Report by Joseph Siegle: “Democracies are engaged in an ideological competition with autocracies that could reshape the global order. Narratives are a potent, asymmetric instrument of power, as they reframe events in a way that conforms to and propagates a particular worldview. Over the past decade and a half, autocracies like Russia and China have led the effort to disseminate authoritarian narratives globally, seeking to normalize authoritarianism as an equally viable and legitimate form of government. How do authoritarian narratives reframe an unappealing value proposition, with the aim of making the democratic path seem less attractive and offering authoritarianism as an alternative model? How can democracies reemphasize their core principles and remind audiences of democracy’s moral, developmental, and security advantages?…(More)”.
The Value of Values
Book by Daniel Aronson: “Acting on values—doing good for the benefit of all—can substantially benefit the bottom line, but many business leaders mistakenly believe that doing the right thing lowers profits. This belief is the greatest barrier holding businesses back from being more financially and competitively successful—and delivering more good for the world. Not only can it be a winning business strategy to act on values, as Daniel Aronson suggests in The Value of Values, but it is also a savvy choice, increasing a company’s power, profit, and competitive advantage—in many cases with little additional investment or risk.
It starts with seeing what others miss. Using extensive research and real-world calculations, Aronson demonstrates that the “submerged value” of initiatives such as taking bold action to combat climate change, helping people find jobs, or creating an open, inclusive work environment is normally 4 to 10 times more than initially believed. Calculating and capturing the true business benefit of acting on values provides a much-needed update to the sustainability and responsibility playbook. Even more important, it shows executives how to harness the value of values to improve profitability, acquire customers, and turbocharge their own careers…(More)”.
In the long run: the future as a political idea
Book by Jonathan White: “Democracy is future-oriented and self-correcting: today’s problems can be solved, we are told, in tomorrow’s elections. But the biggest issues facing the modern world – from climate collapse and pandemics to recession and world war – each apparently bring us to the edge of the irreversible. What happens to democracy when the future seems no longer open?
In this eye-opening history of ideas, Jonathan White investigates how politics has long been directed by shifting visions of the future, from the birth of ideologies in the nineteenth century to Cold War secrecy and the excesses of the neoliberal age.
As an inescapable sense of disaster defines our politics, White argues that a political commitment to the long-term may be the best way to safeguard democracy. Wide in scope and sharply observed, In the Long Run is a history of the future that urges us to make tomorrow new again…(More)”.
Can the Internet be Governed?
Article by Akash Kapur: “…During the past decade or so, however, governments around the world have grown impatient with the notion of Internet autarky. A trickle of halfhearted interventions has built into what the legal scholar Anu Bradford calls a “cascade of regulation.” In “Digital Empires” (Oxford), her comprehensive and insightful book on global Internet policy, she describes a series of skirmishes—between regulators and companies, and among regulators themselves—whose outcomes will “shape the future ethos of the digital society and define the soul of the digital economy.”
Other recent books echo this sense of the network as being at a critical juncture. Tom Wheeler, a former chairman of the F.C.C., argues in “Techlash: Who Makes the Rules in the Digital Gilded Age?” (Brookings) that we are at “a legacy moment for this generation to determine whether, and how, it will assert the public interest in the new digital environment.” In “The Internet Con” (Verso), Doctorow makes a passionate case for “relief from manipulation, high-handed moderation, surveillance, price-gouging, disgusting or misleading algorithmic suggestions”; he argues that it is time to “dismantle Big Tech’s control over our digital lives and devolve control to the people.” In “Read Write Own” (Random House), Chris Dixon, a venture capitalist, says that a network dominated by a handful of private interests “is neither the internet I want to see nor the world I wish to live in.” He writes, “Think about how much of your life you live online, how much of your identity resides there. . . . Whom do you want in control of that world?”…(More)”.
How Organizations Build Trust
Article by Kristen Grimm: “Trust for institutions across society is declining. This is not a theory but a fact, affirmed by leading experts like the Edelman Trust Barometer, Gallup, and General Social Survey by NORC at the University of Chicago.
This growing trust deficit is a serious problem. It erodes a high-functioning pluralistic democracy, compromises public health, and makes it impossible to solve collective problems like climate change. Trust in institutions is necessary to create and improve the social contracts that govern democracy and allow communities and the nation to strike sustainable civic bargains. Trust doesn’t just happen. It is earned person by person, moving through large segments of society.
American civil society institutions have an important role to play. From nonprofits advancing dignity and rights, to academia creating space to explore the issues of the day, to community organizations building confidence in our elections—each contributes to the expansion or decline of social trust. Trust-building is actions aligned to values—it’s not just communicating about what matters, but doing it.
For leaders of civil society organizations, earning, rebuilding, and maintaining trust is a complicated but doable and essential undertaking to achieve their mission. They need to understand the context in which they are building trust across diverse groups of people, from staff to partners to the people they serve to society at large.
The job is made harder by bad actors in society who deliberately undermine trust. Those who are pitting communities against each other and sowing misinformation are harnessing faster and fancier tools to do their worst. For civil society leaders to reverse the growing trust deficit and use social trust to bridge rather than divide society, leaders need to be equally well equipped…(More)”.
