Democratic Oversight Research Articles

Neither private property nor public service: Critical reflections on the conceptual framework of public service media

Public service media (PSM) have long been seen as the necessary counterweight to the failures of a market model. Given the rise of private corporate power over communications systems, PSM have long been claimed to the be the ‘heart of a heartless world’ – spaces dominated not by the relentless logic of capital but by broader ambitions that involve citizen participation, social improvement and knowledge acquisition. This article offers a different interpretation. It argues that at their very best, PSM have improved an otherwise anaemic commercial landscape; at their worst, they are simply an accessory to state actors and contaminated media markets that reproduce elite power. Media practices and institutions based on the public service idea all too often lack the accountability and indeed the fundamental democratic oversight of the publics in whose name they operate. This article seeks first to contrast the values and structures of public service media with those of wholly commercial models and illustrates some of the ‘defensive’ arguments and initiatives that have been developed in response to threats to PSM. The article then explores a series of arguments that problematise what is often a reflexive defence of PSM. It considers whether being non-commercial necessarily positions an institution as pro-public and focuses on the role of the state in the creation of PSM institutions. It argues that the gap between normative accounts of public service and their institutional structures is not an accident or an aberration but reflects the structural imbalances of power built into PSM. Finally, the article analyses the different ways in which ‘the public’ has been conceptualised and deployed in the operational models of PSM, often as the ‘masses’ or as individuals in need of enlightenment or as sovereign consumers, but rarely as active agents of social change.

Artificial intelligence co-regulation? The role of standards in the EU AI Act

Abstract This article examines artificial intelligence (AI) co-regulation in the EU AI Act and the critical role of standards under this regulatory strategy. It engages with the foundation of democratic legitimacy in EU standardization, emphasizing the need for reform to keep pace with the rapid evolution of AI capabilities, as recently suggested by the European Parliament. The article highlights the challenges posed by interdisciplinarity and the lack of civil society expertise in standard-setting. It critiques the inadequate representation of societal stakeholders in the development of AI standards, posing pressing questions about the potential risks this entails to the protection of fundamental rights, given the lack of democratic oversight and the global composition of standard-developing organizations. The article scrutinizes how under the AI Act technical standards will define AI risks and mitigation measures and questions whether technical experts are adequately equipped to standardize thresholds of acceptable residual risks in different high-risk contexts. More specifically, the article examines the complexities of regulating AI, drawing attention to the multi-dimensional nature of identifying risks in AI systems and the value-laden nature of the task. It questions the potential creation of a typology of AI risks and highlights the need for a nuanced, inclusive, and context-specific approach to risk identification and mitigation. Consequently, in the article we underscore the imperative for continuous stakeholder involvement in developing, monitoring, and refining the technical rules and standards for high-risk AI applications. We also emphasize the need for rigorous training, certification, and surveillance measures to ensure the enforcement of fundamental rights in the face of AI developments. Finally, we recommend greater transparency and inclusivity in risk identification methodologies, urging for approaches that involve stakeholders and require a diverse skill set for risk assessment. At the same time, we also draw attention to the diversity within the European Union and the consequent need for localized risk assessments that consider national contexts, languages, institutions, and culture. In conclusion, the article argues that co-regulation under the AI Act necessitates a thorough re-examination and reform of standard-setting processes, to ensure a democratically legitimate, interdisciplinary, stakeholder-inclusive, and responsive approach to AI regulation, which can safeguard fundamental rights and anticipate, identify, and mitigate a broad spectrum of AI risks.

Novel Technologies and the Choices We Make: Historical Precedents for Managing Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence needs ongoing and meaningful democratic oversight. Understanding the history of how the early nuclear weapons complex, novel biotechnology, and polygraph testing were managed can inform AI governance today.

The Double Function of Turkey’s Public Banks and Reinterpretation of Mandates during the Covid-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT Turkey’s public banks performed a double function during the Covid-19 pandemic, repeating but also extending the scope of their actions in the 2010s. These institutions provided temporary financial relief to low-income households, while simultaneously extending extraordinary support to capital groups organically linked to ruling circles. During this period, the public bank mandates were not legally revised but recurrently reinterpreted by state managers, postponing the financial troubles of some social groups and disproportionately benefiting corporations. Such public bank actions raise questions concerning a public purpose approach to public financial capacity during economic crises and emergencies. The double function of Turkish public banks in recent years indicates that short-term financial support to low-income groups worked almost as a countervailing intervention, yet producing contradictory results amid the lack of democratic oversight and strategies for the self-empowerment of disadvantaged groups.

