Politics and policy of Artificial Intelligence

While recent discussions about Artificial Intelligence (AI) as one of the most powerful technologies of our times tend to portray it as a predominantly technical issue, it also has major social, political and cultural implications. So far these have been mostly studied from ethical, legal and economic perspectives, while politics and policy have received less attention. To address this gap, this special issue brings together nine research articles to advance the studies of politics and policy of AI by identifying emerging themes and setting out future research agenda. Diverse but complementary contributions in this special issue speak to five overarching themes: understanding the AI as co-shaped by technology and politics; highlighting the role of ideas in AI politics and policy; examining the distribution of power; interrogating the relationship between novel technology and continuity in politics and policy; and exploring interactions among developments at local, national, regional and global levels. This special issue demonstrates that AI policy is not an apolitical field that can be dealt with just by relying on knowledge and expertise but requires an open debate among alternative views, ideas, values and interests.     

The Regulation of Government Advertising in Australia: The Politicisation of a Public Policy Issue

In Australia, there is a laissez faire approach to regulating government advertising but, over the past ten years as accusations of misuse for partisan purposes have grown, many external policy actors have tried to achieve a change in policy. This article traces the history of these (failed) reform attempts. This case study is of interest because it is an example of a government demonstrating long‐term resistance to reforms that are quite modest by international standards and despite attempts by usually influential policy actors to propel reform. This article draws particular attention to the role of the Auditor‐General and demonstrates the growing politicisation of the issue in an environment where those who seek to investigate and comment upon government advertising are severely discouraged.     

Policy Substance and Performance in American Lawmaking, 1877–1994

This article reconsiders the importance of including policy issue content and legislative significance in our study of lawmaking. Specifically, it demonstrates theoretically why lawmaking might vary by policy substance and empirically shows how incorrect conclusions would be drawn if lawmaking is studied by pooling enactments instead of disaggregating laws by policy issue content. It accomplishes this by bringing new tools, including a policy classification system and a way to measure the significance of public laws, to help overcome an array of measurement-related problems that have stymied our ability to better understand lawmaking. The policy coding schema introduced is applied, by careful individual human coding, to every public law enacted between 1877 and 1994 (n = 37,767). The policy issue and significance data are used to construct a number of new measures of legislative performance and are useful to test hypotheses within studies of Congress and American Political Development.     

Issue Importance and Performance Voting

Issue importance mediates the impact of public policy issues on electoral decisions. Individuals who consider that an issue is important are more likely to rely on their attitudes toward that issue when evaluating candidates and deciding for whom to vote. The logic behind the link between issue importance and issue voting should translate to a link between issue importance and performance voting. Incumbent performance evaluations regarding an issue should have a stronger impact on the vote choice of individuals who find that issue important. The analysis demonstrates that there is a significant interaction between performance evaluations and issue importance. People concerned about an issue assign more weight to their evaluations of the government's performance on that issue when making up their mind.     

Revisiting the governance of privacy: Contemporary policy instruments in global perspective

The repertoire of policy instruments within a particular policy sector varies by jurisdiction; some “tools of government” are associated with particular administrative and regulatory traditions and political cultures. It is less clear how the instruments associated with a particular policy sector may change over time, as economic, social, and technological conditions evolve. In the early 2000s, we surveyed and analyzed the global repertoire of policy instruments deployed to protect personal data. In this article, we explore how those instruments have changed as a result of 15 years of social, economic and technological transformations, during which the issue has assumed a far higher global profile, as one of the central policy questions associated with modern networked communications. We review the contemporary range of transnational, regulatory, self‐regulatory, and technical instruments according to the same framework, and conclude that the types of policy instrument have remained relatively stable, even though they are now deployed on a global scale. While the labels remain the same, however, the conceptual foundations for their legitimation and justification are shifting as greater emphases on accountability, risk, ethics, and the social/political value of privacy have gained purchase. Our analysis demonstrates both continuity and change within the governance of privacy, and displays how we would have tackled the same research project today. As a broader case study of regulation, it highlights the importance of going beyond technical and instrumental labels. Change or stability of policy instruments does not take place in isolation from the wider conceptualizations that shape their meaning, purpose, and effect.     

