Daniel Berliner - Böcker

Policymakers around the world often aim to learn from ordinary people through participatory institutions like consultations, petitions, complaint mechanisms, townhalls, constituent communications, crowdsourcing platforms, participatory budgeting, and citizen assemblies. But when faced with large volumes of complex information inputs, they can struggle with information overload challenges that leave them unable to learn meaningful and actionable information outputs. This book develops and illustrates a new framework for understanding the different types of information that policymakers can learn from ordinary people, the complexity of that information, and the different ways in which it can be processed into meaningful policy knowledge. This framework highlights crucial differences in how information is solicited and processed, and to whom that processing is delegated, that shape policymakers' abilities to learn specific and novel information like new problems, new ideas, or new perspectives. While simple information is more straightforward to solicit and process, achieving the potential benefits of learning from ordinary people often requires complex information instead. This complex information must be solicited in open-ended ways and subsequently processed by filtering, rather than aggregating, public inputs and ensuring adequate roles for domain-specific knowledge to recognize novel values. This framework also helps better understand the potential risks of inaccuracy or bias in participatory institutions, and the potential applications of new technologies like artificial intelligence as well as their limits. Berliner illustrates these with examples drawn from around the world and from diverse forms of public participation in policymaking.This is an open access title available under the terms of a [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International] licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

The authors examine developments in labor standards in global supply chains over the past thirty years, analyzing factors that create challenges and opportunities for improving working conditions. They illustrate the complex dynamics within and among key groups, including brands, suppliers, governments, workers and consumers.Using extended examples from China, Honduras, Bangladesh and the United States, as well as new quantitative evidence, the authors analyze stakeholders and mechanisms that create or obstruct opportunities for improving labor rights. They evaluate key clusters of actors and their interests in order to comprehensively map the complex interactions and relationships that make up global supply chains. Original data and analyses, including four in-depth case studies, present a systematic evaluation of the points of leverage for changing labor standards in sectors including apparel, footwear, and electronics.This exciting new contribution to a burgeoning field of study will benefit scholars of labor rights and human rights, as well as students with an interest in labor and working conditions. It also presents critical information for political scientists, NGOs, and practitioners looking to effect change in working conditions and learn more about key players in the global economy.