Paper by Bissera Zankova: “The purpose of the study is to analyze the role of social media to boost democratic citizenship and contribute to the creation of smart environment through the perspective of direct democracy in Bulgaria. The issue of “smart cities” will be tackled from a broader media and communication perspective. The term “smart city” does not denote the symbiosis between urban development and new information technologies only but it signifies a new vibrant social ecology rooted in the thorough use of the Internet for wider democratic participation. As a theoretical basis of my survey I shall use Dewey’s model of the inherent bond between communication and enlightened citizenry and Robert Putnam’s theory about the social capital facilitated by social networks generating trust and solidarity among community members. As a case study I shall dwell on local democracy and particularly on two recent referendums in Bulgaria (2017) – in the cities of Tran and Stara Zagora, their basic premises, claims, organization, social media use, outcomes and impact. Though not mandatory for the governing bodies the referendums’ results demonstrated the level of social activity in the country underpinned by networks. Democracy should be understood best through the Abraham Lincoln’s centuries-cherished metaphor as “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. In the current research I build on a previous investigation done in 2013 on civic journalism, blogs and protests in Bulgaria and on my contribution to the book “Smart journalism” (Zankova, Skolkay, Franklin (2016), presenting findings from the New Media Literacy Project 2012 – 2014. This interdisciplinary paper will be useful for both academics and practitioners and specifically for media specialists who will get knowledge about the state of direct democracy in a new democratic country in SEE, new media non/ contribution to this state and what the necessary conditions are to make this democracy really workable at a community level to turn the cities into future-oriented democratic centres….(More)”
Age of the expert as policymaker is coming to an end
Wolfgang Münchau at the Financial Times: “…Where the conflation of the expert and the policymaker did real damage was not to policy but to expertdom itself. It compromised the experts’ most prized asset — their independence.
When economics blogging started to become fashionable, I sat on a podium with an academic blogger who predicted that people like him would usurp the role of the economics newspaper columnist within a period of 10 years. That was a decade ago. His argument was that trained economists were just smarter. What he did not reckon with is that it is hard to speak truth to power when you have to beg that power to fund your think-tank or institute. E
ven less so once you are politically attached or appointed. Independence matters. A good example of a current issue where lack of independence gets in the way is the debate on cryptocurrencies. I agree that governments should not lightly concede the money monopoly of the state, which is at the heart of our economic system. But I sometimes wonder whether those who hyperventilate about crypto do so because they find the whole concept offensive. Cryptocurrencies embody a denial of economics. There are no monetary policy committees. Cryptocurrencies may, or may not, damage the economy. But they surely damage the economist.
Even the best arguments lose power when they get mixed up with personal interests. If you want to be treated as an independent authority, do not join a policy committee, or become a minister or central banker. As soon as you do, you have changed camps. You may think of yourself as an expert. The rest of the world does not. The minimum needed to maintain or regain credibility is to state conflicts of interests openly. The only option in such cases is to be transparent. This is also why financial journalists have to declare the shares they own. The experts I listen to are those who are independent, and who do not follow a political agenda. The ones I avoid are the zealots and those who wander off their reservation and make pronouncements without inhibition. An economist may have strong views on the benefits of vaccination, for example, but is still no expert on the subject. And I often cringe when I hear a doctor trying to prove a point by using statistics. The world will continue to need policymakers and the experts who advise them. But more than that, it needs them to be independent….(More)”.
Modernizing Congress: Bringing Democracy into the 21st Century
Report by Lorelei Kelly: “Congress represents a national cross section of civic voice. It is potentially the most diverse market for ideas in government and should be reaping the benefits of America’s creativity and knowledge. During our transition into the 21st century, this civic information asset — from lived experience to structured data — should fuel the digital infrastructure of a modern representative system. Yet Congress has thus far failed to tap this resource on behalf of its legislative and deliberative functions.
Today’s Congress can’t compete on digital infrastructure or modern data methods with the executive branch, the media or the private sector. To be sure, information weaponization, antique technology and Congress’ stubborn refusal to fund itself has arrested its development of a digital infrastructure. Congress is knowledge incapacitated, physically disconnected and technologically obsolete. In this condition, it cannot fulfill its First Branch duties as laid out in Article I of the U.S. Constitution.
Fortunately, changing the direction of Congress is now in sight. Before the end of January 2019, (1) the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act became law, (2) the House created a Select Committee on Modernization, and (3) Congress began to restore its internal science and technology capacity.
