Actually addressing problems with mass attacks is hard. There are groups studying this and well known precursors and patterns to most events. If this interests you, take a look at https://www.secretservice.gov/protection/ntac . It's targeted to government/law enforcement but includes analysis that's useful to anyone when discussing policy.

What happens when citizens and experts rethink corruption together?

RESPOND's Co-Creation Workshops did just that—challenging assumptions and uncovering new perspectives. Can shared reflection lead to better policies?

https://www.eu-respond.eu/news/report-on-respond-co-creation-workshops/

#RESPOND #Corruption #CoCreation #SocialResearch #CitizenVoice #RESPONDProject #Horizon #Europe #CoCreation #Corruption #PublicPolicy #Governance #SocialResearch #EUProjects #HorizonEurope #PoliticalFinance #MediaCapture t #Lobbying #RevolvingDoors

"One of the things that weirdly happens with the discourse around AI is; this future promise is increasingly mistaken for existing capability. So when we keep saying let's prepare by reshaping our infrastructure to accommodate AI, we're asking to reshape this infrastructure for a hypothetical future. And that hastens the conditions for that future, regardless of whether it ever arrives."

#ErykSalvaggio, 2025

https://techpolicy.press/doge-and-the-united-states-of-ai

(1/?)

Thanks to everyone who joined yesterday’s RESPOND event on rethinking the concept of corruption

See you again today at 3 PM with new experimental insights from Lithuania, Hungary and Moldova
https://www.eu-respond.eu/events/awareness-of-corruption-and-attitudes-toward-socio-economic-inequality-experimental-evidence-from-lithuania-hungary-and-moldova/

Image by Endrik Severin Meitinger

#RESPOND #EUProjects #HorizonEurope #ResearchAndInnovation #PoliticalCorruption #Transparency #SocioEconomicInequality #PublicPolicy #AcademicEvents #RespondSeminarSeries

@CssC @alice_mattoni

"The problem is that governments and businesses serve vastly different purposes. If public policymakers start mimicking business founders, they will undermine their own ability to address complex societal challenges.

For startups, the highest priority is rapid iteration, technology-driven disruption, and financial returns for investors. Their success often hinges on solving a narrowly defined problem with a single product, or within a single organization. Governments, by contrast, must tackle complex, interconnected issues like poverty, public health, and national security. Each challenge calls for collaboration across multiple sectors, and careful long-term planning. The idea of securing short-term gains in any of these areas doesn’t even make sense.

Unlike startups, governments are supposed to uphold legal mandates, ensure the provision of essential services, and enforce equal treatment under the law – more important today than ever. Metrics like market share are irrelevant, because the government has no competitors. Rather than trying to “win,” it should focus on expanding opportunities and promoting the diffusion of best practices. It must be long-term minded, while achieving nimble and flexible structures that can adapt."

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/government-should-not-act-like-a-startup-or-business-by-mariana-mazzucato-and-rainer-kattel-2025-04

Big shakeup at the SSA under Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE):
87% of regional staff cut
All public communication now routed exclusively through X (formerly Twitter)
Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity? Gone.
Oversight functions reassigned or absorbed

Critics warn this shift could:
・Alienate seniors and vulnerable communities
・Increase fraud risk due to lack of clear communication
・Undermine transparency and public trust

Whether you see this as innovation or erosion of public service, it’s a dramatic pivot in how vital government programs connect with citizens.
#DigitalGovernment #PublicPolicy #AI #SocialSecurity #ElonMusk #TechInGov #Accessibility
https://www.wired.com/story/social-security-administration-regional-office-elon-musk-x

Social Security Administration Moving Public Communications to X

https://www.wired.com/story/social-security-administration-regional-office-elon-musk-x/

"The first step may be to finally recognize that “running government like a business” has always been a red herring. The government is not a business — it is the thing that makes business possible. Unregulated markets frequently fail to produce good businesses so long as we define “good” as beneficial to their customers. And unregulated businesses, as we’ve recently been forced to witness, are even worse at producing good government. As the economist Mariana Mazzucato has long argued, the libertarian CEO types now running Washington are willfully ignorant of just how dependent their industries are on the backbone of public services like roads, telecoms, courts and publicly-funded research — services they have enjoyed largely for free since financial liberalization and business tax cuts have allowed them to shelter the vast majority of their profits.

