Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure
of Authoritarianism
The Pulitzer
Prize-winning author, professor, and historian offers an expert guide to
understanding the appeal of the strongman as a leader and an explanation for
why authoritarianism is back with a menacing twenty-first century twist.
Across the world today, from the Americas to Europe and beyond, liberal
democracy is under siege while populism and nationalism are on the rise.
In Twilight of Democracy, prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum
offers an unexpected explanation: that there is a deep and inherent appeal to
authoritarianism, to strongmen, and, especially, to one-party rule--that is, to
political systems that benefit true believers, or loyal soldiers, or simply the
friends and distant cousins of the Leader, to the exclusion of everyone else.
People, she argues, are not just ideological; they are also practical,
pragmatic, opportunistic. They worry about their families, their houses, their
careers. Some political systems offer them possibilities, and others don't. In
particular, the modern authoritarian parties that have arisen within
democracies today offer the possibility of success to people who do not thrive
in the meritocratic, democratic, or free-market competition that determines
access to wealth and power.
Drawing on reporting in Spain, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, and Brazil; using
historical examples including Stalinist central Europe and Nazi Germany; and
investigating related phenomena: the modern conspiracy theory, nostalgia for a
golden past, political polarization, and meritocracy and its discontents, Anne
Applebaum brilliantly illuminates the seduction of totalitarian thinking and
the eternal appeal of the one-party state. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50155421-twilight-of-democracy
Across the world today, from the Americas to Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege while populism and nationalism are on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum offers an unexpected explanation: that there is a deep and inherent appeal to authoritarianism, to strongmen, and, especially, to one-party rule--that is, to political systems that benefit true believers, or loyal soldiers, or simply the friends and distant cousins of the Leader, to the exclusion of everyone else.
People, she argues, are not just ideological; they are also practical, pragmatic, opportunistic. They worry about their families, their houses, their careers. Some political systems offer them possibilities, and others don't. In particular, the modern authoritarian parties that have arisen within democracies today offer the possibility of success to people who do not thrive in the meritocratic, democratic, or free-market competition that determines access to wealth and power.
Drawing on reporting in Spain, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, and Brazil; using historical examples including Stalinist central Europe and Nazi Germany; and investigating related phenomena: the modern conspiracy theory, nostalgia for a golden past, political polarization, and meritocracy and its discontents, Anne Applebaum brilliantly illuminates the seduction of totalitarian thinking and the eternal appeal of the one-party state. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50155421-twilight-of-democracy
Economic Origins of Dictatorship and
Democracy
by Daron Acemoğlu, James A. Robinson
What forces lead to democracy's creation? Why does it sometimes consolidate only to collapse at other times? Written by two of the foremost authorities on this subject in the world, this volume develops a framework for analyzing the creation and consolidation of democracy. It revolutionizes scholarship on the factors underlying government and popular movements toward democracy or dictatorship. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue that different social groups prefer different political institutions because of the way they allocate political power and resources. Their book, the subject of a four-day seminar at Harvard's Center for Basic Research in the Social Sciences, was also the basis for the Walras-Bowley lecture at the joint meetings of the European Economic Association and Econometric Society in 2003 and is the winner of the John Bates Clark Medal. Daron Acemoglu is Charles P. Kindleberger Professor of Applied Economics at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received the 2005 John Bates Clark Medal awarded by the American Economic Association as the best economist working in the United States under age 40. He is the author of the forthcoming text Introduction to Modern Economic Growth. James A. Robinson is Professor of Government at Harvard University. He is a Harvard Faculty Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and a member of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research's Program on Institutions, Organizations, and Growth. He is coeditor with Jared Diamond of the forthcoming book Natural Experiments in History.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231791256_Economic_Origins_of_Dictatorship_and_Democracy
10-13-20These are the new rules of capitalism
What does the future of
capitalism look like? Here’s what members of the Fast Company Impact Council
had to say back in June.
