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31. Building Trust in AI: A Landscape Analysis of Government AI Programs

Author:
Susan Ariel Aaronson
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
As countries around the world expand their use of artificial intelligence (AI), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has developed the most comprehensive website on AI policy, the OECD.AI Policy Observatory. Although the website covers public policies on AI, the author of this paper found that many governments failed to evaluate or report on their AI initiatives. This lack of reporting is a missed opportunity for policy makers to learn from their programs (the author found that less than one percent of the programs listed on the OECD.AI website had been evaluated). In addition, the author found discrepancies between what governments said they were doing on the OECD.AI website and what they reported on their own websites. In some cases, there was no evidence of government actions; in other cases, links to government sites did not work. Evaluations of AI policies are important because they help governments demonstrate how they are building trust in both AI and AI governance and that policy makers are accountable to their fellow citizens.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Trust, and Trust-building
Political Geography:
Global Focus

32. Could a Global “Wicked Problems Agency” Incentivize Data Sharing?

Author:
Susan Ariel Aaronson
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Global data sharing could help solve “wicked” problems (problems such as climate change, terrorism and global poverty that no one knows how to solve without creating further problems). There is no one or best way to address wicked problems because they have many different causes and manifest in different contexts. By mixing vast troves of data, policy makers and researchers may find new insights and strategies to address these complex problems. National and international government agencies and large corporations generally control the use of such data, and the world has made little progress in encouraging cross-sectoral and international data sharing. This paper proposes a new international cloud-based organization, the "Wicked Problems Agency," to catalyze both data sharing and data analysis in the interest of mitigating wicked problems. This organization would work to prod societal entities — firms, individuals, civil society groups and governments — to share and analyze various types of data. The Wicked Problems Agency could provide a practical example of how data sharing can yield both economic and public good benefits.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Governance, Data, and Public-Private Partnership
Political Geography:
Global Focus

33. Why Does the Global Spyware Industry Continue to Thrive? Trends, Explanations, and Responses

Author:
Steven Feldstein and Brian (Chun Hey) Kot
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The global spyware and digital forensics industry continues to grow despite public backlash following an array of surveillance scandals, many linked to NSO Group’s Pegasus program. This paper explores the resilience of the commercial spyware market and offers ideas about how to limit the spread of invasive cyber surveillance tools. It highlights several factors driving the industry, including elevated demand for intrusion technology from government clients and private customers, as well as inconsistent political will from democratic governments to crack down on these technologies.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Cybersecurity, Democracy, Surveillance, Industry, Forensic Science, and Autocracy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

34. Phase-based Tactical Analysis of Online Operations

Author:
Ben Nimmo and Eric Hutchins
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The online threatscape in 2023 is characterized by an unprecedented variety of actors, types of operation, and threat response teams. Threat actors range from intelligence agencies and troll farms to child-abuse networks. Abuses range from hacking to scams, election interference to harassment. Responders include platform trust-and-safety teams, government agencies, open-source researchers, and others. As yet, these responding entities lack a shared model to analyze, describe, compare, and disrupt the tactics of malicious online operations. Yet the nature of online activity—assuming the targets are human—is such that there are significant commonalities between these abuse types: widely different actors may follow the same chain of steps. By conducting a phase-based analysis of different violations, it is possible to isolate the links in the chain within a unified model, where breaking any single link can disrupt at least part of the operation, and breaking many links—“completing the kill chain”—can disrupt it comprehensively. Using this model will allow investigators to analyze individual operations and identify the earliest moments at which they can be detected and disrupted. It will also enable them to compare multiple operations across a far wider range of threats than has been possible so far, to identify common patterns and weaknesses in the operation. Finally, it will allow different investigative teams across industry, civil society, and government to share and compare their insights into operations and threat actors according to a common taxonomy, giving each a better understanding of each threat and a better chance of detecting and disrupting it.
Topic:
Security, Internet, and Non-Traditional Threats
Political Geography:
Global Focus

35. ACLED Year in Review Global Disorder in 2022

Author:
Timothy Lay
Publication Date:
01-2023
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)
Abstract:
The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine escalated the war to a level that dwarfed all other conflicts in 2022, both in the sheer scale of violence and its deadliness. It also obscured a significant overall deterioration of the security situation in most other regions worldwide. Driven by heightened levels of conflict in both new and longstanding hotspots, political violence increased substantially over the course of the year. While 2022 saw some positive developments – including a significant reduction in total violent events in places like Afghanistan and Yemen after years of war – these gains only represent qualified improvements. Despite the aggregate decline in events in Afghanistan and Yemen, for example, they remain home to two of the most complex and severe conflict environments in the world. Globally, political violence targeting civilians became not only more common but also more deadly in 2022, underscoring the fact that it is civilian communities that are increasingly shouldering the burden of rising conflict levels around the world.
Topic:
Security, Political Violence, Civilians, and Armed Conflict
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Russia, Ukraine, Yemen, and Global Focus

