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}
In the United States, striking racial disparities in COVID-19 infection and mortality rates were one of the core patterns of the virus. These racial disproportionalities were a result of structural factors—laws, rules, and practices embedded in economic, social, and political systems. Public policy is central among such structural features. Policies distribute advantages, disadvantages, benefits, and burdens in ways that generate, reinforce, or redress racial inequities. Crucially, public policy is a function of power relations, so understanding policy decisions requires attentiveness to power. This paper asseses statistical associations between racial power and state anti-eviction policies. Charting the timing of state policy responses between March 2020 and June 2021, I examine correlations between response times and racial power as reflected in state populations, voting constituencies, legislatures, and social movement activities. Ultimately, I do not find any significant associations. The null results underscore the complexities and difficulties of studying race, power, and public policy with theoretical nuance and empirical care. While the findings leave us with much to learn about how racial power operates, the conceptualization and theorizing offered in the paper, instructively underscore the value of centering racial power in analyses of public policy.
{"title":"Race, power, and policy: understanding state anti-eviction policies during COVID-19","authors":"Jamila Michener","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac012","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In the United States, striking racial disparities in COVID-19 infection and mortality rates were one of the core patterns of the virus. These racial disproportionalities were a result of structural factors—laws, rules, and practices embedded in economic, social, and political systems. Public policy is central among such structural features. Policies distribute advantages, disadvantages, benefits, and burdens in ways that generate, reinforce, or redress racial inequities. Crucially, public policy is a function of power relations, so understanding policy decisions requires attentiveness to power. This paper asseses statistical associations between racial power and state anti-eviction policies. Charting the timing of state policy responses between March 2020 and June 2021, I examine correlations between response times and racial power as reflected in state populations, voting constituencies, legislatures, and social movement activities. Ultimately, I do not find any significant associations. The null results underscore the complexities and difficulties of studying race, power, and public policy with theoretical nuance and empirical care. While the findings leave us with much to learn about how racial power operates, the conceptualization and theorizing offered in the paper, instructively underscore the value of centering racial power in analyses of public policy.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77975921","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 effects of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic cuts across every facet of a nation’s life. The near collapse of economies with the attendant job losses has brought forth the need for effective social policies, particularly in developing countries, that can serve citizens in dire need. Consequently, many of these countries have had to craft emergency social policies to help their citizens. Ghana is no exception. While measures to control the spread of the pandemic, such as lockdowns and restrictions on movement and gathering, were timely, they negatively impacted the poor, most of whom work in the informal sector and depend on daily survival activities such as buying and selling basic goods. As a result, some of the measures were ignored as people feared they would die from hunger rather than from the pandemic. Thus, governmental response to the pandemic was highlighted by policy layering and exposed the fragile social support systems in existence. The challenges of responding adequately to the pandemic underscore the importance of a transformative social welfare regime in ensuring the protection of citizens. This paper, based on desk research, explores the limitations of the existing social policy framework, which became manifest during the implementation of Ghana’s pandemic policies. Policy layering by government continues to weaken Ghana’s social welfare system, and this affected the official response with respect to the social issues that have emerged due to the pandemic.
{"title":"“Provide our basic needs or we go out”: the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, inequality, and social policy in Ghana","authors":"Rosina Foli, F. Ohemeng","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac008","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The effects of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic cuts across every facet of a nation’s life. The near collapse of economies with the attendant job losses has brought forth the need for effective social policies, particularly in developing countries, that can serve citizens in dire need. Consequently, many of these countries have had to craft emergency social policies to help their citizens. Ghana is no exception. While measures to control the spread of the pandemic, such as lockdowns and restrictions on movement and gathering, were timely, they negatively impacted the poor, most of whom work in the informal sector and depend on daily survival activities such as buying and selling basic goods. As a result, some of the measures were ignored as people feared they would die from hunger rather than from the pandemic. Thus, governmental response to the pandemic was highlighted by policy layering and exposed the fragile social support systems in existence. The challenges of responding adequately to the pandemic underscore the importance of a transformative social welfare regime in ensuring the protection of citizens. This paper, based on desk research, explores the limitations of the existing social policy framework, which became manifest during the implementation of Ghana’s pandemic policies. Policy layering by government continues to weaken Ghana’s social welfare system, and this affected the official response with respect to the social issues that have emerged due to the pandemic.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"19 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72460829","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 is a new general-purpose technology that poses significant challenges to policymaking, law, and society. Blockchain is even more distinctive than other transformative technologies, as it is by nature a global technology; moreover, it operates based on a set of rules and principles that have a law-like quality—the lex cryptographia. The global nature of blockchain has led to its adoption by international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank. However, the law-like nature of the technology makes some of its uses by international organizations questionable from an international law and foreign affairs perspective. In this light, the article examines the effectiveness and legitimacy of the use of blockchain for international policymaking.
