Margaret Hu on "Critical Data Theory"--Online Presentation Research Seminar Series Law, Society & AI

 

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I am delighted to pass along this announcement which may of interest:

We are glad to invite you to the next seminar of the research seminar series Law, Society & AI (LS&AI) organised jointly by the Smart Law Hub and Law department of HEC Paris, Telecom Paris & Ecole Polytechnique (LIX).

The LS&AI seminar is designed as a series of invited talks on questions at the intersection of legal, societal, and artificial intelligence issues.

During the next session we will discuss the paper Critical Data Theory (available here)

Speaker: Margaret Hu (William & Mary Law School)

Discussant: Thomas Le Goff (Telecom Paris) 

When: Tuesday, 1 October, 11.00am, Paris (CET)

Where: HEC Paris, Room S127 - Building S - 1st Floor. Please register with Olfa Mzita (in cc). 

Online: https://hec-fr.zoom.us/j/99949135681

Abstract

Critical Data Theory examines the role of AI and algorithmic decisionmaking at its intersection with the law. This theory aims to deconstruct the impact of AI in law and policy contexts. The tools of AI and automated systems allow for legal, scientific, socioeconomic, and political hierarchies of power that can profitably be interrogated with critical theory. While the broader umbrella of critical th4eory features prominently in the work of surveillance scholars, legal scholars can also deploy criticality analyses to examine surveillance and privacy law challenges, particularly in an examination of how AI and other emerging technologies have been expanded in law enforcement practices, and homeland and national security programs. To take one example of AI’s impact, this Article argues that mass incarceration’s technological interdependencies and trajectories can be better conceptualized through Critical Data Theory. This Article proposes that the theory can help assess the computational and AI impact of technological developments that may exacerbate mass incarceration and limit criminal procedure rights.

If you would like to present a paper in 2025 or be a discussant to one of the papers already scheduled in the programme, please reach out to us.

Looking forward to seeing you on-campus or online.

Best regards

Conveners

David Restrepo Amariles (HEC Paris)

Nils Holzenberger (Telecom Paris)

Michalis Vazirgiannis (Ecole Polytechnique)

The seminar elaborated Professor Hu's excellent recent article,   Hu, Margaret, Critical Data Theory (March 8, 2024). William & Mary Law Review, Vol. 65, No. 839, 2024, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4753142

Cognitive Rifts and the Politics of Global Solidarity: The Remarks of Mr Abbas and Mr Netanyahu to the United Nations

 

 

The Jewish question, like the Ukrainian question, and the wars now being undertaken to resolve them one way or another,  highlight the fundamental problem of cognition in the realm of social relations (eg here). Each are deeply historically embedded and each spills over to all sorts of other relations. Yet each constructs the other in wildly different ways, suggesting the semiotic malleability of historical conclusions and their projection forward into expectations of place, conduct, and with that of the "right" to "wrong" and thus the justification for action, the record of which is well known. If this was merely a personal contest for perception, the resulting conflict might be managed  with some reasonable expectation of some sort of acceptable resolution.  But it is not.  The contest for perception affects social relations everywhere, and calls for expressions of solidarity--in discourse and action--that affects people everywhere, and moves States to act on the basis of embraced perception baselines. And they have spillover effects across the entirety of therule systems within which States more or less operate (eg here, here).  That also is well known, though its cognitive roots tend to be ignored or assumed to be irrelevant (to the extent that people think about this at all--for thinking about this spoils the strategic element of the discursive construction of solidarity enhancing perception universes that can then be applied against the "other" in the immediate conflict).

