[{"id":1189,"title":"Institutional Assimilation","sha":"6897a6ff9dec284d6c78b9e4501ae338","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"The role of social media companies in content moderation takes center stage in the Section 230 debate. Many conservatives believe that firms like Facebook are mimicking state authority by censoring speech (Frederick,2023).\r\n\r\nWhat if there is merit to this claim? By collaborating with the institutions of governance, private companies become an extension of the government.\r\n\r\nThis phenomenon is known as Institutional Assimilation. Through an organization aligning its conduct with the incentives of the government, it acts as a proxy. Acting as a surrogate for a government agency.\r\n\r\nInstitutional Assimilation subverts the traditional dichotomy of Pluralism and Elite Theory in political science (Gilens \u0026 Page, 2014). The faction within the coalition possessing leverage varies by situation. Regulatory capture (Stigler, 1971)would be an example of the conditions of the Section 230 debate in reverse. Lawmakers acting as stewards of corporate interests, become an extension of the firm.","created_at":"2024-04-01T17:52:02.946Z","updated_at":"2024-05-31T06:00:43.540Z","zenodo_id":11398242,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11398242","subject":null,"tags":["pressure group theory","political science","governance","institutions","organizations"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":1043,"title":"Engine change at 80MPH: OSS projects as laboratories for participatory governance transformation","sha":"7f3b0cba0a67c0878a2c38a8c852d3a2","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"Online communities are high-throughput laboratories for governance change and innovation. Elinor Ostrom's idea of institutional diversity, that sustainable resource governance requires a diversity of governance forms and approaches, is well represented by the diversity and complexity of online regimes. One major challenge in the study of self-organized governance institutions is extending our understanding of incremental governance change processes to more transformative or even \"revolutionary\" changes. Because of their intermittency, revolutions are difficult to anticipate, isolate, induce, and therefore to systematically study. But online communities have constraints and structure that make them ideal for understanding governance transformation. This is especially true of open source software (OSS) project communities. Because of the nature of the peer-production of code, most successful OSS projects start as \"benevolent dictatorships\" and transfer to community governance only after becoming successful. By treating OSS projects as governance laboratories, with special attention to the evolution of benevolent dictatorships, we gain a unique platform for understanding institutional transformations into participatory and accessible forms of government.","created_at":"2023-01-23T22:35:26.571Z","updated_at":"2023-02-22T06:00:53.816Z","zenodo_id":7662881,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7662881","subject":null,"tags":["institutions","governance","oss","benevolent dictatorship","ostrom","resource management"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":1011,"title":"Index of the Value of Labor over Capital (LoCI)","sha":"ba923a41e890d36eac4890677f3f4d6d","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"I present a simple index to gauge the relative valuation of labor over capital in a country (LoCI). This index should correlate positively with the wealth and HDI of the country, and negatively with the precariousness of life of basic service providers at the bottom of the pyramid in that country. Because of that, it should also correlate strongly with labor migration from countries with low LoCI to higher LoCI. \r\nThe formula is:\r\n\r\nLoCI_i=10^(-4) (w_i/r_i  f_(i,us))\r\n\r\nWhere w represents the monthly minimum wage for country i; r represents the monthly risk-free interest rate for country i; and f represents the foreign exchange rate between the currency of country i and the US dollar. \r\nThis equation gives the amount of dollars necessary for a person in country i to receive the equivalent of a minimum wage salary as passive income incurring minimum financial risks (real risk-free rates can be used by subtracting the inflation rate of country i from r). Values are scaled by 10,000 to facilitate comparison. \r\n\r\nAs per October 2022, some LoCI scores are: Brazil 2.13; South Africa 2.15; Mexico 3.29; Malaysia 9.10; United States 40.04; England 110.18; Germany 292.06.\r\n\r\nMore sophisticated models with other variables regarding r (e.g. real risk free rates) and w (e.g. median salary, or salary at the ith percentile) can also be used without altering the basic insight.\r\n\r\n","created_at":"2022-10-03T21:50:55.565Z","updated_at":"2023-01-31T13:25:54.511Z","zenodo_id":7232624,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7232624","subject":null,"tags":["economic development","jobs","migration","human capital","economic policy","human development","labor","efficiency","international markets","institutions","labor economics"],"vote_count":1,"view_count":1,"score":1.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":"LoCI.png","attachment_content_type":"image/png","attachment_file_size":91156,"attachment_updated_at":"2022-10-03T21:50:55.511Z"},{"id":1141,"title":"Stratified sortition for balancing representativeness and efficiency in large participatory institutions","sha":"49c23edcfeb6f95eb75f5af003c5fc24","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"As a self-governing institution grows, it becomes a target for elite capture. Sortition, or governance by lottery, is a mechanism displacing elites and for preserving democratic rule. A large legislature with randomly appointed representatives, or a small board with oversight over that legislature, can foreclose nepotism, rent-seeking, and other abuses. \r\n\r\nHowever, sortition in large institutions suffers from a tradeoff, particularly in resource-constrained institutions.  A small body of randomly appointed representatives can make decisions quickly and efficiently but, due to the high standard error of small samples, may not be representative. Conversely, the central limit theorem can ensure that a large body is representative, but it will need much more time and structure to reach decisions. \r\n\r\nIs it possible to ensure randomly appointed bodies that are both representative and efficient? We propose a stratified sortition, in which appointments are biased to ensure representative bodies.  An institution with intentionally biased random draws may be able to ensure appointed bodies that are both small and representative. Of course, it is important that the member data defining representativeness is robust to gaming. Stratified sortition will be less effective at preventing capture if members can tune their own \"metadata\" to improve their chances of selection.","created_at":"2023-07-25T18:54:35.995Z","updated_at":"2023-08-16T17:34:37.795Z","zenodo_id":8196235,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8196235","subject":null,"tags":["voting","democracy","sortition","sampling","governance","institutions"],"vote_count":1,"view_count":1,"score":1.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":782,"title":"\"I am the law!\" - The empirical link between lawyer-lawmakers and legal cost/burden","sha":"92c70b4f70c64d1d397477f1a373c08c","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"For better or worse, a large part of the politicians sitting in national/regional parliaments or similar positions of power are trained law professionals. As lawmakers, they have the unique opportunity to influence the amount of available work for their own profession (particularly if they don't intend to give up all legal practice when they are first elected). A hairdresser cannot mandate more haircuts, neither can a football club owner require people to go watch his team more often. But a lawyer-lawmaker has the opportunity to influence all kinds of policies in order to both (i) limit the competition within his profession (e.g. by requiring a notary to be present for various transactions, controlling the stringency of the bar exam etc.) and (ii) increase the demand for legal services (e.g. through regulations with high compliance costs, and generally increasing the number of regulations).\r\n\r\nIt would be interesting to examine this issue empirically, e.g. by comparing legislative outcomes in settings where more participating lawmakers have a potential personal business interests to outcomes where this is not the case. \r\n\r\nSome food for thought, though (to my knowledge) not linked directly to national legislation: Why do more than 80% of candidates pass all steps of the medical exam on the first attempt (https://www.usmle.org/performance-data/), while first-attempt pass rates for the bar exam are much lower (\u003c50% in some states - https://lawschooli.com/bar-exam-pass-rate-by-state/). Is it harder to be a lawyer than to be a doctor? Or is the industry more interested/successful in limiting competition than the medical profession?\r\n","created_at":"2020-09-11T12:34:34.174Z","updated_at":"2021-02-08T04:20:56.102Z","zenodo_id":4047642,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4047642","subject":null,"tags":["institutions","legislative process"],"vote_count":1,"view_count":1,"score":1.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null}]