Lobbying and uncertainty: Lobbying's varying response to different political events

Does political uncertainty affect whether lobbyists contact government officials? We suggest that the answer depends on the type of uncertainty introduced. Distinguishing between policy objective uncertainty—where organized interests and lobbyists are uncertain about the policy intentions of decision makers—and issue information uncertainty—where policymakers are uncertain about the technical details of issues—we hypothesize that whereas an increase in policy objective uncertainty leads to a decrease in lobbying, a rise in issue information uncertainty leads to more lobbying. We test the hypotheses with longitudinal data from the Canadian Lobbyists Registry measuring change in the number of times lobbyists have contacted government ministries each month from 2008 to 2018. The results suggest that lobbying intensity does respond differently to these types of uncertainty. Whereas events introducing issue information uncertainty have a statistically significant positive relationship with lobbying, events introducing policy objective uncertainty do not.     

Political Science Perspectives on Human Rights

This special issue of Human Rights Review is devoted to an exploration of the current human rights research agendas within the political science discipline. Research on human rights is truly an interdisciplinary quest in which various epistemologies can contribute to each other and form a larger dialogue concerning rights and wrongs. This special issue is devoted to an expansive understanding of the state of research on human rights in the political science discipline. One common theme throughout these contributions is the need for a more nuanced conceptualization of human rights, tools to promote these rights and as social scientists, methodologies employed to study these rights. A second theme is the policy relevance that can be derived from our empirical analysis. This volume demonstrates that the integration of theoretically and normatively rich concepts, empirical social science, and policy relevance do not have to be mutually exclusive when studying human rights.     

Policy Diffusion: The Issue‐Definition Stage

We put forward a new approach to studying issue definition within the context of policy diffusion. Most studies of policy diffusion—which is the process by which policymaking in one government affects policymaking in other governments—have focused on policy adoptions. We shift the focus to an important but neglected aspect of this process: the issue‐definition stage. We use topic models to estimate how policies are framed during this stage and how these frames are predicted by prior policy adoptions. Focusing on smoking restriction in U.S. states, our analysis draws upon an original data set of over 52,000 paragraphs from newspapers covering 49 states between 1996 and 2013. We find that frames regarding the policy's concrete implications are predicted by prior adoptions in other states, whereas frames regarding its normative justifications are not. Our approach and findings open the way for a new perspective to studying policy diffusion in many different areas.     

Measuring issue-salience in voters' preferences

We provide a new approach to the measurement of issue salience that explains how the salience of an issue among voters and the position of the parties on a given issue interact to each other and determine vote choices and aggregate election results. Analyzing the spatial model of voting, we show how voting probabilities can be estimated by a multinomial logit regression where the ideal policy locations of voters on each issue dimensions are independent variables, and where no individual specific perception about the location of the political parties is used in the regression. The pieces of survey information that are used to calculate issue-salience are: i) specific position of respondents on each issue dimension, ii) vote choice, and iii) the policy position of parties on each issue dimension, which is measured by the mean perceived position. Rather, only an aggregate estimate of party positions on issues is needed. To demonstrate the mechanics and value of the approach, we analyze regional elections in the Basque province of Spain. In that region, we find that the left-right dimension is about two times more salient than nationalism. The nationalism issue is, however, more divisive than the left-right issue. This shows that the issue that voters care more about, may not coincide with the issue on which the parties offer more distinctive policies.     

How ‘integrated’ is integrated rural development? The case of the Pompengan Integrated Area Development Project (PIADP), Luwu district,South Sulawesi,Indonesia

Integrated rural development is often presented as an effective strategy against rural poverty in Indonesia. In this article the author discusses the case of the Pompengan Integrated Area Development Project (PIADP) in Luwu, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, where a programme for land reform was part of the ‘integrated’ approach. In explaining the outcome of PIADP, the author analyses two properties of intervention itself in relation to the context in which it took place: first, land reform as a donor development priority which was planned and implemented as a purely technical and administrative operation; and, second, the production-oriented character of planning, which further isolated land reform from its local context. It is concluded that PIADP was characterized by fragmentation, competition and conflict rather than ‘integratedness’. Therefore, rather than taking such policy language for granted and accepting the policy instruments it represents as ‘models for development’, we should critically analyse the sphere of policy implementation. In the case of rural development in Indonesia, the depoliticized character of land policy and its reduction to a technical-administrative routine is a major issue to be addressed before land reform and integrated rural development can make a significant contribution to the eradication of rural poverty in Indonesia.     

