Paper by Cass R. Sunstein: “Experiments of Living Constitutionalism urges that the Constitution should be interpreted so as to allow both individuals and groups to experiment with different ways of living, whether we are speaking of religious practices, family arrangements, political associations, civic associations, child-rearing, schooling, romance, or work. Experiments of Living Constitutionalism prizes diversity and plurality; it gives pride of place to freedom of speech, freedom of association, and free exercise of religion (which it would protect against the imposition of secular values); it cherishes federalism; it opposes authoritarianism in all its forms. While Experiments of Living Constitutionalism... (More >)
Studying open government data: Acknowledging practices and politics
Paper by Gijs van Maanen: “Open government and open data are often presented as the Asterix and Obelix of modern government—one cannot discuss one, without involving the other. Modern government, in this narrative, should open itself up, be more transparent, and allow the governed to have a say in their governance. The usage of technologies, and especially the communication of governmental data, is then thought to be one of the crucial instruments helping governments achieving these goals. Much open government data research, hence, focuses on the publication of open government data, their reuse, and re-users. Recent research trends, by... (More >)
Addressing the Global Data Divide through Digital Trade Law
Paper by Binit Agrawal and Neha Mishra: “The global data divide has emerged as a major policy challenge threatening equitable development, poverty alleviation, and access to information. Further, it has polarised countries on either side of the data schism, who have often reacted by implementing conflicting and sub-optimal measures. This paper surveys such policy measures, the politics behind them, and the footprints they have left on the digital trade or electronic commerce rules contained in free trade agreements (FTAs). First, this paper details an understanding of what constitutes the global data divide, focusing on three components, namely access, regulation,... (More >)
A Comparative Study of Citizen Crowdsourcing Platforms and the Use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) for Effective Participatory Democracy
Paper by Carina Antonia Hallin: ‘The use of crowdsourcing platforms to harness citizen insights for policymaking has gained increasing importance in regional and national policy planning. Participatory democracy using crowdsourcing platforms includes various initiatives, such as generating ideas for new law reforms (Aitamurto and Landemore 2015], economic development, and solving challenges related to how to create inclusive social actions and interventions for better, healthier, and more prosperous local communities (Bentley and Pugalis, 2014). Such case observations, coupled with the increasing prevalence of internet-based communication, point to the real benefits of implementing participatory democracies on a mass scale in which... (More >)
The ethical and legal landscape of brain data governance
Paper by Paschal Ochang , Bernd Carsten Stahl, and Damian Eke: “Neuroscience research is producing big brain data which informs both advancements in neuroscience research and drives the development of advanced datasets to provide advanced medical solutions. These brain data are produced under different jurisdictions in different formats and are governed under different regulations. The governance of data has become essential and critical resulting in the development of various governance structures to ensure that the quality, availability, findability, accessibility, usability, and utility of data is maintained. Furthermore, data governance is influenced by various ethical and legal principles. However, it... (More >)
Liquid Democracy. Two Experiments on Delegation in Voting
Paper by Joseph Campbell, Alessandra Casella, Lucas de Lara, Victoria R. Mooers & Dilip Ravindran: “Under Liquid Democracy (LD), decisions are taken by referendum, but voters are allowed to delegate their votes to other voters. Theory shows that in common interest problems where experts are correctly identified, the outcome can be superior to simple majority voting. However, even when experts are correctly identified, delegation must be used sparely because it reduces the variety of independent information sources. We report the results of two experiments, each studying two treatments: in one treatment, participants have the option of delegating to better... (More >)
The ethics of artificial intelligence, UNESCO and the African Ubuntu perspective
Paper by Dorine Eva van Norren: “This paper aims to demonstrate the relevance of worldviews of the global south to debates of artificial intelligence, enhancing the human rights debate on artificial intelligence (AI) and critically reviewing the paper of UNESCO Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST) that preceded the drafting of the UNESCO guidelines on AI. Different value systems may lead to different choices in programming and application of AI. Programming languages may acerbate existing biases as a people’s worldview is captured in its language. What are the implications for AI when seen from a... (More >)
The Strength of Knowledge Ties
Paper by Luca Maria Aiello: “Social relationships are probably the most important things we have in our life. They help us to get new jobs, live longer, and be happier. At the scale of cities, networks of diverse social connections determine the economic prospects of a population. The strength of social ties is believed one of the key factors that regulate these outcomes. According to Granovetter’s classic theory about tie strength, information flows through social ties of two strengths: weak ties that are used infrequently but bridge distant groups that tend to posses diverse knowledge; and strong ties, that... (More >)
The 15-Minute City Quantified Using Mobility Data
Paper by Timur Abbiasov et al: “Americans travel 7 to 9 miles on average for shopping and recreational activities, which is far longer than the 15-minute (walking) city advocated by ecologically-oriented urban planners. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of local trip behavior in US cities using GPS data on individual trips from 40 million mobile devices. We define local usage as the share of trips made within 15-minutes walking distance from home, and find that the median US city resident makes only 12% of their daily trips within such a short distance. We find that differences in access... (More >)
Smart City Technologies: A Political Economy Introduction to Their Governance Challenges
Paper by Beatriz Botero Arcila: “Smart cities and smart city technologies are terms used to refer to computational models of urbanism and to data-driven and algorithmically intermediated technologies. Smart city technologies intend to plan for and deliver new efficiencies, insights, and conveniences on city services. At the same time, in instances when these tools are involved in decision-making processes that don’t have right or wrong mathematical answers, they present important challenges related to cementing inequality, discrimination, and surveillance. This chapter is an introduction to the governance challenges smart city technologies pose. It includes an overview of the literature, focusing... (More >)