In both wars, the starting point for analysis inevitably points to its end point. That along lends it power, and also suggests the imperative of seeking global expressions of solidarity with one or the other way of rationalizing the world and putting its actors in their place." Ukrainians and Jews, of course, as fundamentally subaltern collectives have a long history of being put in their "places" even as those places shift from historical era to historical era (eg here; here; here).  Their current antagonists, of course, have enjoyed more often than not a more privileged "place" even when their sub-communities have been embedded in larger collectives (the ideal states of the dar al-Islam and of greater Russia, for example). As such, both depend on the embrace of a communal set of premises of the meaning of the protagonists at the heart of each conflict. These cognitive placements, are solidified where the larger global communities within which all social relations are rationalized embrace one or the other perception ordering premises. And, indeed, one might approach these conflicts as a manifestation, in physical form, of the cognitive ruptures that is manifested in conflict.  The intensity of that conflict, quite violent in both cases, signifies not merely a fundamental incompatibility of perceiving the world and the role and expectations of the relationships of key actors within it, but also of the intensification of that dissonance a critical element of the character of which is the conviction that the fundamental starting points for perception are unalterable and require the obliteration of the other.  Perhaps it does.  But if that the case then these conflicts merely manifest in physical form the more fundamental semiotic contests on which the resolution both the Jewish and the Ukrainian question depends, one way or another.  

The cognitive rift and its consequences/justification schemata in the Ukrainian context have been considered in earlier posts (eg here, here, here, here, and here). In the context of the Jewish presence in Israel (it is assumed, without much discussion, that what will be a State of Palestine must be or will be free of Jews--another cognitive baseline that might require exploration elsewhere), these fundamental cognitive rifts  serve as the essence of the remarks of given by Mr. Abbas (first) and then by Mr. Netanyahu at the United Nations this week. At one level, of course, the remarks were directed to an audience of allies and enemies eager to hear what they anted to hear in ways that conformed to their sense of expectation given the starting premises that served as the basis for "hearing" and understanding what was being said. At a deeper level, each of the remarks exposed the fundamental ordering premises driving them and seeking expressions of solidarity with them.  The consequences, of course, are important--if only because the global community has made it so. There is no going back. There is just the hard project of exposing the basis of the ordering of cognition around which the "right" and "wrong" of things and the solution to the "problem" can be "seen" and "understood."  Both remarks follow below. Embedded in each are the orienting premises that make inevitable both the violence attached to the differences, and the power of these differences to substantially reshape important aspects of the general orienting rationalization of the State system--from the allocation of responsibility for the protection of civilians used as human shields, to the analytical and values structures within which the internationalization of conflict is undertaken where a majority of States have chosen sides, to the ethnic cleansing of internationalized ethno-reservations reconstituted as States.  There is something here for everyone, and a basis for developing law grounded in favored and disfavored groups. 

"There Can Be No Just Peace Without Ukraine" - Speech of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, at the UN General Assembly

 

Ukraine, like so many smaller states that sit between and to some extent serve to  buffer the large imperial territories (or those who were once imperia and now aspire again to that status) find their fate--and certainly their independence, is a matter that is no longer entirely in their control.  In some instances the smaller state accepts its fate. That was the case with Czechoslovakia in 1938, and to some extent Poland in 1945, each of which found themselves gifted with borders not of their making. In other instances these "in between states" irritate their larger neighbors by projecting their own power in ways that might be unexpected.  That appears to be the case of Ukraine, certainly, and Israel, to some extent. In liberal democratic spaces, the sovereign character of those states tends to be the object of democratic debate--but only within the larger liberal democratic imperia on whose determinations  the conditions and prospects of those states depend. That becomes a more difficult proposition when one's greatest beneficiary is engaged in a political contest for its leadership, in the context of which their fate is exposed (and reduced) to a political object of most utility to the internal politics of the greater state.

That also exposes the fundamental challenge of the in between state--especially one the subject of the imperial ambitions of a larger (though not  apex) power. These in between states are expected to beg, or to please--to manifest the submissive characteristics of the subaltern but in ways that do not make their donors feel guilty, and to constantly make their case, as against the expediencies of their friends and the ambitions of their enemies. To those ends, the best strategy is to try to prove the obvious--the the enemy of the subaltern is also the enemy of the subaltern's friends, and the the tactics of the enemy damage the interests of the friends as much as it does the begging subaltern. In a sense the subaltern State between imperia is both an object, but also the signification of the system of states now increasingly  unmasked as a rising system of imperial domains and their subalterns. The wars that are sometimes fought between these imperia, either directly or indirectly (Ukraine and Israel are the current exemplars par excellence) serve as the manifestation of collective meaning making--that it they make and refine the meaning of the systems they are also meant to signify. 