Does the policy cycle reflect the policymaking approach in Ghana?

Based on two cases involving 60 interviews and secondary evidence, this paper investigated whether Ghana's policymaking approach accorded with the policy cycle. The evidence showed that the Ghana industrial policy was largely compliant with the model. But the free senior high school policy bore little resemblance to it. Factors that determined whether or not policymaking followed the policy cycle included the salience of the issue, the sponsor of the issue, the political environment at the time, and the timing of the introduction of the issue. Four conclusions can be drawn from the Ghanaian evidence. First, the rough edges of the policy cycle can be trimmed and applied as a best fit model rather than a best practice model in any jurisdiction. Second, the policy cycle like other policy process theories should not be written off as inappropriate or inefficacious simply because practice failed to adhere to one or two out of the several elements of the theory. Third, an integrated policy process model is likely to be more efficacious than a single one, but there is inattention to such an idea. Finally, drawing lessons from policy process theories is a neglected area, which needs to be emphasized.     

Looking through a policy window with tinted glasses: Setting the agenda for U.S. AI policy

The policy agenda is currently being established for artificial intelligence (AI), a domain marked by complex and sweeping implications for economic transformation tempered by concerns about social and ethical risks. This article reviews the United States national AI policy strategy through extensive qualitative and quantitative content analysis of 63 strategic AI policy documents curated by the federal government between 2016 and 2020. Drawing on a prominent theory of agenda setting, the Multiple Streams Framework, and in light of competing paradigms of technology policy, this article reviews how the U.S. government understands the key policy problems, solutions, and issue frames associated with AI. Findings indicate minimal attention to focusing events or problem indicators emphasizing social and ethical concerns, as opposed to economic and geopolitical ones. Further, broad statements noting ethical dimensions of AI often fail to translate into specific policy solutions, which may be explained by a lack of technical feasibility or value acceptability of ethics-related policy solutions, along with institutional constraints for agencies in specific policy sectors. Finally, despite widespread calls for increased public participation, proposed solutions remain expert dominated. Overall, while the emerging U.S. AI policy agenda reflects a striking level of attention to ethics—a promising development for policy stakeholders invested in AI ethics and more socially oriented approaches to technology governance—this success is only partial and is ultimately layered into a traditional strategic approach to innovation policy.     

Public Management Policymaking in Spain: The Politics of Legislative Reform of Administrative Structures, 1991–1997

This case study focuses on extending research knowledge about the politics of public management policymaking in Spain. The case involves legislating to change politically sensitive features of the central government and administration. The study explains such analytically significant event conditions as: an agenda‐setting process that made a policy issue of the formal, structural attributes of state administration, an alternative‐specification process that proceeded without complication, and a decisional process that lasted five years and in which political leaders' positions on the issue flip‐flopped. Broadly speaking, the case analysis demonstrates that when policy proposals take the form of legislation, the politics of public management policymaking in Spain are highly influenced by political stream factors, themselves reflecting Spain's parliamentary form of government and relations between statewide and regional political parties.     

Policy success for whom? A framework for analysis

This article develops a heuristic framework to help analysts navigate an important but under-researched issue: ‘policy success for whom?’ It identifies different forms of policy success across the policy making, program, political and temporal realms, to assess how a specific policy can differentially benefit a variety of stakeholders, including governments, lobbyists, not-for-profits, community groups and individuals. The article identifies a three-step process to aid researchers in examining any policy initiative in order to understand the forms and extent of success experienced by any actor/stakeholder. Central to these steps is the examination of plausible assessments and counter assessments to help interrogate issues of ‘success for whom.’ The article demonstrates a practical application of the framework to a case study focused on the Fixing Houses for Better Health (FHBH) program in Australia—a time-limited Commonwealth government-funded program aimed at improving Indigenous health outcomes by fixing housing.