Violation of the Code of Ethics for Constitutional Judges in the Constitutional Court's Decision on Requirements for Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates

As a country based on legal principles, Indonesia has a responsibility to respect and prioritize the principles of the rule of law, including independence and the absence of partiality in the judicial system. The level of success in implementing this principle can be measured by the extent to which the judiciary is independent in carrying it out to realize justice based on the law. However, the power of the Constitutional Court (MK) cannot be avoided from criticism and evaluation. For example, a Constitutional Court decision attracted public attention regarding the requirements for presidential and vice presidential candidates. Therefore, this article discusses the impact of the controversy that emerged after the decision of the Constitutional Court (MK) in Case Number 90/PUU-XXI/2023 on January 4 2023. This decision, which includes the cancellation of part of Law Number 7 of 2017, has raised various criticisms and doubts about the independence of the Constitutional Court. By focusing on the role of Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Anwar Usman in minority opinions, this article analyzes the examination carried out by the Honorary Council of Constitutional Court Judges (MKMK) regarding alleged ethical violations. The implications for the credibility of the Constitutional Court as a democratic oversight institution are a major concern in this context.

Creation of ‘other’ in their own country, politicized identity-based division, and the rise of hostility toward ‘out-group’ in a multi-ethnic, poly-cultural world: a study on genocide prevention, human security, and peacebuilding

ABSTRACT In the era of globalization, no country is monocultural today. All countries are cultural mosaics since different ethnic groups have their own unique set of traditions. It is particularly important to appreciate and respect these traditions since they represent an integral part of our cultural heritage. Likewise, in many countries, the majority population is far greater than all the minorities combined, whereas, in others, the minority groups all together comprise a significantly large number. In this increasingly integrated yet fragmented world, many multi-ethnic countries face the challenges of preventing cultural conflicts between diverse groups and finding solutions. A fresh wave of persecution and violence against minority groups for their membership in a pluralistic society has escalated in many parts of the world, altering the climate of peaceful coexistence and democratic oversight. Such challenges are particularly pressing for marginalized, vulnerable groups. The article endeavors to foster a more holistic interpretation of the questions: why do some regions of the world experience major incidents of ‘crimes against humanity' and gross human rights violations while others do not, and how do the ‘us vs. them’ politics, politicians, and other leaders subtly transform civilians into killers? The article also examines the triggering factors of major tragedies, particularly what sets off acts of ethnic cleansing or genocide. As such, exploring the demagogues’ malicious mission to subvert justice, democratic success, and the rule of law, creating destructive cultures on the path to mass atrocities, is the additional emphasis of this piece. This entry’s relevance depends on the quest for the conditions and prospects for conflict transformation, peacebuilding, and peaceful cohabitation across different cultural traditions in the changing socio-political and cultural milieu owing to contemporary global shifts to authoritarianism and illiberal populism.

The politics of tech responsibility: Understanding companies’ responsibility as representative claims

This article explores responsibility claims by private tech companies. While the business literature has extensively discussed the notion of corporate social responsibility, it does not fully grasp the political significance of responsibility claims. This article proposes a novel conceptual understanding of responsibility by drawing on the concept of representative claims. It argues that by claiming responsibility for an issue or a community, companies are claiming to act on behalf of someone or some purpose—while avoiding democratic oversight. Thereby, responsibility claims not only provide reputational benefits but help companies legitimize and demarcate their political role. Empirically, it uses a representative claims analysis to compare responsibility claims of three companies—Meta, Microsoft, and the NSO Group. Companies either embrace, reorient, or refuse responsibility but frequently define the criteria to measure it. This article thus contributes to our understanding of the political significance of responsibility and tech business power.

