Technologies of Governance

Nine hours of presentations and discussion can be an awful lot of time. So if a day like this flies by, something special must have happened. We had exactly this experience last Thursday when 15 junior scholars from around the world met in Oxford to share their research and ideas about “Modes of Governance in [...]

If you are a PhD student or Post-Doc, have an interest in governance, technology, and society, and wonder what Oxford is like in springtime, this call for participation is for you [pdf]: MODES OF GOVERNANCE IN DIGITALLY NETWORKED ENVIRONMENTS Interdisciplinary Workshop Oxford Internet Institute – Oxford University Thursday, March 26, 2009 – 9am-6pm Over the [...]

At first sight, the jobs of policy-makers and game designers could not be more different. On the one hand, a world of law and regulation, trying to stabilize financial markets, tackle global warming, fight crime, regulate traffic, and make network industries work. On the other hand, a world of board games, sports, and ego shooters, [...]

Yesterday was an exciting day in Oxford: OneWebDay. For the first time in the short history of OneWebDay, we joined the celebrations all around the world. Overall a big success: a lot of new faces at the OII, thought-provoking conversations, and lots of tea and cookies. So what exactly happened? At noon, we opened OneWebday [...]

On September 22, it’s time again for OneWebDay – the Earth Day for the Internet. All around the globe, people will gather for community-organized events and focus attention on local Internet concerns. This year’s theme is “Online Participation in Democracy.” And for the first time, also Oxford will join the celebrations with two free and [...]

I am teaching a tutorial on “Internet Governance & Regulation” at Wadham College this term. For those not familiar with Oxford-speak, a tutorial is an approach to teaching that is based on weekly meetings between a student and a scholar (i.e. 8 hours per term). While the student has to plough through a rather comprehensive [...]

Great to see that the Hans Bredow Institute finally has a voice in the blogosphere. The voice belongs to Jan Schmidt, a sociologist with a research focus on social software and blogs. Jan recently joined the institute as a senior researcher and has been covering his own work at “Schmidt mit Dete” for quite a [...]

Hunting for Christmas presents, I noticed an interesting experiment in institutional design on ebay UK. Apparently, a new community court system is being tested to solve disputes over individual feedback ratings. The basic idea is as follows (details here): If you think you received an unfair feedback rating, you can start an appeal by posting [...]

Browsing through the Oxford Times the other day, I came across an interesting development in our very own town that touches upon my recent post about regulation by honking. Apparently, Oxford is considering introducing so-called “shared spaces” to deal with traffic congestion: Oxford University and Oxford City Council both signalled their support this week for [...]

As the day started off so well with a fascinating talk by Hal Abelson, who will spend the next couple of months as a visitor at the OII, I thought I could as well engage in an act of shameless self-promotion: A paper I co-authored with my former teacher and friend Viktor Mayer-Schönberger has just [...]