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Upcoming Seminar

We are pleased to announce the OU will be hosting an upcoming seminar with Professor Leighton Andrews titled ‘Government as a Puzzle: discursive capacity and the regulation of Facebook and Big Data’ taking place online on Microsoft Teams on Wednesday 03 February at 2pm – 3.30pm. 

Please see below abstract:

Government as a Puzzle: discursive capacity and the regulation of Facebook and Big Data.

How do governments and regulators develop their capacity to regulate in novel and complex areas? A recent focus in the literature on executive politics and public administration has addressed the question of ‘governance readiness’. A missing dimension in this literature has been the discursive capacity of governing institutions, whether governments, regulators or legislatures. This capacity is analysed and developed as a concept, drawing on two specific cases of UK policy-making as examples - policy on big data and artificial intelligence, and on regulation of platforms like Facebook. These cases illustrate the challenges facing governments and regulators in problematising new technologies in order to shape societal solutions for regulatory or governance purposes. Governing institutions undertake a process of puzzling where existing legislation and regulation has to be adjusted to new technological realities in the face of asymmetric power relationships with the private developers of such technologies.

This seminar is being organised by Dr Owain Smolovic-Jones and to register for the event please contact Karen McCafferty

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