GETTING-Plurality Research Workshop: Sovereigns and Subjects in the Digital Age
Join the next GETTING-Plurality Research Workshop with Sheila Jasanoff as she discusses her recent paper “Sovereigns and Subjects in the Digital Age.”
Online Event
Virtual
12:45 pm – 2:00 pm EDT
Related Programs
You’re invited to the next GETTING-Plurality Research Workshop, convened by the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation. In this session, we’ll hear from presenting author Sheila Jasanoff, Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Harvard Kennedy School, on her recent paper, “Sovereigns and Subjects in the Digital Age.” Jasanoff will be joined by commentator Allison Stanger, Senior Fellow at the Allen Lab.
About the Speakers
Sheila Jasanoff is Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Harvard Kennedy School. A pioneer in her field, she has authored more than 130 articles and chapters and is author or editor of more than 15 books, including The Fifth Branch, Science at the Bar, Designs on Nature, The Ethics of Invention, and Can Science Make Sense of Life? Her work explores the role of science and technology in the law, politics, and policy of modern democracies. She founded and directs the STS Program at Harvard; previously, she was founding chair of the STS Department at Cornell. She has held distinguished visiting appointments at leading universities in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the US. Jasanoff served on the AAAS Board of Directors and as President of the Society for Social Studies of Science. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She was selected as the 2022 recipient of the Holberg Prize – dubbed the Nobel prize for social science and humanities- for her prolific and pioneering efforts in the field of science and technology studies. She as also been the recipient of SSRC’s Hirschman prize, the Humboldt Foundation’s Reimar-Lüst award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Ehrenkreuz from the Government of Austria, and foreign memberships in the British Academy and the Royal Danish Academy. She holds AB, JD, and PhD degrees from Harvard, and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Twente and Liège.
Allison Stanger is Senior Fellow, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation; Russell Leng ’60 Professor of International Politics and Economics at Middlebury College; 2021-23 Research Affiliate (co-lead, Responsible Hybrid Intelligence Initiative) at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University; an External Professor and Science Board member at the Santa Fe Institute; and a Senior Advisor to the OSUN Hannah Arendt Humanities Network. In November 2022, she was also a visiting professor of Informatics at the Vienna University of Technology and a digital humanism senior fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM). In 2020-21, she held the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in Ethics and American History at the Library of Congress, and in 2019-2020, she was Technology and Human Values Senior Fellow at the EJ Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University. Her books include Whistleblowers: Honesty in America from Washington to Trump; One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy; and Complexity Economics. Stanger is a founding member of the Digital Humanism Initiative and a contributing writer for the Atlantic. She has been called to testify before Congress on five occasions and served as a peer reviewer for the National Academies 2022 report, “Fostering Responsible Computing.” Stanger received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University.
Pre-Reading
Attendees are expected to read the paper in advance of the workshop. The paper will be circulated via email to those who are registered.
Abstract: Early celebrants of the digital age predicted that digitalization would be good for democracy. It would liberate people to express themselves freely, form new attachments, and resist tyranny. Thirty years later, the reality is starkly different. People have largely lost control over their personal data, misinformation and extremism thrive on the internet, and the wealth generated through digitalization is concentrated in the hands of a small number of data oligarchs who are not accountable to the people. This chapter describes how US efforts to curb the excesses of the digital sphere have repeatedly fallen short because of legislative unwillingness to rein in the foremost engine of US economic growth. Using Facebook’s encounters with Congress as a textbook case, the chapter shows how three powerful arguments for stricter regulation—privacy, misinformation and hate speech, and children’s health and safety—have failed to mobilize support for increased public control of digitalization.
Workshop Series Logistics
The GETTING-Plurality Research Workshop is a series convened by the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation. In each session of the research workshop, we will discuss one paper focused on emerging technologies’ democratic potential or their governance. Our aim is to build a vibrant, cross-disciplinary scholarly community and support the development of cutting-edge work capable of confronting a new era of technological innovation, and its ethical and governance implications.
This 75-minute workshop is entirely virtual and will be conducted over Zoom — please register to receive the link. Papers will be pre-circulated, and all attendees are expected to read them. A full-group discussion of the work will follow a brief presentation by the author(s) and commentator feedback. Attendees are expected to join with their camera-on, as possible, and engage in the group discussion.