politics & elections

Open data, transparency and accountability

Curated on September 12, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Topic guide by Liz Carolan: “…introduces evidence and lessons learned about open data, transparency and accountability in the international development context. It discusses the definitions, theories, challenges and debates presented by the relationship between these concepts, summarises the current state of open data implementation in international development, and highlights lessons and resources for designing and implementing open data programmes.

Open data involves the release of data so that anyone can access, use and share it. The Open DataCharter (2015) describes six principles that aim to make data easier to find, use and combine:

open by default
timely and comprehensive
accessible and usable
comparable and interoperable
for improved governance and citizen engagement
for inclusive development and innovation

One of the main objectives of making data open is to promote transparency.

Transparency is a characteristic of government, companies, organisations and individuals that are open in the clear disclosure of information, rules, plans, processes and actions. Transparency of information is a crucial part of this. Within a development context, transparency and accountability initiatives have emerged over the last decade as a way to address developmental failures and democratic deficits.

There is a strong intersection between open data and transparency as concepts, yet as fields of study and practice, they have remained somewhat separate. This guide draws extensively on analysis and evidence from both sets of literature, beginning by outlining the main concepts and the theories behind the relationships between them.

Data release and transparency are parts of the chain of events leading to accountability. For open data and transparency initiatives to lead to accountability, the required conditions include:

getting the right data published, which requires an understanding of the politics of data publication
enabling actors to find, process and use information, and to act on any outputs, which requires an accountability ecosystem that includes equipped and empowered intermediaries
enabling institutional or social forms of enforceability or citizens’ ability to choose better services,which requires infrastructure that can impose sanctions, or sufficient choice or official support for citizens

Programmes intended to increase access to information can be impacted by and can affect inequality. They can also pose risks to privacy and may enable the misuse of data for the exploitation of individuals and markets.

Despite a range of international open data initiatives and pressures, developing countries are lagging behind in the implementation of reforms at government level, in the overall availability of data, and in the use of open data for transparency and accountability. What is more, there are signs that ‘open-washing’ –superficial efforts to publish data without full integration with transparency commitments – may be obscuring backsliding in other aspects of accountability.

The topic guide pulls together lessons and guidance from open data, transparency and accountability work,including an outline of technical and non-technical aspects of implementing a government open data initiative. It also lists further resources, tools and guidance….(More)”

Can Direct Democracy Be Revived Through New Voting Apps?

Curated on September 7, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Adele Peters at FastCo-Exist: “…a new app and proposed political party called MiVote—aims to rethink how citizens participate in governance. Instead of voting only in elections, people using the app can share their views on every issue the government considers. The idea is that parliamentary representatives of the “MiVote party” would commit to support legislation only when it’s in line with the will of the app’s members—regardless of the representative’s own opinion….

Like Democracy Earth, a nonprofit that started in Argentina, MiVote uses the blockchain to make digital voting and identity fully secure. Democracy Earth also plans to use a similar model of representation, running candidates who promise to adhere to the results of online votes rather than a particular ideology.

But MiVote takes a somewhat different approach to gathering opinions. The app will give users a notification when a new issue is addressed in the Australian parliament. Then, voters get access to a digital “information packet,” compiled by independent researchers, that lets them dive into four different approaches.

“We don’t talk about the bill or the legislation at all,” says Jacoby. “If you put it into a business context, the bill or the legislation is the contract. In no business would you write the contract before you know what the deal looks like. If we’re looking for genuine democracy, the bill has to be determined by the people . . . Once we know where the people want to go, then we focus on making sure the bill gets us there.”

If the parliament is going to vote about immigration, for example, you might get details about a humanitarian approach, a border security approach, a financially pragmatic approach, and an approach that focuses on international relations. For each frame of reference, the app lets you dive into as much information as you need to decide. If you don’t read anything, it won’t let you cast a vote.

“We’re much more interested in a solutions-oriented approach rather than an ideological approach,” he says. “Ideology basically says I have the answer for you before you’ve even asked the question. There is no ideology, no worldview, that has the solution to everything that ails us.”