Modernizing Congress lays out a plan to accelerate this institutional progress. It scopes out the challenge of including civic voice in the legislative and deliberative process. It then identifies trusted local information intermediaries who could act as key components of a modern knowledge commons in Congress. With three case studies, the report illustrates how members and staff are finding new ways to build connection and gather useful constituent input at the district level. The report explores an urban, rural and suburban district. It concludes that while individual members are leveraging technology to connect and use new forms of civic voice from constituents, what Congress needs most is a systemwide digital infrastructure and updated institutional standards for data collection….(More)”.
Make FOIA Work
“Make FOIA Work is about re-imagining journalism through design, participation and collaboration. Faculty, staff and students at Emerson College and the Engagement Lab staff worked alongside the Boston Institute of Nonprofit Journalism (BINJ) and MuckRock, two independent and alternative news and information platforms and publishers, to produce a data-driven and engagement-based investigative reporting series that exposes corruption around the sales of guns in Massachusetts. Through design studios in participatory methods and data visualization, project participants created a participatory guide book for journalists, practitioners and community members on how to undertake participatory design projects with a focus on FOIA requests, community participation, and collaboration. The project also highlights the course syllabi in participatory design methods and data visualization….(More)”.
Smarter Select Committees
Theo Bass at Nesta: “This report outlines how digital tools and methods can help select committees restore public trust in democracy, reinvigorate public engagement in Parliament and enhance the work of committees themselves.
Since their establishment in 1979, select committees have provided one of our most important democratic functions. At their best, committees gather available evidence, data and insight; tap into public experiences and concerns; provide a space for thoughtful deliberation; and help parliament make better decisions. However, the 40th anniversary of select committees presents an important opportunity to re-examine this vital parliamentary system to ensure they are fit for the 21st century.
Since 2012 select committees have committed to public engagement as a ‘core task’ of their work, but their approach has not been systematic and they still struggle to reach beyond the usual suspects, or find ways to gather relevant knowledge quickly and effectively. With public trust in democracy deteriorating, the imperative to innovate, improve legitimacy and find new ways to involve people in national politics is stronger than ever. This is where digital innovation can help.
If used effectively, digital tools and methods offer select committees the opportunity to be more transparent and accessible to a wider range of people, improving relevance and impact. Like any good public engagement, this needs careful design, without which digital participation risks being distorting and unhelpful, amplifying the loudest or least informed voices.
To achieve success, stronger ambition and commitment by senior staff and MPs, as well as experimentation and learning through trial and improvement will be essential. We recommend that the UK Parliament commits to running at least five pilots for digital participation, which we outline in more detail in the final section of this report….(More)”.
Crowdsourcing and Crisis Mapping in Complex Emergencies
Guidance paper by Andrew Skuse: “…examines the use of crowdsourcing and crisis mapping during complex emergencies. Crowdsourcing is a process facilitated by new information and communication technologies (ICTs), social media platforms and dedicated software programs. It literally seeks the help of ‘the crowd’, volunteers or the general public, to complete a series of specific tasks such as data collection, reporting, document contribution and so on. Crowdsourcing is important in emergency situations because it allows for a critical link to be forged between those affected by an emergency and those who are responding to it. Crowdsourcing is often used by news organisations to gather information, i.e. citizen journalism, as well as by organisations concerned with emergencies and humanitarian aid, i.e. International Committee of the Red Cross, the Standby Task Force and CrisisCommons. Here, crowdsourced data on voting practices and electoral violence, as well as the witnessing of human rights contraventions are helping to improve accountability and transparency in fragile or conflict-prone states. Equally, crowdsourcing facilitates the sharing of individual and collective experiences, the gathering of specialized knowledge, the undertaking of collective mapping tasks and the engagement of the public through ‘call-outs’ for information…(More)”.
Public Entrepreneurship: How to train 21st century leaders
Beth Noveck at apolitical: “So how do we develop these better ways of working in government? How do we create a more effective public service?
Governments, universities and philanthropies are beginning to invest in training those inside and outside of government in new kinds of public entrepreneurial skills. They are also innovating in how they teach.
Canada has created a new Digital Academy to teach digital literacy to all 250,000 public servants. Among other approaches, they have created a 15 minute podcast series called bus rides to enable public servants to learn on their commute.
The better programs, like Canada’s, combine online and face-to-face methods. This is what Israel does in its Digital Leaders program. This nine-month program alternates between web- and live meetings as well as connecting learners to a global, online network of digital innovators.
Many countries have started to teach human-centred design to public servants, instructing officials in how to design services with, not simply for the public, as WeGov does in Brazil. in Chile, the UAI University has just begun teaching quantitative skills, offering three day intensives in data science for public servants.
The GovLab also offers a nifty, free online program called Solving Public Problems with Data.
The Public sector learning
To ensure that learning translates into practice, Australia’s BizLab Academy, turns students into teachers by using alumni of their human-centred design training as mentors for new students.
