Tech Governance: Negotiating Innovation Between the Firm and the State

Session Submission Type: Created Panel

Session Description

As APSA returns to the San Francisco Bay Area, this panel considers the distinctly Bay Area contributions to Democracy, Difference, and Destabilization: the rise of “tech” as a force in politics, society, and the economy. Whether the influence of the platform economy on labor arrangements, the impact of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica on the 2016 presidential election, or the development of the GDPR to shape privacy practices, tech has joined the major social forces which governance scholars consider in political and policy analysis. From a diverse set of governance perspectives, papers on this panel considers how firms and the state have sought to harness the promises of technological innovation while managing its threats. Cases explore success, failure, and anything in between or orthogonal to such a spectrum and span across a variety of political economic and geographic contexts.

Papers on this panel focuses on the negotiations between state, firm, and public actors around innovation. It focuses on key questions about how to harness innovation for public and private good while navigating the shoals of public risk for private benefit. Menaldo presents a paper which explores the role of patents in fostering technology transfer. Posch presents a case where regulators drive innovation beyond the imagination of market actors despite clear private benefits which are subverted by ideological opposition. Anastasopoulos & Whitford consider the ethical and responsible use of innovative AI and machine learning tools in government. Maguire & Altura examine the discourse around the regulation of data privacy in California with the passage of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in 2018.

Sub Unit

• Division 39: Science, Technology, and Environmental Politics

Individual Presentations

• Do Patents Foster International Technology Transfer? - Victor Menaldo

• Innovation Beyond the Imagination of the Market - Konrad Posch, University of California, Berkeley

• A Discourse Network Analysis of the Data Protection Debate in California - Matthew Maguire, San José State University; Thomas Altura, San Jose State University

• Civil-Servant-In-the-Loop - Jason Anastasopoulos, University of Georgia

Chair

• Konrad Posch University of California, Berkeley

Discussants

• Victor Menaldo

• Margaret Taylor Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory