Global Public Policy and Governance
Henry T. Greely,Center for Law and the Biosciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Many technologies, particularly in the life sciences, are subject to governance regulation. Discussion of such governance tends to focus on limits on research and experimental uses and then on a decision whether, and how, to allow wide use. Two other important aspects of technology governance, one earlier and one later, have been discussed less: anticipation of technologies with important effects and the monitoring of the actual effects of adopted technologies. This article will analyzes those points of the governance process and proposes a plan to improve their functioning. The article argues first that the world would benefit from a more visible and influential approach to spotting and analyzing emerging technologies through a high profile “Horizon Scanning Group.” It then proposes a more formal approach to monitoring and assessing new developments through “Technology Audit Groups.” The article’s third section discusses complicated organizational issues surrounding these proposed groups and proposes some specific approaches.
2. Global digital governance: paradigm shift and an analytical framework
Kai Jia,School of Public Affairs and Administration, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
Shaowei Chen,School of Public Administration, Hunan University, Changsha, China
Global digital governance has been rising in response to a dual process of globalization and digitalization. Serving the innovation and application of digital technologies, global digital governance requires global cooperation to achieve economic benefits and cope with digital transformation challenges, covering issues, such as the Internet, digital tax, and trans-border data flow. The extant literature fails to answer why these challenges have been getting intense in recent decades and why the global governance responses to them may vary in different ways. This study argues that the transformation from protective immunity of digital platforms to Techlash against big tech triggered the rapid development of global digital governance. Following the paradigm shift argument, the paper further proposes an integrated framework to analyze the characteristics of the new model to explain the heterogeneity across global digital governance issues. The major constituent elements of this framework include the nature of the global commons (comedy or tragedy), global power structure (decentralized or centralized), and the governance regime (technocracy or democracy). This study applies the framework to analyze three cases of global digital governance issues and demonstrates its analytical power.
3. Implementing responsible research and innovation: a case study of U.S. biotechnology oversight
Jennifer Kuzma,School of Public and International Affairs and Genetic
This article explores two research questions through a case study of U.S. biotechnology oversight: why visions of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) are difficult to implement in governance systems for emerging technologies, and how to get policies and programs to overcome barriers to RRI implementation on the national policy agenda. Recent research on barriers to RRI is first reviewed to categorize the types of barriers. Key barriers center around meso- and macro-level institutional and societal forces that disincentivize RRI in innovation systems, as well as micro-level attitudinal and capacity barriers. These barriers point to policy changes that are likely needed to implement RRI in governance systems, in particular incentives for RRI from national funding organizations. However, getting RRI on the policy agenda for biotechnology may be difficult given macro-level socioeconomic and political forces. Therefore, the article uses insights from policy process theory to identify possible ways to get RRI on the national policy agenda. It identifies several ways to promote RRI in national policy-making, such as shifting the policy image of RRI, changing policy venues to encourage RRI, expanding the scope of RRI as a policy issue, and catalyzing focusing events to raise national awareness about RRI.
Inga Ulnicane,Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
This study examines the policy discussions surrounding the purpose of the development and use of an emerging technology. It applies the two stylized technology policy frames of economic growth and societal challenges to analyse framing of one of the key emerging technologies today—Artificial Intelligence (AI). It demonstrates that recent AI policy documents include both—economic growth as well as societal challenges—frames. While AI is a novel technology, its recent policy builds on traditional ideas about the role of technology in facilitating economic growth and competitiveness supported by well-known measures such as investment in research and highly skilled workforce. Additionally, AI policy draws on more recent frame on the contribution of technology to addressing societal challenges and the Sustainable Development Goals but presents AI as a technological solution to complex societal issues. While some interest in addressing both economic and social objectives in AI policy can be observed, the policy documents remain silent about their compatibility.
5. Usman W. Chohan, public value and the digital economy
Hong Mei,Center for Chinese Public Administration Research, School of Government, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
Yueping Zheng,Center for Chinese Public Administration Research, School of Government, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
As the coronavirus pandemic has swept the world since 2020, it seems that digital technologies are being thrusted into our economic lives in a continually accelerating manner. The digital economy is becoming a near ubiquitous, unstoppable part of our day-to-day lives, affecting countless aspects like communication, consumption, and entertainment. In our current sluggish global economy, the digital economy is rife with growing depression, inequality and the worship of material goods, which leads to an increasingly prominent discourse of value destruction rather than creation (Cui & Osborne, 2022; Engen et al., 2021). This brand-new, challenging situation raises pressing questions regarding how public managers can win the public’s recognition that “value would be created for them rather than from them” in the digital era. This is where the new book by Usman W. Chohan comes in, who states that “We are looking at a ‘digital present’ in which public managers must deploy the ‘value-seeking imagination’.” That is, it strongly calls for initiatives on the part of the public sector to create value for the wider society by rebuilding a more strategic and proper architecture that can manage the digital economy. With this book, Chohan enlivens public value (PV) in the digital economy’s context.
6. Explaining paradiplomacy: do local pro-international structures and political support matter?
Marylis Fantoni,Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
Claudia Avellaneda,Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
International governmental networks used to be centralized. However, the formal and informal decentralization of diplomatic relations through local governments and regions has placed the subnational governments as international actors. The subnational parallel pursuit of international relations has been termed paradiplomacy. Knowing “why or how” subnational governments engage in paradiplomacy is relevant because international networks have the potential to foster innovation, cooperation, transfer of knowledge, and international aid. However, not all jurisdictions engage in international relations despite the potential symbolic and material benefits. Scholars have explained local engagement in international relations through economic, cooperative, and political considerations. Without denying their explanatory power, we hypothesize that organizational structures, specifically local pro-international structures, foster paradiplomacy, while political support discourages paradiplomatic activities. To investigate subnational variation in paradiplomacy engagement, we rely on a survey covering all 5565 Brazilian municipalities in 2012. Findings suggest the existence of local pro-international structures is positively correlated with municipal international projects and municipal participation in international networks.
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