Designating statistical capacity development as a target for measurement in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) created a dilemma for statistical decision-makers in the United Nations system, as some saw the inclusion of statistical capacity in SDG17 as a “conflict of interest,” making their work both a goal of the SDGs and a means to achieve them. In 2022, there are five indicators for measuring both the statistical capacity of individual countries and the support provided to strengthen it, including one indicator for measuring a country’s ability to monitor the SDGs themselves. In this article, I argue that the epistemic infrastructuring of statistical capacity into the SDG framework is a privileged case. By parsing the interconnections between the data, actors, networks, and processes that constitute statistical capacity on national and global levels, we can understand how central these materialities and processes are in constituting the larger policy agenda of the SDGs as well as debates over the problems that statistical capacity is meant to solve. Like all indicators in the SDG framework, statistical capacity indicators are performative – defined and delineated by the global statistics community that also helps define and delineate the SDG framework’s development problems. Unlike other indicators, however, statistical capacity indicators have the added weight of also producing the conditions of possibility for the “SDG framework itself.” In this way, debates over what constitutes statistical capacity and its strengthening are also debates about ownership of policy agendas and where tensions between the local and global erupt.
{"title":"Statistical capacity development and the production of epistemic infrastructures","authors":"Marlee Tichenor","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac023","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Designating statistical capacity development as a target for measurement in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) created a dilemma for statistical decision-makers in the United Nations system, as some saw the inclusion of statistical capacity in SDG17 as a “conflict of interest,” making their work both a goal of the SDGs and a means to achieve them. In 2022, there are five indicators for measuring both the statistical capacity of individual countries and the support provided to strengthen it, including one indicator for measuring a country’s ability to monitor the SDGs themselves. In this article, I argue that the epistemic infrastructuring of statistical capacity into the SDG framework is a privileged case. By parsing the interconnections between the data, actors, networks, and processes that constitute statistical capacity on national and global levels, we can understand how central these materialities and processes are in constituting the larger policy agenda of the SDGs as well as debates over the problems that statistical capacity is meant to solve. Like all indicators in the SDG framework, statistical capacity indicators are performative – defined and delineated by the global statistics community that also helps define and delineate the SDG framework’s development problems. Unlike other indicators, however, statistical capacity indicators have the added weight of also producing the conditions of possibility for the “SDG framework itself.” In this way, debates over what constitutes statistical capacity and its strengthening are also debates about ownership of policy agendas and where tensions between the local and global erupt.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74233947","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Traditionally, governments and companies store data to identify persons for services provision and interactions. The rise of self-sovereign identities (SSIs) based on blockchain technologies provides individuals with ownership and control over their personal data and allows them to share their data with others using a sort of “digital safe.” Fundamentally, people have the sole ownership of their identity data and control when and how it is shared, protecting their privacy. As these data need to be validated to be trusted, they may become a more important data source for digital information sharing and transactions than the formal source of identity controlled by governments. Furthermore, SSIs can be used for interacting digitally with any organization. These developments change the relationship between government, companies, and individuals. We explore information sharing and governance in the digital society using blockchain-based SSIs. In addition, the impact of SSIs on data storage in the digital world is assessed. Technology enactment might result in no greater control or privacy and might only reinforce current practices. Finally, we argue that regulation and a combination of centralized and decentralized governance are still required to avoid misuse and ensure that envisaged benefits are realized.
{"title":"Governance and societal impact of blockchain-based self-sovereign identities","authors":"Rachel Benchaya Gans, J. Ubacht, M. Janssen","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac018","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Traditionally, governments and companies store data to identify persons for services provision and interactions. The rise of self-sovereign identities (SSIs) based on blockchain technologies provides individuals with ownership and control over their personal data and allows them to share their data with others using a sort of “digital safe.” Fundamentally, people have the sole ownership of their identity data and control when and how it is shared, protecting their privacy. As these data need to be validated to be trusted, they may become a more important data source for digital information sharing and transactions than the formal source of identity controlled by governments. Furthermore, SSIs can be used for interacting digitally with any organization. These developments change the relationship between government, companies, and individuals. We explore information sharing and governance in the digital society using blockchain-based SSIs. In addition, the impact of SSIs on data storage in the digital world is assessed. Technology enactment might result in no greater control or privacy and might only reinforce current practices. Finally, we argue that regulation and a combination of centralized and decentralized governance are still required to avoid misuse and ensure that envisaged benefits are realized.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88150574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has once again highlighted the importance of social inequalities during major crises, a reality that has clear implications for public policy. In this introductory article to the thematic issue of Policy and Society on COVID-19, inequalities, and public policies, we provide an overview of the nexus between crisis and inequality before exploring its importance for the study of policy stability and change, with a particular focus on policy design. Here, we stress the persistence of inequalities during major crises before exploring how the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to focus on these inequalities when the time comes to design policies in response to such crises. Paying close attention to the design of these policies is essential for the study of, and fight against, social inequalities in times of crisis. Both during and beyond crises, policy design should emphasize tackling with inequalities. This is the case because current design choices shape future patterns of social inequality.
