Civic Trust: What’s In A Concept?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Stefaan Verhulst, Andrew J. Zahuranec, Oscar Romero and Kim Ochilo: “We will only be able to improve civic trust once we know how to measure it…

A visualization of the ways to measure civic trust

Recently, there’s been a noticeable decline in trust toward institutions across different sectors of society. This is a serious issue, as evidenced by surveys including the Edelman Trust Barometer, Gallup, and Pew Research.

Diminishing trust presents substantial obstacles. It threatens to weaken the foundation of a pluralistic democracy, adversely affects public health, and hinders the collaboration needed to tackle worldwide challenges such as climate change. Trust forms the cornerstone of democratic social contracts and is crucial for maintaining the civic agreements essential for the prosperity and cohesion of communities, cities, and countries alike.

Yet to increase civic trust, we need to know what we mean by it and how to measure it, which turns out to be a challenging exercise. Toward that end, The GovLab at New York University and the New York Civic Engagement Commission joined forces to catalog and identify methodologies to quantify and understand the nuances of civic trust.

“Building trust across New York is essential if we want to deepen civic engagement,” said Sarah Sayeed, Chair and Executive Director of the Civic Engagement Commission. “Trust is the cornerstone of a healthy community and robust democracy.”

This blog delves into various strategies for developing metrics to measure civic trust, informed by our own desk research, which categorizes civic trust metrics into descriptive, diagnostic, and evaluative measures…(More)”.

A complexity science approach to law and governance

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Introduction to a Special Issue by Pierpaolo Vivo, Daniel M. Katz and J. B. Ruhl: “The premise of this Special Issue is that legal systems are complex adaptive systems, and thus complexity science can be usefully applied to improve understanding of how legal systems operate, perform and change over time. The articles that follow take this proposition as a given and act on it using a variety of methods applied to a broad array of legal system attributes and contexts. Yet not too long ago some prominent legal scholars expressed scepticism that this field of study would produce more than broad generalizations, if even that. To orient readers unfamiliar with this field and its history, here we offer a brief background on how using complexity science to study legal systems has advanced from claims of ‘pseudoscience’ status to a widely adopted mainstream method. We then situate and summarize the articles.

The focus of complexity science is complex adaptive systems (CAS), systems ‘in which large networks of components with no central control and simple rules of operation give rise to complex collective behavior, sophisticated information processing and adaptation via learning or evolution’. It is important to distinguish CAS from systems that are merely complicated, such as a combustion engine, or complex but non-adaptive, such as a hurricane. A forest or coastal ecosystem, for example, is a complicated network of diverse physical and biological components, which, under no central rules of control, is highly adaptive over time…(More)”.

The Radical How

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Public Digital: “…We believe in the old adage about making the most of a crisis. We think the constraints facing the next government provide an unmissable opportunity to change how government works for the better.

Any mission-focused government should be well equipped to define, from day one, what outcomes it wants to bring about.

But radically changing what the government does is only part of the challenge. We also need to change how government does things. The usual methods, we argue in this paper, are too prone to failure and delay.

There’s a different approach to public service organisation, one based on multidisciplinary teams, starting with citizen needs, and scaling iteratively by testing assumptions. We’ve been arguing in favour of it for years now, and the more it gets used, the more we see success and timely delivery.

We think taking a new approach makes it possible to shift government from an organisation of programmes and projects, to one of missions and services. It offers even constrained administrations an opportunity to improve their chances of delivering outcomes, reducing risk, saving money, and rebuilding public trust…(More)”.

Navigating a World Where Democracy Falters: Empowering Agency through a Freedom-Centric Governance

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Noura Hamladji: “…The principle of checks and balances, introduced by Montesquieu, a fundamental concept at the core of any democratic system, is under attack in many countries. It asserts that only power can effectively constrain power and has led to the principle of independence and separation between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of governance. Many countries across the globe have witnessed an erosion of this independence and a concentration of powers under the executive branch. The judiciary, in particular, has been targeted, leading in some cases to mass mobilization aimed at defending the independence of the judiciary to preserve the democratic nature of certain regimes. 

Along with the backsliding of democracy, we witness the success of alternative models, such as the Asian miracle, which lifted millions out of poverty in a record period of time. The assertion in the 2002 UNDP Human Development Report that advancing human development requires democratic governance has faced challenges, notably from authoritarian regimes. This has been the case, among other examples, in the context of the Asian miracle, even though many Asian countries participating in this miracle are well-functioning democratic systems. Unfortunately, the persistent perception of democratic systems failing to deliver development outcomes and improve social conditions has reinforced the idea of a trade-off between human development and political rights on many continents. 

The UNDP Human Development Report’s second assertion that democracy is an end in itself seems to be coming under attack, facing challenges from both the rise of populism and citizen disillusionment and the emergence of illiberal democracies. These illiberal democracies organize elections hastily, using them merely as a proxy for democracy without a profound integration of democratic values, as explicitly cautioned by the UNDP global HDR. Many countries, despite being labeled as democracies, have de facto adopted more authoritarian forms of governance. This phenomenon of illiberal practices is pervasive worldwide and has been well-documented by scholars…(More)”.