{"title":"The use of blockchain by international organizations: effectiveness and legitimacy","authors":"G. Dimitropoulos","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puab021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puab021","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Blockchain is a new general-purpose technology that poses significant challenges to policymaking, law, and society. Blockchain is even more distinctive than other transformative technologies, as it is by nature a global technology; moreover, it operates based on a set of rules and principles that have a law-like quality—the lex cryptographia. The global nature of blockchain has led to its adoption by international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank. However, the law-like nature of the technology makes some of its uses by international organizations questionable from an international law and foreign affairs perspective. In this light, the article examines the effectiveness and legitimacy of the use of blockchain for international policymaking.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86608163","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}
Before problems can be solved, they must be defined. In global public policy, problems are defined in large part by institutions like the World Bank, whose research shapes our collective understanding of social and economic issues. This article examines how research is produced at the World Bank and deemed to be worthwhile and legitimate. Creating and capturing research on global policy problems requires organizational configurations that operate at the intersection of multiple fields. Drawing on an in-depth study of the World Bank research department, this article outlines the structures and technologies of evaluation (i.e., the measurements and procedures used in performance reviews and promotions) and the social and cultural processes (i.e., the spoken and unspoken things that matter) in producing valuable policy research. It develops a theoretically informed account of how the conditions of measurement and evaluation shape the production of knowledge at a dominant multilateral agency. In turn, it unpacks how the internal workings of organizations can shape broader epistemic infrastructures around global policy problems.
{"title":"Hybrid knowledge production and evaluation at the World Bank","authors":"K. Williams","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac009","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Before problems can be solved, they must be defined. In global public policy, problems are defined in large part by institutions like the World Bank, whose research shapes our collective understanding of social and economic issues. This article examines how research is produced at the World Bank and deemed to be worthwhile and legitimate. Creating and capturing research on global policy problems requires organizational configurations that operate at the intersection of multiple fields. Drawing on an in-depth study of the World Bank research department, this article outlines the structures and technologies of evaluation (i.e., the measurements and procedures used in performance reviews and promotions) and the social and cultural processes (i.e., the spoken and unspoken things that matter) in producing valuable policy research. It develops a theoretically informed account of how the conditions of measurement and evaluation shape the production of knowledge at a dominant multilateral agency. In turn, it unpacks how the internal workings of organizations can shape broader epistemic infrastructures around global policy problems.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"366 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80363363","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}
C. Viano, Sowelu Avanzo, Monica Cerutti, Alex Cordero, C. Schifanella, G. Boella
Blockchain technology is generating interest in novel applicative fields such as co-production of public services. Our CommonsHood project is a “wallet app” that uses the Blockchain as a tool to support sustainability of the local economy. Its tokenization mechanism allows everyone to create new types of cryptographic tokens on the Blockchain in order to digitalize assets, augment the availability of local liquidity, and incentivize cooperative socio-economic interactions. This article analyzes a concrete application of CommonsHood for innovating local development policies and service co-production in the tourism sector. We examine this application using Linders’s analytical framework for information and communications technology (ICT)-enabled co-production of services (2012). We show the advantages our project brings for local policies on tourism development, and we discuss the benefits and costs of using the Blockchain in that context. We argue that the observed case study covers different types of digitally enabled co-production of services, and that it can be defined as a case of Governance as a Platform. We also argue that well-established analytical frameworks for ICT-enabled co-production of services need to be expanded in order to account for the new affordances enabled by the Blockchain technology, namely the creation and transaction of digital values, which represent a paradigm change in how we understand the Internet and digital co-production.
{"title":"Blockchain tools for socio-economic interactions in local communities","authors":"C. Viano, Sowelu Avanzo, Monica Cerutti, Alex Cordero, C. Schifanella, G. Boella","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac007","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Blockchain technology is generating interest in novel applicative fields such as co-production of public services. Our CommonsHood project is a “wallet app” that uses the Blockchain as a tool to support sustainability of the local economy. Its tokenization mechanism allows everyone to create new types of cryptographic tokens on the Blockchain in order to digitalize assets, augment the availability of local liquidity, and incentivize cooperative socio-economic interactions. This article analyzes a concrete application of CommonsHood for innovating local development policies and service co-production in the tourism sector. We examine this application using Linders’s analytical framework for information and communications technology (ICT)-enabled co-production of services (2012). We show the advantages our project brings for local policies on tourism development, and we discuss the benefits and costs of using the Blockchain in that context. We argue that the observed case study covers different types of digitally enabled co-production of services, and that it can be defined as a case of Governance as a Platform. We also argue that well-established analytical frameworks for ICT-enabled co-production of services need to be expanded in order to account for the new affordances enabled by the Blockchain technology, namely the creation and transaction of digital values, which represent a paradigm change in how we understand the Internet and digital co-production.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89571597","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}
Similar to the early days of the Internet, today, the effectiveness and applicability of legal regulations are being challenged by the advent of blockchain technology. Yet, unlike the Internet, which has evolved into an increasingly centralized system that was largely brought within the reach of the law, blockchain technology still resists regulation and is thus described by some as being “alegal”, i.e., situated beyond the boundaries of existing legal orders and, therefore, challenging them. This article investigates whether blockchain technology can indeed be qualified as alegal and the extent to which such technology can be brought back within the boundaries of a legal order by means of targeted policies. First, the article explores the features of blockchain-based systems, which make them hard to regulate, mainly due to their approach to disintermediation. Second, drawing from the notion of alegality in legal philosophy, the article analyzes how blockchain technology enables acts that transgress the temporal, spatial, material, and subjective boundaries of the law, thereby introducing the notion of “alegality by design”—as the design of a technological artifact can provide affordances for alegality. Third, the article discusses how the law could respond to the alegality of blockchain technology through innovative policies encouraging the use of regulatory sandboxes to test for the “functional equivalence” and “regulatory equivalence” of the practices and processes implemented by blockchain initiatives.