The Fast
Company Impact Council, an invitation-only group of corporate
leaders, entrepreneurial founders, and other leaders from across industries,
gathered on June 30 to share their insights. Members split into small groups,
moderated by Fast Company editors, and shared their
perspectives on how they are managing and innovating amid a trio of crises: the
global pandemic, the economic slowdown, and calls for social justice in the
wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery.
In this roundtable
discussion, led by deputy editor David Lidsky, top executives discussed the new
rules of capitalism and how stakeholders can make it work for everyone. In
alphabetical order, the participants in this session were Will Ahmed, CEO of
Whoop; Barie Carmichael, Batten Fellow at the Darden Business School; Frank
Cooper, CMO of BlackRock; Patrick Criteser, president and CEO of Tillamook
County Creamery Association; Laura González-Estéfani, founder, CEO, and partner
at The Venture City; Andrew King, managing partner at Bastille; Margery Kraus,
founder and executive chairman of APCO Worldwide; Stuart Landesberg, CEO and
cofounder of Grove Collaborative; and Oliver Libby, managing partner at
Hatzimemos/Libby.
Excerpts of the roundtable
have been edited for length and clarity.
Stuart Landesberg: I believe that business is the biggest agent for
change in our society, and I believe it to be the core organizing principle of
humans outside of the nuclear family over the last several hundred years. And
certainly the organizing principle that drives the most change in our societal
infrastructure. Over the last several hundred years, the desire for monetary
gain has outweighed the desire for the things that are good for people and the
planet—in the decision tree of the best and brightest people in the world. So I
am optimistic, because I’ve seen, in my own experience, that companies focused
on mission, purpose, sustainability [because] being good stewards of the world
and leaving the place a little better than we found it is a sustainable
competitive advantage. It’s an advantage in hiring. It’s an advantage in
partnership. It’s an advantage in brand. It’s an advantage in a lot of ways.
Frank Cooper: I spent most of my career outside of financial
services. I’ve been in entertainment and technology. I’ve been in packaged goods
through PepsiCo. I’ve been at BuzzFeed, Motown, and Def Jam. The
one common thread that I’ve had through all those experiences was this idea of
purpose. I’ve carried that with me from the very beginning. Here at BlackRock,
we feel like we’re one of the critical players in trying to help to advance
this idea that purpose-driven capitalism and purpose-driven companies are, in
fact, the future. I think purpose is one of the most important topics to cover,
but it’s also one of the most misunderstood topics. It’s often seen as an
abstract idea and a massive departure from capitalism, which I don’t think it
is at all.
Barie Carmichael: The executives and leaders I’ve watched who have
been able to break through [and build an inclusive corporate culture] are the ones
who have learned to cultivate dissension [and] something that I call being a
constructive skeptic, to begin to really break through and understand their
“social footprint.” Just as every company has a carbon footprint, it also has a
social footprint. The question is, Does it really know what that social
footprint is that’s embedded in the way it does business? This is not something
that can be cured by philanthropy or writing a check. It has to be cured by
that breaking through the blind spot to get at what it takes to make the change
happen.
Margery Kraus: We keep talking about diversity, [but] part of the
issue is that diversity is a number, and we can all, in some ways, have control
over that. Inclusion is a totally different thing. And inclusion is really
where we need to pay more attention—inclusion and equity. People spend a lot of
time bringing in diverse candidates, and if the culture is not accepting of
diversity, then you’re never going to have the benefit of diversity. The
benefit of diversity is that you learn things from sitting in a room with
people who are different than you are, and your clients get benefit from that.
Will Ahmed: The focus on unlocking human performances is one
that drives a lot of our decision-making, and [that means] anchoring a lot of
what we do in research. Doing research on health is really important,
independent from whether or not it helps build our business. Putting a big
focus on research has helped us maintain our mission and purpose. So when we
saw COVID-19 was becoming this this global pandemic, we added COVID-19 tracking
in our app. This was in early March—I think we were one of the first consumer
products to have COVID-19 tracking in an app. Within about two weeks, we had
over 1,000 responses of people who tested positive for COVID-19. We were then
able to partner with Cleveland Clinic and CQUniversity, two leading research
institutions. And we were able to collect a lot of data on what does COVID-19
look like alongside Whoop data. It effectively showed that having a super
elevated respiratory rate could be a predictor to COVID-19. Now if we weren’t
grounded in research, I don’t think we would have taken all those steps . . .
and a result of publishing that research, it appears to be good for our
business, too.