Representatives of this hypothetical new party won’t have to worry about staying on message, because there is no message; the only goal is to vote after the people speak. That might free politicians to focus on solutions rather than their image…(More)”

Civil Solutions

Curated on September 6, 2016May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Brian R. Calfano on “addressing social and political ills through the solutions journalism approach” in The Blue Review: “…To effectively work in the public interest as a member of the media covering politics in a national election year, I argue that stories evaluating and proposing solutions to our major societal problems must be an integral part of the media menu served to the public. Solutions are certainly not the only thing we need to cover in the media, but greater focus on problem solving is needed than what is provided at present.

A “solutions journalism” approach to covering political stories holds promise because it focuses attention on the evaluation of effectiveness in dealing with some of the most pressing problems we face as a society. Along the way, the solutions-based focus may even tamp down the incivility that plagues our politics.The author is a member of the Solutions Journalism Network.

So, how do we get started with a solutions journalism approach?

The Solutions Journalism Network has already done much of the legwork in setting up the scaffolding for journalists looking to sink their teeth into the consideration of “what works” in solving a social problem.

In their Solutions Journalism Toolkit (2015, pdf), the Solutions Journalism Network suggests focusing on the following questions when determining a topic to cover (pgs. 6-7):

Does the story explain the causes of social problem?
Does the story present an associated response to that problem?
Does the story get into the problem solving and how to details of implementation?
Does the story present evidence of results linked to the response?
Does the story explain limitations of the response?
Does the story convey an insight or teachable lesson?

…Most interesting about this approach is that it calls on my experience as a social science researcher. I’m tempted to go into full researcher mode and critique the all-too-frequent use of basic cross-tabulations and observational survey data as means for showing cause and effect. Generally speaking, audiences may not care about research methods, but my job is to make the story compelling enough — including the bits about methodology — to make them interested.

Importantly, I’m not alone in this effort. Sources like the website evidencebasedprograms.org feature a litany of randomized controlled trials that allow determination of direct impact from a policy intervention on issues like the “cliff effect.”

My work is made more difficult if the organizations I interview for the solutions journalism stories on the “cliff effect” are not using the randomized trial approach. At the least, I’ll have to point out to the viewer that the solutions an organization proposes are not being evaluated with the strongest possible assessment tools. This is not so much a problem, however, as an opportunity, as the organization might benefit from the critique of its own evaluation practices to find what works “better than average.”…(More)”.

Against transparency

Curated on September 6, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Matthew Yglesias at Vox: “…Digital storage is pretty cheap and easy, so maybe the next step in open government is ubiquitous surveillance of public servants paired with open access to the recordings.

As a journalist and an all-around curious person, I can’t deny there’s something appealing about this.

Historians, too, would surely love to know everything that President Obama and his top aides said to one another regarding budget negotiations with John Boehner rather than needing to rely on secondhand news accounts influenced by the inevitable demands of spin. By the same token, historians surely would wish that there were a complete and accurate record of what was said at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 that, instead, famously operated under a policy of anonymous discussions.

But we should be cautioned by James Madison’s opinion that “no Constitution would ever have been adopted by the convention if the debates had been public.”

His view, which seems sensible, is that public or recorded debates would have been simply exercises in position-taking rather than deliberation, with each delegate playing to his base back home rather than working toward a deal.

“Had the members committed themselves publicly at first, they would have afterwards supposed consistency required them to maintain their ground,” Madison wrote, “whereas by secret discussion no man felt himself obliged to retain his opinions any longer than he was satisfied of their propriety and truth, and was open to the force of argument.”

The example comes to me by way of Cass Sunstein, who formerly held a position as a top regulatory czar in Obama’s White House, and who delivered a fascinating talk on the subject of government transparency at a June 2016 Columbia symposium on the occasion of the anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act.

Sunstein asks us to distinguish between disclosure of the government’s outputs and disclosure of the government’s inputs. Output disclosure is something like the text of the Constitution or when the Obama administration had Medicare change decades of practice and begin publishing information about what Medicare pays to hospitals and other health providers.

Input disclosure would be something like the transcript of the debates at the Constitutional Convention or a detailed record of the arguments inside the Obama administration over whether to release the Medicare data. Sunstein’s argument is that it is a mistake to simply conflate the two ideas of disclosure under one broad heading of “transparency” when considerations around the two are very different.

Public officials need to have frank discussions

The fundamental problem with input disclosure is that in addition to serving as a deterrent to misconduct, it serves as a deterrent to frankness and honesty.

