Agents can now do in an afternoon what used to take months with a gaggle of research, and the findings can look convincing. This review suggests initial components for a rigorous and defensible agentic methodology: specification, model version and access, instrument audit, sensitivity analysis and traces, with a clear division of labour and attribution running through all of them. It also sets...
This month saw a series of research collections guides and databases, plus several assessments of open gov research, and research on what motivates citizens to take action, why M&E is broken, the demand side effects of R2I portals, and lessons from the civic tech graveyard.
Several studies came out in August with evidence for what works and what doesn't work in civic tech, especially regarding anti-corruption programming, open data and institutionalization. Plus there are several important of research collections, how-to methods guides, and oodles of case studies.
Last week's research roundup has evidence on causes of citizen complaints and parliamentarian responsiveness, plus depressing research on popular trends in human rights advocacy and community driven development. But fear not, there's also frank and optimistic takes on social media, smart new methods for measuring active citizenship and an inspiring story from 18th century abolitionist activism.
Papers & Findings What makes multi stakeholder initiatives for transparency effective? In the case of EITI, it seems to be treating civil society as equal partners and ensuring that they bring relevant technical skills to the table. This according to doctoral research that also outlines common “pathways to proactive transparency reform.” Would be great to see research testing...