IT in Public Policies

obligatory courses

(in Polish) Przedmiot dla studentów Socjologii Interwencji Społecznych.

5 miejsc dla studentów Socjologii II stopnia.

Classroom

The aim of the course is to explore critical perspectives on the use of information technology (IT) in public policy. The starting point for our dissuasions will be the literature emphasizing the threats that IT creates for the democratic rule of law (e.g. surveillance of citizens, lack of transparency of rules governing the distribution of public benefits and services). We will be interested in the moral and political component of IT used by the state: how the collection and processing of data though IT serves to impose values, norms of behavior and identity on citizens.

The aim of the course is to explore critical perspectives on the use of information technology (IT) in public policy. The starting point for our dissuasions will be the literature emphasizing the threats that IT creates for the democratic rule of law (e.g. surveillance of citizens, lack of transparency of rules governing the distribution of public benefits and services). We will be interested in the moral and political component of IT used by the state: how the collection and processing of data though IT serves to impose values, norms of behavior and identity on citizens. We will also problematize how information technologies increase the possibility of exercising supervision over both citizens and officials (including the frontline staff of public institutions).

During the course, we will also analyze specific cases of using information technologies in public policy, focusing on topics such as:

Automated decision-making systems

Democratic control over IT used in public policy

Discretion of IT designers

Surveillance and privacy limits

Accuracy of algorithmic diagnoses (reliability of data and mathematical models)

Digital administration and social inequalities

IT in the daily operation of public institutions

In order to encourage students to conduct similar research on their own, a group project is also planned as part of the classes. It will consist in confronting the previously discussed concepts with empirical material relating to the selected cases of information technology applied in publ

Bovens, M., Zouridis, S., From Street-Level to System-Level Bureaucracies: How Information and Communication Technology is Transforming Administrative Discretion and Constitutional Control, Public Administration Review, 62 (2).

Bowker, G. C. & Star, S. L. (1999) Sorting things out: classification and its consequences, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.

Eubanks, V. (2017) Automating inequality: how high-tech tools profile, police, and punish the poor, St. Martin's Press.

Gilliom, J. (2001) Overseers of the poor: surveillance, resistance, and the limits of privacy, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Keymolen, E., i Broeders, D. (2013) Innocence Lost: Care and Control in Dutch Digital Youth Care. The British Journal of Social Work 43(1): 41–63.

Lyon D. (2005) Surveillance as Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk and Automated Discrimination, Taylor and Francis.

Lyon D. (2015), Surveillance after Snowden, Polity Press.

Newman, J, Clarke, J (2009) Publics, Politics and Power: Remaking the Public in Public Services Remaking Citizens: Transformation and Activation. (London: Sage).

Niklas, J., Sztandar-Sztanderska, K. & Szymielewicz, K. (2015) “Profiling the Unemployed in Poland. Social and Political Implications of Algorithmic Decision Making.”. Warszawa, Panoptykon Foundation

O'Neil C., Broń matematycznej zagłady: jak algorytmy zwiększają nierówności i zagrażają demokracji, PWN, Warszawa.

Pithouse, A., i in. (2011) Trust, Risk and the (Mis)management of Contingency and Discretion through New Information Technologies in Children’s Services”. Journal of Social Work 12(2): 158–78.

Rose, N. (1999) Governing the Soul. The Shaping of the Private Slef. (London, New York: Free Association Books).

Sztandar-Sztanderska, K., Kotnarowski, M., Zieleńska M., Czy algorytmy wprowadzają w błąd? Metaanaliza algorytmu stosowanego do profilowania bezrobotnych w Polsce, Studia Socjologiczne, 1 (240).

Filmy:

Citizenfour, reż. Laura Poitras, 2014.

Attendance is required to pass the course (2 absences allowed). Assessment is

based on activity and work during the classes, including task completion (60% of

the grade) and presentation of the analysis prepared in a groups (40%).

Presentations will be commented on by invited guests - researchers or

practitioners who specialise in the topic of interest.