There are a lot of things that colleagues might have good reason to say to one another in private that would nonetheless be very damaging if they went viral on Facebook:

Healthy brainstorming processes often involve tossing out bad or half-baked ideas in order to stimulate thought and elevate better ones.
A realistic survey of options may require a blunt assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of different members of the team or of outside groups that would be insulting if publicized.
Policy decisions need to be made with political sustainability in mind, but part of making a politically sustainable policy decision is you don’t come out and say you made the decision with politics in mind.
Someone may want to describe an actual or potential problem in vivid terms to spur action, without wanting to provoke public panic or hysteria through public discussion.
If a previously embarked-upon course of action isn’t working, you may want to quietly change course rather than publicly admit failure.

Journalists are, of course, interested in learning about all such matters. But it’s precisely because such things are genuinely interesting that making disclosure inevitable is risky.

Ex post facto disclosure of discussions whose participants didn’t realize they would be disclosed would be fascinating and useful. But after a round or two of disclosure, the atmosphere would change. Instead of peeking in on a real decision-making process, you would have every meeting dominated by the question “what will this look like on the home page of Politico?”…(More)”

‘Homo sapiens is an obsolete algorithm’

Curated on September 5, 2016November 14, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Extract from Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari: “There’s an emerging market called Dataism, which venerates neither gods nor man – it worships data. From a Dataist perspective, we may interpret the entire human species as a single data-processing system, with individual humans serving as its chips. If so, we can also understand the whole of history as a process of improving the efficiency of this system, through four basic methods:

1. Increasing the number of processors. A city of 100,000 people has more computing power than a village of 1,000 people.

2. Increasing the variety of processors. Different processors may use diverse ways to calculate and analyse data. Using several kinds of processors in a single system may therefore increase its dynamism and creativity. A conversation between a peasant, a priest and a physician may produce novel ideas that would never emerge from a conversation between three hunter-gatherers.

3. Increasing the number of connections between processors. There is little point in increasing the mere number and variety of processors if they are poorly connected. A trade network linking ten cities is likely to result in many more economic, technological and social innovations than ten isolated cities.

4. Increasing the freedom of movement along existing connections. Connecting processors is hardly useful if data cannot flow freely. Just building roads between ten cities won’t be very useful if they are plagued by robbers, or if some autocratic despot doesn’t allow merchants and travellers to move as they wish.
These four methods often contradict one another. The greater the number and variety of processors, the harder it is to freely connect them. The construction of the sapiens data-processing system accordingly passed through four main stages, each of which was characterised by an emphasis on different methods.

The first stage began with the cognitive revolution, which made it possible to connect unlimited sapiens into a single data-processing network. This gave sapiens an advantage over all other human and animal species. Although there is a limit to the number of Neanderthals, chimpanzees or elephants you can connect to the same net, there is no limit to the number of sapiens.

Sapiens used their advantage in data processing to overrun the entire world. However, as they spread into different lands and climates they lost touch with one another, and underwent diverse cultural transformations. The result was an immense variety of human cultures, each with its own lifestyle, behaviour patterns and world view. Hence the first phase of history involved an increase in the number and variety of human processors, at the expense of connectivity: 20,000 years ago there were many more sapiens than 70,000 years ago, and sapiens in Europe processed information differently from sapiens in China. However, there were no connections between people in Europe and China, and it would have seemed utterly impossible that all sapiens may one day be part of a single data-processing web.
The second stage began with agriculture and continued until the invention of writing and money. Agriculture accelerated demographic growth, so the number of human processors rose sharply, while simultaneously enabling many more people to live together in the same place, thereby generating dense local networks that contained an unprecedented number of processors. In addition, agriculture created new incentives and opportunities for different networks to trade and communicate.

Nevertheless, during the second phase, centrifugal forces remained predominant. In the absence of writing and money, humans could not establish cities, kingdoms or empires. Humankind was still divided into innumerable little tribes, each with its own lifestyle and world view. Uniting the whole of humankind was not even a fantasy.
The third stage kicked off with the appearance of writing and money about 5,000 years ago, and lasted until the beginning of the scientific revolution. Thanks to writing and money, the gravitational field of human co-operation finally overpowered the centrifugal forces. Human groups bonded and merged to form cities and kingdoms. Political and commercial links between different cities and kingdoms also tightened. At least since the first millennium BC – when coinage, empires, and universal religions appeared – humans began to consciously dream about forging a single network that would encompass the entire globe.