Contesting corporate responsibility in the Bangladesh garment industry: The local factory owner perspective

In the developing economy of Bangladesh, local factory owners in the garment industry have felt great pressure to improve factory safety, but the costs for those improvements are not shared by the global apparel firms that wield immense influence over them. Consequently, we examine whether multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs), as vehicles of corporate social responsibility (CSR), offer platforms for democratic oversight or merely serve as new arenas to exercise corporate power. Given their role in connecting global and local contexts and their history of safety incidents, local factory owners possess a unique perspective on the impact and contested nature of CSR in global supply chains. This article presents a qualitative study of MSIs in the Bangladesh garment industry, particularly after the Rana Plaza collapse. Through interviews with local factory owners and executive managers, we explore the reasons behind their opposition to CSR as exercised by global apparel firms, and the contestation of those practices by their local business association. Our findings lead us to conclude that garment industry MSIs are unlikely to be effective without labor procurement practices that harmonize global and local interests to mitigate the competitive pressures on local factory owners.

Animal Ghosts at Canadian Universities: The Politics of Concealment and Transparency.

For many years, the lives of animals used for research in Canadian universities have been hidden from public view due both to physical concealment (e.g., security procedures and impenetrable labs) and administrative concealment (non-disclosure of information). Their lives unfold out of sight both physically and discursively, unavailable to the Canadian public for ethical consideration and democratic oversight. Recently, in response to calls by the public to end this secrecy, Canadian universities and the Canadian Council on Animal Care have embraced the language of "transparency" and have begun releasing documentation about animal research practices and procedures. This paper argues that this new "transparency" acts as its own kind of concealment practice, obscuring and displacing meaningful information while constructing highly selective ways of seeing animals in science, and manufacturing acquiescence/consent on the part of the public.

From 9/11 to the POST Act: democratic oversight of police surveillance technologies in New York City

ABSTRACT September 11, 2001 resulted in the drastic expansion of intelligence and surveillance capacities in the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the NYPD has continued to adopt emergent surveillance technologies. These tools have investigative applications beyond counterterrorism and many worry their use is outpacing oversight and regulation. The transformations of the NYPD in the early 2000s were followed by major – if lagged – changes to the external oversight of police and surveillance tools, including the 2013 establishment of an Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD and the Public Oversight of Technology (POST) Act in 2020. This article tracks these developments and their capacity to mitigate information asymmetries, enhance transparency, and ultimately influence the use of police surveillance technologies in New York City.

Towards democratic intelligence oversight: Limits, practices, struggles

AbstractDespite its common usage, the meaning of ‘democratic’ in democratic intelligence oversight has rarely been spelled out. In this article, we situate questions regarding intelligence oversight within broader debates about the meanings and practices of democracy. We argue that the literature on intelligence oversight has tended to implicitly or explicitly follow liberal and technocratic ideas of democracy, which have limited the understanding of oversight both in academia and in practice. Thus, oversight is mostly understood as an expert, institutional and partially exclusive arrangement that is supposed to strike a balance between individual freedom and collective security, with the goal of establishing the legitimacy of and trust in intelligence work in a national setting. ‘Healthy’ or ‘efficient’ democratic oversight then becomes a matter of technical expertise, non-partisanship, and the ability to guard secrets. By analysing three moments of struggle around what counts as intelligence oversight across Germany, the UK, and the US, this article elucidates their democratic stakes. Through a practice-based approach, we argue that oversight takes much more agonistic, contentious, transnational, and public forms. However, these democratic practices reconfiguring oversight remain contested or contained by dominant views on what constitutes legitimate and effective intelligence oversight.

Audit firm executives under pressure: A discursive analysis of legitimisation and resistance to reform