{"title":"COVID-19, crisis responses, and public policies: from the persistence of inequalities to the importance of policy design","authors":"D. Béland, A. He, M. Ramesh","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac021","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has once again highlighted the importance of social inequalities during major crises, a reality that has clear implications for public policy. In this introductory article to the thematic issue of Policy and Society on COVID-19, inequalities, and public policies, we provide an overview of the nexus between crisis and inequality before exploring its importance for the study of policy stability and change, with a particular focus on policy design. Here, we stress the persistence of inequalities during major crises before exploring how the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to focus on these inequalities when the time comes to design policies in response to such crises. Paying close attention to the design of these policies is essential for the study of, and fight against, social inequalities in times of crisis. Both during and beyond crises, policy design should emphasize tackling with inequalities. This is the case because current design choices shape future patterns of social inequality.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87431704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emerging technologies permeate and potentially disrupt a wide spectrum of our social, economic, and political relations. Various state institutions, including education, law enforcement, and healthcare, increasingly rely on technical components, such as automated decision-making systems, e-government systems, and other digital tools to provide cheap, efficient public services, and supposedly fair, transparent, disinterested, and accountable public administration. The increased interest in various blockchain-based solutions from central bank digital currencies, via tokenized educational credentials, and distributed ledger-based land registries to self-sovereign identities is the latest, still mostly unwritten chapter in a long history of standardized, objectified, automated, technocratic, and technologized public administration. The rapid, (often) unplanned, and uncontrolled technologization of public services (as happened in the hasty adoption of distance-learning and teleconferencing systems during Corona Virus Disease (COVID) lockdowns) raises complex questions about the use of novel technological components, which may or may not be ultimately adequate for the task for which they are used. The question whether we can trust the technical infrastructures the public sector uses when providing public services is a central concern in an age where trust in government is declining: If the government’s artificial intelligence system that detects welfare fraud fails, the public’s confidence in the government is ultimately hit. In this paper, we provide a critical assessment of how the use of potentially untrustworthy (private) technological systems including blockchain-based systems in the public sector may affect trust in government. We then propose several policy options to protect the trust in government even if some of their technological components prove fundamentally untrustworthy.
{"title":"Maintaining trust in a technologized public sector","authors":"Balázs Bodó, H. Janssen","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac019","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Emerging technologies permeate and potentially disrupt a wide spectrum of our social, economic, and political relations. Various state institutions, including education, law enforcement, and healthcare, increasingly rely on technical components, such as automated decision-making systems, e-government systems, and other digital tools to provide cheap, efficient public services, and supposedly fair, transparent, disinterested, and accountable public administration. The increased interest in various blockchain-based solutions from central bank digital currencies, via tokenized educational credentials, and distributed ledger-based land registries to self-sovereign identities is the latest, still mostly unwritten chapter in a long history of standardized, objectified, automated, technocratic, and technologized public administration. The rapid, (often) unplanned, and uncontrolled technologization of public services (as happened in the hasty adoption of distance-learning and teleconferencing systems during Corona Virus Disease (COVID) lockdowns) raises complex questions about the use of novel technological components, which may or may not be ultimately adequate for the task for which they are used. The question whether we can trust the technical infrastructures the public sector uses when providing public services is a central concern in an age where trust in government is declining: If the government’s artificial intelligence system that detects welfare fraud fails, the public’s confidence in the government is ultimately hit. In this paper, we provide a critical assessment of how the use of potentially untrustworthy (private) technological systems including blockchain-based systems in the public sector may affect trust in government. We then propose several policy options to protect the trust in government even if some of their technological components prove fundamentally untrustworthy.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"124 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87809209","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The article traces the development of the epistemic infrastructure of the education sustainable development goal (SDG) in order to examine the ways that the incremental buildup of the discourse, technical expertise, and necessary—although always fragile—alliances facilitated a paradigmatic policy shift in the field of education: This is the move from the measurement of schooling to the measurement of learning. Through an analytical lens that examines the entanglement of the material, semiotic, and political and temporal/spatial elements of the infrastructure, the article shows how the sustainable development goal 4 (SDG4) as an epistemic infrastructure enabled a fundamental reorientation in the field of global education governance. The article discusses the ways that quantification, despite—and often thanks to—its failings, folded contested discourses, decision-making, politics, and ideas into its processes. Thus, the paper argues that the making of the SDG4 represents a paradigmatic policy shift; one that is not only to be traced in the move from schooling to the policy prioritization of learning outcomes but also in the very production of global public policy through the work of the SDGs as epistemic infrastructures.
