Beyond Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance

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Beyond Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance

Article by Michael Muthukrishna et al: “In this article, we present a tool and a method for measuring the psychological and cultural distance between societies and creating a distance scale with any population as the point of comparison. Because psychological data are dominated by samples drawn from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) nations, and overwhelmingly, the United States, we focused on distance from the United States. We also present distance from China, the country with the largest population and second largest economy, which is a common cultural comparison. We applied the fixation index (FST), a meaningful statistic in evolutionary theory, to the World Values Survey of cultural beliefs and behaviors.

As the extreme WEIRDness of the literature begins to dissolve, our tool will become more useful for designing, planning, and justifying a wide range of comparative psychological projects. Our code and accompanying online application allow for comparisons between any two countries. Analyses of regional diversity reveal the relative homogeneity of the United States. Cultural distance predicts various psychological outcomes….(More)”.

An introduction to human rights for the mobile sector

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Report by the GSMA: “Human rights risks are present throughout mobile operators’ value chains. These range from the treatment and conditions of people working in the supply chain to how operators’ own employees are treated and how the human rights of customers are respected online.

This summary provides a high-level introduction to the most salient human rights issues for mobile operators. The aim is to explain why the issues are relevant for operators and share initial practical guidance for companies beginning to focus and respond to human rights issues….(More)”.

Standards and Innovations in Information Technology and Communications

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Book by Dina Šimunić and Ivica Pavić: “This book gives a thorough explanation of standardization, its processes, its life cycle, and its related organization on a national, regional and global level. The book provides readers with an insight in the interaction cycle between standardization organizations, government, industry, and consumers. The readers can gain a clear insight to standardization and innovation process, standards, and innovations life-cycle and the related organizations with all presented material in the field of information and communications technologies. The book introduces the reader to understand perpetual play of standards and innovation cycle, as the basis for the modern world.

  • Provides a thorough explanation of standardization and innovation in relation to communications engineering and information technology
  • Discusses the standardization and innovation processes and organizations on global, regional, and national levels
  • Interconnects standardization and innovation, showing the perpetual life-cycle that is the basis of technology progress…(More)”.

Digital Contact Tracing for Pandemic Response: Ethics and Governance Guidance

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Jeffrey Kahn and Johns Hopkins Project on Ethics and Governance of Digital Contact Tracing Technologies: “As public health professionals around the world work tirelessly to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is clear that traditional methods of contact tracing need to be augmented in order to help address a public health crisis of unprecedented scope. Innovators worldwide are racing to develop and implement novel public-facing technology solutions, including digital contact tracing technology. These technological products may aid public health surveillance and containment strategies for this pandemic and become part of the larger toolbox for future infectious outbreak prevention and control.

As technology evolves in an effort to meet our current moment, Johns Hopkins Project on Ethics and Governance of Digital Contact Tracing Technologies—a rapid research and expert consensus group effort led by Dr. Jeffrey Kahn of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics in collaboration with the university’s Center for Health Security—carried out an in-depth analysis of the technology and the issues it raises. Drawing on this analysis, they produced a report that includes detailed recommendations for technology companies, policymakers, institutions, employers, and the public. The project brings together perspectives from bioethics, health security, public health, technology development, engineering, public policy, and law to wrestle with the complex interactions of the many facets of the technology and its applications. This team of experts from Johns Hopkins University and other world-renowned institutions has crafted clear and detailed guidelines to help manage the creation, implementation, and application of digital contact tracing. Digital Contact Tracing Technology for Pandemic Response is the essential resource for this fast-moving crisis…(More)”.

BiblioVid

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

About: “The project BiblioVid was born out the observation that, when confronted to a serious global crisis, like during the COVID-19 pandemics, it is very hard for health professionals to keep in touch with the latest development, results and recommendations on how to manage the situation. Moreover, it is very hard to quickly make the distinction between valid and doubtful information, high- and low-quality data, as these get thrown around into the mediatic maelstrom.