36. Collective screening

Author:
Vincent Anesi and Peter Buisseret
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP)
Abstract:
We study a dynamic principal-agent model in which the principal is a group whose members hold heterogeneous and evolving values from an agreement with the agent. Learning about the agent’s private information reduces the principals’ conflicts over their joint offer, mitigating a principal’s losses if she is not decisive over future offers. As a consequence, a principal in a group prefers to screen the agent more aggressively than a single principal. We study the dynamics of the principals’ collective choice, and obtain conditions under which decisive members of the group successively trade away their decision-making authority, leading inexorably to the concentration of negotiation power in the hands of a single principal.
Topic:
Economics, Political Science, and Decision-Making
Political Geography:
Global Focus

37. Can the World Trade Organization be saved? Should it?

Author:
Alan Wm. Wolff
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Heads of state, trade ministers, and academics have repeatedly called for reforming the World Trade Organization (WTO), the institution charged with the stewardship of the global trading system. The durability and worth of the WTO are being increasingly questioned despite the fact that by almost all objective measures, it has been a great success, with world trade growing much faster than global GDP over the last 75 years. However, past success does not guarantee future performance. This Policy Brief examines the institution’s most serious defects and the multitude of challenges it faces. It suggests the institution needs to evolve to reach broad-based international trade agreements, adding much needed new rules to the world trade rulebook and developing effective means to settle disputes that would render the rules of the system enforceable once again.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Treaties and Agreements, and World Trade Organization
Political Geography:
Global Focus

38. The international tax agreement of 2021: Why it’s needed, what it does, and what comes next?

Author:
Kimberly Clausing
Publication Date:
04-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
In 2021, more than 135 jurisdictions agreed on transformative new international tax rules that would establish a minimum tax rate of 15 percent on multinational corporate income regardless of where it was reported. In December 2022, the European Union unanimously moved forward to implement this minimum tax, and other countries, including South Korea, Japan, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, are also either implementing the tax or taking substantial steps toward implementation. In tandem, the United States should also reform its international tax system and adopt a stronger minimum tax. While the future of the international agreement is uncertain, it has important implications for the ability of governments worldwide to create tax systems that are administrable, fair, and efficient. The agreement also demonstrates important guiding principles for the future of multilateral cooperation on global collective action problems, including efforts to protect public health from future pandemics, address nuclear proliferation, and resolve territorial conflicts. US progress on international tax reform would enhance much needed international cooperation on these issues.
Topic:
Economics, Treaties and Agreements, Reform, European Union, and Tax Systems
Political Geography:
Europe and Global Focus

39. Multilateral development banks are key to unlocking low-carbon investments in developing economies

Author:
Steven Fries
Publication Date:
04-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Over the next three decades, emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs), and especially middle-income countries, are projected to account for much of the growth in global economic activity and energy use. While a decisive move to low-carbon technologies and energy efficiency would advance both their development goals and a stable climate, the countries have yet to fully tap this opportunity. The multilateral development banks (MDBs) are in a unique position to help lower barriers to low-carbon investments in EMDEs and unlock these sustainable development opportunities. Their differentiating governance, financial and technical capabilities, and financing instruments would enable MDBs to support the necessary business environment and energy reforms and to cofinance low-carbon and energy efficiency investments alongside other investors to reduce and manage risks.
Topic:
Development, Economy, Multilateralism, Investment, and Carbon Emissions
Political Geography:
Global Focus

40. Carbon border adjustments, climate clubs, and subsidy races when climate policies vary

Author:
Kimberly Clausing and Catherine Wolfram
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Jurisdictions adopt heterogeneous climate policies that vary in terms of both ambition and policy approach, with some jurisdictions pricing carbon and others subsidizing clean production. We distinguish two types of policy spillovers associated with diverse policy approaches to climate change. First, when countries have different levels of climate ambition, free riders will benefit at the expense of more committed countries. Second, when countries pursue different approaches, carbon-intensive producers within cost-imposing jurisdictions will be at a relative competitive disadvantage compared with producers in subsidizing jurisdictions. Carbon border adjustments and climate clubs are attempts to respond to these policy spillovers, but when countries have divergent policy approaches, one policy alone will not be able to address both types of spillovers. We also consider the policy dynamics that result from carbon border adjustments and climate clubs; both have the potential to encourage upward harmonization of climate policy, but they come with risks. Further, the pressures of international competition in the presence of divergent climate policy approaches may result in subsidy races, which come with their own potential risks and benefits.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, Carbon Emissions, and Production
Political Geography:
Global Focus