The Data-Driven Economy Raises New Challenges for Global Governance
How do we manage change when lived experience is inadequate to guide reforms as technology is adopted without referendum? No one said it would be easy.
Opinions
Featured
Opaque Firms Haven’t Earned Consumer Loyalty — Let Alone Our Data
If a “techlash” does occur in Canada, at its core will be the tactics of firms that appear to offer us so much for free, only to later reveal the true price.
Canada Needs to Get Serious about Foreign Intelligence, Cyber Defence
The necessity of espionage for Canada should not be hard to grasp.
Is AI Governance a Vitamin Pill or a Painkiller?
There are hard costs to AI done badly. That’s why every board and senior management team in just about any business today should be talking about AI governance.
Is the West Losing China — Again?
The present moment is pregnant with potential — almost all of it bad, from a longer-term geopolitical perspective.
Series
The Four Domains of Global Platform Governance
In the span of 15 years, the online public sphere has been largely privatized and is now dominated by a small number of platform companies. This has allowed the interests of publicly traded companies to determine the quality of our civic discourse, the character of our digital economy and, ultimately, the integrity of our democracies. This essay series brings together a global group of scholars working in four distinct domains of the platform governance policy discourse: content, data, competition and infrastructure.
CONTRIBUTORS
Situating Canada in a Changing World: Constructing a Modern and Prosperous Future
The late Canadian diplomat and commentator John Wendell Holmes believed that the best public policy emerged out of an appreciation of history and context. This essay series, sponsored by the Holmes Trust, reflects on six contemporary themes in Canadian foreign and security policy, with historians considering the background of each issue and practitioners responding with a view to the future. Together, the essays demonstrate the value of history to a decision maker’s analytical calculus and offer practical suggestions to inform Canada's response to the challenges ahead.
CONTRIBUTORS
Global Cooperation on Digital Governance and the Geoeconomics of New Technologies in a Multi-polar World
In November 2021, the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) joined King’s College London (KCL) to host a virtual conference as part of KCL’s Project for Peaceful Competition. It brought together an intellectually and geographically diverse group of experts to discuss the geoeconomics of new digital technologies and the prospects for governance of the technologies in a multi-polar world. The papers prepared for discussion at the conference are collected in this series. An introduction summarizes (in heavily abbreviated form) the principal analytical conclusions emerging from the conference, together with the main policy recommendations put forward by participants.
CONTRIBUTORS
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Modern Conflict and Artificial Intelligence
Autonomous systems are revolutionizing our lives, but they present clear international security concerns. Despite the risks, emerging technologies are increasingly applied as tools for cybersecurity and, in some cases, cyberwarfare. In this series, experts explore digital threats to democracy and security, and the geopolitical tensions they create.
CONTRIBUTORS
Security, Intelligence and the Global Health Crisis
The impact of COVID-19 both globally and in Canada has raised important questions about best practices with regard to global and domestic health surveillance, early warning and preparedness. Critical to an understanding of these issues is a clear-sighted appreciation of the interface between health security and national security. As the world embarks on an intense effort to explain the onset of the pandemic and to learn lessons from the global response, it will be vital to develop and sustain a public policy debate about the role of security and intelligence institutions in protecting societies against pandemic outbreaks. This essay series — designed to bridge academic and practitioner knowledge — aims to make a high-impact contribution to that debate.
CONTRIBUTORS
Global Cooperation after COVID-19
We are in the midst of fighting the first phase of the COVID-19 crisis, but it is already clear that the impacts will be manifold and enduring. It is not too early to reflect on the lasting impact that the outbreak is sure to have on global cooperation, globalization, faith in public action and in science, social cohesion, and the trade-off between civil liberties and personal privacy.
CONTRIBUTORS
- Rohinton P. Medhora
- Bessma Momani
- E. Richard Gold
- Ilona Kickbusch
- Jean Lebel
- Michael Chertoff
- Susan Etlinger
- Teresa Scassa
- Darrell Bricker
- Donald Bobiash
- Melissa Hathaway
- Jennifer Welsh
- Myra J. Tawfik
- Hongying Wang
- Manjeet Kripalani
- José María Fanelli
- Benno Ndulu
- Beatrice Weder di Mauro
- Mark Kruger
- Simon J. Evenett
- Hector Torres
- Taylor Owen
- Ben Scott
- Arif Lalani
Modernizing the World Trade Organization
An essay series on the World Trade Organization's response to rapid economic, political, social, technological and environmental change.
CONTRIBUTORS
- Oonagh E. Fitzgerald
- Rohinton P. Medhora
- Thomas Cottier
- Bernard M. Hoekman
- Petros Mavroidis
- Valerie Hughes
- Giorgio Sacerdoti
- Laura Lane
- Penelope Naas
- Risa Schwartz
- Judy Whiteduck
- Aaron Cosbey
- Andrei Marcu
- Chin Leng Lim
- Spyros Maniatis
- Jim Stanford
- Mira Burri
- Dan Ciuriak
- Henry Gao
- Balakrishnan Rajagopal
- Chios Carmody
- Amrita Narlikar
- Debra Steger
Models for Platform Governance
Despite growing calls for global platform governance, no solution has been found. To begin to address this, CIGI has convened leading thinkers to explore new models for governing digital platforms. Given their unprecedented influence on democracy and the global economy alike, a cohesive framework for platform governance is crucial.
CONTRIBUTORS
Mainstreaming Gender in Trade Agreements
The 2017 Buenos Aires Joint Declaration on Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment emphasized the key relationship between trade policy and gender, and World Trade Organization members are beginning to take steps to improve transparency, share best practices, gather data and include gender considerations in trade negotiations. But there is much more to be done.
CONTRIBUTORS
Governing Cyberspace during a Crisis in Trust
On one hand, technology has led to convenience, efficiency and wealth creation. On the other hand, this great push to digitize society has meant building inherent vulnerability into the core of the economic model. This is all taking place atop a deeply fragmented and underdeveloped system of global rules.
CONTRIBUTORS
- Aaron Shull
- Andre Boysen
- Neil Desai
- Robert Fay
- Wallace Trenholm
- Melissa Hathaway
- Byron Holland
- Eric Jardine
- Elizabeth F. Judge
- Michael Pal
- Christian Leuprecht
- David Lyon
- Tyson Macaulay
- Michael Mason
- Matthew Spoke
- Michele Mosca
- Bill Munson
- David Mussington
- Paul Vallée
- Christopher S. Yoo
- Stephanie Carvin