All of this is nicely on display in the recent remarks of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy,There Can Be No Just Peace Without Ukraine - Speech of the President at the UN General Assembly made at the United Nations. The text follows below, and it speaks for itself.

On the Management of Necessary States of Misery in Economic Policy: Cuba Reforms its Private Sector Rules (again)

 

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In what seems to have become the pattern for Cuban regulation of the private sector, at least since the 1990s, the Cuban State, having only recently loosened its regulation of the so-called private sector, has now again tightened its control over that sector (Cuba-- Gaceta Oficial No.78). 

Cuba's booming private businesses braced for impact on Wednesday as the island's communist-run government implemented a raft of new laws aimed at more tightly regulating the private sector amid a deepening economic crisis. The new rules come after less than three years of the legalization of private businesses following a decades-long ban put in place by former leader Fidel Castro. The measures end incentives for the creation of new businesses, restrict independent wholesalers and add new requirements for applicants seeking to start a company. They also boost taxes, bolster worker's rights, tighten accounting requirements and sharpen oversight of the private sector. (Marc Frank, additional reporting by Dave Sherwood, Nelson Acosta, Anett Rios, Alien Fernandez and Mario Fuentes in Havana, Amid deepening economic crisis, Cuba tightens rules on fledgling private sector (Reuters); for other reporting see here, here, here).

None of this ought to surprise.  The Cuban Party apparatus remains as committed to its post-Soviet conceptualization of a Latinized version of the old European Soviet Socialist State in search of its communist apogee as it ever was (see my Cuba's Caribbean Marxism).  Thy remain committed to the elaboration of their political economic model embraced at the 7th Party Congress (Larry Catá Backer: Reconcieving the Government of Western Marxist Leninist States--"Comment to the 'Conceptualización del Modelo Economico y Social Cubano de Desarrollo Socialista'). Under this vision, the non-State sector is understood as a complement to the State sector; that central planning is as important to the management of both sectors, and that the non-State sector is at its most useful to fill gaps and smooth irregularities in the State sector.  The ultimate objective, however, remains unchanged: however denominated, all economic activity must be undertaken through and guided by the State nomenklatura--directly with respect to State assets, indirectly for everything else.  Markets play a small, and usually temporary role in all of this planning. It is not to the non-state sector to which one looks for the market; rather that resides in the unofficial sector which is tolerated or suppressed depending on the state of the official sectors, public and private. 

The trigger points for all of this appears, since COVD, to be more and more openly grounded in the management of tolerable states of misery (The Dance of Debt and the Stability of Strategic Economic Misery: Cuba (Again) Restructures its (Unpayable) Foreign Debt; The Management of Misery and the Risks to Cuban Stability: Brief Reflections on Domingo Amuchastegui, "Mirando a Cuba el el 2023" ["A Look at Cuba in 2023])). Those states of misery are grounded in the premise that  through a combinaiton of managed protest (eg The latest protests in Cuba are about thirst: Over 600,000 people live without drinking water) and the cultivation of the narratives of bourgoeis consumerism (which aligns with a strain of religious thought) deeply embedded in the thought of Fidel Castro has combined en produce a certain stability in the instabilities of misery now reconstructed as the manifeataiton of revolutionary solidarity and the rejection of capitalist values. "Fidel Castro said Saturday that consumerism in the United States, the perennial enemy of his communist government, is threatening humanity's very existence. "Commercial advertising and consumerism are incompatible with the survival of the species," Castro wrote in his "Reflections of the Commander in Chief" column, published in Cuba's two leading state-controlled newspapers. (AP)"(here); the theory is discussed here; “From 11 July 2021 to Hurricane Ian in 2022: The Transformation of Mass Protests in Cuba and its Consequences.” Remarks delivered for the Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs Fall Speaker Series; Penn State University, State College PA, 25 October 2022. ACCESS PPT HERE: Protests_Cuba).