In this context, four friends working at the Grenoble Alpes University Hospital Center, we decided to join forces on two projects, the first one on monitoring and analyzing the most recent literature on COVID-19 and the second one aimed at providing support for health students during the COVID-19 health crisis…

Now this project breached the French boundaries, reaching health professionals in many countries with teams from Belgium and Canada joining-in to help with the development and dissemination of this tool…(More)”.

Constitutional Norm Entrepreneuring

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Oren Tamir: “Everyone is obsessed today with constitutional norms. They have powerfully penetrated our vocabulary and are mentioned with dizzying frequency. We now know that any account of our valuable constitutional practices cannot end with just politics or law and must also include norms. What is further unique about the current moment in our political era is that an important subset of these norms appears to be exceedingly fragile and is under persistent attack. Some even suggest that the erosion of constitutional norms is at the heart of a global trend of democratic recession. But how precisely do constitutional norms change and ultimately collapse? And is there something actors can do to influence these processes?

This Article’s goal is to explore these questions, both in general and in the context of the alleged trend of democratic recession in particular. It argues that although norms can be understood, following H.L.A Hart, as a “primitive” component in our political systems (given the way they differ from formal law), constitutional norms can in fact attain some of the credentials Hart believed could be attributed exclusively to law. More specifically, the Article claims that we can fashion something akin to “rules of change” and “rules of adjudication” in relation to constitutional norms and accordingly gain a firmer grasp of how they develop, change, and ultimately break down and of how conflicts about constitutional norms are “adjudicated” within our politics. As for “rules of change” for norms, the Article argues that constitutional norms tend to change in predictable ways and as a result of the working of several distinctive mechanisms. As for “rules of adjudication” for norms, the Article identifies a set of concrete strategies that constitutional norm entrepreneurs (who wish to change present norms including bringing forth their demise) and constitutional norm anti-preneurs (who wish to safeguard present norms) can use to try to manipulate constitutional norms to achieve their desired, and oppositional, ends.

The Article concludes by implementing that framework to our present moment of democratic recession. It asks, in other words, what constitutional norm anti-preneurs can do to halt further encroachment upon valuable constitutional norms that appear crucial to the resilience of democratic systems, both in general and in the United States….(More)”.

Data-driven anticipatory governance. Emerging scenarios in data for policy practices

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Stefano Maffei, Francesco Leoni & Beatrice Villari: “The contemporary technological advancements in information and communication technologies (ICT) enable the employment of non-traditional data sources (e.g. satellite data, sensors, cell phone networks data, social media, etc.) in different aspects of the public sphere. Datafication is changing the relationship between governments and citizens, and the way governments address policy problems.

Nowadays, policy-makers are urged to harness data for policies and public service design, while answering at the same time the demand for citizen engagement; as a consequence, innovative government/governance models appeared to connect these two instances. Although it is not a new concept, the model of Anticipatory Governance is particularly worth considering in light of contemporary data availability. Predictive analytics based on data increasingly realizes predictions for public action, although it presents many controversial implications (e.g. the epistemology of data evidence, public trust and privacy). In this article, we address Anticipatory Governance models emerging from data used in futures thinking and policy-making. To understand this phenomenon, we will briefly retrace current paradigms of futures thinking and Anticipatory Governance concerning policy-making, specifying the contemporary perspective design has on these topics. Then, we identify the use of data in futures thinking practices through a systematic literature search. Finally, we will address the challenges and implications of designing data-driven Anticipatory Governance by portraying three scenarios supported by real cases of data for policy-making….(More)”.

How Congress can improve productivity by looking to the rest of the world

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Beth Noveck and Dane Gambrell at the Hill: “…While an important first step in helping to resume operations, Congress needs to follow the lead of those many legislatures around the world who have changed their laws and rules and are using technology to continue to legislate, conduct oversight and even innovate. 

Though efforts to restart by adopting proxy voting are a step in the right direction, they do not go far enough to create what Georgetown University’s Lorelei Kelly calls the “modern and safe digital infrastructure for the world’s most powerful national legislature.” 

Congress has all but shut down since March. While the Senate formally “re-opened” on May 4, the chamber is operating under restrictive new guidelines, with hearings largely closed to the public and lawmakers advised to bring only a skeleton crew to run their offices. Considering that the average age of a senator is 63 and the average age of a Member of the House is 58, this caution comes as no surprise.

