Paper by Ishani Mukherjee and Sarah Giest: “Behavioural Insights Teams (BITs) have gained prominence in government as policy advisors and are increasingly linked to the way policy instruments are designed. Despite the rise of BITs as unique knowledge brokers mediating the use of behavioral insights for policymaking, they remain underexplored in the growing literature on policy advice and advisory systems. The article emphasizes that the visible impact that BITs have on the content of policy instruments, the level of political support they garner and their structural diversity in different political departments, all set them apart from typical policy brokers in policy advisory systems connecting the science-policy divide…(More)”.
The institutionalization of digital public health: lessons learned from the COVID19 app
Paper by Ciro Cattuto and Alessandro Spina: “Amid the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, there has been a call to use innovative digital tools for the purpose of protecting public health. There are a number of proposals to embed digital solutions into the regulatory strategies adopted by public authorities to control the spread of the coronavirus more effectively. They range from algorithms to detect population movements by using telecommunication data to the use of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing power to detect patterns in the spread of the virus. However, the use of a mobile phone application for contact tracing is certainly the most popular.
These proposals, which have a very powerful persuasive force, and have apparently contributed to the success of public health response in a few Asian countries, also raise questions and criticisms in particular with regard to the risks that these novel digital surveillance systems pose for privacy and in the long term for our democracies.
With this short paper, we would like to describe the pattern that has led to the institutionalization of digital tools for public health purposes. By tracing their origins to “digital epidemiology”, an approach originated in the early 2010s, we will expose that, whilst there exists limited experimental knowledge on the use of digital tools for tracking disease, this is the first time in which they are being introduced by policy-makers into the set of non-clinical emergency strategies to a major public health crisis….(More)”
Lie Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operatives
Book by Philip N. Howard: “Artificially intelligent “bot” accounts attack politicians and public figures on social media. Conspiracy theorists publish junk news sites to promote their outlandish beliefs. Campaigners create fake dating profiles to attract young voters. We live in a world of technologies that misdirect our attention, poison our political conversations, and jeopardize our democracies. With massive amounts of social media and public polling data, and in-depth interviews with political consultants, bot writers, and journalists, Philip N. Howard offers ways to take these “lie machines” apart.
Lie Machines is full of riveting behind-the-scenes stories from the world’s biggest and most damagingly successful misinformation initiatives—including those used in Brexit and U.S. elections. Howard not only shows how these campaigns evolved from older propaganda operations but also exposes their new powers, gives us insight into their effectiveness, and explains how to shut them down…(More)”.
The Rise and Spread of Behavioral Public Policy: An Opportunity for Critical Research and Self-Reflection
Paper by Holger Straßheim: “Some argue that the global rise of behavioral approaches challenges the rationalist tradition in public policy. Others fear that it could undermine deliberation and public reasoning. This paper focuses on the worldwide rise and spread of behavioral expertise and behavioral public policy. It provides a general insight in terms of the role of expertise, the science-policy nexus and the distribution of epistemic competences in public policy. Based on an extensive literature review, the emergence and consequences of behavioral-expert networks are assessed. It will be suggested that it is necessary to break free from the microfocus proposed by behavioral public policy and to pay more attention to the institutional and cultural constellations of knowledge- and decision-making in democracies….(More)”.
Public Service and Good Governance for the Twenty-First Century
Book edited by James L. Perry: “Two big ideas serve as the catalyst for the essays collected in this book. The first is the state of governance in the United States, which Americans variously perceive as broken, frustrating, and unresponsive. Editor James Perry observes in his Introduction that this perception is rooted in three simultaneous developments: government’s failure to perform basic tasks that once were taken for granted, an accelerating pace of change that quickly makes past standards of performance antiquated, and a dearth of intellectual capital that generate the capacity to bridge the gulf between expectations and performance. The second idea hearkens back to the Progressive era, when Americans revealed themselves to be committed to better administration of their government at all levels—federal, state, and local.
These two ideas—the diminishing capacity for effective governance and Americans’ expectations for reform—are veering in opposite directions. Contributors to Public Service and Good Governance for the Twenty-First Century explore these central ideas by addressing such questions as: what is the state of government today? Can future disruptions of governance and public service be anticipated? What forms of government will emerge from the past and what institutions and structures will be needed to meet future challenges? And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, what knowledge, skills, and abilities will need to be fostered for tomorrow’s civil servants to lead and execute effectively?