The UK audit profession is facing a crisis of public trust and legitimacy following a series of high-profile audit failures. This resulted in the executive leadership of UK audit firms being summoned before a House of Commons Select Committee as part of its inquiry into ‘the future of audit’. During this inquiry the audit executives walked a tightrope, to both defend the social contract from an existential threat and attempt to influence policy reforms in their favour. This paper draws on ‘neutralisation techniques’ from deviance theory and the ‘grammar of legitimation’ from legitimacy theory to inform a discursive analysis of how auditors use strategic rhetoric to defend their professionalism and maintain their social contract to operate, all the while attempting to affect policy outcomes to align with their firms’ economic interests. Data for this study are drawn from the ‘oral evidence sessions’ and submitted ‘written evidence’ provided by the audit firm leadership. Our findings illustrate how the auditors construct a variety of strategic rationalisations, couched in moral ideals, to effectively deny responsibility for corporate financial scandals while simultaneously identifying with the ‘victims’ of audit failures and representing themselves ‘heroically’, as indispensable solution-bearers, not problem-causers. Their application of logic and language is cleverly designed to defend existing practices, neutralize the allegations of the inquiry, and provide the basis for advocating preferred policy outcomes. We show how, in this UK regulatory context, the Big Four are again successful in diluting and delaying reform, especially that which would legislate a full legal and economic split of their lucrative advisory service business from their audit business - a union which has grown in prominence in recent decades and been the focus of accusations of conflicted interests detrimental to audit quality. Evaluating legitimacy as a rhetorical and communicative process can aid regulators to render visible the means by which auditors use rhetoric to influence reform, and thereby improve democratic oversight over the profession.

Counting Carbon or Counting Coal? Anchoring Climate Governance in Fossil Fuel–Based Accountability Frameworks

Abstract For decades, the object of international climate governance has been greenhouse gases. The inadequacy of decarbonization based on this system has prompted calls to expand climate governance to include restrictions on fossil fuel supply. Such initiatives could rely on accountability frameworks based on fossil fuel reserves, production, or infrastructure, yet there has been little consideration of the different implications of these options. We inform such discussions by undertaking a sociotechnical analysis of existing schemes for the monitoring, reporting and verification of fossil fuels. We identify serious risks from anchoring climate governance in fossil fuel reserves. More promising directions for supply-side governance lie in accountability frameworks based on a combination of fossil fuel production volumes and infrastructure, since these are more transparent to multiple actors. This transparency would provide much-needed opportunities for democratic oversight of the data underpinning climate governance, opening new channels for holding states accountable for their climate performance.

The Erdoğan Government's Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Performance and Actuality in an Authoritarian Context

AbstractThis article analyses the Erdoğan government's policy response to the coronavirus pandemic. Despite the abundant use of moral antagonisms in his discourse, Erdoğan did not attempt to politicize the pandemic, instead framing it as a global health crisis and presenting the government's public health policies as expert-driven and competent. However, this expert-driven approach was largely a performance. Without a system of democratic oversight or a free media to scrutinize government policies, the Erdoğan government could systematically undercount COVID-19 cases and disregard its own public health restrictions, all the while spreading its narrative of competence and success. Competitive policymaking by opposition-controlled municipalities and criticism from a strong doctors' association had relatively limited ability to discredit the government. The public opinion data we present reveal broad-based support for the government's COVID policies. Our article highlights how authoritarian institutions allow governments to sustain a gap between performance and actuality, granting their leaders greater possibilities to claim policy success.

Institutions and Power

Institutions are necessary to provide an orderly social interaction among individuals. To impose order, institutional constraints must be enforced, and enforcement requires that the enforcers have more power than those who are constrained by institutions. This raises the problem of how those who have enforcement power can have sufficient power to produce an orederly and productive society, but can be constrained to prevent them from abusing their power. Three broad alternatives are considered: democratic oversight, constitutional rules, and checks and balances. All three have a role to play, but constraints on the abuse of power will be ineffective without a strong system of checks and balances.

Data Protection in Smart Cities:

Globally, cities are adopting smart city services processing personal data at a rapidly increasing pace. As custodians of the public interest, public spaces and fundamental rights, cities should consider the need to ensure data protection, and enable democratic oversight and accountability in their procurement processes. Traditional public procurement rarely offers the leeway to substantively tackle this challenge. However, pre-commercial procurement, which allows public sector administrators to be closely involved in the service research and development stage, and to genuinely co-create with private partners, may prevent mismatches between private sector offerings and public sector needs in smart cities. This article contrasts data protection governance in the context of traditional and pre-commercial procurement of smart city services. Through case studies, opportunities and pitfalls for public administrations are distilled. Keywords: smart cities; data protection; traditional procurement; pre-commercial procurement