Laura González-Estéfani: I kind of don’t trust a lot of these companies
with these amazing statements [about their commitment to diversity and
inclusion]. You know, you just look around to your people. They’re all white
Americans. I think it’s super important to state that you, at the end of the
day, you lead by example. It’s as simple as that. It’s just a matter of
mindset. You cannot to a board, you cannot put out a company statement, when
you look around and everybody’s just like you, when your leadership team is
just like you.
Andrew King: My background is basically sports and esports . .
. and when you’re dealing with 12-, 13-, 14-year-olds, it’s a very different
mindset. What you see as the leading edge is really catering to an audience
that isn’t there yet. There is a lot that, ethically, we have to get our heads
around, not just kind of the YouTube issues of click authorization, click
acceptance for privacy, and things like that, but with some real issues
regarding mental illness, mental health, addiction, and things like that that
are going on. Esports is growing leaps and bounds, and that’s great for the
owners and participants and stakeholders, but it’s also very problematic. It
really doesn’t have the controls or the research in it to actually identify
best practices and actually how we navigate it with the next generation of
consumers.
Patrick Criteser: I’ve been at my company eight years, and the
concept of purpose is something that has certainly evolved. My view is that
employees have to resonate with the purpose. Increasingly, with your employees,
there are fewer barriers to them opting into the company, and whether you’re a
startup or 111 year-old company [like ours], you need the talent. You need
people to identify with and share values with the company. So it starts there.
In my mind, the rest of the business is constructed to serve that purpose. And
the market either rejects it or accepts it.
Oliver Libby: We have 600 entrepreneurs in about 80 countries,
starting them with very small amounts of capital very early in their
entrepreneurship journey. For me, the two things that are the main lessons are,
number one, impact and diversity are linked to high returns when done properly.
Without quoting returns, I would say we are certainly outperforming industry
benchmarks and disproving the fact that impact investing is concessionary. The
second thing is that the more hands-on approach is really helpful. This idea
that people place their bets on the roulette table and then the little ball
spins around and maybe a unicorn shows up is not a really great way to invest
over the long term. The venture capital industries’ returns demonstrate that
pretty clearly. They underperform the S&P as a group.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90560412/new-rules-capitalism-purpose-sustainability
Across the world today, from the Americas to Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege while populism and nationalism are on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum offers an unexpected explanation: that there is a deep and inherent appeal to authoritarianism, to strongmen, and, especially, to one-party rule--that is, to political systems that benefit true believers, or loyal soldiers, or simply the friends and distant cousins of the Leader, to the exclusion of everyone else.
People, she argues, are not just ideological; they are also practical, pragmatic, opportunistic. They worry about their families, their houses, their careers. Some political systems offer them possibilities, and others don't. In particular, the modern authoritarian parties that have arisen within democracies today offer the possibility of success to people who do not thrive in the meritocratic, democratic, or free-market competition that determines access to wealth and power.
Drawing on reporting in Spain, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, and Brazil; using historical examples including Stalinist central Europe and Nazi Germany; and investigating related phenomena: the modern conspiracy theory, nostalgia for a golden past, political polarization, and meritocracy and its discontents, Anne Applebaum brilliantly illuminates the seduction of totalitarian thinking and the eternal appeal of the one-party state.
Boston experimented with using generative AI for
governing. It went surprisingly well
BY SANTIAGO GARCES AND
STEPHEN GOLDSMITH
The recent Biden White
House Executive
Order on AI (FACT SHEET: President Biden Issues Executive
Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence)
addresses important
questions. If it’s not implemented in a dynamic and flexible way, however, it
runs the risk of impeding the kinds of dramatic improvements in both government
and community participation that generative AI stands to offer.
