Paper by Caterina Marchionni and Samuli Reijula: “It has recently been argued that successful evidence-based policy should rely on two kinds of evidence: statistical and mechanistic. The former is held to be evidence that a policy brings about the desired outcome, and the latter concerns how it does so. Although agreeing with the spirit of this proposal, we argue that the underlying conception of mechanistic evidence as evidence that is different in kind from correlational, difference-making or statistical evidence, does not correctly capture the role that information about mechanisms should play in evidence-based policy. We offer an alternative account of mechanistic evidence as information concerning the causal pathway connecting the policy intervention to its outcome. Not only can this be analyzed as evidence of difference-making, it is also to be found at any level and is obtainable by a broad range of methods, both experimental and observational. Using behavioral policy as an illustration, we draw the implications of this revised understanding of mechanistic evidence for debates concerning policy extrapolation, evidence hierarchies, and evidence integration…(More)”.
Technology is threatening our democracy. How do we save it?
MIT Technology Review: “Our newest issue is live today, in which we dive into the many ways that technology is changing politics.
A major shift: In 2013 we emblazoned our cover with the words, “Big Data Will Save Politics.” When we chose that headline, Barack Obama had just won reelection with the help of a crack team of data scientists. The Arab Spring had already cooled into an Arab Winter, but the social-media platforms that had powered the uprisings were still basking in the afterglow. As our editor in chief Gideon Lichfield writes, today, with Cambridge Analytica, fake news, election hacking, and the shrill cacophony that dominates social media, technology feels as likely to destroy politics as to save it.
The political impact: From striking data visualizations that take a close look at the famed “filter bubble” effect that’s blamed for political polarization to an examination of how big data is disrupting the cozy world of political lobbying, we’re analyzing how emerging technologies are shaping the political landscape, eroding trust, and, possibly, becoming a part of the solution….(More)”.
As democracy goes digital, those offline are being pushed out of politics
Renata Avila at the Web Foundation: “Free and fair elections require an informed, active body of citizens debating the electoral issues of the day and scrutinising the positions of candidates. Participation at each and every stage of an electoral campaign — not just on the day of the vote — is necessary for a healthy democracy.
Those online have access to an increasingly sophisticated set of tools to do just this: to learn about candidates, to participate in political discussions, to shape debate and raise issues that matter to them. Or even, run for office themselves.
What does this mean for those citizens who don’t have access to the internet? Do online debates capture their needs, concerns and interests? Are the priorities of those not connected represented on the political stage?
The Mexican election: a story of digital inequality
María de Jesús “Marichuy” Patricio Martinez was selected as an independent candidate in Mexico’s recent July 1 elections general election — the first indigenous woman to run for president. But digital barriers doomed her candidacy.
Independent presidential candidates in Mexico are required to collect 866,000 signatures using a mandatory mobile app that only runs on relatively new smartphones. This means that to collect the required endorsements, a candidate and their supporters all need a modern smartphone — which typically costs around three times the minimum monthly salary — plus electricity and mobile data. These are resources many people in indigenous communities simply don’t have. While the electoral authorities exempted some municipalities from this process, it did not cover the mostly poor and indigenous areas that Marichuy wanted to represent. She was unable to gather the signatures needed….(More)”.
How Taiwan’s online democracy may show future of humans and machines
Shuyang Lin at the Sydney Morning Herald: “Taiwanese citizens have spent the past 30 years prototyping future democracy since the lift of martial law in 1987. Public participation in Taiwan has been developed in several formats, from face-to-face to deliberation over the internet. This trajectory coincides with the advancement of technology, and as new tools arrived, democracy evolved.
The launch of vTaiwan (v for virtual, vote, voice and verb), an experiment that prototypes an open consultation process for the civil society, showed that by using technology creatively humanity can facilitate deep and fair conversations, form collective consensus, and deliver solutions we can all live with.
It is a prototype that helps us envision what future democracy could look like….
Decision-making is not an easy task, especially when it has to do with a larger group of people. Group decision-making could take several protocols, such as mandate, to decide and take questions; advise, to listen before decisions; consent, to decide if no one objects; and consensus, to decide if everyone agrees. So there is a pressing need for us to be able to collaborate together in a large scale decision-making process to update outdated standards and regulations.
The future of human knowledge is on the web. Technology can help us to learn, communicate, and make better decisions faster with larger scale. The internet could be the facilitation and AI could be the catalyst. It is extremely important to be aware that decision-making is not a one-off interaction. The most important direction of decision-making technology development is to have it allow humans to be engaged in the process anytime and also have an invitation to request and submit changes.
