IADB Working Paper by JEL Codes:”This article challenges recent findings that democracy has sizable effects on economic growth. As extensive political science research indicates that economic turmoil is responsible for causing or facilitating many democratic transitions, the paper focuses on this endogeneity concern. Using a worldwide survey of 165 country-specific democracy experts conducted for this study, the paper separates democratic transitions into those occurring for reasons related to economic turmoil, here called endogenous, and those grounded in reasons more exogenous to economic growth. The behavior of economic growth following these more exogenous democratizations strongly indicates that democracy does not cause growth. Consequently, the common positive association between democracy and economic growth is driven by endogenous democratization episodes (i.e., due to faulty identification)….(More)”
Building a Democracy Machine: Toward an Integrated and Empowered Form of Civic Engagement
Essay by John Gastil: “Dozens—and possibly hundreds—of online platforms have been built in the past decade to facilitate specific forms of civic engagement. Unconnected to each other, let alone an integrated system easy for citizens to use, these platforms cannot begin to realize their full potential. The author proposes a massive collaborative project to build an integrated platform called, tongue squarely in cheek, “The Democracy Machine.” The Machine draws on public energy and ideas, mixing those into concrete policy advice, influencing government decision making, and creating a feedback loop that helps officials and citizens track progress together as they continuously turn the policymaking crank. This online system could help to harmonize civic leaders, vocal and marginalized citizens, and government. Democracy’s need for ongoing public consultation would fuel the Machine, which would, in turn, generate the empowered deliberation and public legitimacy that government needs to make tough policy decisions….(More)”
Why we no longer trust the experts
Gillian Tett in the Financial Times: “Last week, I decided to take a gaggle of kids for an end-of-school-year lunch in a New York neighbourhood that I did not know well. I duly began looking for a suitable restaurant. A decade ago, I would have done that by turning to a restaurant guide. In the world I grew up in, it was normal to seek advice from the “experts”.
But in Manhattan last week, it did not occur to me to consult Fodor’s. Instead, I typed what I needed into my cellphone, scrolled through a long list of online restaurant recommendations, including comments from people who had eaten in them — and picked one.
Yes, it was a leap of faith; those restaurant reviews might have been fake. But there were enough voices for me to feel able to trust the wisdom of the cyber crowds — and, as it happened, our lunch choice was very good.
This is a trivial example of a much bigger change that is under way, and one that has some thought-provoking implications in the wake of the Brexit vote. Before the referendum, British citizens were subjected to a blitz of advice about the potential costs of Brexit from “experts”: economists, central bankers, the International Monetary Fund and world leaders, among others. Indeed, the central strategy of the government (and other “Remainers”) appeared to revolve around wheeling out these experts, with their solemn speeches and statistics….
I suspect that it indicates something else: that citizens of the cyber world no longer have much faith in anything that experts say, not just in the political sphere but in numerous others too. At a time when we increasingly rely on crowd-sourced advice rather than official experts to choose a restaurant, healthcare and holidays, it seems strange to expect voters to listen to official experts when it comes to politics.
In our everyday lives, we are moving from a system based around vertical axes of trust, where we trust people who seem to have more authority than we do, to one predicated on horizontal axes of trust: we take advice from our peer group.
You can see this clearly if you look at the surveys conducted by groups such as the Pew Research Center. These show that faith in institutions such as the government, big business and the media has crumbled in recent years; indeed, almost the only institution in the US that has bucked the trend is the military.
What is even more interesting to look at, however, are the areas where trust remains high. In an annual survey conducted by the Edelman public relations firm, people in 20 countries are asked who they trust. They show rising confidence in the “a person like me” category, and surprisingly high trust in digital technology. We live in a world where we increasingly trust our Facebook friends and the Twitter crowd more than we do the IMF or the prime minister.
In some senses, this is good news. Relying on horizontal axes of trust should mean more democracy and empowerment for ordinary citizens. But the problem of this new world is that people can fall prey to social fads and tribalism — or groupthink…..