Current bureaucratic
procedures, developed 150 years ago, need reform, and generative AI presents a
unique opportunity to do just that. As two lifelong public servants, we believe
that the risk of delaying reform is just as great as the risk of negative impacts.
Anxiety around generative AI,
which has been spilling across sectors from screenwriting to university
education, is understandable. Too often, though, the debate is framed only
around how the tools will disrupt us, not how these they might reform systems
that have been calcified for too long in regressive and inefficient patterns.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT and its
competitors are not yet part of the government reform movement, but they should
be. Most recent attempts to reinvent government have centered around elevating
good people within bad systems, with the hope that this will chip away at the
fossilized bad practices.
The level of transformative
change now will depend on visionary political leaders willing to work through
the tangle of outdated procedures, inequitable services, hierarchical
practices, and siloed agency verticals that hold back advances in responsive government.
New AI tools offer the most
hope ever for creating a broadly reformed, citizen-oriented governance. The
reforms we propose do not demand reorganization of municipal departments;
rather, they require examining the fundamental government operating systems and
using generative AI to empower employees to look across agencies for solutions,
analyze problems, calculate risk, and respond in record time.
What makes generative AI’s
potential so great is its ability to fundamentally change the operations of
government.
Bureaucracies rely on paper
and routines. The red tape of bureaucracy has been strangling employees and
constituents alike. Employees, denied the ability to quickly examine underlying
problems or risks, resort to slow-moving approval processes despite knowing,
through frontline experience, how systems could be optimized. And the big
machine of bureaucracy, unable or unwilling to identify the cause of a
prospective problem, resorts to reaction rather than preemption.
Finding patterns of any sort,
in everything from crime to waste, fraud to abuse, occurs infrequently and
often involves legions of inspectors. Regulators take months to painstakingly
look through compliance forms, unable to process a request based on its own
distinctive characteristics. Field workers equipped with AI could quickly
access the information they need to make a judgment about the cause of a
problem or offer a solution to help residents seeking assistance. These new
technologies allow workers to quickly review massive amounts of data that are
already in city government and find patterns, make predictions, and identify
norms in response to well framed inquiries.
Together, we have overseen
advancing technology innovation in five cities and worked with chief data
officers from 20 other municipalities toward the same goals, and we see the
possible advances of generative AI as having the most potential. For example,
Boston asked OpenAI to “suggest interesting analyses” after we uploaded 311
data. In response, it suggested two things: time series analysis by case time,
and a comparative analysis by neighborhood. This meant that city officials
spent less time navigating the mechanics of computing an analysis, and had more
time to dive into the patterns of discrepancy in service. The tools make
graphs, maps, and other visualizations with a simple prompt. With lower
barriers to analyze data, our city officials can formulate more hypotheses and
challenge assumptions, resulting in better decisions.
Not all city officials have
the engineering and web development experience needed to run these
tests and code. But this experiment shows that other city employees,
without any STEM background, could, with just a bit of training, utilize these
generative AI tools to supplement their work.
To make this possible, more
authority would need to be granted to frontline workers who too often have
their hands tied with red tape. Therefore, we encourage government leaders to
allow workers more discretion to solve problems, identify risks, and check
data. This is not inconsistent with accountability; rather, supervisors can
utilize these same generative AI tools, to identify patterns or outliers—say,
where race is inappropriately playing a part in decision-making, or where
program effectiveness drops off (and why). These new tools will more quickly
provide an indication as to which interventions are making a difference, or
precisely where a historic barrier is continuing to harm an already
marginalized community.