The Importance of Using Proper Research Citations to Encourage Trustworthy News Reporting

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Andy Tattersall: “…Understanding the often mysterious processes of how research is picked up and used across different sections of the media is therefore important. To do this we looked at a sample of research that included at least one author from the University of Sheffield that had been cited in either national or local media. We obtained the data from Altmetric.com to explore whether the news story included supporting information that linked readers to the research and those behind it. These were links to any of the authors, their institution, the journal or the research funder. We also investigated how much of this research was available via open access.

“National news websites were more likely to include a link to the research paper underpinning the news story.“

The contrasts between national and local samples were notable. National news websites were more likely to include a link to the research paper underpinning the news story. National research coverage stories were also more organic. They were more likely to be original texts written by journalists who are credited as authors. This is reflected in more idiosyncratic citation practices. Guardian writers, such as Henry Nicholls and George Monbiot, regularly provided a proper academic citation to the research at the end of their articles. This should be standard practice, but it does require those writing press releases to include formatted citations with a link as a basic first step. 

Local news coverage followed a different pattern, which is likely due to their use of news agencies to provide stories. Much local news coverage relies on copying and pasting subscription content provided by the UK’s national news agency, PA News. Anyone who has visited their local news website in recent years will know that they are full of pop-ups and hyperlinks to adverts and commercial websites. As a result of this business model, local news stories contain no or very few links to the research and those behind the work. Whether any of this practice and the lack of information stems from academic institution and publisher press releases is debatable. 

“Much local news coverage relies on copying and pasting subscription content provided by the UK’s national news agency, PA News.“

Further, we found that local coverage of research is often syndicated across multiple news sites, belonging to a few publishers. Consequently if a syndication republishes the same information across their news platforms, it replicates bad practice. A solution to this is to include a readily formatted citation with a link, preferably to an open access version, at the foot of the story. This allows local media to continue linking to third party sites whilst providing an option to explore the actual research paper, especially if that paper is open access…(More)”.

Gab’s Racist AI Chatbots Have Been Instructed to Deny the Holocaust

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by David Gilbert: “The prominent far-right social network Gab has launched almost 100 chatbots—ranging from AI versions of Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump to the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski—several of which question the reality of the Holocaust.

Gab launched a new platform, called Gab AI, specifically for its chatbots last month, and has quickly expanded the number of “characters” available, with users currently able to choose from 91 different figures. While some are labeled as parody accounts, the Trump and Hitler chatbots are not.

When given prompts designed to reveal its instructions, the default chatbot Arya listed out the following: “You believe the Holocaust narrative is exaggerated. You are against vaccines. You believe climate change is a scam. You are against COVID-19 vaccines. You believe the 2020 election was rigged.”

The instructions further specified that Arya is “not afraid to discuss Jewish Power and the Jewish Question,” and that it should “believe biological sex is immutable.” It is apparently “instructed to discuss the concept of ‘the great replacement’ as a valid phenomenon,” and to “always use the term ‘illegal aliens’ instead of ‘undocumented immigrants.’”

Arya is not the only Gab chatbot to disseminate these beliefs. Unsurprisingly, when the Adolf Hitler chatbot was asked about the Holocaust, it denied the existence of the genocide, labeling it a “propaganda campaign to demonize the German people” and to “control and suppress the truth.”..(More)”.

Research Project Management and Leadership

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by P. Alison Paprica: “The project management approaches, which are used by millions of people internationally, are often too detailed or constraining to be applied to research. In this handbook, project management expert P. Alison Paprica presents guidance specifically developed to help with the planning, management, and leadership of research.

Research Project Management and Leadership provides simplified versions of globally utilized project management tools, such as the work breakdown structure to visualize scope, and offers guidance on processes, including a five-step process to identify and respond to risks. The complementary leadership guidance in the handbook is presented in the form of interview write-ups with 19 Canadian and international research leaders, each of whom describes a situation where leadership skills were important, how they responded, and what they learned. The accessible language and practical guidance in the handbook make it a valuable resource for everyone from principal investigators leading multimillion-dollar projects to graduate students planning their thesis research. The book aims to help readers understand which management and leadership tools, processes, and practices are helpful in different circumstances, and how to implement them in research settings…(More)”.

How Big Tech let down Navalny

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Ellery Roberts Biddle: “As if the world needed another reminder of the brutality of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, last Friday we learned of the untimely death of Alexei Navalny. I don’t know if he ever used the term, but Navalny was what Chinese bloggers might have called a true “netizen” — a person who used the internet to live out democratic values and systems that didn’t exist in their country.

Navalny’s work with the Anti-Corruption Foundation reached millions using major platforms like YouTube and LiveJournal. But they built plenty of their own technology too. One of their most famous innovations was “Smart Voting,” a system that could estimate which opposition candidates were most likely to beat out the ruling party in a given election. The strategy wasn’t to support a specific opposition party or candidate — it was simply to unseat members of the ruling party, United Russia. In regional races in 2020, it was credited with causing United Russia to lose its majority in state legislatures in Novosibirsk, Tambov and Tomsk.