Humans have started working with computers, and we will continue to work with them. They will help us in the decision-making process and some will even make decisions for us; the actors in collaboration don’t necessarily need to be just humans. While it is up to us to decide what and when to opt in or opt out, we should work together with computers in a transparent, collaborative and inclusive space.
Where shall we go as a society? What do we want from technology? As Audrey Tang, Digital Minister without Portfolio of Taiwan, puts it: “Deliberation — listening to each other deeply, thinking together and working out something that we can all live with — is magical.”…(More)”.
China’s Aggressive Surveillance Technology Will Spread Beyond Its Borders
Already there are reports that Zimbabwe, for example, is turning to Chinese firms to implement nationwide facial-recognition and surveillance programs, wrapped into China’s infrastructure investments and a larger set of security agreements as well, including for policing online communication. The acquisition of black African faces will help China’s tech sector improve its overall data set.
Malaysia, too, announced new partnerships this spring with China to equip police with wearable facial-recognition cameras. There are quiet reports of Arab Gulf countries turning to China not just for the drone technologies America has denied but also for the authoritarian suite of surveillance, recognition, and data tools perfected in China’s provinces. In a recent article on Egypt’s military-led efforts to build a new capital city beyond Cairo’s chaos and revolutionary squares, a retired general acting as project spokesman declared, “a smart city means a safe city, with cameras and sensors everywhere. There will be a command center to control the entire city.” Who is financing construction? China.
While many governments are making attempts to secure this information, there have been several alarming stories of data leaks. Moreover, these national identifiers create an unprecedented opportunity for state surveillance at scale. What about collecting biometric information in nondemocratic regimes? In 2016, the personal details of nearly 50 million people in Turkey were leaked….
China and other determined authoritarian states may prove undeterrable in their zeal to adopt repressive technologies. A more realistic goal, as Georgetown University scholar Nicholas Wright has argued, is to sway countries on the fence by pointing out the reputational costs of repression and supporting those who are advocating for civil liberties in this domain within their own countries. Democracy promoters (which we hope will one day again include the White House) will also want to recognize the coming changes to the authoritarian public sphere. They can start now in helping vulnerable populations and civil society to gain greater technological literacy to advocate for their rights in new domains. It is not too early for governments and civil society groups alike to study what technological and tactical countermeasures exist to circumvent and disrupt new authoritarian tools.
Everyone will have to approach these developments with the humbling recognition that Silicon Valley is not the only game in town. Regardless of what happens stateside or in Europe, China will have formidable and growing indigenous capabilities to export to the rest of the world.
Seven years ago, techno-optimists expressed hope that a wave of new digital tools for social networking and self-expression could help young people in the Middle East and elsewhere to find their voices. Today, a new wave of Chinese-led technological advances threatens to blossom into what we consider an “Arab spring in reverse”—in which the next digital wave shifts the pendulum back, enabling state domination and repression at a staggering scale and algorithmic effectiveness.
Americans are absolutely right to be urgently focused on countering Russian weaponized hacking and leaking as its primary beneficiary sits in the Oval Office. But we also need to be more proactive in countering the tools of algorithmic authoritarianism that will shape the worldwide future of individual freedom….(More)”.
Denialism: what drives people to reject the truth
Keith Kahn-Harris at The Guardian: “…Denialism is an expansion, an intensification, of denial. At root, denial and denialism are simply a subset of the many ways humans have developed to use language to deceive others and themselves. Denial can be as simple as refusing to accept that someone else is speaking truthfully. Denial can be as unfathomable as the multiple ways we avoid acknowledging our weaknesses and secret desires.
Denialism is more than just another manifestation of the humdrum intricacies of our deceptions and self-deceptions. It represents the transformation of the everyday practice of denial into a whole new way of seeing the world and – most important – a collective accomplishment. Denial is furtive and routine; denialism is combative and extraordinary. Denial hides from the truth, denialism builds a new and better truth.
In recent years, the term has been used to describe a number of fields of “scholarship”, whose scholars engage in audacious projects to hold back, against seemingly insurmountable odds, the findings of an avalanche of research. They argue that the Holocaust (and other genocides) never happened, that anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change is a myth, that Aids either does not exist or is unrelated to HIV, that evolution is a scientific impossibility, and that all manner of other scientific and historical orthodoxies must be rejected.
In some ways, denialism is a terrible term. No one calls themselves a “denialist”, and no one signs up to all forms of denialism. In fact, denialism is founded on the assertion that it is not denialism. In the wake of Freud (or at least the vulgarisation of Freud), no one wants to be accused of being “in denial”, and labelling people denialists seems to compound the insult by implying that they have taken the private sickness of denial and turned it into public dogma.