Step two is much harder: articulating some positive idea of an activist government in the marketplace. For Doctorow, as for many others, this begins with “a very aggressive antitrust agenda” aimed at breaking up the monopolies that have become powerful enough to capture — and try to replace — the federal government under Trump. “You cannot have a referee who is weaker than the players on the field,” he told me.

“Anti-government nihilism cannot be countered without a defense of the government’s role in daily life.”

But there are other, more constructive roles the government could play. Doctorow suggested a federal jobs guarantee that would put a meaningful floor on the value of labor. Or a database of publicly funded, patent-free research, which would compel corporations to support interoperability — what Mazzucato has called, in the context of AI, a “decentralized innovation ecosystem that serves the public good.”"

https://www.noemamag.com/the-good-society-department/

Reminder: Two RESPOND seminars next week!

Apr 14 – Prof. Ceva on conceptualising corruption
Apr 15 – Dr. Ivanov on corruption & inequality
University of Bologna or online

Full info: https://www.eu-respond.eu/events/

See you there!

#RESPOND #EUProjects #HorizonEurope #ResearchAndInnovation #PoliticalCorruption #Transparency #SocioEconomicInequality #PublicPolicy #AcademicEvents #InstitutionalTrust #DigitalSociety #RESPONDProject #RespondSeminarSeries #AcademicTalks

@CssC @alice_mattoni

How do you think media and education influence how we see corruption?
WP8 of #RESPOND explores how platforms, journalism and civic education shape public views of corruption across Europe.
Explore our research https://www.eu-respond.eu/work-package/wp8/
#RESPOND #EUProjects #HorizonEurope #ResearchAndInnovation #EUResearch #PoliticalCorruption #DigitalTransparency #PublicPolicy #MediaLiteracy #Journalism #RESPONDProject #CivicEducation #CorruptionPrevention #CorporateInfluence

Is Claudia Sheinbaum the leader of the free world?

"Around the globe, liberal humanism is faltering while the forces of reactionary cruelty are on the march. So Sheinbaum, who has adopted López Obrador’s slogan “For the good of all, first the poor,” can seem like a shining exception to the reigning spirit of autocratic machismo."
#Mexico #Trumpism #ForeignAffairs #politics #leadership #governance #PublicPolicy
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/opinion/claudia-sheinbaum-mexico-trump-tariffs.html

AN EXPLORATION OF ABLEISM’S IMPACT and a set of thoughtful recommendations for creating a more inclusive society, from entrepreneur/disability activist Tiffany Yu. Wise, insightful, admirably clear, aimed primarily at currently able allies. A MINUS

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-anti-ableist-manifesto-tiffany-yu/1144796202?ean=9780306833663

@bookstodon

After #AAG2025 Conference in #Detroit, glad being in #WashingtonDC invited by #ProjectLiberty & #DRC at
@Georgetown_UP McCourt School of #PublicPolicy today to launched the latest #policy report on #DataCooperatives I contributed to among other experts: https://www.projectliberty.io/news/how-can-data-cooperatives-help-build-a-fair-data-economy/

#DataCooperatives:

#Video
@stanfordlaw @fulbrightscientific5 in #California: https://youtube.com/watch?v=mTT0tCix43E

#Publication via #SmartCities
:
https://mdpi.com/2624-6511/4/3/62

#Publication via
@EU_Commission
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC122644

Welcome to the Ministry of Culture: Where Art Goes to Die Quietly in a Patriotically Approved Corner

Nothing screams “freedom” quite like the government telling museums which stories are too real and which artists are too brown.

In the latest installment of “Make Art Great Again,” Trump’s regime has decided that cultural institutions like the Smithsonian and the Kennedy Center are just a little too independent. Can’t have artists running around making people think or, doG forbid, reflect. So out goes “The Shape of Power” exhibit for being “divisive,” and in comes a new aesthetic: Norman Rockwell, but make it autocratic.