The Cities of Orlando and Sao Paulo go beyond training public servants. Orlando includes members of the public in its training program for city officials. Because they are learning to redesign services with citizens, the public participates in the training.
The Sao Paulo Abierta program uses citizens as trainers for the city’s public servants. Over 23,000 of them have studied with these lay trainers, who possess the innovation skills that are in short supply in government. In fact, public officials are prohibited from teaching in the program altogether.
Image from the ten recommendations for training public entrepreneurs. Read all the recommendations here.
Recognising that it is not enough to train only a lone innovator or data scientist in a unit, governments are scaling their programs across the public sector.
Argentina’s LabGob has already trained 30,000 people since 2016 in its Design Academy for Public Policy with plans to expand. For every class taken, a public servant earns points, which are a prerequisite for promotions and pay raises in the Argentinian civil service.
Rather than going broad, some training programs are going deep by teaching sector-specific innovation skills. The NHS Digital Academy done in collaboration with Imperial College is a series of six online and four live sessions designed to produce leaders in health innovation.
Innovating in a bureaucracy
In my own work at the GovLab at New York University, we are helping public entrepreneurs take their public interest projects from idea to implementation using coaching, rather than training.
Training classes may be wonderful but leave people feeling abandoned when they return to their desks to face the challenge of innovating within a bureaucracy.
With hands-on mentoring from global leaders and peer-to-peer support, the GovLab Academycoaching programs try to ensure that public servants are getting the help they need to advance innovative projects.
Knowing what innovation skills to teach and how to teach them, however, should depend on asking people what they want. That’s why the Australia New Zealand School of Government is administering a survey asking these questions for public servants there….(More)”.
The clinician crowdsourcing challenge: using participatory design to seed implementation strategies
Paper by Rebecca E. Stewart et al: “In healthcare settings, system and organization leaders often control the selection and design of implementation strategies even though frontline workers may have the most intimate understanding of the care delivery process, and factors that optimize and constrain evidence-based practice implementation within the local system. Innovation tournaments, a structured participatory design strategy to crowdsource ideas, are a promising approach to participatory design that may increase the effectiveness of implementation strategies by involving end users (i.e., clinicians). We utilized a system-wide innovation tournament to garner ideas from clinicians about how to enhance the use of evidence-based practices (EBPs) within a large public behavioral health system…(More)”
Hyper-active Governance How Governments Manage the Politics of Expertise
Book by Matthew Wood: “Hyper-active governance is a new way of thinking about governing that puts debates over expertise at the heart. Contemporary governing requires delegation to experts, but also increases demands for political accountability. In this context, politicians and experts work together under political stress to adopt different governing relationships that appear more ‘hands-off’ or ‘hands-on’. These approaches often serve to displace profound social and economic crises. Only a genuinely collaborative approach to governing, with an inclusive approach to expertise, can create democratically legitimate and effective governance in our accelerating world. Using detailed case studies and global datasets in various policy areas including medicines, flooding, water resources, central banking and electoral administration, the book develops a new typology of modes of governing. Drawing from innovative social theory, it breathes new life into debates about expert forms of governance and how to achieve real paradigm shifts in how we govern our increasingly hyper-active world…(More)”.
How not to conduct a consultation – and why asking the public is not always such a great idea
Agnes Batory & Sara Svensson at Policy and Politics: “Involving people in policy-making is generally a good thing. Policy-makers themselves often pay at least lip-service to the importance of giving citizens a say. In the academic literature, participatory governance has been, with some exaggeration, almost universally hailed as a panacea to all ills in Western democracies. In particular, it is advocated as a way to remedy the alienation of voters from politicians who seem to be oblivious to the concerns of the common man and woman, with an ensuing decline in public trust in government. Representation by political parties is ridden with problems, so the argument goes, and in any case it is overly focused on the act of voting in elections – a one-off event once every few years which limits citizens’ ability to control the policy agenda. On the other hand, various forms of public participation are expected to educate citizens, help develop a civic culture, and boost the legitimacy of decision-making. Consequently, practices to ensure that citizens can provide direct input into policy-making are to be welcomed on both pragmatic and normative grounds.
I do not disagree with these generally positive expectations. However, the main objective of my recent article in Policy and Politics, co-authored with Sara Svensson, is to inject a dose of healthy scepticism into the debate or, more precisely, to show that there are circumstances in which public consultations will achieve anything but greater legitimacy and better policy-outcomes. We do this partly by discussing the more questionable assumptions in the participatory governance literature, and partly by examining a recent, glaring example of the misuse, and abuse, of popular input….(More)”.