The cultivation of misery aligns with the suspicion of markets and the development of structires of central planning that only grudgingly  makes a place for market related activity but only as a complement to the "socialist economy" and only at the lowest level of consumer services and consumption. And, indeed, what has proven to be the most effective way to manage the private sector (at least in its official forms) is through policies of legal instability.  That is undertaken by the periodic  but unscheduled pattern of legal reform of the rules for the operation of private sector enterprises. The opening and tightening of the regulatory apertures revolve around the techniques of the public apparatus: applications, review, surveillance, interim measures, reporting, and approvals.  All of these are designed not merely to advance the objectives for which they are effected, but more importantly to impede, expand, and manage the ease of operation through patterns of destabilization of the environment in which economic activity is possible. In this sort of regulatory state, the primary task of economic operations is to serve the State through these complex systems of compliance. And the costs of compliance includes that risk that operating environments are impermanent and unstable.

This is made clear in the reporting from Reuters:

The fresh regulations come into effect as Cuba navigates its worst economic crisis in decades, with severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine and a record-breaking exodus of its citizens. The government says the reforms are necessary to correct distortions and boost the economy, while ensuring private enterprise benefits the broader population. Cities and towns can now deny a license to a business that doesn't fit within a local development plan, and municipalities may set prices in some cases. (Amid deepening economic crisis, Cuba tightens rules on fledgling private sector (Reuters); for the State explanation and links to the new regulations, see Se actualizan disposiciones normativas que regulan los actores económicos no estatales (Cubadebate) ("Como parte de las proyecciones para corregir distorsiones y reimpulsar la economía, se ratifica la actualización de las disposiciones jurídicas que regulan los actores económicos no estatales, bajo el principio de no retroceder, sino continuar avanzando en su inserción correcta en el desarrollo económico y social del país y que cumplan su papel como actores complementarios de la economía.") see also Granma)

 There is nothing unusual about this turn; it is just a more comprehensive version of what one is witnessing elsewhere as a shift from private markets to compliance based economic systems that are meant to serve and fulfill State objectives. In Europe that currently focuses on public policies around human rights and sustainability; in Marxist-Leninist State it revolves around the imperatives of the socialist road in the current state of historical development. And the new measures also suggest a bit of global cross fertilization, especially the provisions around so called corporate social responsibility issues.

Since the introduction of private micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in 2021, Cuba has seen the establishment of over 11,000 private MSMEs and 200 state-owned MSMEs. In August 2024, the Cuban government introduced new regulations for the private sector, affecting MSMEs and cooperatives. These rules update those from 2021, when Cuba first allowed small and medium-sized private enterprises. Self-employment was legalized in 1993. The key changes include stricter guidelines for who can be a business partner, more activities that are off-limits for private businesses, and a shift in who approves new businesses, changing from the national level to local councils. There are a few positive steps, including a focus on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and increased labor rights – yet the outlook for small business owners is unclear. (August 2024: Cuban Government Approves New Regulations for the Private Sector; on the 2021 regulations here)

Still, the overall policy framework remains unchanged. In Cuba that involves the preservation of the stability of the State apparatus through the cultivation of the instability of everything else. and the strategic use of misery. The Cuban model is unique in that respect, but it may offer a model for other States seeking stability within a value system that measures the positive in its own way.  