But denial and denialism are closely linked; what humans do on a large scale is rooted in what we do on a small scale. While everyday denial can be harmful, it is also just a mundane way for humans to respond to the incredibly difficult challenge of living in a social world in which people lie, make mistakes and have desires that cannot be openly acknowledged. Denialism is rooted in human tendencies that are neither freakish nor pathological.
All that said, there is no doubt that denialism is dangerous. In some cases, we can point to concrete examples of denialism causing actual harm. In South Africa, President Thabo Mbeki, in office between 1999 and 2008, was influenced by Aids denialists such as Peter Duesberg, who deny the link between HIV and Aids (or even HIV’s existence) and cast doubt on the effectiveness of anti-retroviral drugs. Mbeki’s reluctance to implement national treatment programmes using anti-retrovirals has been estimated to have cost the lives of 330,000 people. On a smaller scale, in early 2017 the Somali-American community in Minnesota was struck by a childhood measles outbreak, as a direct result of proponents of the discredited theory that the MMR vaccine causes autism, persuading parents not to vaccinate their children….(More)”.
The Government-Citizen Disconnect
Book by Suzanne Mettler: “Americans’ relationship to the federal government is paradoxical. Polls show that public opinion regarding the government has plummeted to all-time lows, with only one in five saying they trust the government or believe that it operates in their interest. Yet, at the same time, more Americans than ever benefit from some form of government social provision. Political scientist Suzanne Mettler calls this growing gulf between people’s perceptions of government and the actual role it plays in their lives the “government-citizen disconnect.” In The Government-Citizen Disconnect, she explores the rise of this phenomenon and its implications for policymaking and politics.
Drawing from original survey data which probed Americans’ experiences of 21 federal social policies — such as food stamps, Social Security, Medicaid, and the home mortgage interest deduction — Mettler shows that 96 percent of adults have received benefits from at least one of them, and that the average person has utilized five. Overall usage rates transcend social, economic, and political divisions, and most Americans report positive experiences of their policy experiences. However, the fact that they have benefited from these policies bears little positive effect on people’s attitudes towards government. Mettler finds that shared identities and group affiliations are more powerful and consistent influences. In particular, those who oppose welfare tend to extrapolate their unfavorable views of it to government in general. Deep antipathy toward the government has emerged as a conservative movement waged a war on social welfare policies for over forty years, even as economic inequality and benefit use increased.
Mettler finds that patterns of political participation exacerbate the government-citizen disconnect, as those holding positive views of federal programs and supporting expanded benefits have lower rates of involvement than those holding more hostile views of the government. As a result, the loudest political voice belongs to those who have benefited from policies but who give government little credit for their economic well-being, seeing their success more as a matter of their own deservingness. This contributes to the election of politicians who advocate cutting federal social programs. According to Mettler, the government-citizen disconnect frays the bonds of representative government and democracy.
The Government-Citizen Disconnect illuminates a paradox that increasingly shapes American politics. Mettler’s examination of hostility toward government at a time when most Americans will at some point rely on the social benefits it provides helps us better understand the roots of today’s fractious political climate….(More)”
Technology, Activism, and Social Justice in a Digital Age
Book edited by John G. McNutt: “…offers a close look at both the present nature and future prospects for social change. In particular, the text explores the cutting edge of technology and social change, while discussing developments in social media, civic technology, and leaderless organizations — as well as more traditional approaches to social change.
It effectively assembles a rich variety of perspectives to the issue of technology and social change; the featured authors are academics and practitioners (representing both new voices and experienced researchers) who share a common devotion to a future that is just, fair, and supportive of human potential.
They come from the fields of social work, public administration, journalism, law, philanthropy, urban affairs, planning, and education, and their work builds upon 30-plus years of research. The authors’ efforts to examine changing nature of social change organizations and the issues they face will help readers reflect upon modern advocacy, social change, and the potential to utilize technology in making a difference….(More)”
Our misguided love affair with techno-politics
The Economist: “What might happen if technology, which smothers us with its bounty as consumers, made the same inroads into politics? Might data-driven recommendations suggest “policies we may like” just as Amazon recommends books? Would we swipe right to pick candidates in elections or answers in referendums? Could businesses expand into every cranny of political and social life, replete with ® and ™ at each turn? What would this mean for political discourse and individual freedom?
This dystopian yet all-too-imaginable world has been conjured up by Giuseppe Porcaro in his novel “Disco Sour”. The story takes place in the near future, after a terrible war and breakdown of nations, when the (fictional) illegitimate son of Roman Polanski creates an app called Plebiscitum that works like Tinder for politics.
Mr Porcaro—who comes armed with a doctorate in political geography—uses the plot to consider questions of politics in the networked age. The Economist’s Open Future initiative asked him to reply to five questions in around 100 words each. An excerpt from the book appears thereafter.