Digital contact tracing: Privacy versus efficiency

This paper discusses recently introduced digital technology to limit the spread of COVID-19 by tracing patients’ contacts backwards and sending warning of potential exposure to the virus. While the spread of COVID-19 had devastating consequences and certain technology was made available to limit it, quick and broad application was impeded by privacy and security concerns. The paper explores how the current digital contact tracing technology was designed to operate globally and address these concerns. Digital contact tracing has not reached the expected user rates in democratic societies, which limits its impact on public health. The author analyses the connection between privacy, trust and efficiency of the COVID tracing apps and illustrates the conflict whereby privacy-preserving technology denies access to any data and thus lessens the application of the tool for the benefit of public health. The author argues that with additional layers of privacy protection such as rule of law, transparency and democratic oversight, the minimum data necessary for public health would not compromise privacy yet would contribute to improving the technology and lead to better use in crisis situations such as a pandemic, environmental disaster or war. The research paper is a work in progress, as it is based on one-year experience since the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, when the crisis is not yet over and partial data limits in-depth studies.

A legal shot? Police Gun Violence and Individual Accountability in Miami

Abstract In light of police violence and injustice, criminologists tend to focus on masculine and violent police cultures, the lack of democratic oversight and on social processes of dehumanization. Yet much less attention, however, is given to the objects commonly used in violent and lethal police encounters: guns. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with police officers in Miami, I suggest that police officers tend to re-contextualize police gun violence in terms of individual liability and legal culpability—as a question of what constitutes a legal shot. While a legal framing might protect police officers from prosecution, the legal shot first and foremost enables state institutions to explain police brutality as “incidents”: as unintentional and exceptional outcomes of an otherwise warranted form of policing. Recognizing how the legal shot attunes our attention to individual misconduct and legal solutions to systemic and racialized police violence, I suggest, is an important step in exploring the possibilities to disarm the police, and to organize around the question of how to imagine and push for a more inclusive form of public safety.

Privatization of Law Enforcement


 
 The year 2020 ushered in growing calls to defund the police. In Canada, as in other countries where the movement to defund the police has gained momentum, activists demand transferring money from police departments to social workers, reducing the number of police officers, and increasing police departments’ democratic accountability. This last group of reform initiatives is, perhaps, the least controversial one because it calls for improving the familiar structures of democratic oversight over police departments, such as municipal councils, independent police oversight boards and complaints bodies, and others. 
 The demands for greater accountability of police departments to the public are a symptom of a deeper problem - there is a growing discrepancy between the goals of policing and the consequences of the police’s actions. This discrepancy materializes when the police’s attempts to ensure public safety result in the marginalization of racialized communities, particularly in larger cities across Canada. In order to understand why laudable policy goals lead to deeply problematic consequences, it is necessary to analyze the policing process in our cities. While it has traditionally been assumed that this process is left to the discretion of separate police departments, this paper demonstrates that externalities, such as data generated by private technologies, play an important role in undermining the goals of policing. Reliance on private data and technology does not absolve the police of accountability for resulting human rights violations. However, it has important implications for the reform of public oversight over the police. In an era when non-governmental actors are taking part in law enforcement through procurement contracts, democratic control over the exercise of the police’s contracting powers is an important, albeit often overlooked, instrument of police reform. Relying on contracts for predictive policing technologies as a case study, this paper argues that communities should condition the funding of police procurement on ex ante assessment procedures, technical specifications, and contract enforcement rights. Also, local elected representatives should have an opportunity to approve any data and technology sharing arrangements as well as federal standing offer arrangements that extend predictive policing to their communities.
 

Age of Demagoguery and Surveillance Capitalism: A Case Study of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)

Using the theoretical framework of surveillance capitalism, this paper analyses the election campaigns of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of India during the 2014 and 2019 elections. It endeavours to find out how BJP has weaponised information during these two elections: a) to convince voters, b) to consolidate power at home. By doing content analysis of both primary and secondary sources, the research finds out that massive targeted advertisements were used by BJP’s social media cell during these elections. Third parties (proxy) sources were especially helpful for BJP on Facebook for a wider outreach of its message on social media. The research further elaborates that the timing of targeted advertisements is shaped in a way that it ensures that people click the ad, thus achieving the desired political outcomes for BJP. Towards the end, it formulates a vehement case of taking back control of Indian digital lives by bringing cyberspace under greater democratic oversight and legal accountability.