This dream became a reality during the fourth and last stage of history, which began around 1492. Early modern explorers, conquerors and traders wove the first thin threads that encompassed the whole world. In the late modern period, these threads were made stronger and denser, so that the spider’s web of Columbus’s days became the steel and asphalt grid of the 21st century. Even more importantly, information was allowed to flow increasingly freely along this global grid. When Columbus first hooked up the Eurasian net to the American net, only a few bits of data could cross the ocean each year, running the gauntlet of cultural prejudices, strict censorship and political repression.

But as the years went by, the free market, the scientific community, the rule of law and the spread of democracy all helped to lift the barriers. We often imagine that democracy and the free market won because they were “good”. In truth, they won because they improved the global data-processing system.

So over the last 70,000 years humankind first spread out, then separated into distinct groups and finally merged again. Yet the process of unification did not take us back to the beginning. When the different human groups fused into the global village of today, each brought along its unique legacy of thoughts, tools and behaviours, which it collected and developed along the way. Our modern larders are now stuffed with Middle Eastern wheat, Andean potatoes, New Guinean sugar and Ethiopian coffee. Similarly, our language, religion, music and politics are replete with heirlooms from across the planet.
If humankind is indeed a single data-processing system, what is its output? Dataists would say that its output will be the creation of a new and even more efficient data-processing system, called the Internet-of-All-Things. Once this mission is accomplished, Homo sapiens will vanish….(More)“

Data and Democracy

Curated on August 30, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

(Free) book by Andrew Therriault: “The 2016 US elections will be remembered for many things, but for those who work in politics, 2016 may be best remembered as the year that the use of data in politics reached its maturity. Through a collection of essays from leading experts in the field, this report explores how political data science helps to drive everything from overall strategy and messaging to individual voter contacts and advertising.

Curated by Andrew Therriault, former Director of Data Science for the Democratic National Committee, this illuminating report includes first-hand accounts from Democrats, Republicans, and members of the media. Tech-savvy readers will get a comprehensive account of how data analysis has prevailed over political instinct and experience and examples of the challenges these practitioners face.

Essays include:

The Role of Data in Campaigns—Andrew Therriault, former Director of Data Science for the Democratic National Committee
Essentials of Modeling and Microtargeting—Dan Castleman, cofounder and Director of Analytics at Clarity Campaign Labs, a leading modeler in Democratic politics
Data Management for Political Campaigns—Audra Grassia, Deputy Political Director for the Democratic Governors Association in 2014
How Technology Is Changing the Polling Industry—Patrick Ruffini, cofounder of Echelon Insights and Founder/Chairman of Engage, was a digital strategist for President Bush in 2004 and for the Republican National Committee in 2006
Data-Driven Media Optimization—Alex Lundry, cofounder and Chief Data Scientist at Deep Root Analytics, a leading expert on media and voter analytics, electoral targeting, and political data mining
How (and Why) to Follow the Money in Politics—Derek Willis, ProPublica’s news applications developer, formerly with The New York Times
Digital Advertising in the Post-Obama Era—Daniel Scarvalone, Associate Director of Research and Data at Bully Pulpit Interactive (BPI), a digital marketer for the Democratic party
Election Forecasting in the Media—Natalie Jackson, Senior Polling Editor atThe Huffington Post…(More)”

Wikipedia Is A Giant Unfathomable Universe—Now You Can Explore It Like One

Curated on August 29, 2016November 14, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Conceptually, Wikiverse isn’t that hard to grasp. Every star in the Wikiverse is first grouped into constellations, representing the articles it is most closely linked to: for example, in the Wikiverse, you might have a constellation of German romantic poets, or a constellation of transgender athletes. From there, these constellations get pulled together into nebula, which represent sub-categories, which in turn get gravitationally drawn towards one another, to form galaxy categories like philosophy, religion, politics, and more. No matter where you are in the Wikiverse, though, you can always zoom way in to click on a star and read it’s associated Wiki entry….Now consider the fact that the Wikiverse is only 1/400,000th the size of the realUniverse, and put into perspective exactly how insignificant the “universe” of human knowledge really is.