The Smithsonian’s been told to clean house, and we all know what that means. Anything that centers race, systemic injustice, queer identity, or uncomfortable truths gets quietly repatriated to oblivion. Meanwhile, the Kennedy Center has seen its Social Impact team dismantled and its Artistic Director fired; for what? Caring too much about actual impact. Apparently, art that speaks to society is now “inappropriate.” Unless, of course, it’s glorifying flags, founding fathers, or folks who’ve never had to protest anything other than brunch prices.

We’ve seen this playbook before. It ran in Germany. It aired in Italy. It sold out stadiums in 1930s Europe. Authoritarian regimes don’t hate art—they just hate art they can’t control. And now, in 2025 America, the long knives have been replaced by executive orders and budget cuts.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t just a culture war. It’s a cultural purge; a forced rewriting of national memory, where history gets edited with the same grace and subtlety as a Soviet photo archive.

You might think, “Well, they’re just targeting a few exhibits or programs.” But this is death by a thousand redactions. A chilling signal to artists, curators, and institutions: Comply or be cut. Conform or be canceled (ironically, by the same people who whine about cancel culture between golf rounds and grift emails).

The real tragedy? We’re watching it happen in real time—this gutting of public arts, this sanitizing of culture—and people are still asking, “But isn’t this just about restoring balance?” Sure. If by balance you mean tipping everything into the sea and lighting it on fire.

So here’s to the brave artists who refuse to be scrubbed out of history, and to the rest of us: wake up. Because the last time governments told museums what they could show, the world got a lot darker. And no one’s commissioning murals about that. #ArtsAndCulture #Censorship #FreedomOfExpression #CulturalHeritage #MuseumLeadership #ArtsAdvocacy #HumanRights #PublicPolicy #CreativeFreedom #LeadershipInCrisis #DefendTheArts #HistoricalNarrative #SocialImpact #CivicEngagement #Smithsonian #KennedyCenter #Authoritarianism #RewritingHistory #ArtMatters #voicesthatmatter

In Burbank today for League of California Cities’ spring policy meetings and legislative updates. Cal Cities represents most of the state’s 482 cities and is essential in helping shape legislation to better serve Thousand Oaks.

I serve on Cal Cities’ Environmental Quality (EQ) committee, where we voted to take positions on five proposed bills. These are recommendations to the league’s policy committee, where I also serve, and where we will vote on final positions later this year. (1/4)

Via #TheGuardian @ 5:26pm ET on Mar 26, 2025

A #Yale professor who studies #fascism is leaving the #US to work at a #Canadian #university because of the current US political climate, which he worries is putting the US at risk of becoming a “#FascistDictatorship”.

#JasonStanley, who wrote the 2018 #book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, has accepted a position at the University of Toronto’s #MunkSchool of #GlobalAffairs and #PublicPolicy.

#USpoli #CANpoli

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/26/yale-professor-fascism-canada

REALLY worth reading - AI Governance.

This article proposes a dynamic governance model for AI that includes "public-private partnerships for standards setting and the creation of a market-based ecosystem for audit and compliance." )

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/a-dynamic-governance-model-for-ai #AI #AIGovernance #AIPolicy #accountability #disinformation #AIStrategy #PublicPolicy #liability #deepseek #ChatGPT #leadership

Different aspects of climate change impacts - found it at EPP Wean Hall #CMU #engineering #publicpolicy

#BillGates’ #climate group lays off #US and #Europe #policy teams
#BreakthroughEnergy, the climate group founded by Bill Gates, has laid off dozens of employees in the U.S. and Europe, eliminating its #publicpolicy and partnerships teams as it shifts away from advocacy work. Its investment and grantmaking divisions will remain unaffected.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2025/03/13/bill-gates-climate-group-lays-off-us-and-europe-policy-teams/82361377007/

The EU's next Multiannual Financial Framework needs a fresh perspective. As geopolitical and economic challenges mount, we can't afford "business as usual."

In her latest piece for @Tagesspiegel Background, Zuzanna Warso argues that member states should prioritize public infrastructure maintenance and take a more realistic approach to innovation funding.

Click here for the freely available viewpoint (in German): https://background.tagesspiegel.de/digitalisierung-und-ki/briefing/die-eu-muss-ihre-oeffentlichen-investitionen-ueberdenken

#EuropeanUnion #PublicPolicy #DigitalPublicSpace