Either way, nobody is going to put this genie back into the bottle. So we all need to think about what creates the bonds of “trust” in today’s world. And recognise that the 20th-century model of politics, with its reverence for experts and fixed parties, may eventually seem as outdated as restaurant guides. We live in volatile time…(More)”
How A Videogame Can Be A Source For Innovation
Jiwon Kim at PSFK: “The nonprofit Games For Change has a mission to utilize games to change the world. More specifically, it’s to facilitate “the creation and distribution of social impact games that serve as critical tools in humanitarian and educational efforts.”….PSFK decided to explore the three finalists up to win the award for the most innovative game of 2016:
1. Life is Strange: This game is comprised of five episodes that allow the gamer to turn back the time and change a chain of events. The gamers follow the protagonist, Maxine, as she uses her power to rewind time to save her friends and her town. This game is innovative in the sense that gamers intimately interact with this intricate plot while exploring important issues such as suicide, substance issues and relationships. The game is like a beautiful animated movie with great music, except the gamer decides the ending.
2. That Dragon, Cancer: The game’s creator, Ryan Green, is a programmer who wanted to share his experience of raising a young son struggling with cancer. The narrative video game retells how Ryan’s son and the rest of his family went on an emotional roller coaster ride that lasted years. Unfortunately, his son passed away but the Green family hopes that this game provides a deep insight into this difficult journey and dealing with feelings of hope and loss. The game brings in a new perspective and a new medium for intimate stories to be shared.
3. Lumino City: This game is entirely handcrafted with paper, miniature lights and motors. Lumino City is a beautiful 10-foot high city that serves as the setting of an exciting adventure. Gamers get to be Lumi, the protagonist, as she goes off on a journey to find her grandfather. Everything about this game is innovative in the sense that the creators fuse the digital world and traditional arts and crafts together….(More).
The Behavioral Economics Guide 2016
Guide edited by Alain Samson: “Since the publication of last year’s edition of the Behavioral Economics (BE) Guide, behavioral science has continued to exert its influence in various domains of scholarship and practical applications. The Guide’s host, behavioraleconomics.com, has grown to become a popular online hub for behavioral science ideas and resources. Our domain’s new blog publishes articles from academics and practitioners alike, reflecting the wide range of areas in which BE ideas are generated and used. …
Past editions of the BE Guide focused on BE theory (2014) and behavioral science practice (2015). The aim of this year’s issue is to provide different perspectives on the field and novel applications. This editorial1 offers a selection of recent (often critical) thinking around behavioral economics research and applications. It is followed by Q&As with Richard Thaler and Varun Gauri. The subsequent section provides a range of absorbing contributions from authors who work in applied behavioral science. The final section includes a further expanded encyclopedia of BE (and related) concepts, a new listing of behavioral science events, more graduate programs, and a larger selection of journals, reflecting the growth of the field and our continued efforts to compile relevant information….(More)”
Nudging for Success
Press Release: “A groundbreaking report published today by ideas42 reveals several innovations that college administrators and policymakers can leverage to significantly improve college graduation rates at a time where completion is more out of reach than ever for millions of students.
The student path through college to graduation day is strewn with subtle, often invisible barriers that, over time, hinder students’ progress and cause some of them to drop out entirely. In Nudging for Success: Using Behavioral Science to Improve the Postsecondary Student Journey, ideas42 focuses on simple, low-cost ways to combat these unintentional obstacles and support student persistence and success at every stage in the college experience, from pre-admission to post-graduation. Teams worked with students, faculty and administrators at colleges around the country.
Even for students whose tuition is covered by financial aid, whose academic preparation is exemplary, and who are able to commit themselves full-time to their education, the subtle logistical and psychological sticking points can have a huge impact on their ability to persist and fully reap the benefits of a higher education.
Less than 60% of full-time students graduate from four-year colleges within six years, and less than 30% graduate from community colleges within three years. There are a myriad of factors often cited as deterrents to finishing school, such as the cost of tuition or the need to juggle family and work obligations, but behavioral science and the results of this report demonstrate that lesser-known dynamics like self-perception are also at play.
From increasing financial aid filing to fostering positive friend groups and a sense of belonging on campus, the 16 behavioral solutions outlined in Nudging for Success represent the potential for significant impact on the student experience and persistence. At Arizona State University, sending behaviorally-designed email reminders to students and parents about the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) priority deadline increased submissions by 72% and led to an increase in grant awards. Freshman retention among low-income, first generation, under-represented or other students most at risk of dropping out increased by 10% at San Francisco State University with the use of a testimonial video, self-affirming exercises, and monthly messaging aimed at first-time students.
“This evidence demonstrates how behavioral science can be the key to uplifting millions of Americans through education,” said Alissa Fishbane, Managing Director at ideas42. “By approaching the completion crisis from the whole experience of students themselves, administrators and policymakers have the opportunity to reduce the number of students who start, but do not finish, college—students who take on the financial burden of tuition but miss out on the substantial benefits of earning a degree.”
The results of this work drive home the importance of examining the college experience from the student perspective and through the lens of human behavior. College administrators and policymakers can replicate these gains at institutions across the country to make it simpler for students to complete the degree they started in ways that are often easier and less expensive to implement than existing alternatives—paving the way to stronger economic futures for millions of Americans….(More)”
Civic Data Initiatives
Burak Arikan at Medium: “Big data is the term used to define the perpetual and massive data gathered by corporations and governments on consumers and citizens. When the subject of data is not necessarily individuals but governments and companies themselves, we can call it civic data, and when systematically generated in large amounts, civic big data. Increasingly, a new generation of initiatives are generating and organizing structured data on particular societal issues from human rights violations, to auditing government budgets, from labor crimes to climate justice.
These civic data initiatives diverge from the traditional civil society organizations in their outcomes,that they don’t just publish their research as reports, but also open it to the public as a database.Civic data initiatives are quite different in their data work than international non-governmental organizations such as UN, OECD, World Bank and other similar bodies. Such organizations track social, economical, political conditions of countries and concentrate upon producing general statistical data, whereas civic data initiatives aim to produce actionable data on issues that impact individuals directly. The change in the GDP value of a country is useless for people struggling for free transportation in their city. Incarceration rate of a country does not help the struggle of the imprisoned journalists. Corruption indicators may serve as a parameter in a country’s credit score, but does not help to resolve monopolization created with public procurement. Carbon emission statistics do not prevent the energy deals between corrupt governments that destroy the nature in their region.
Needless to say, civic data initiatives also differ from governmental institutions, which are reluctant to share any more that they are legally obligated to. Many governments in the world simply dump scanned hardcopies of documents on official websites instead of releasing machine-readable data, which prevents systematic auditing of government activities.Civic data initiatives, on the other hand, make it a priority to structure and release their data in formats that are both accessible and queryable.
Civic data initiatives also deviate from general purpose information commons such as Wikipedia. Because they consistently engage with problems, closely watch a particular societal issue, make frequent updates,even record from the field to generate and organize highly granular data about the matter….
Several civic data initiatives generate data on variety of issues at different geographies, scopes, and scales. The non-exhaustive list below have information on founders, data sources, and financial support. It is sorted according to each initiative’s founding year. Please send your suggestions to contact at graphcommons.com. See more detailed information and updates on the spreadsheet of civic data initiatives.
Open Secrets tracks data about the money flow in the US government, so it becomes more accessible for journalists, researchers, and advocates.Founded as a non-profit in 1983 by Center for Responsive Politics, gets support from variety of institutions.
PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics. Uses on-the-record interviews as its data source. Founded in 2007 as a non-profit organization by Tampa Bay Times. Supported by Democracy Fund, Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, FordFoundation, Knight Foundation, Craigslist Charitable Fund, and the CollinsCenter for Public Policy…..
La Fabrique de La loi (The Law Factory) maps issues of local-regional socio-economic development, public investments, and ecology in France.Started in 2014, the project builds a database by tracking bills from government sources, provides a search engine as well as an API. The partners of the project are CEE Sciences Po, médialab Sciences Po, RegardsCitoyens, and Density Design.
Mapping Media Freedom identifies threats, violations and limitations faced by members of the press throughout European Union member states,candidates for entry and neighbouring countries. Initiated by Index onCensorship and European Commission in 2004, the project…(More)”
The Racist Algorithm?
