New Problems, New Publics? Dewey and New Media

This is a response to the article by Ethan Zuckerman “New Media, New Civics?” published in this issue of Policy & Internet (2014: vol. 6, issue 2). Dissatisfaction with existing governments, a broad shift to “post-representative democracy” and the rise of participatory media are leading toward the visibility of different forms of civic participation. Zuckerman’s article offers a framework to describe participatory civics in terms of theories of change used and demands places on the participant, and examines some of the implications of the rise of participatory civics, including the challenges of deliberation in a diverse and competitive digital public sphere. Henry Farrell responds.

Henry Farrell (2014), “New Problems, New Publics? Dewey and New Media,” Policy & Internet, 6, 2:176-191.

Other Writing:

Academic Article

AI as Governance

Henry Farrell, “AI as Governance,” Annual Review of Political Science, forthcoming.
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Chapter in an Edited Volume

Privatization as State Transformation

Privatization is an ambiguous term covering many loosely related phenomena. In this essay, I focus on one specific aspect of privatization-the privatization of governance. This sidesteps arguments about the presumed efficiency gains of, e.g., turning state-owned entities into for-profit corporations, and highlights the political consequences of privatization-how it takes decisions which had once been within ...
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