And it is worth mentioning that all of these gyrations and turns are undertaken in the shadow of the perceived threat from the United States. Indeed  one might see in this action a response to what the State might have presumed to be  American intervention through the soft underbelly of a less administratively secure sector. That, for example, might have been the way the Cuban State apparatus has been trained (or trained itself) to perceive US actions that touch on its economic policy.  Consider in that light the reporting from May 2024 of changes to US policy aimed at the liberalized sector:

The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday announced regulatory changes to allow more American financial support for Cuba’s nascent private sector and bolster access to U.S. internet-based services, limited but timely measures that officials said would help give the island’s budding small businesses a leg up. The United States said it would permit small entrepreneurs on the Communist-run island to open and access U.S. bank accounts from Cuba for the first time in decades, following prohibitions put in place shortly after Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution. (U.S. announces changes to give private sector, small businesses in Cuba more financial support)

The only safe space in this world view is something like a state of misery. 

 Los nuevos decretos, incluyen:

1. Decreto-Ley 88/2024 «Sobre las micro, pequeñas y medianas empresas».
2. Decreto-Ley 89/2024 «Cooperativas no Agropecuarias»
3. Decreto-Ley 90/2024 «Sobre el ejercicio del trabajo por cuenta propia»
4. Decreto-Ley 91/2024 «De las contravenciones en el ejercicio del trabajo por cuenta propia, las micro, pequeñas y medianas empresas y las cooperativas no agropecuarias».
5. Decreto-Ley 92/2024 «Del régimen especial de seguridad social para los trabajadores por cuenta propia, los socios de las cooperativas no agropecuarias y de las micro, pequeñas y medianas empresas privadas, y los titulares de los proyectos de desarrollo local».
6. Decreto-Ley 93/2024 Modificativo de la Ley 113 «Del sistema tributario»
7. Decreto- Ley 107/2024 «De las actividades no autorizadas a ejercerse por las micro, pequeñas y medianas empresas privadas, cooperativas no agropecuarias y trabajadores por cuenta propia».
8. Decreto-Ley 108/2024 «De la creación del Instituto Nacional de Actores Económicos no estatales». (Joven Cuba)
   

The Reuters reporting follows along with the official summary in Cubadebate. 

Towards the Perfection of the Future: The UN General Assembly Embraces its Pact for the Future

 

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In a prior post I considered the relentless pursuit of perfection by human collectives organized through States and operating through collective organs created to  serve as a platform for the rationalization of their joint projects.  (The United Nations Summit for the Future--On the Phenomenology of Progress and its Platforms). Now that project has reached a new stage of development with the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the Pact for the Future (text in the UN Official languages here) and its two substantive Annexes: (1) The Global Digital Compact (pp. 37-52); and (2) the Declaration on Future Generations (pp. 52-56). 

Futurity, and the relentless grasping for pathways to (collective) perfection, if only to provide a safe space for individuals self actualization within the well managed structures of collective organization realizing a collective vision of collective exaltation. The connection with more ancient pathways toward perfection in religion and other perfection driven forms of organizing perception around the human is unavoidable.  But that doesn't weaken the project--it just contextualizes a drive toward content specific striving for perfection, grounded in the underlying core belief in the perfection of the human person and human collectives. 

That is a positive, in so far as the striving seeks to make thing better. Yet it also points to the contraction at its heart--it is cause of imperfection to the extent of the coercion necessary to bring people along to the vision and its application. Perfection requires a certain orthodoxy and solidarity; that works for those who share the vision; for the rest, deviation presents itself as the contemporary heresy. And heretics have never fared well in society's deeply committed to a particular way of seeing and understanding things that permits no contradiction. That suggest a corollary contradiction--that the mechanics of democratic collective decision making, especially with respect to the trans-temporal orthodoxy of futurity, may be incompatible wit its underlying objective of unity of shared belief in the premises that give form to that future perfection. That, contradiction, however, has been turned into a vindication of the vision adopted, precisely because a majority of the community agreed, and the rest will just have to be brought along or disciplined. In this sense the primary orthodoxy shifts, from the unifying vision of the future to the performance of the methods for its adoption.  Thus, the UN Press Release spoke to the adoption of its vision of futurity as a systemic triumph.