Public Service and Good Governance for the Twenty-First Century offers recommendations for bending the trajectories of governance capacity and reform expectations toward convergence, including reversing the trend of administrative disinvestment, developing talent for public leadership through higher education, creating a federal civil service to meet future needs, and rebuilding bipartisanship so that the sweeping changes needed to restore good government become possible….(More)”
Capturing Citizens’ Information Needs through Analysis of Public Library Circulation Data
Paper by Tomoya Igarashi, Masanori Koizumi and Michael Widdersheim: “The Japanese government has initiated lifelong learning policies to promote lifelong learning to a super-aging society. It is said that lifelong learning contributes to a richer and more fulfilling life. It is within this context that public libraries have been identified as ideal facilities for promoting lifelong learning. To support lifelong learning successfully, libraries must accurately grasp citizens’ needs, all while working within limited budgets. To understand citizens’ learning needs, this study uses public library circulation data. This study is significant because such data use is often unavailable in Japan. This data was used to clarify citizens’ learning interests. Circulation data was compared from two libraries in Japan: Koto District Library in Tokyo and Tahara City Library in Aichi Prefecture. The data was used to identify general learning needs while also accounting for regional differences. The methodology and results of this research are significant for the development of lifelong learning policy and programming….(More)”.
Continuity in Legislatures Amid COVID-19
Blog by Sam DeJohn, Anirudh Dinesh, and Dane Gambrell: “As COVID-19 changes how we work, governments everywhere are experimenting with new ways to adapt and continue legislative operations under current physical restrictions. From city councils to state legislatures and national parliaments, more public servants are embracing and advocating for the use of new technologies to convene, deliberate, and vote.
On April 20th, GovLab published an initial overview of such efforts in the latest edition of the CrowdLaw Communique. As the United States Congress wrestles with the question of whether to allow remote voting, the GovLab has compiled an update on those international and state legislatures that are the furthest ahead with the use of new technology to continue operations.
NORTH AMERICA
In the US, On April 16, over 60 former members of Congress participated in a “Mock Remote Hearing” exercise to test the viability of online proceedings during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Kentucky, when they last met on April 1, that State’s House of Representatives adopted new rules allowing lawmakers to vote remotely by sending in photos of a ballot to designated managers on the House Floor.” (WFPL). Lawmakers have also altered voting procedures to limit the number of lawmakers on the House floor. Members will vote in groups of 25 and may vote by paper ballot (NCSL).
New Jersey lawmakers made history on March 25 when members of the General Assembly called into a conference line to cast their votes remotely on several bills related to the coronavirus pandemic. NJ lawmakers moved 12 bills that day via remote voting.
On the west coast of the United States, the city council of Kirkland, Washington, recently held its first virtual city council meeting. Many cities and counties in California have also begun holding their meetings via Zoom.
As compiled by the National Council of State Legislatures, states that have changed rules — many just in the past few weeks — to allow full committee action and/or remote voting include: Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Utah, and Vermont. Other states have specifically said they are seriously considering allowing remote action, including New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, and Wyoming.
EUROPE
In the European Union, Parliament is temporarily allowing remote participation to avoid spreading COVID-19 (Library of Congress). With regard to voting, all members, even those participating in person, will receive a ballot sent by email to their official email address. The ballot, which must contain the name and vote of the MP in a readable form and the MP’s signature, must be returned from their official email address to the committee or plenary services in order to be counted. The ballot must be received in the dedicated official European Parliament mailbox by the time the vote is closed.
In Spain, MPs have been casting votes using the Congress’s intranet system, which has been in place since 2012. Rather than voting in real time, voting is typically open for a two-hour period before the session to vote for the alternative or amendment proposals and for a two-hour period following the session in which the proposals are debated to vote the final text….(More)”.
How ‘Social Distancing’ Can Get Lost in Translation
Ruth Michaelson at the Smithsonian Magazine: “…Even as tongue-in-cheek phrases like “avoiding the Rona” abound on American social media, to say nothing of the rapper Cardi B’s enunciation of “coronavirus,” other terms like “social distancing,” or “lockdown,” have quickly entered our daily vocabulary.
But what these terms mean in different countries (or regions or cities within regions, in Wuhan’s case) is a question of translation as well as interpretation. Communities around the world remain under government-enforced lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but few have understood “stay at home,” or liu-zai-jia-li in Mandarin, to mean precisely the same thing. The concept of social distancing, normally indicating a need to avoid contact with others, can mean anything from avoiding public transport to the World Health Organization’s recommendation to “maintain at least one metre distance,” from those who are coughing or sneezing. In one Florida county, officials explained the guideline by suggesting to residents they stay “one alligator” away from each other.
The way that terms like “social distancing,” are adopted across languages provides a way to understand how countries across the globe are coping with the COVID-19 threat. For instance, the Mandarin Chinese translation of “social distancing”, or ju-li-yuan-dian, is interpreted differently in Wuhan dialect, explains Jin. “Instead of ‘keep a distance,’ Wuhan dialect literally translates this as ‘send far away.’”
Through these small shifts in language, says Jin, “people in Wuhan expose their feelings about their own suffering.”