Anupam Chander in the Michigan Law Review (2017 Forthcoming) : “Are we on the verge of an apartheid by algorithm? Will the age of big data lead to decisions that unfairly favor one race over others, or men over women? At the dawn of the Information Age, legal scholars are sounding warnings about the ubiquity of automated algorithms that increasingly govern our lives. In his new book, The Black Box Society: The Hidden Algorithms Behind Money and Information, Frank Pasquale forcefully argues that human beings are increasingly relying on computerized algorithms that make decisions about what information we receive, how much we can borrow, where we go for dinner, or even whom we date. Pasquale’s central claim is that these algorithms will mask invidious discrimination, undermining democracy and worsening inequality. In this review, I rebut this prominent claim. I argue that any fair assessment of algorithms must be made against their alternative. Algorithms are certainly obscure and mysterious, but often no more so than the committees or individuals they replace. The ultimate black box is the human mind. Relying on contemporary theories of unconscious discrimination, I show that the consciously racist or sexist algorithm is less likely than the consciously or unconsciously racist or sexist human decision-maker it replaces. The principal problem of algorithmic discrimination lies elsewhere, in a process I label viral discrimination: algorithms trained or operated on a world pervaded by discriminatory effects are likely to reproduce that discrimination.
I argue that the solution to this problem lies in a kind of algorithmic affirmative action. This would require training algorithms on data that includes diverse communities and continually assessing the results for disparate impacts. Instead of insisting on race or gender neutrality and blindness, this would require decision-makers to approach algorithmic design and assessment in a race and gender conscious manner….(More)“
Using Behavioral Science to Combat Climate Change
Cass R. Sunstein and Lucia A. Reisch in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science (Forthcoming): “Careful attention to choice architecture promises to open up new possibilities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions – possibilities that go well beyond, and that may supplement or complement, the standard tools of economic incentives, mandates, and bans. How, for example, do consumers choose between climate-friendly products or services and alternatives that are potentially damaging to the climate but less expensive? The answer may well depend on the default rule. Indeed, climate-friendly default rules may well be a more effective tool for altering outcomes than large economic incentives. The underlying reasons include the power of suggestion; inertia and procrastination; and loss aversion. If well-chosen, climate-friendly defaults are likely to have large effects in reducing the economic and environmental harms associated with various products and activities. In deciding whether to establish climate-friendly defaults, choice architects (subject to legal constraints) should consider both consumer welfare and a wide range of other costs and benefits. Sometimes that assessment will argue strongly in favor of climate-friendly defaults, particularly when both economic and environmental considerations point in their direction. Notably, surveys in the United States and Europe show that majorities in many nations are in favor of climate-friendly defaults….(More)”
Transforming governance: how can technology help reshape democracy?
Research Briefing by Matt Leighninger: “Around the world, people are asking how we can make democracy work in new and better ways. We are frustrated by political systems in which voting is the only legitimate political act, concerned that many republics don’t have the strength or appeal to withstand authoritarian figures, and disillusioned by the inability of many countries to address the fundamental challenges of health, education and economic development.
We can no longer assume that the countries of the global North have ‘advanced’ democracies, and that the nations of the global South simply need to catch up. Citizens of these older democracies have increasingly lost faith in their political institutions; Northerners cherish their human rights and free elections, but are clearly looking for something more. Meanwhile, in the global South, new regimes based on a similar formula of rights and elections have proven fragile and difficult to sustain. And in Brazil, India and other Southern countries, participatory budgeting and other valuable democratic innovations have emerged. The stage is set for a more equitable, global conversation about what we mean by democracy.
How can we adjust our democratic formulas so that they are more sustainable, powerful, fulfilling – and, well, democratic? Some of the parts of this equation may come from the development of online tools and platforms that help people to engage with their governments, with organisations and institutions, and with each other. Often referred to collectively as ‘civic technology’ or ‘civic tech’, these tools can help us map public problems, help citizens generate solutions, gather input for government, coordinate volunteer efforts, and help neighbours remain connected. If we want to create democracies in which citizens have meaningful roles in shaping public decisions and solving public problems, we should be asking a number of questions about civic tech, including:
- How can online tools best support new forms of democracy?
- What are the examples of how this has happened?
- What are some variables to consider in comparing these examples?
- How can we learn from each other as we move forward?
This background note has been developed to help democratic innovators explore these questions and examine how their work can provide answers….(More)”