people often report that using design helps visualize their thoughts, spark meaningful dialogue, and find connections between problems, data, and ideas. But for some, when the going gets tough—when the ambiguity of overlapping and long-standing complex civic problems, a large number of stakeholders, causes, and effects begin to surface—design practices can seem slow and confusing.

In this article we explore the growth and impact of using design in city government and best practices when introducing it into city hall to tackle complex civic sector challenges along with the highs and lows of using design in local government to help cities innovate. The authors, who have worked together to conceive, create, and deliver design training to over 100 global cities, the US federal government, and higher education, share examples from their fieldwork supported by the experiences of city staff members who have applied design methods in their jobs….(More)”.

De Gruyter Handbook of Citizens’ Assemblies

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Min Reuchamps, Julien Vrydagh and Yanina Welp: “Citizens’ Assemblies (CAs) are flourishing around the world. Quite often composed of randomly selected citizens, CAs, arguably, come as a possible answer to contemporary democratic challenges. Democracies worldwide are indeed confronted with a series of disruptive phenomena such as a widespread perception of distrust and growing polarization as well as low performance. Many actors seek to reinvigorate democracy with citizen participation and deliberation. CAs are expected to have the potential to meet this twofold objective. But, despite deliberative and inclusive qualities of CAs, many questions remain open. The increasing popularity of CAs call for a holistic reflection and evaluation on their origins, current uses and future directions.

The De Gruyter Handbook of Citizens’ Assemblies showcases the state of the art around the study of CAs and opens novel perspectives informed by multidisciplinary research and renewed thinking about deliberative participatory processes. It discusses the latest theoretical, empirical, and methodological scientific developments on CAs and offers a unique resource for scholars, decision-makers, practitioners, and curious citizens to better understand the qualities, purposes, promises but also pitfalls of CAs…(More)”.

Attacks on Tax Privacy: How the Tax Prep Industry Enabled Meta to Harvest Millions of Taxpayers’ Sensitive Data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Congressional Report: “The investigation revealed that:

  • Tax preparation companies shared millions of taxpayers’ data with Meta, Google, and other Big Tech firms: The tax prep companies used computer code – known as pixels – to send data to Meta and Google. While most websites use pixels, it is particularly reckless for online tax preparation websites to use them on webpages where tax return information is entered unless further steps are taken to ensure that the pixels do not access sensitive information. TaxAct, TaxSlayer, and H&R Block confirmed that they had used the Meta Pixel, and had been using it “for at least a couple of years” and all three companies had been using Google Analytics (GA) for even longer.
  • Tax prep companies shared extraordinarily sensitive personal and financial information with Meta, which used the data for diverse advertising purposes: TaxAct, H&R Block, and TaxSlayer each revealed, in response to this Congressional inquiry, that they shared taxpayer data via their use of the Meta Pixel and Google’s tools. Although the tax prep companies and Big Tech firms claimed that all shared data was anonymous, the FTC and experts have indicated that the data could easily be used to identify individuals, or to create a dossier on them that could be used for targeted advertising or other purposes. 
  • Tax prep companies and Big Tech firms were reckless about their data sharing practices and their treatment of sensitive taxpayer data: The tax prep companies indicated that they installed the Meta and Google tools on their websites without fully understanding the extent to which they would send taxpayer data to these tech firms, without consulting with independent compliance or privacy experts, and without full knowledge of Meta’s use of and disposition of the data. 
  • Tax prep companies may have violated taxpayer privacy laws by sharing taxpayer data with Big Tech firms: Under the law, “a tax return preparer may not disclose or use a taxpayer’s tax return information prior to obtaining a written consent from the taxpayer,” – and they failed to do so when it came to the information that was turned over to Meta and Google. Tax prep companies can also turn over data to “auxiliary service providers in connection with the preparation of a tax return.” But Meta and Google likely do not meet the definition of “auxiliary service providers” and the data sharing with Meta was for advertising purposes – not “in connection with the preparation of a tax return.”…(More)”.

Asymmetries: participatory democracy after AI

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Gianluca Sgueo in Grand Continent (FR): “When it comes to AI, the scientific community expresses divergent opinions. Some argue that it could enable democratic governments to develop more effective and possibly more inclusive policies. Policymakers who use AI to analyse and process large volumes of digital data would be in a good position to make decisions that are closer to the needs and expectations of communities of citizens. In the view of those who view ‘government by algorithms’ favourably, AI creates the conditions for more effective and regular democratic interaction between public actors and civil society players. Other authors, on the other hand, emphasise the many critical issues raised by the ‘implantation’ of such a complex technology in political and social systems that are already highly complex and problematic. Some authors believe that AI could undermine even democratic values, by perpetuating and amplifying social inequalities and distrust in democratic institutions – thus weakening the foundations of the social contract. But if everyone is right, is no one right? Not necessarily. These two opposing conceptions give us food for thought about the relationship between algorithms and democracies…(More)”.

Government at a Glance

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

OECD Report: “Published every two years, Government at a Glance provides reliable, internationally comparable indicators on government activities and their results in OECD countries. Where possible, it also reports data for selected non-member countries. It includes input, process, output and outcome indicators as well as contextual information for each country.

Each indicator in the publication is presented in a user-friendly format, consisting of graphs and/or charts illustrating variations across countries and over time, brief descriptive analyses highlighting the major findings conveyed by the data, and a methodological section on the definition of the indicator and any limitations in data comparability…(More)”.