{"title":"The alegality of blockchain technology","authors":"Primavera de Filippi, M. Mannan, Wessel Reijers","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Similar to the early days of the Internet, today, the effectiveness and applicability of legal regulations are being challenged by the advent of blockchain technology. Yet, unlike the Internet, which has evolved into an increasingly centralized system that was largely brought within the reach of the law, blockchain technology still resists regulation and is thus described by some as being “alegal”, i.e., situated beyond the boundaries of existing legal orders and, therefore, challenging them. This article investigates whether blockchain technology can indeed be qualified as alegal and the extent to which such technology can be brought back within the boundaries of a legal order by means of targeted policies. First, the article explores the features of blockchain-based systems, which make them hard to regulate, mainly due to their approach to disintermediation. Second, drawing from the notion of alegality in legal philosophy, the article analyzes how blockchain technology enables acts that transgress the temporal, spatial, material, and subjective boundaries of the law, thereby introducing the notion of “alegality by design”—as the design of a technological artifact can provide affordances for alegality. Third, the article discusses how the law could respond to the alegality of blockchain technology through innovative policies encouraging the use of regulatory sandboxes to test for the “functional equivalence” and “regulatory equivalence” of the practices and processes implemented by blockchain initiatives.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86455532","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}
How have differently institutionalized welfare regimes dealt with the Covid-19 crisis? In particular, how have they confronted the social and economic inequalities exposed by the virus? Taking three European countries—Germany, Sweden, and the UK, corresponding broadly to conservative-continental, social democratic, and liberal regime types—this paper tracks the virus response in the areas of income and employment protection and health and residential care. With attention paid to issues of “capacity” and the institutional arrangements in each case, we find that institutional histories in Germany and Sweden permitted a certain recidivistic reliance on established practices in the areas of employment and social protection. In sum, certain social and economic inequalities were mitigated as these countries set aside recent trends toward “liberalization” and mobilized longer-standing institutional capacities to protect some groups, although by no means all. Evidence of this trend is less clear in the health and residential care sectors, where Germany had existing capacity, allowing its older population to weather the crisis in better order than its counterparts in Sweden and the UK. In the UK, welfare liberalization has led to increased social and economic inequalities and funding reductions in health and residential care—all of which have reduced the country’s ability to deal with severe crisis. The Covid response in this case was agile, but also chaotic, with little being done to ameliorate the positions of the most vulnerable groups.
{"title":"Covid (In)equalities: labor market protection, health, and residential care in Germany, Sweden, and the UK","authors":"N. Ellison, P. Blomqvist, T. Fleckenstein","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 How have differently institutionalized welfare regimes dealt with the Covid-19 crisis? In particular, how have they confronted the social and economic inequalities exposed by the virus? Taking three European countries—Germany, Sweden, and the UK, corresponding broadly to conservative-continental, social democratic, and liberal regime types—this paper tracks the virus response in the areas of income and employment protection and health and residential care. With attention paid to issues of “capacity” and the institutional arrangements in each case, we find that institutional histories in Germany and Sweden permitted a certain recidivistic reliance on established practices in the areas of employment and social protection. In sum, certain social and economic inequalities were mitigated as these countries set aside recent trends toward “liberalization” and mobilized longer-standing institutional capacities to protect some groups, although by no means all. Evidence of this trend is less clear in the health and residential care sectors, where Germany had existing capacity, allowing its older population to weather the crisis in better order than its counterparts in Sweden and the UK. In the UK, welfare liberalization has led to increased social and economic inequalities and funding reductions in health and residential care—all of which have reduced the country’s ability to deal with severe crisis. The Covid response in this case was agile, but also chaotic, with little being done to ameliorate the positions of the most vulnerable groups.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82169198","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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