{"title":"The education sustainable development goal and the generative power of failing metrics","authors":"Sotiria Grek","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac020","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The article traces the development of the epistemic infrastructure of the education sustainable development goal (SDG) in order to examine the ways that the incremental buildup of the discourse, technical expertise, and necessary—although always fragile—alliances facilitated a paradigmatic policy shift in the field of education: This is the move from the measurement of schooling to the measurement of learning. Through an analytical lens that examines the entanglement of the material, semiotic, and political and temporal/spatial elements of the infrastructure, the article shows how the sustainable development goal 4 (SDG4) as an epistemic infrastructure enabled a fundamental reorientation in the field of global education governance. The article discusses the ways that quantification, despite—and often thanks to—its failings, folded contested discourses, decision-making, politics, and ideas into its processes. Thus, the paper argues that the making of the SDG4 represents a paradigmatic policy shift; one that is not only to be traced in the move from schooling to the policy prioritization of learning outcomes but also in the very production of global public policy through the work of the SDGs as epistemic infrastructures.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"142 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73952525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The article investigates the production of decent work indicators within the ILO, to demonstrate that developing measurement infrastructures in global policymaking requires political work. The concept of decent work responds to the perceived marginalization of the ILO in social and labor policy and was supposed to provide a new unifying normative framework for the organization. The article shows that creating decent work indicators encountered challenges due to its highly politicized production process. Proponents of quantification (mostly workers’ representatives) and opponents (mostly employers’ representatives) disagreed about the function of indicators: should they be country-specific or allow for universal assessment of progress from above. In effect, although indicators of decent work have been integrated into the Sustainable Development Goals—mostly as part of goal no. 8, many are still incomplete. As a result, the indicators did not establish a “framework of assessment,” which would have been guided by universal standards of progress allowing the ILO to “govern at a distance,” and could not initiate a paradigmatic policy shift, impeding the infrastructuralization of measurement. Theoretically, the article advances our understanding of policy formulation and design on the transnational level by showing the political foundation of knowledge-based instruments. Empirically, it rests on a Grounded Theory-based analysis of key ILO documents, including Governing Body minutes, conference and expert meeting reports, and official publications, mainly from the period from 1998 to 2015.
{"title":"Producing decent work indicators: contested numbers at the ILO","authors":"J. Berten","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac017","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The article investigates the production of decent work indicators within the ILO, to demonstrate that developing measurement infrastructures in global policymaking requires political work. The concept of decent work responds to the perceived marginalization of the ILO in social and labor policy and was supposed to provide a new unifying normative framework for the organization. The article shows that creating decent work indicators encountered challenges due to its highly politicized production process. Proponents of quantification (mostly workers’ representatives) and opponents (mostly employers’ representatives) disagreed about the function of indicators: should they be country-specific or allow for universal assessment of progress from above. In effect, although indicators of decent work have been integrated into the Sustainable Development Goals—mostly as part of goal no. 8, many are still incomplete. As a result, the indicators did not establish a “framework of assessment,” which would have been guided by universal standards of progress allowing the ILO to “govern at a distance,” and could not initiate a paradigmatic policy shift, impeding the infrastructuralization of measurement. Theoretically, the article advances our understanding of policy formulation and design on the transnational level by showing the political foundation of knowledge-based instruments. Empirically, it rests on a Grounded Theory-based analysis of key ILO documents, including Governing Body minutes, conference and expert meeting reports, and official publications, mainly from the period from 1998 to 2015.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"51 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77807060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Marlee Tichenor, Sally E Merry, Sotiria Grek, Justyna Bandola-Gill
Despite the multiplicity of actors, crises, and fields of action, global public policy has known one constant, that is, the ubiquity of indicators in the production of governing knowledge. This article theoretically engages with the phenomenon of hyper-quantification of global governance in the context of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), debated and introduced in 2015. Increasingly metrics—such as indicators and quantified data to monitor targets and goals—are no longer just tools of governance but rather are emblematic of the new types of political cultures, enabling an interplay of material, techno-political, and organizational structures within which (statistical) knowledge is produced, disseminated, and translated into global public policy. The paper unpacks this complexity by proposing a new theoretical approach to quantification as an “epistemic infrastructure,” which emerges across three levels: materialities (such as data and indicators), interlinkages (such as networks and communities), and paradigms (such as new ways of doing policy work). Using the lens of the “epistemic infrastructure” on the SDGs, this article and the others in this special issue analyze the ways that quantified knowledge practices—in widely varying policy arenas, scales, and geographic regions—are at the heart of the production of its global public policy.