Civic groups will be able to
hold government accountable in new ways, too. This is where the linguistic
power of large language models really shines: Public employees and community
leaders alike can request that tools create visual process maps, build checklists
based on a description of a project, or monitor progress compliance. Imagine if
people who have a deep understanding of a city—its operations, neighborhoods,
history, and hopes for the future—can work toward shared goals, equipped with
the most powerful tools of the digital age. Gatekeepers of formerly mysterious
processes will lose their stranglehold, and expediters versed in state and
local ordinances, codes, and standards, will no longer be necessary to maneuver
around things like zoning or permitting processes.
Numerous challenges would
remain. Public workforces would still need better data analysis skills in order
to verify whether a tool is following the right steps and producing correct
information. City and state officials would need technology partners in the
private sector to develop and refine the necessary tools, and these
relationships raise challenging questions about privacy, security, and
algorithmic bias.
However, unlike previous
government reforms that merely made a dent in the issue of sprawling, outdated
government processes, the use of generative AI will, if broadly, correctly, and
fairly incorporated, produce the comprehensive changes necessary to bring
residents back to the center of local decision-making—and restore trust in
official conduct.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90983427/chatgpt-generative-ai-government-reform
Artificial intelligence in
government
Artificial intelligence (AI) has a range of uses
in government. It can be used to further public policy objectives (in
areas such as emergency services, health and welfare), as well as assist the
public to interact with the government (through the use of virtual assistants, for example). According
to the Harvard Business Review, "Applications of
artificial intelligence to the public sector are broad and growing, with early
experiments taking place around the world."[1] Hila Mehr from
the Ash Center for Democratic
Governance and Innovation at Harvard University notes that AI in government is not new, with postal
services using machine methods in the late 1990s to recognise handwriting on envelopes to
automatically route letters.[2] The use of AI in
government comes with significant benefits, including efficiencies resulting in
cost savings (for instance by reducing the number of front office staff), and
reducing the opportunities for corruption.[3] However, it also
carries risks.[citation needed][further explanation needed]
Uses of AI in government[edit]
The potential uses of AI in government are wide and varied,[4] with Deloitte considering that
"Cognitive technologies could eventually revolutionize every facet of
government operations".[5] Mehr suggests that
six types of government problems are appropriate for AI applications:[2]
1. Resource allocation -
such as where administrative support is required to complete tasks more
quickly.
2. Large datasets - where
these are too large for employees to work efficiently and multiple datasets
could be combined to provide greater insights.
3. Experts shortage -
including where basic questions could be answered and niche issues can be
learned.
4. Predictable scenario -
historical data makes the situation predictable.
5. Procedural - repetitive
tasks where inputs or outputs have a binary answer.
6. Diverse data - where data
takes a variety of forms (such as visual and linguistic) and needs to be
summarised regularly.
Mehr states that "While applications of AI in government work have not
kept pace with the rapid expansion of AI in the private sector, the potential
use cases in the public sector mirror common applications in the private
sector."[2]
Potential and actual uses of AI in government can be divided into three
broad categories: those that contribute to public policy objectives; those that
assist public interactions with the government; and other uses.
Contributing to public policy objectives[edit]
There are a range of examples of where AI can contribute to public policy
objectives.[4] These include:
- Receiving benefits
at job loss, retirement, bereavement and child birth almost immediately,
in an automated way (thus without requiring any actions from citizens at
all)[6]
- Social insurance
service provision[3]
- Classifying
emergency calls based on their urgency (like the system used by the Cincinnati Fire Department in the United States[7])
- Detecting and
preventing the spread of diseases[7]
- Assisting public
servants in making welfare payments and immigration decisions[1]
- Adjudicating bail
hearings[1]
- Triaging health care
cases[1]
- Monitoring social
media for public feedback on policies[8]
- Monitoring social
media to identify emergency situations[8]
- Identifying
fraudulent benefits claims[8]
- Predicting a crime
and recommending optimal police presence[8]
- Predicting traffic
congestion and car accidents[8]
- Anticipating road
maintenance requirements[8]
- Identifying breaches
of health regulations[8]
- Providing
personalised education to students[7]
- Marking exam papers[1]
- Assisting with
defence and national security (see Artificial intelligence § Military and Applications of artificial
intelligence § Other fields in which AI methods are implemented respectively).