Systems Ultra: Making Sense of Technology in a Complex World
Book by Georgina Voss: “…explores how we experience complex systems: the mesh of things, people, and ideas interacting to produce their own patterns and behaviours.
What does it mean when a car which runs on code drives dangerously? What does massmarket graphics software tell us about the workplace politics of architects? And, in these human-made systems, which phenomena are designed, and which are emergent? In a world of networked technologies, global supply chains, and supranational regulations, there are growing calls for a new kind of literacy around systems and their ramifications. At the same time, we are often told these systems are impossible to fully comprehend and are far beyond our control.
Drawing on field research and artistic practice around the industrial settings of ports, air traffic control, architectural software, payment platforms in adult entertainment, and car crash testing, Georgina Voss argues that complex systems can be approached as sites of revelation around scale, time, materiality, deviance, and breakages. With humour and guile, she tells the story of what ‘systems’ have come to mean, how they have been sold to us, and the real-world consequences of the power that flows through them.
Systems Ultra goes beyond narratives of technological exceptionalism to explore how we experience the complex systems which influence our lives, how to understand them more clearly, and, perhaps, how to change them…(More)”.
Regulating AI Deepfakes and Synthetic Media in the Political Arena
Report by Daniel Weiner and Lawrence Norden: “…Part I of this resource defines the terms deepfake, synthetic media, and manipulated media in more detail. Part II sets forth some necessary considerations for policymakers, specifically:
- The most plausible rationales for regulating deepfakes and other manipulated media when used in the political arena. In general, the necessity of promoting an informed electorate and the need to safeguard the overall integrity of the electoral process are among the most compelling rationales for regulating manipulated media in the political space.
- The types of communications that should be regulated. Regulations should reach synthetic images and audio as well as video. Policymakers should focus on curbing or otherwise limiting depictions of events or statements that did not actually occur, especially those appearing in paid campaign ads and certain other categories of paid advertising or otherwise widely disseminated communications. All new rules should have clear carve-outs for parody, news media stories, and potentially other types of protected speech.
- How such media should be regulated. Transparency rules — for example, rules requiring a manipulated image or audio recording to be clearly labeled as artificial and not a portrayal of real events — will usually be easiest to defend in court. Transparency will not always be enough, however; lawmakers should also consider outright bans of certain categories of manipulated media, such as deceptive audio and visual material seeking to mislead people about the time, place, and manner of voting.
- Who regulations should target. Both bans and less burdensome transparency requirements should primarily target those who create or disseminate deceptive media, although regulation of the platforms used to transmit deepfakes may also make sense…(More)”.
2023 OECD Digital Government Index
OECD Report: “Digital government is essential to transform government processes and services in ways that improve the responsiveness and reliability of the public sector. During the COVID-19 pandemic it also proved crucial to governments’ ability to continue operating in times of crisis and provide timely services to citizens and businesses. Yet, for the digital transformation to be sustainable in the long term, it needs solid foundations, including adaptable governance arrangements, reliable and resilient digital public infrastructure, and a prospective approach to governing with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. This paper presents the main findings of the 2023 edition of the OECD Digital Government Index (DGI), which benchmarks the efforts made by governments to establish the foundations necessary for a coherent, human-centred digital transformation of the public sector. It comprises 155 data points from 33 member countries, 4 accession countries and 1 partner country collected in 2022, covering the period between 01 January 2020 and 31 October 2022…(More)”
Can GovTech really rebuild trust through public innovation?
Article by the World Economic Forum: “Entrepreneurial civil servants, creative bureaucracies, agile stability, digital state.
These terms sound like oxymorons, yet they are foundational to tackling the world’s complex societal challenges. And these ideas are already becoming a reality in some parts of the world. Introducing what will become one of the biggest software markets in the world: government technology or GovTech.
GovTech is about applying digitization and emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), advanced sensing, blockchain, advanced data processing etc., to improve the delivery of public services by increasing efficiency, lowering costs and creating entirely new public value.
The sector is estimated to be worth over $1 trillion by 2028 and is critical to making public services more efficient, effective and accessible for citizens. It will be the key to the government’s ability to deliver outcomes and build and sustain trust in a context of increasing contestation and rising expectations from digitally native citizens…(More)”.
10 Examples of Successful African e-Government Digital Services
Article by Wayan Vota: “African countries are implementing a diverse range of e-Government services, aiming to improve service delivery, enhance efficiency, and promote transparency. For example, common e-Government services in African countries include:
- Online Government Portals: African countries are increasingly offering online services such as e-taxation, e-payment, and e-billing through online government portals, which allow citizens to access public services more efficiently and provide governments with prompt feedback on service quality.
- Digital Identity Initiatives: Many African countries are working on digital identity initiatives to improve service delivery, including the introduction of national IDs with biometric data components to generate documents and provide services automatically, reducing paperwork and enhancing efficiency.
- G2G, G2B, and G2C Activities: e-Government services to different groups, like Government-to-Government (G2G), Government-to-Business (G2B), and Government-to-Citizen (G2C) focuses on activities such as electoral processes, staff payroll payments, healthcare management systems, support for small businesses, and transparent procurement procedures…
Successful eGovernment initiatives in African countries have significantly improved government services and citizen engagement. These examples are part of a broader trend in Africa towards leveraging digital technologies to improve governance and public administration, with many countries making significant implementation progress…(More)”.