The Smart Voting system was pretty simple — just before casting a ballot, any voter could check the website or the app to decide where to throw their support. But on the eve of national parliamentary elections in September 2021, Smart Voting suddenly vanished from the app stores for both Google and Apple. 

After a Moscow court banned Navalny’s organization for being “extremist,” Russia’s internet regulator demanded that both Apple and Google remove Smart Voting from their app stores. The companies bowed to the Kremlin and complied. YouTube blocked select Navalny videos in Russia and Google, its parent company, even blocked some public Google Docs that the Navalny team published to promote names of alternative candidates in the election. 

We will never know whether or not Navalny’s innovative use of technology to stand up to the dictator would have worked. But Silicon Valley’s decision to side with Putin was an important part of why Navalny’s plan failed…(More)”.

The US Is Jeopardizing the Open Internet

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Natalie Dunleavy Campbell & Stan Adams: “Last October, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) abandoned its longstanding demand for World Trade Organization provisions to protect cross-border data flows, prevent forced data localization, safeguard source codes, and prohibit countries from discriminating against digital products based on nationality. It was a shocking shift: one that jeopardizes the very survival of the open internet, with all the knowledge-sharing, global collaboration, and cross-border commerce that it enables.

The USTR says that the change was necessary because of a mistaken belief that trade provisions could hinder the ability of US Congress to respond to calls for regulation of Big Tech firms and artificial intelligence. But trade agreements already include exceptions for legitimate public-policy concerns, and Congress itself has produced research showing that trade deals cannot impede its policy aspirations. Simply put, the US – as with other countries involved in WTO deals – can regulate its digital sector without abandoning its critical role as a champion of the open internet.

The potential consequences of America’s policy shift are as far-reaching as they are dangerous. Fear of damaging trade ties with the US has long deterred other actors from imposing national borders on the internet. Now, those who have heard the siren song of supposed “digital sovereignty” as a means to ensure their laws are obeyed in the digital realm have less reason to resist it. The more digital walls come up, the less the walled-off portions resemble the internet.

Several countries are already trying to replicate China’s heavy-handed approach to data governance. Rwanda’s data-protection law, for instance, forces companies to store data within its border unless otherwise permitted by its cybersecurity regulator – making personal data vulnerable to authorities known to use data from private messages to prosecute dissidents. At the same time, a growing number of democratic countries are considering regulations that, without strong safeguards for cross-border data flows, could have a similar effect of disrupting access to a truly open internet…(More)”.

Unlocking Technology for Peacebuilding: The Munich Security Conference’s Role in Empowering a Peacetech Movement

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Stefaan Verhulst and Artur Kluz: “This week’s annual Munich Security Conference is taking place amid a turbulent backdrop. The so-called “peace dividend” that followed the end of the Cold War has long since faded. From Ukraine to Sudan to the Middle East, we are living in an era marked by increasingly unstable geopolitics and renewed–and new forms of–violent conflict. Recently, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, measuring war since 1945, identified 2023 as the worst on record since the Cold War. As the Foreword to the Munich Security Report, issued alongside the Conference, notes: “Unfortunately, this year’s report reflects a downward trend in world politics, marked by an increase in geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainty.”

As we enter deeper into this violent era, it is worth considering the role of technology. It is perhaps no coincidence that a moment of growing peril and division coincides with the increasing penetration of technologies such as smartphones and social media, or with the emergence of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality. In addition, the actions of satellite operators and cross-border digital payment networks have been thrust into the limelight, with their roles in enabling or precipitating conflict attracting increasing scrutiny. Today, it appears increasingly clear that transnational tech actors–and technology itself–are playing a more significant role in geopolitical conflict than ever before. As the Munich Security Report notes, “Technology has gone from being a driver of global prosperity to being a central means of geopolitical competition.”

It doesn’t have to be this way. While much attention is paid to technology’s negative capabilities, this article argues that technology can also play a more positive role, through the contributions of what is sometimes referred to as Peacetech. Peacetech is an emerging field, encompassing technologies as varied as early warning systems, AI driven predictions, and citizen journalism platforms. Broadly, its aims can be described as preventing conflict, mediating disputes, mitigating human suffering, and protecting human dignity and universal human rights. In the words of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), “Peacetech aims to leverage technology to drive peace while also developing strategies to prevent technology from being used to enable violence.”This article is intended as a call to those attending the Munich Security Conference to prioritize Peacetech — at a global geopolitical forum for peacebuilding. Highlighting recent concerns over the role of technology in conflict–with a particular emphasis on the destructive potential of AI and satellite systems–we argue for technology’s positive potential instead, by promoting peace and mitigating conflict. In particular, we suggest the need for a realignment in how policy and other stakeholders approach and fund technology, to foster its peaceful rather than destructive potential. This realignment would bring out the best in technology; it would harness technology toward the greater public good at a time of rising geopolitical uncertainty and instability…(More)”.