- Making symptom based
health Chatbot AI Vaid for diagnosis[9]
Assisting public interactions with government[edit]
AI can be used to assist members of the public to interact with government
and access government services,[4] for example by:
- Answering questions using virtual assistants or chatbots (see below)
- Directing requests
to the appropriate area within government[2]
- Filling out forms[2]
- Assisting with
searching documents (e.g. IP Australia's trade mark search[10])
- Scheduling
appointments[8]
Examples of virtual assistants or chatbots being used by government include
the following:
- Launched in February
2016, the Australian Taxation Office has a virtual
assistant on its website called
"Alex".[11] As at 30 June
2017, Alex could respond to more than 500 questions, had engaged in 1.5
million conversations and resolved over 81% of enquiries at first contact.[11]
- Australia's National Disability
Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is developing a virtual assistant
called "Nadia" which takes the form of an avatar using the voice of actor Cate Blanchett.[12] Nadia is
intended to assist users of the NDIS to navigate the service. Costing some
$4.5 million,[13] the project
has been postponed following a number of issues.[14][15] Nadia was
developed using IBM Watson,[16][12] however,
the Australian Government is considering other
platforms such as Microsoft Cortana for its further
development.[17]
- The Australian
Government's Department of Human Services uses virtual
assistants on parts of its website to answer questions
and encourage users to stay in the digital channel.[18] As at December
2018, a virtual assistant called "Sam" could answer general
questions about family, job seeker and student payments and related
information. The department also introduced an internally-facing virtual
assistant called "MelissHR" to make it easier for departmental
staff to access human resources information.[18]
- Estonia is building
a virtual assistant which will guide citizens through any interactions
they have with the government. Automated and proactive services
"push" services to citizens at key events of their lives
(including births, bereavements, unemployment, ...). One example is the
automated registering of babies when they are born.[19][20]
Other uses[edit]
Other uses of AI in government include:
- Translation[2]
- Language interpretation pioneered by the European Commission's Directorate General for
Interpretation and Florika Fink-Hooijer.
- Drafting documents[2]
Potential benefits[edit]
AI offers potential efficiencies and costs savings for the government. For
example, Deloitte has estimated that
automation could save US Government employees between 96.7
million to 1.2 billion hours a year, resulting in potential savings of between
$3.3 billion to $41.1 billion a year.[5] The Harvard Business Review has stated that while this
may lead a government to reduce employee numbers, "Governments could
instead choose to invest in the quality of its services. They can re-employ
workers' time towards more rewarding work that requires lateral thinking,
empathy, and creativity — all things at which humans continue to outperform
even the most sophisticated AI program."[1]
Risks[edit]
Risks associated with the use of AI in government include AI becoming
susceptible to bias,[2] a lack of
transparency in how an AI application may make decisions,[7] and the
accountability for any such decisions.[7]
AI in governance and the economic world might make the market more
difficult for companies to keep up with the increases in technology. Large U.S.
companies like Apple and Google are able to dominate the market with their
latest and most advanced technologies. This gives them an advantage over
smaller companies that do not have the means of advancing as far in the digital
technology fields with AI.[21]
See also[edit]
- Government by algorithm
- AI for Good
- Project Cybersyn
- Civic technology
- e-government
- Applications of artificial
intelligence
- Lawbot
- Regulation of artificial
intelligence
- Existential risk
from artificial general intelligence
- Artificial general intelligence
- Singleton (global governance)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence_in_government
Organizations should
consider the following best practices to establish a robust AI governance
framework:
- Manage AI Models. ...
- Data Governance & Security. ...
- Algorithmic Bias Mitigation. ...
- Implement Frameworks. ...
- Explainability & Transparency. ...
- Engage Stakeholders. ...
- Continuous Monitoring.
- Principle 1
- Principle 2
- Principle 3
- Principle 4
- Principle 5
- Principle 6
- Principle 7
- Principle 8
- Principle 9