Why Citizen-Driven Policy Making Is No Longer A Fringe Idea

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Tatjana Buklijas: “Deliberative democracy is a term that would have been met with blank stares in academic and political circles just a few decades ago.

Yet this approach, which examines ways to directly connect citizens with decision-making processes, has now become central to many calls for government reform across the world. 

This surge in interest was firstly driven by the 2008 financial crisis. After the banking crash, there was a crisis of trust in democratic institutions. In Europe and the United States, populist political movements helped drive public feeling to become increasingly anti-establishment. 

The second was the perceived inability of representative democracy to effectively respond to long-term, intergenerational challenges, such as climate change and environmental decline. 

Within the past few years, hundreds of citizens’ assemblies, juries and other forms of ‘minipublics’ have met to learn, deliberate and produce recommendations on topics from housing shortages and covid-19 policies, to climate action.

One of the most recent assemblies in the United Kingdom was the People’s Plan for Nature that produced a vision for the future of nature, and the actions society must take to protect and renew it. 

When it comes to climate action, experts argue that we need to move beyond showpiece national and international goal-setting, and bring decision-making closer to home. 

Scholars say that that local and regional minipublics should be used much more frequently to produce climate policies, as this is where citizens experience the impact of the changing climate and act to make everyday changes.

While some policymakers are critical of deliberative democracy and see these processes as redundant to the existing deliberative bodies, such a national parliaments, others are more supportive. They view them as a way to get a better understanding of both what the public both thinks, and also how they might choose to implement change, after being given the chance to learn and deliberate on key questions.

Research has shown that the cognitive diversity of minipublics ensure a better quality of decision-making, in comparison to the more experienced, but also more homogenous traditional decision-making bodies…(More)”.

Building the Democracy We Need for the Twenty-First Century

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Toolkit by Hollie Russon Gilman, Grace Levin, and Jessica Tang: “This toolkit situates collaborative governance, also known as “co-governance,” within a framework for building community that sees civic education, relationship building, and leadership development as essential first steps toward an effective and sustained participatory process. It offers key takeaways and best practices from effective, ongoing collaborative governance projects between communities and decision makers. The best of these projects shift decision-making power to the hands of communities to make room for more deliberation, consensus, and lasting change. Building on the lessons of successful case studies from across the United States, including Georgia, Kentucky, New York, and Washington, this toolkit aims to support local leaders inside and outside government as they navigate and execute co-governance models in their communities…(More)”.

Assembly required

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Claudia Chwalsiz: “What is the role of political leadership in a new democratic paradigm defined by citizen participation, representation by lot and deliberation? What is or should be the role and relationship of politicians and political parties with citizens? What does a new approach to activating citizenship (in its broad sense) through practice and education entail? These are some questions that I am grappling with, having worked on democratic innovation and citizens’ assemblies for over a decade, with my views evolving greatly over time.

First, a definition. A citizens’ assembly is a bit like jury duty for policy. It is a broadly representative group of people selected by lottery (sortition) who meet for at least four to six days over a few months to learn about an issue, weigh trade-offs, listen to one another and find common ground on shared recommendations.

To take a recent example, the French Citizens’ Assembly on End of Life comprised 184 members, selected by lot, who deliberated for 27 days over the course of four months. Their mandate was to recommend whether, and if so how, existing legislation about assisted dying, euthanasia and related end-of-life matters should be amended. The assembly heard from more than 60 experts, deliberated with one another, and found 92% consensus on 67 recommendations, which they formulated and delivered to President Emmanuel Macron on 3 April 2023. As of November 2021, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has counted almost 600 citizens’ assemblies for public decision-making around the world, addressing complex issues from drug policy reform to biodiversity loss, urban planning decisions, climate change, infrastructure investment, constitutional issues such as abortion and more.

I believe citizens’ assemblies are a key part of the way forward. I believe the lack of agency people feel to be shaping their lives and their communities is at the root of the democratic crisis – leading to ever-growing numbers of people exiting the formal political system entirely, or else turning to extremes (they often have legitimate analysis of the problems we face, but are not offering genuine solutions, and are often dangerous in their perpetuation of divisiveness and sometimes even violence). This is also related to a feeling of a lack of dignity and belonging, perpetuated in a culture where people look down on others with moral superiority, and humiliation abounds, as Amanda Ripley explains in her work on ‘high conflict’. She distinguishes ‘high conflict’ from ‘good conflict’, which is respectful, necessary, and generative, and occurs in settings where there is openness and curiosity. In this context, our current democratic institutions are fuelling divisions, their legitimacy is weakened, and trust is faltering in all directions (of people in government, of government in people and of people in one another)…(More)”.

Culture and Democracy, the evidence

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by the European Commission: “This report analyses the concrete link between democracy and culture. It maps out how citizens who participate in cultural activities are much more likely to engage in civic and democratic life. Inequalities persist throughout the EU when it comes to citizens’ participation in cultural activities, with a clear knock-on impact on democratic participation. And this is just another reason why it is crucial that cultural activities are inclusive and affordable. Even more so as we see that investing in cultural participation can also support a range of other societal objectives – for example, in fields such as health, education and social inclusion. This report, and addressing the issues identified within it, is part of the work the European Commission is doing to strengthen democracy, to promote an inclusive and engaged society and to support the sustainability of the cultural sector. In the Work Plan for Culture 2023-2026, we put a specific focus on the link between culture and democracy, and we want to bring policy makers and stakeholders together to jointly work towards the concept of cultural citizenship in the EU. This report is part of the process…(More)”.