Yet when we take into account that parliaments around the world from New Zealand to the Maldives are holding committee meetings, running plenary sessions, voting and even engaging the public in the lawmaking process online, we should be asking Congress to do more faster. 

Instead, bitter partisan wrangling — with Republicans accusing Democrats of taking advantage of social distancing to launch a power grab and Democrats accusing Republicans of failing to exercise oversight — is delaying the adoption of long available and easy to use technologies. More than a left-right issue, moving online is a top-down issue with leadership of both parties using the crisis to consolidate power.

Working online

The Parliament of the United Kingdom, for example, is one of dozens of legislatures turning to online video conferencing tools such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Web Meetings and Google Hangouts to do plenary or committee meetings. After 800 years, lawmakers in the House of Commons convened the first-ever “virtual Parliament” at the end of April. In this hybrid approach, some MPs were present in the legislative chamber while most joined remotely using Zoom…(More)”.

Research methods to consider in a pandemic

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog by Helen Kara: “Since lockdown began, researchers have been discussing how best to change our methods. Of the ‘big three’ – questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups – only questionnaires are still being used in much the same way. There are no face-to-face interviews or focus groups, though interviews can still be held by telephone and both can be done online. However, doing research online comes with new ethical problems. Some organisations are forbidding the use of Zoom because it has had serious security problems, others are promoting the use of Jitsi because it is open source.

I’ve been thinking about appropriate methods and I have come up with three options I think are particularly worth considering at this time: documentary research, autoethnography, and digital methods. These are all comparatively new approaches and each offers scope for considerable creativity. Documentary research seems to be the oldest; I understand that its first textbook, A Matter of Record by UK academic John Scott, was published in 1990. Autoethnography was devised by US academic Carolyn Ellis in the 1990s, and digital methods have developed as technological devices have become more available to more people through the 21st century….

Doing research in a pandemic also requires considerable thought about ethics. I have long argued that ethical considerations should start at the research question, and I believe that is even more crucial at present. Does this research need doing – or does it need doing now, in the middle of a global collective trauma? If not, then don’t do that research, or postpone it until life is easier. Alternatively, you may be doing urgent research to help combat COVID19, or important research that will go towards a qualification, or have some other good reason. In which case, fine, and the next ethical question is: how can my research be done in a way that places the least burden on others? The methods introduced above all offer scope for conducting empirical research without requiring much input from other people. Right now, everyone is upset; many are worried about their health, income, housing, and/or loved ones; increasing numbers are recently bereaved. Therefore everyone is vulnerable, and so needs more care and kindness than usual. This includes potential participants and it also includes researchers. We need to choose our methods with great care for us all….(More)”.

An Opportunity to Build Legitimacy and Trust in Public Institutions in the Time of Covid-19

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Stuti Khemani at the WorldBank: “Legitimacy in the time of COVID-19 can be understood as the ability of leaders to win compliance with new public health orders because people share a widespread belief that everyone is complying. This perspective, building on the logic of game theory, which can help explain strategic interactions among large numbers of people in a society or polity, yields a powerful insight: that governments in developing countries, as the first line of defense against a life-threatening disease, have received a windfall of legitimacy.

On the one hand, this legitimacy windfall can be wasted, or worse, used to intensify divisive politics, grab power, and install government at the commanding heights of the economy and society, even after the pandemic recedes. On the other hand, for reform leaders and international development partners that are motivated to improve governance for economic development, the crisis presents opportunities to build trust in public institutions. In this task, international organizations have a comparative advantage precisely because they are not part of domestic political games. But this dynamic may require changing how donors typically approach corruption in developing countries (in the context of financial assistance to countries with institutional weaknesses that predate the crisis); it may also necessitate change in how reform leaders in countries use the advantage of external partners to exert pressure for reform. The availability and strategic communication of credible, nonideological, and nonpartisan knowledge could enable societies to change a vicious cycle of high levels of corruption/low levels of trust to a virtuous one of high levels of trust and low levels of corruption….(More)”.