     

Localism in environmental policy: New insights from an old case

Determining the appropriate balance between local and national interests is an enduring issue in public and environmental policy. Study of this issue, however, has been impeded by the theory of agency capture. This paper demonstrates the limitations of capture theory with respect to localism and provides a new perspective on the issue by revisiting the case of the U.S. Division of Grazing, a common example in the literature of a captured agency. Until now, the over-extension of capture theory to this case has obscured the division's extensive efforts to balance local and federal influence over range policy and prevent domination by large private interests. At the center of this struggle was a prominent legal dispute over local control involving Colorado sheepherder Joseph Livingston. As a detailed debate over political representation and the merits of localism, the Livingston case holds important lessons for modern community-based conservation efforts seeking similar policy goals.     

Epistemic contestation and interagency conflict: The challenge of regulating investment funds

Scholarship on regulating global finance emphasizes the importance of national and bureaucratic interests, but less attention has been devoted to epistemic sources of regulatory conflict. We address this by analyzing the failure of regulators to agree tougher rules for large investment funds after the 2008 crisis. The article suggests this outcome was the result of epistemic contestation between prudential regulators and securities regulators, rooted in divergent interpretive “frames.” We show that US and EU prudential regulators pushed for entity-based regulation of investment funds by escalating the issue to global standard-setting bodies. But this was successfully resisted by securities regulators that exercised epistemic authority through recursive practices—appeals to expertise, jurisdictional claims, and alliance building—to defend their transaction-based approach. The article demonstrates how an interpretivist perspective can provide new insights into inter-agency conflict and regulatory disputes in other policy fields.     

The Sino-Russian Space Entente

Cooperation on space issues has been one of the elements of the Russian-Chinese strategic partnership, and includes both technological and political dimensions. As a rising space power with an ambitious space exploration program, China has greatly benefited from proven Russian technology and knowledge. Additionally, Russia and China have united their voices on the issue of space weaponization, and have coordinated their efforts in the international fora. Through analyzing political and technical cooperation on space issues between the two nations, prospects for, and limits of, the Sino-Russian strategic partnership in space are assessed. The conclusion is reached that building on a Russian technological base, China is gradually transforming from a recipient of Russian technical assistance to an equal partner in complex scientific projects. The issue of technology transfer, however, is sensitive for Russia and places limits on cooperation. At the same time, a change in the United States approach to both states challenges the Sino-Russian space entente, both in its technical and political dimensions, and in the long-term viability of a strategic partnership.     

Global Public Policy, Partnership, and the Case of the World Commission on Dams

This article examines the potential for partnership to address two major challenges in public service: (1) the evolving sociopolitical context of public service, that is, the increasing incidence and intensity of conflict among diverse stakeholders; and (2) the formulation of acceptable and feasible global public policy. The partnership approach, its value added, and its operationalization are examined through the World Commission on Dams, a partnership designed to resolve conflicts over large dam projects. The analysis identifies lessons that are specific to conflict-based partnerships for global public policy making and regarding partnership work more generally. The importance of converging interests, policy champions, democratic processes, and perception are highlighted. Intense conflict provides incentives for joint solution, but process agreement is paramount, and conflict resolution is not a one-time effort for all. The World Commission on Dams demonstrates that partnership is an effective and efficient approach to addressing conflictive policy issues.     

Planning science and technology policy

Long-range policy planning for international scientific and technological affairs has been hindered by a variety of problems. One is the overall crisis-response nature of foreign policymaking and another is the difficulty of developing technical information needed for sound forecasts. Within the State Department the record of attempts to establish systematic planning amply demonstrates the problems. Nevertheless, a number of key conclusions can be drawn from the few successful experiments in policy planning: An effective planning staff should combine the skills of both foreign policy specialists and scientists; planners should be closely familiar with, but not involved in, operations; the planning role requires consistent support from senior officials; the power to influence budgets significantly strengthens the planning function.