World leaders are at UN Headquarters in New York this Sunday where they adopted the potentially game-changing Pact for the Future by consensus, with a small group of just seven countries holding out, having failed to pass a last-minute amendment. The centrepiece of the Summit of the Future is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine the multilateral system and steer humanity on a new course to meet existing commitments and solve long-term challenges. * * * Negotiations went down to the wire, with clear fault lines emerging ahead of the adoption of the Pact for the Future. But, what is also evident is that the UN remains the place for substantive multilateral negotiation - where the spirit of compromise has prevailed.

And, indeed, it might be said that the triumph of the Pact for the Future was less its content than the system invoked to achieve that result. Orthodoxy, at least substantive orthodoxy, then is meant to celebrate the triumph of negotiation and compromise followed by a sort of multilateral democratic centralism, than the verities of the substance of the thing adopted, with the apparatus of the UN at the center; indeed( much of the vision for the future involves the evolution and elaboration of an apparatus for the achievement of generalized substantive goals to be undertaken by and through that apparatus. And, indeed, what the Pact for the Future may augur is the form and rise of a transnational techno-bureaucracy as the founding premises of the organization of social relations, one manifested in functionally differentiated forms  (see, e.g., UN AI Advisory Body: "Final Report - Governing AI for Humanity").

For more on the Summit of the Future on 22 and 23 September, visit UN Meetings Coverage, in English and French.

An epitaphioi logoi (ἐπιτάφιος λόγος): President Biden's Remarks at the UN General Assembly

 

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The epitaphioi logoi (ἐπιτάφιος λόγος), ancient Greek public funeral orations, was an important part of the public and communal rituals of burying those who were no longer among the living. The practice in attenuated forms, might be said to have survived to modern times (eg Lucy Williams, Grieving Critically: Barack Obama and the Counter-Eulogy, (2022) 75(2) Political Research Quarterly 307-320), especially in its impulse to  mythologize the present through the speech act of the oration itself ( "the epitaphioi are “mythical” less because of their eternalizing perspective than because of the malleable and pluralistic way in which they conceived of the past and molded it to their ideological purpose" (Avi Kapac, "The Art of Mythical History and the Temporality of the Athenian Epitaphioi Logoi," (2020) 12(2) Trends in Classics, 312-340 (abstract)). 

That, perhaps. might be the most useful way of approaching the address delivered by Mr. Biden  at the UN  on 24 September (Remarks by President Biden Before the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly | New York, NY), the text of which follows below.  It was meant to speak to the present; it was perhaps most effective as a funeral oration for its orator, as well as one for the ideals and the ways of thinking that the oration sought to embrace. The remarks appear as a personal eulogy stretching across the arc of a career that ran in parallel with the lessons that were drawn to prepare him for, and then to justify, the decisions taken during his term in office. There is an echo here of a more ancient form:

Such was the end of these men; they were worthy of Athens, and the living need not desire to have a more heroic spirit, although they may pray for a less fatal issue. The value of such a spirit is not to be expressed in words. Any one can discourse to you for ever about the advantages of a brave defense, which you know already. But instead of listening to him I would have you day by day fix your eyes upon the greatness of Athens, until you become filled with the love of her; and when you are impressed by the spectacle of her glory, reflect that this empire has been acquired by men who knew their duty and had the courage to do it. (Funeral Oration of Pericles)

The reporting from Slate captured this essence in its analytical reporting: "Biden succinctly summarized his broad view of world politics and made it personal, citing his involvement in the ups and downs of war and peace over the past half-century as the basis of his hopes for the future. At the end, he tied his withdrawal from the presidential race to his celebration of democratic principles." (Biden Just Gave One of the Most Moving Speeches of His Long Political Career). The difference is more readily apparent when comparing his address with those delivered in 2023 (Remarks by President Biden Before the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly | New York, NY), and those delivered in 2022 (Remarks by President Biden Before the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly), both of which also follow below.