* * *
The Economist: In your novel, an entrepreneur attempts to replace elections with an app that asks people to vote on individual policies. Is that science fiction or prediction? And were you influenced by Italy’s Five Star Movement?
Giuseppe Porcaro: The idea of imagining a Tinder-style app replacing elections came up because I see connections between the evolution of dating habits and 21st-century politics. A new sort of “tinderpolitics” kicking in when instant gratification substitutes substantial participation. Think about tweet trolling, for example.
Italy’s Five Star Movement was certainly another inspiration as it is has been a pioneer in using an online platform to successfully create a sort of new political mass movement. Another one was an Australian political party called Flux. They aim to replace the world’s elected legislatures with a new system known as issue-based direct democracy.
The Economist: Is it too cynical to suggest that a more direct relationship between citizens and policymaking would lead to a more reactionary political landscape? Or does the ideal of liberal democracy depend on an ideal citizenry that simply doesn’t exist?
Mr Porcaro: It would be cynical to put the blame on citizens for getting too close to influence decision-making. That would go against the very essence of the “liberal democracy ideal”. However, I am critical towards the pervasive idea that technology can provide quick fixes to bridge the gap between citizens and the government. By applying computational thinking to democracy, an extreme individualisation and instant participation, we forget democracy is not simply the result of an election or the mathematical sum of individual votes. Citizens risk entering a vicious circle where reactionary politics are easier to go through.
The Economist: Modern representative democracy was in some ways a response to the industrial revolution. If AI and automation radically alter the world we live in, will we have to update the way democracy works too—and if so, how?
Mr Porcaro: Democracy has already morphed several times. 19th century’s liberal democracy was shaken by universal suffrage, and adapted to the Fordist mode of production with the mass party. May 1968 challenged that model. Today, the massive availability of data and the increasing power of decision-making algorithms will change both political institutions.
The policy “production” process might be utterly redesigned. Data collected by devices we use on a daily basis (such as vehicles, domestic appliances and wearable sensors) will provide evidence about the drivers of personal voting choices, or the accountability of government decisions. …(More)
This surprising, everyday tool might hold the key to changing human behavior
Annabelle Timsit at Quartz: “To be a person in the modern world is to worry about your relationship with your phone. According to critics, smartphones are making us ill-mannered and sore-necked, dragging parents’ attention away from their kids, and destroying an entire generation.
But phones don’t have to be bad. With 4.68 billion people forecast to become mobile phone users by 2019, nonprofits and social science researchers are exploring new ways to turn our love of screens into a force for good. One increasingly popular option: Using texting to help change human behavior.
Texting: A unique tool
The short message service (SMS) was invented in the late 1980s, and the first text message was sent in 1992. (Engineer Neil Papworth sent “merry Christmas” to then-Vodafone director Richard Jarvis.) In the decades since, texting has emerged as the preferred communication method for many, and in particular younger generations. While that kind of habit-forming can be problematic—47% of US smartphone users say they “couldn’t live without” the device—our attachment to our phones also makes text-based programs a good way to encourage people to make better choices.
“Texting, because it’s anchored in mobile phones, has the ability to be with you all the time, and that gives us an enormous flexibility on precision,” says Todd Rose, director of the Mind, Brain, & Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “When people lead busy lives, they need timely, targeted, actionable information.”
And who is busier than a parent? Text-based programs can help current or would-be moms and dads with everything from medication pickup to childhood development. Text4Baby, for example, messages pregnant women and young moms with health information and reminders about upcoming doctor visits. Vroom, an app for building babies’ brains, sends parents research-based prompts to help them build positive relationships with their children (for example, by suggesting they ask toddlers to describe how they’re feeling based on the weather). Muse, an AI-powered app, uses machine learning and big data to try and help parents raise creative, motivated, emotionally intelligent kids. As Jenny Anderson writes in Quartz: “There is ample evidence that we can modify parents’ behavior through technological nudges.”
Research suggests text-based programs may also be helpful in supporting young children’s academic and cognitive development. …Texts aren’t just being used to help out parents. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have also used them to encourage civic participation in kids and young adults. Open Progress, for example, has an all-volunteer community called “text troop” that messages young adults across the US, reminding them to register to vote and helping them find their polling location.
Text-based programs are also useful in the field of nutrition, where private companies and public-health organizations have embraced them as a way to give advice on healthy eating and weight loss. The National Cancer Institute runs a text-based program called SmokefreeTXT that sends US adults between three and five messages per day for up to eight weeks, to help them quit smoking.
Texting programs can be a good way to nudge people toward improving their mental health, too. Crisis Text Line, for example, was the first national 24/7 crisis-intervention hotline to conduct counseling conversations entirely over text…(More).