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61. China’s Gambit for Total Information Dominance: A US-Australia Response

Author:
Patrick M. Cronin
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
This report assesses China’s comprehensive approach to information power and its implications for the U.S.-Australia alliance. The purpose of the report is threefold: to enlarge alliance awareness of China’s whole-of-society information challenge; highlight critical responses to this challenge from Canberra and Washington; and deepen alliance thinking regarding strategy and policy. The scale and scope of China’s information enterprise distinguishes it from other countries. Overt persuasion campaigns and covert influence operations are thoroughly researched, carefully choreographed, and uninhibited by concerns over individual or sovereign rights. Beijing goes beyond the use of information and instead seeks to achieve primacy in discourse power by weaponizing narrative in ways analogous to asymmetric military strategies. China uses a distinctive whole-of-society approach to building a dazzling wealth of data and information. Aided by intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers, decades of education training abroad, and other forms of acquiring information, China’s industrial policy goes beyond protectionist measures like subsidies. When Military-Civil Fusion is considered, this development has far more than economic and technological ramifications.
Topic:
International Relations, Science and Technology, Alliance, Data, and Information Technology
Political Geography:
China, Asia, Australia, and United States of America

62. China’s Digital Currency: Adding Financial Data to Digital Authoritarianism

Author:
Yaya J. Fanusie and Emily Jin
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:
China is pushing aggressively to be a global leader in financial technology. Over the last several years, use of mobile payment platforms has exploded in China while cash transactions have declined. At the same time, global interest in the development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) has also risen, with dozens of central banks now researching ways to offer digital versions of their fiat currency to ordinary citizens. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is leading in these efforts, aiming to release a central bank digital currency of its own. This CBDC system, which the Chinese government calls Digital Currency/ Electronic Payment (DCEP), will likely enable the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to strengthen its digital authoritarianism domestically and export its influence and standard-setting abroad. By eliminating some of the previous constraints on government data collection of private citizens’ transactions, DCEP represents a significant risk to the long-held standards of financial privacy upheld in free societies. The PBOC’s DCEP strategy is motivated by a number of factors. The dominance of private mobile payment firms in China has given such companies an outsized role in retail commerce, making them indispensable to the economy. The PBOC is seeking a digital currency to harness the market share and technological innovation of private financial firms and to gain better access to information about the financial activities of Chinese consumers. DCEP is also part of China’s geopolitical ambitions, and CCP officials frame the progress of DCEP as similar to advancements in other strategically important emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and robotics. DCEP’s development also comes against a backdrop of China’s broader push to internationalize the renminbi. Few technical details about DCEP are publicly confirmed. The PBOC has indicated that DCEP will have a two-tier structure, with the PBOC managing the back-end infrastructure while employing banks and other companies to aid in distribution to the public. It is clear that, despite much initial PBOC discussion about distributed ledger infrastructure, DCEP will not use blockchain as part of its design. DCEP is also likely to allow for some basic programmability involving its transactions and to offer users the opportunity to access the currency via software wallets. Despite some official statements and reporting about these general features, much of the precise operational architecture is still being worked out.
Topic:
Authoritarianism, Finance, Data, and Digital Currency
Political Geography:
China and Asia

63. Unpacking Gender Gaps and Data Gaps in Public Sector Employment and Pay

Author:
Ugonma Nwankwo, Megan O'Donnell, and Charles Kenny
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
We look at available sources to ask (i) Where is data available on employment and wages allowing for comparisons between women and men, and the public and private sectors? (ii) How do women’s employment, compensation, and seniority compare with men’s in the public and private sectors? (iii) How do gender gaps vary by countries’ income level, education levels, and other factors? What are the policy implications of the data we analyze? (iv) Which countries’ efforts can be modeled by others, and how else can global gender gaps in employment and compensation be narrowed? We suggest the Open Government Partnership as a promising platform through which governments can commit to increased transparency around disaggregated employment and wage data, in turn improving policy decision-making aimed at closing gender gaps (or those rooted in other forms of inequality and discrimination).
Topic:
Labor Issues, Women, Inequality, Feminism, Data, and Gender
Political Geography:
Global Focus

64. Humanitarian ‘Do No Harm’: Plugging Gaps in Data Governance

Author:
S. Nanthini
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
Data analytics have become a central component of humanitarian work. This is used to inform what affected community needs are and where they need them most. For communities who are already vulnerable, if their data is misused or shared with actors who are not bound by humanitarian principles, they can be exposed to additional risks.
Topic:
Governance, Humanitarian Intervention, Humanitarian Crisis, and Data
Political Geography:
Global Focus

65. Political Violence Targeting LGBT+ Communities in Africa

Author:
Kaden Paulson-Smith and Timothy Lay
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)
Abstract:
New supplemental data on political violence targeting LGBT+ communities add nearly 100 events to the ACLED dataset. This brief analyzes the new data and explores trends in violence across Africa.
Topic:
Political Violence, LGBT+, and Data
Political Geography:
Africa

66. The Drug War Rages on in the Philippines: New Data on the Civilian Toll, State Responsibility, and Shifting Geographies of Violence

