When I wonder about big questions, I spend a couple of days reviewing the academic literature, and write down what I find. I try to put this in plain language and make clear links to the research, with clear caveats about the conclusions that can be drawn. It’s often surprising, it’s always complicated. Feel free to send requests.
This quick review presents conceptualization and measurement issues, the mixed evidence for civic tech's effect on trust, and suggests 10 points for understanding, expanding, and using existing evidence.
Here’s a long-ranging exploration of the literature on international relations, policy diffusion, public administration, global policy assessments and multi-stakeholder initiatives, where I try to draw some conclusions about what we know and what we don't. I wrap it up by proposing six research questions that could directly inform the design of global do-goodery. There’s a bulleted summary up top.
The civic tech and open government community spends a fair amount of energy persuading government counterparts to get in the game, measuring how well they do, and encouraging them to do more and better. There seems to be based on a general assumption that doing so works best when appealing to government incentives, either to make their work easier, to increase their legitimacy or to get on the...
OR: How digital media broke civic engagement. Civic engagement and political participation are a common dependent variable in studies that explore the political impact of digital media and the internet. They refer to the ways in which, or degrees to which, people engage and participate in civic issues and politics. But I’ve found the use of the terms to be confusing, simultaneously diffuse and...