Of course, as is customary now for big leaders, Mr. Biden's remarks were surrounded by an official gloss, given before delivery by "senior administration official." That Background Press Call on President Biden’s Engagements at UNGA follows below. It was also parsed for unofficial glosses that tended to advance strategic perspectives now long in the making. There was a little of something for everyone to pull out of the text and to focus on it in ways that suited. President Biden did noy help matters--in the style of the political class in this century, and with a sensitivity to the technologies and predictions of communication through social media, Mr. Biden offered up, or rather he larded his eulogy with the requisite sound bites: Gaza, Ukraine, reform of the UN Security Council, and the like. The analytical results in press organs was predictable (see, e.g., Guardian (Ukraine); CNBC, PBS, Reuters (wars in Sudan, Ukraine, Gaza); ABC (Biden stepping aside; democracy); US News (message of hope); Fox (withdrawal from Afghanistan): Al Jazeera (MENA de escalation).

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UN AI Advisory Body: "Final Report - Governing AI for Humanity"

 

 

Large scale techno-bureaucracies require a number of things to work well as a substitute or overlay for traditional governance structures grounded in the political expression of the will of the masses either directly through elections (the liberal democratic model) or as the democratic centralist expression of the  a mass line which is expressed under the leadership and guidance of a vanguard of social forces (the Marxist-Leninist model). 

First they require an object of regulation that requires specialized knowledge. Second they require that this specialized knowledge be dynamic in the sense that knowledge must constantly be refreshed in order o be current. Third, techno-bureaucratic leadership and guidance requires a specialized language that is to be used with respect to the specialized knowledge  required to manage the object of governance. Fourth, they require an apparatus that is self-referencing, that is an apparatus whose members share a solidarity built on a set of core premises and expectations, a shared outlook, among the who form the techno-bureaucratic core. Fifth, that techno-bureaucratic core requires its own rules of membership and exclusion grounded in part of shared values; opposing voices, even techno savvy vices, tend to be silenced or suppressed. Sixth, the techno bureaucratic apparatus requires its own ecologies of authority, in this case built into interfaces with analogues in intellectual circles (as they may be constituted and operated within a larger social system), and non-governmental organs directly interested in the object of techno-bureaucratization. Seventh, the techno-bureaucracy reinforces its authority and disciplines its community through interactions among its interface forces. Eighth, the function of techn0o-bureaucy is to displace the traditional structures of politics (in either liberal democratic or Marxist-Leninist regimes) with the well managed discourse of specialized knowledge the purpose of which is to fulfill the premises around which these knowledge systems are built. And Ninth, techno-bureaucracies build their legitimacy by attaching the,selves to the form of traditional political structures, an attachment that gives the appearance of politics but might be better understood as using the poli9tical structures as a means of transposing knowledge power into political imposition.

None of this is bad per se, though it might have caused some who were once in a position to reconsider the relationship of techno-governance to the fundamental political structures of the systems into or on which they were attached. But those decisions were made almost a century ago in the first flush of the triumph of the scientism of the ocial sciences and the acceptance of the immutable verities of scientific investigation (but of which, of course proved to be as permanent as the state of research at any given point, but each of which displaced polities with knowledge communities with polities. Global communities have celebrated that triumph for a long time, though to greater or lesser extent depending n context. The ruling global ideology within international bureaucratic and institutional circles, however, has provided probably one of the most durable and powerful homes for this turn in governance. That, in part, was inevitable--one substitutes knowledge power and works through knowledge communities when one is denied, directly, political authority.  The state system may remain triumphant, in this sense, but its international organs led through a different means--in pace of political authority there is knowledge authority and the cultivation of the absoluteness of knowledge and its primacy over politics.  That is, in the face f the pronouncements of a knowledge community--so recognized by political bodies--politics ust give way. 