Author:
Roudabeh Kishi and Tomas Buenaventura
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)
Abstract:
New supplemental data for the Philippines add nearly 1,000 events and more than 1,100 fatalities to the ACLED dataset for the period of 2016 to the present, expanding our coverage of the country’s war on drugs. This report analyzes key trends from the data and sheds new light on the drug war’s civilian death toll. Download the data and check the Resource Library for more information about ACLED methodology.
Topic:
State Violence, Drugs, Civilians, and Data
Political Geography:
Philippines and Asia-Pacific

67. Health Data Governance: Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic in Europe, China, and the United States

Author:
Clément Tonon and Julie Martinez
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI)
Abstract:
The health crisis has triggered a tectonic movement in the recomposition of health data governance and protection models around the world, while accelerating the investment of large digital companies in the field of e-health. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the shortcomings of pre-existing governance models in every region of the world and the need to move towards a model of public health crisis management "through health data". For Europe and for France in particular, the health crisis has revealed a long "technological innocence". Despite a strategic awakening, questions remain about the ability of Europeans to cooperate effectively and move towards a common digital space in health. In the United States, the pandemic has created tensions around the health data governance model – particularly on the articulation between the federal government and state authorities. Changes are announced by President Joe Biden, which tend towards a model of global regulation of personal data. In China, the pandemic has accelerated the transition to a model of surveillance capitalism which could lead in the short term to a new power struggle between the regime and the Chinese digital giants. Finally, the COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the rise of digital companies, which are now positioning themselves on the entire value chain of health data, from its raw collection via connected objects to its mass processing for insurance purposes. They now have all the levers in hand to economically value this massive data with the help of artificial intelligence.
Topic:
Health, Governance, Geopolitics, Data, COVID-19, and Digital Policy
Political Geography:
China, Europe, and United States of America

68. Strategic Calculation: High-Performance Computing and Quantum Computing in Europe’s Quest for Technological Power

Author:
Alice Pannier
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI)
Abstract:
Computing power plays a key role in enabling machine learning, for scientific research, and in the military domain. Therefore, the race for computing power has become a key element of the US-China technological competition, and it is also a strategic priority for Europe. This study focuses on two complementary segments of computing: high-performance computing (HPC, also known as “supercomputing”), and quantum computing. HPC has for several decades been used in scientific research, meteorology, and the military. While states continue to drive the needs for massive computers, the field is also witnessing a diversification of uses in industry. Meanwhile, quantum computing is still at an experimental stage but has highly disruptive potential, as it promises to multiply computing power exponentially. As such, it has become a focal point for government, industry, and investors around the globe. In the global race, European countries are seeking to pool resources by encouraging the development of federated computing services, data infrastructures, and a local industry. Of course, Europe faces multiple challenges (the design and production of processors, energy consumption constraints, and scarce private investment) and risks (such as export restrictions and company takeovers). Yet, today, quantum computing does offer an opportunity to learn lessons from past developments in the field of classical computing, and to take the right actions early on, to reap the societal, economic and security benefits of this technology.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Data, Quantum Computers, Digital Sovereignty, and Supercomputers
Political Geography:
Europe

69. Heterogeneous consumer preferences for product quality and uncertainty

Author:
Wolfgang Maennig and Steffen Mueller
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg
Abstract:
We provide evidence for heterogeneous consumer preferences for product quality and game outcome uncertainty (GOU) in Major League Baseball. Using attendance data from 2013 to 2019, we explore func-tional data clustering techniques to detect common patterns in predictive margins of team-specific win-ning probability. As a central result, we identify five groups of teams with similar GOU effects. However, only a few teams’ fans show GOU preferences that resemble the typical hump-shape that is postulated by the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis; the largest cluster is comprised of teams with fans whose at-tendance behavior is relatively insensitive to differences in GOU.
Topic:
Economics, Data, Consumer Behavior, and Uncertainty
Political Geography:
Global Focus

70. Towards efficient information sharing in network markets

Author:
Georgios Petropoulous, Bertin Martens, Marshall Van Alstyne, and Geoffrey Parker
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Bruegel
Abstract:
Digital platforms facilitate interactions between consumers and merchants that allow collection of profiling information, which drives innovation and welfare. Private incentives, however, lead to information asymmetries resulting in market failures both on-platform, among merchants, and off-platform, among competing platforms. This paper develops two product-differentiation models to study private and social incentives to share information within and between platforms. We show that there is scope for ex-ante regulation of mandatory data sharing that improves social welfare better than competing interventions, such as barring entry, break-up, forced divestiture or limiting recommendation steering. These alternate proposals do not make efficient use of information. We argue that the location of data access matters and develop a regulatory framework that introduces a new data right for platform users, the in-situ data right, which is associated with positive welfare gains. By construction, this right enables effective sharing of information together with its context, without reducing the value created by network effects. It also enables regulatory oversight but limits data privacy leakages. We discuss crucial elements of its implementation in order to achieve innovation-friendly and competitive digital markets.
Topic:
Markets, Science and Technology, Data, and Information
Political Geography:
Global Focus