Play with the Wikiverse for yourself here.”

Countries with strong public service media have less rightwing extremism

Curated on August 11, 2016August 20, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Tara Conlan in The Guardian: “Countries that have popular, well-funded public service broadcasters encounter less rightwing extremism and corruption and have more press freedom, a report from the European Broadcasting Union has found.

For the first time, an analysis has been done of the contribution of public service media, such as the BBC, to democracy and society.

Following Brexit and the rise in rightwing extremism across Europe, the report shows the impact strong publicly funded television and radio has had on voter turnout, control of corruption and press freedom.

The EBU, which founded Eurovision, carried out the study across 25 countries after noticing that the more well-funded a country’s public service outlets were, the less likely the nation was to endure extremism.

The report says that in “countries where public service media funding … is higher there tends to be more press freedom” and where they have a higher market share “there also tends to be a higher voter turnout”. It also says there is a strong correlation between how much of a country’s market its public service broadcaster has and the “demand for rightwing extremism” and “control of corruption”.

“These correlations are especially interesting given the current public debates about low participation in elections, corruption and the rise of far right politics across Europe,” said EBU head of media intelligence service Roberto Suárez Candel, who conducted the research….(More)”

Exploring Online Engagement in Public Policy Consultation: The Crowd or the Few?

Curated on August 9, 2016October 24, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Helen K. Liu in Australian Journal of Public Administration: “Governments are increasingly adopting online platforms to engage the public and allow a broad and diverse group of citizens to participate in the planning of government policies. To understand the role of crowds in the online public policy process, we analyse participant contributions over time in two crowd-based policy processes, the Future Melbourne wiki and the Open Government Dialogue. Although past evaluations have shown the significance of public consultations by expanding the engaged population within a short period of time, our empirical case studies suggest that a small number of participants contribute a disproportionate share of ideas and opinions. We discuss the implications of our initial examination for the future design of engagement platforms….(More)”

How Technology Can Restore Our Trust in Democracy

Curated on August 5, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Cenk Sidar in Foreign Policy: “The travails of the Arab Spring, the rise of the Islamic State, and the upsurge of right-wing populism throughout the countries of West all demonstrate a rising frustration with the liberal democratic order in the years since the 2008 financial crisis. There is a growing intellectual consensus that the world is sailing into uncharted territory: a realm marked by authoritarianism, shallow populism, and extremism.

One way to overcome this global resentment is to use the best tools we have to build a more inclusive and direct democracy. Could new technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), data analytics, crowdsourcing, and Blockchain help to restore meaningful dialogue and win back people’s hearts and minds?

Underpinning our unsettling current environment is an irony: Thanks to modern communication technology, the world is more connected than ever — but average people feel more disconnected. In the United States, polls show that trust in government is at a 50-year low. Frustrated Trump supporters and the Britons who voted for Brexit both have a sense of having “lost out” as the global elite consolidates its power and becomes less responsive to the rest of society. This is not an irrational belief: Branko Milanovic, a leading inequality scholar, has found that people in the lower and middle parts of rich countries’ income distributions have been the losers of the last 15 years of globalization.

The same 15 years have also brought astounding advances in technology, from the rise of the Internet to the growing ubiquity of smartphones. And Western society has, to some extent, struggled to find its bearings amid this transition. Militant groups seduce young people through social media. The Internet enables consumers to choose only the news that matches their preconceived beliefs, offering a bottomless well of partisan fury and conspiracy theories. Cable news airing 24/7 keeps viewers in a state of agitation. In short, communication technologies that are meant to bring us together end up dividing us instead (and not least because our politicians have chosen to game these tools for their own advantage).

It is time to make technology part of the solution. More urgently than ever, leaders, innovators, and activists need to open up the political marketplace to allow technology to realize its potential for enabling direct citizen participation. This is an ideal way to restore trust in the democratic process.

As the London School of Economics’ Mary Kaldor put it recently: “The task of global governance has to be reconceptualized to make it possible for citizens to influence the decisions that affect their lives — to reclaim substantive democracy.” One notable exception to the technological disconnect has been fundraising, as candidates have tapped into the Internet to enable millions of average voters to donate small sums. With the right vision, however, technological innovation in politics could go well beyond asking people for money….(More)”