Papers
Towards Digital Constitutionalism? Mapping Attempts to Craft an Internet Bill of Rights (Working Paper). Berkman Center Research Publication No. 2015-15.
With Lex Gill and Urs Gasser |
The idea of an “Internet Bill of Rights” is by no means a new one: in fact, serious efforts to draft such a document can be traced at least as far back as the mid-1990s. Though the form, function and scope of such initiatives has evolved, the concept has had remarkable staying power, and now — two full decades later — principles which were once radically aspirational have begun to crystallize into law. In this paper, we propose a unified term to describe these efforts using the umbrella of “digital constitutionalism” and conduct an analysis of thirty initiatives spanning from 1999 to 2015. These initiatives have great differences, and range from advocacy statements to official positions of intergovernmental organizations to proposed legislation. However, in their own way, they are each engaged in the same conversation, seeking to advance a relatively comprehensive set of rights, principles, and governance norms for the Internet, and are usefully understood as part of a broader proto-constitutional discourse. While this paper does not attempt to capture every facet of this complex political behavior, we hope to offer a preliminary map of the landscape, provide a comparative examination of these diverse efforts toward digital constitutionalism, and — most importantly — provoke new questions for further research and study. The paper proceeds in four parts, beginning with a preliminary definition for the concept of digital constitutionalism and a summary of our research methodology. Second, we present our core observations related to the full range of substantive rights, principles and themes proposed by these initiatives. Third, we build on that analysis to explore their perceived targets, the key actors and deliberative processes which have informed their character, and the changes in their substantive content over time. Finally, we look forward, identifying future directions for research in this rapidly changing policy arena and for the broader Internet governance community.
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E-Governance in Georgia: Citizen-Serving, Informing and Empowering, In: Alexander Balthasar, Blaz Golob, Hendrik Hansen, Balasz König, Robert Müller-Török, Alexander Prosser (Eds.). Central and Eastern European e|Dem and e|Gov Days 2015: Time for a European Internet? Vienna: Austrian Computer Society.
With Tamar Iakobidze and Teona Turashvili |
The proponents of ‚smart‘ cities frequently make the claim that the digitization of city halls can help cities to become more transparent, responsive and participatory. Primarily made for Western liberal democracies, applicability of the argument in new democracies like the countries of the South Caucasus need to be evaluated. Consequently, we assess the situation in Georgia using a theoretical framework that captures the different ways in which digitization of the public sector may affect democracy. We find that three basic categories can be distinguished: (1) citizen-serving measures, which consist of data analysis and treatment without consultation or data sharing with the public; (2) citizen-informing measures that aim to open new or existing data to citizens; and (3) citizen-empowering measures that allow citizens to raise their own concerns and have a direct impact on decision-making. Utilizing these three categories as an analytical tool we conduct a discourse analysis to investigate the motivations and the impact of the different measures adopted by the Government of Georgia and city of Tbilisi in particular. We argue that the distribution of digitization measures among the three categories impact the degree to which digitization strengthens democracy. For Georgia, and Tbilisi in particular, we conclude that the focus on citizen-serving and citizen-informing measures is necessity-driven and has some advantages, but fails to fully realize a more democratic society/city. Important mediating factors have proven to be the difference between top-down versus bottom-up approaches, the level of trust in institutions, e- literacy and cultural specificities.
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Exploring the Usefulness of Problem-Based Learning in Education for Sustainable Development – a Case Study, In: Walter Leal Filho (Ed.) Sustainable Development at Universities: New Horizons. Peter Lang: Frankfurt am Main.
With Lukas Fesenfeld, Charlotte Merten, Michael Schulze and Tilman Vahle |
This paper considers in how far Problem-based learning (PBL) is a useful learning method for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). According to the literature, effective ESD requires the development of certain competences. PBL is said to foster specific skills which can be linked to the aforementioned competences. Therefore, PBL seems to be a useful teaching environment for ESD. In order to illustrate this link, an introductory course on Sustainable Development at Maastricht University served as a case study. Quantitative and qualitative research was conducted using a questionnaire and interviews with staff and students. The findings suggest that in general PBL is a useful method to teach competences for Sustainable Development (SD). However, not all competences were equally strengthened through PBL. While the most indicative results were obtained with regards to critical thinking, anticipatory thinking and analyzing complex systems, it could not be shown that PBL had any beneficial effect on students’ ability to use media or their frustration tolerance. Further research on a comparative level is indispensable to shed more light on the relationship between PBL and ESD.
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