In Sweden, meanwhile, has currently registered more than 16,000 cases of COVID-19, the highest incidence rate in Scandinavia. The government has taken an unusually lax approach to enforcing its pandemic mitigation policies, placing the emphasis on citizens to self-police, perhaps to ill effect. While Swedes do use terms like social distancing, or rather the noun socialt avstånd, these are accompanied by other ideas that are more popular in Sweden. “Herd immunity or flockimmunitet is a very big word around here,” says Jan Pedersen, director of the Institute for Interpreting and Translation Studies at Stockholm University.
“Sweden is famous for being a very consensus driven society, and this applies here as well,” he says. “There’s a great deal of talk about trust.” In this case, he explained, citizens have trust – tillit – in the authorities to make good choices and so choose to take personligt ansvar, or personal responsibility.
Pedersen has also noticed some new language developing as a result. “The word recommendation, rekommendationer, in Sweden has taken on much stronger force,” he said. “Recommendation used to be a recommendation, what you could do or not. Now it’s slightly stronger … We would use words like obey with laws, but now here you obey a recommendation, lyda rekommendationer.”…(More)”.
The digital tools that can keep democracy going during lockdown
Rosalyn Old at Nesta: “In the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic, governments at all levels are having to make decisions to postpone elections and parliamentary sessions, all while working remotely and being under pressure to deliver fast-paced and effective decision-making.
In times of crisis, there can be a tension between the instinct to centralise decision-making for efficiency, sacrificing consultation in the process, and the need to get citizens on board with plans for large-scale changes to everyday life. While such initial reactions are understandable, in the current and next phases we need a different approach – democracy must go on.
Effective use of digital tools can provide a way to keep parliamentary and government processes going in a way that enhances rather than threatens democracy. This is a unique opportunity to experiment with digital methods to address a number of business-as-usual pain points in order to support institutions and citizen engagement in the long term.
Digital tools can help with the spectrum of decision-making
While digital tools can’t give the answers, they can support the practicalities of remote decision-making. Our typology of digital democracy shows how digital tools can be used to harness the wisdom of the crowd in different stages of a process:
A typology of digital democracy
Digital tools can collect information from different sources to provide an overview of the options. To weigh up pros and cons, platforms such as Your Priorities and Consul enable people to contribute arguments. If you need a sense of what is important and to try to find consensus, Pol.is and Loomio may help. To quickly gauge support for different options from stakeholders, platforms such as All Our Ideas enable ranking of a live bank of ideas. If you need to gather questions and needs of citizens, head to platforms like Sli.do or online forms or task management tools like Trello or Asana….(More)”.
Crisis as Opportunity: Fostering Inclusive Public Engagement in Local Government
Ashley Labosier at Mercatus Center: “In addressing local challenges, such as budget deficits, aging infrastructure, workforce development, opioid addiction, homelessness, and disaster preparedness, a local government must take into account the needs, preferences, and values of its entire community, not just politically active groups. However, research shows that citizens who participate in council meetings or public hearings rarely reflect the diversity of the community in terms of age, race, or opinion, and traditional public comment periods seldom add substantively to local policy decisions. It is therefore clear that reform of public engagement in local governments is long overdue.
An opportunity for such a reform is emerging out of the tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic. As local governments cope with the crisis, they should strengthen their relationship with their residents by adopting measures that are inclusive and sensitive to all the constituencies in their jurisdiction.
This work starts by communicating clearly both the measures adopted to combat COVID-19 and the guidelines for citizen compliance and by making sure this information is accessible and disseminated throughout the entire community. During the crisis, building trust with the community will also entail restraining from advancing projects that are not instrumental to crisis management, particularly controversial projects. Diligence and prudence during the crisis should create the opportunity to try and test new forms of dialogue with citizens.
These new forms of engagement should increase the legitimacy and public support for government decisions and cultivate a civic culture where residents no longer see themselves as customers vying for services, but as citizens with ownership in the democratic process and its outcomes. In this brief, I propose ways to integrate digital technology tools into those new forms of public engagement.
Integrating Digital Technologies into Public Engagement
Over the past 15 years a new civic tech industry has emerged to assist local governments with public engagement. Videos and podcasts increase access to guidelines, rules, and procedures published by local governments. Real-time language translation is possible thanks to machine-learning algorithms that are relatively easy to integrate into online help lines. Government web portals increase access to official information, particularly for those with limited mobility or with visual or hearing impairments. These and other digital platforms have the potential to increase citizens’ participation, particularly when the costs—such as transportation or childcare—keep people from attending public meetings.
Indeed, tech solutions have the potential to increase citizen participation. During a decade of working with local governments on technology and public engagement, I have observed technologies that promote inclusiveness in public participation and technologies that simply magnify the voice of groups traditionally engaged in politics. Drawing from this experience, I offer local governments and agencies five recommendations to integrate technology into their public engagement programs….(More)”.