{"title":"Global public policy in a quantified world: Sustainable Development Goals as epistemic infrastructures","authors":"Marlee Tichenor, Sally E Merry, Sotiria Grek, Justyna Bandola-Gill","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac015","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the multiplicity of actors, crises, and fields of action, global public policy has known one constant, that is, the ubiquity of indicators in the production of governing knowledge. This article theoretically engages with the phenomenon of hyper-quantification of global governance in the context of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), debated and introduced in 2015. Increasingly metrics—such as indicators and quantified data to monitor targets and goals—are no longer just tools of governance but rather are emblematic of the new types of political cultures, enabling an interplay of material, techno-political, and organizational structures within which (statistical) knowledge is produced, disseminated, and translated into global public policy. The paper unpacks this complexity by proposing a new theoretical approach to quantification as an “epistemic infrastructure,” which emerges across three levels: materialities (such as data and indicators), interlinkages (such as networks and communities), and paradigms (such as new ways of doing policy work). Using the lens of the “epistemic infrastructure” on the SDGs, this article and the others in this special issue analyze the ways that quantified knowledge practices—in widely varying policy arenas, scales, and geographic regions—are at the heart of the production of its global public policy.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138518833","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Calling for a “data revolution,” the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) seek to promote progress in matters related to planet, people, prosperity, peace, and partnerships (the “5Ps”) by mobilizing an all-encompassing datafying system that heavily relies on quantification. As such, the SDGs serve as a unique window that showcases the most up-to-date materials, methods, and forms of expertise in datafying practices, while also incentivizing local and national appropriation, with all the difficulties this entails. The article looks at the policy dynamics around SDG localization and the role of participatory methodologies, especially citizen-generated data, in Brazil’s engagement with the agenda. We depart from interviews conducted with various actors involved with SDG implementation, including civil society and public servants, and from engagement with the work conducted by one NGO specialized in citizen-generated data in the peripheries of Rio de Janeiro. Two important findings are highlighted: Localizing strategies, i.e., those that aim to take subnational contexts into account in the achievement of the SDGs, have been used to promote an agenda on rights and, in addition, there has been a strong focus on local narratives as central aspects of communicating scientific data, where progress on the SDGs is but one vehicle in the struggle against statistical invisibility and political exclusion. These findings lead us to argue for a politics of care that can change how we do global public policy.
{"title":"Participatory methodologies and caring about numbers in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals Agenda","authors":"Isabel Rocha de Siqueira, Laís Ramalho","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac016","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Calling for a “data revolution,” the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) seek to promote progress in matters related to planet, people, prosperity, peace, and partnerships (the “5Ps”) by mobilizing an all-encompassing datafying system that heavily relies on quantification. As such, the SDGs serve as a unique window that showcases the most up-to-date materials, methods, and forms of expertise in datafying practices, while also incentivizing local and national appropriation, with all the difficulties this entails. The article looks at the policy dynamics around SDG localization and the role of participatory methodologies, especially citizen-generated data, in Brazil’s engagement with the agenda. We depart from interviews conducted with various actors involved with SDG implementation, including civil society and public servants, and from engagement with the work conducted by one NGO specialized in citizen-generated data in the peripheries of Rio de Janeiro. Two important findings are highlighted: Localizing strategies, i.e., those that aim to take subnational contexts into account in the achievement of the SDGs, have been used to promote an agenda on rights and, in addition, there has been a strong focus on local narratives as central aspects of communicating scientific data, where progress on the SDGs is but one vehicle in the struggle against statistical invisibility and political exclusion. These findings lead us to argue for a politics of care that can change how we do global public policy.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"159 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76629452","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Blockchain technology enables new kinds of decentralized systems. Thus, it has often been advocated as a “disruptive” technology that could have the potentiality of reshaping political, economic, and social relations, “solving” problems like corruption, power centralization, and distrust toward political institutions. Blockchain has been gradually gaining attention beyond finance and is thus applied by a range of different actors. This includes local, regional, and national governments interested in the potentiality of experimenting with blockchain-supported governance. This article contributes to identifying blockchain as a contested socio-political object prone to contradictory political imaginaries regarding its potentialities, particularly when applied to policy. The article explores some of the most praised of blockchain’s affordances (e.g., decentralization and transparency) in the context of Estonia, one of the most cited examples of blockchain governmental applications. Estonia has received international attention as the alleged first national infrastructure integrating blockchain. However, so far, few have asked: what kind of blockchain-based tools have been built by the Estonian government in practice and why? And to what extent do blockchain-based governmental applications reflect the original promises of disruption of the crypto-community? This article draws on a qualitative approach to explore several blockchain-based socio-technical objects to identify the narratives that have emerged in Estonia. The research shows clear contrasting views between stakeholders and technical experts from inside and outside the institutional sphere. The conflict revolves around two different social imaginaries associated with permissioned vs. public blockchains. The paper concludes with an analysis of the profound political implications of each vision.
{"title":"Blockchain-based application at a governmental level: disruption or illusion? The case of Estonia","authors":"Silvia Semenzin, David Rozas, Samer Hassan","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac014","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Blockchain technology enables new kinds of decentralized systems. Thus, it has often been advocated as a “disruptive” technology that could have the potentiality of reshaping political, economic, and social relations, “solving” problems like corruption, power centralization, and distrust toward political institutions. Blockchain has been gradually gaining attention beyond finance and is thus applied by a range of different actors. This includes local, regional, and national governments interested in the potentiality of experimenting with blockchain-supported governance. This article contributes to identifying blockchain as a contested socio-political object prone to contradictory political imaginaries regarding its potentialities, particularly when applied to policy. The article explores some of the most praised of blockchain’s affordances (e.g., decentralization and transparency) in the context of Estonia, one of the most cited examples of blockchain governmental applications. Estonia has received international attention as the alleged first national infrastructure integrating blockchain. However, so far, few have asked: what kind of blockchain-based tools have been built by the Estonian government in practice and why? And to what extent do blockchain-based governmental applications reflect the original promises of disruption of the crypto-community? This article draws on a qualitative approach to explore several blockchain-based socio-technical objects to identify the narratives that have emerged in Estonia. The research shows clear contrasting views between stakeholders and technical experts from inside and outside the institutional sphere. The conflict revolves around two different social imaginaries associated with permissioned vs. public blockchains. The paper concludes with an analysis of the profound political implications of each vision.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"49 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84853625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Governing by indicators has emerged as the predominant mode of global public policy. Consequently, global governance has become a field in which different indicators compete for policymakers’ and public attention. This begs a question—what makes some indicators successful when others become irrelevant? This paper explores this problem through the inquiry into the measurement of multidimensional poverty in Sustainable Development Goal 1 (“End poverty in all its forms everywhere”). In the field historically dominated by the World Bank’s dollar-per-day metric (currently 1.9$), multidimensional poverty measurement gained prominence, becoming one of the key measures of global poverty. By tracking the pathways to success of multidimensional poverty measurement—through qualitative interviews with actors in International Organisations this paper argues that the key quality of successful indicators is their ability to become parts of the broader epistemic infrastructure, linking political institutions, actors (including experts and policymakers), and data and statistics. The paper brings the focus on a specific set of actors—statistical entrepreneurs—who advocate for innovations in measurement and work toward creating such infrastructures, thus indirectly promoting new policy ideas reflected in the metrics.
{"title":"Statistical entrepreneurs: the political work of infrastructuring the SDG indicators","authors":"J. Bandola-Gill","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac013","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Governing by indicators has emerged as the predominant mode of global public policy. Consequently, global governance has become a field in which different indicators compete for policymakers’ and public attention. This begs a question—what makes some indicators successful when others become irrelevant? This paper explores this problem through the inquiry into the measurement of multidimensional poverty in Sustainable Development Goal 1 (“End poverty in all its forms everywhere”). In the field historically dominated by the World Bank’s dollar-per-day metric (currently 1.9$), multidimensional poverty measurement gained prominence, becoming one of the key measures of global poverty. By tracking the pathways to success of multidimensional poverty measurement—through qualitative interviews with actors in International Organisations this paper argues that the key quality of successful indicators is their ability to become parts of the broader epistemic infrastructure, linking political institutions, actors (including experts and policymakers), and data and statistics. The paper brings the focus on a specific set of actors—statistical entrepreneurs—who advocate for innovations in measurement and work toward creating such infrastructures, thus indirectly promoting new policy ideas reflected in the metrics.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87867383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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