The regimes f knowledge communities within techno-bureaucratic ecologies may be at their most potent (subject to temporal shifts as knowledge grows and changes) where the "science" is at its most potent (an invitation to conclusion that is usually hotly debated at least at its margins). It is at its least potent when it attaches to or appears to serve as justification for social scientific "truth" int he service of political agendas--especially agendas of control and management. The current debates around artificial intelligence appears to fit in neither category.  To some extent it is based on conjecture--the application of crude predictive analytics based on current states of knowledge respecting the development of artificial intelligence (however that is defines--another contentious issue). But conjecture is based on current states of knowledge and current knowledge of the proclivity of people to seek to emply these generative and big data technologies in ways that appear to run counter to either deeply held principles of human social relations or more short term political interests. 

It is with this in mind that one might productively engage in the latest effort to develop a governing framework for artificial intelligence, one that might appear to be tied to related production among allied techno-bureaucracies in other state organs and elsewhere in what appears to be a coordinated effort of a solidarity based and widely dispersed techno bureaucracy to appear to speak from many vices in a variety of institutional frameworks at about the same time. The effort, of course, is the widely anticipated fonal report of the United Nations AI Advisory Body.  The AI Advisory body+s self description serves as a model of the techno-bureaucratic form and its solidarity networks:

To foster a globally inclusive approach, the UN Secretary-General convened a multi-stakeholder High-level Advisory Body on AI on 26 October 2023 to undertake analysis and advance recommendations for the international governance of AI.​ The Advisory Body comprised 39 preeminent AI leaders from 33 countries from across all regions and multiple sectors, serving in their personal capacity.​

A call for Interdisciplinary Expertise​
Selected from over 2,000 nominations, this diverse group combined cutting edge expertise across public policy, science, technology, anthropology, human rights, and other relevant fields.​

A Multistakeholder, Networked Approach​
The Body included experts from government, private sector and civil society, engaged and consulted widely with existing and emerging initiatives and international organizations, to bridge perspectives across stakeholder groups and networks.​

An Agile, Dynamic Process​
The Body worked at speed to deliver its interim report in under 2 months, engage over 2,000 AI experts stakeholders across all regions in 5 months, and produce its final report in under 3 months. Keeping pace with technical and institutional developments let the Advisory Body provide high-level expert and independent contributions to ongoing national, regional, and multilateral debate. (About the UN Secretary-General's High-level Advisory Body on AI​)

I have written about the form and semiosis of this techno-bureaucratic product in the context of the AI Advisory Body+s Interim Report (Made in Our Own Image; Animated as Our Servant; Governed as our Property: Interim Report "Governing AI for Humanity" and Request for Feedback). Now the techno-bureaucracy solidifies its claims to the need for global governance based on a synthesis of the specialized output of knwledge communities with the interests of political institutions. It is a rich and increasingly typical reduction of the democratic process to the technologies of knowledge production in the service of political management  the object of which is to enrich the lives of its objects--the individuals increasingly remote from the processes of knowledge or of politics.  That, perhaps, cannot be heed.  It might, however, at least have been worth a conversation and some better communication of what the masses were to be giving up (or in the case of Marxist Leninist systems, the political core of leadership). One is left, then, especially if one falls outside the authoritative knowledge communities from out of wich Reports like this are fashioned, to read, consider, and perhaps comment to no one in particular.And one might at the same time consider the politics of that exercise as its own system semiotic transformation of the democratic impulse to one in which individuals are again reduced to some sort of benign passive receptacles of something that is good for them. Perhaps it is for the best; though one wonders whether knowledge communities have indeed considered alternatives other than self serving ones. With respect ot the underlying premises that inform its substance, see here: Just Published: 'The Soulful Machine, the Virtual Person, and the “Human” Condition', International Journal for the Semiotics of Law.

In any case the Report carries forward the usual potpourri of current sensibilities about AI as an object that permits the triggering of substantial amounts of management (if its own knowledge production and application), and of its relationship to individuals, institutions, and the constitution and operation of social relations.  And indeed one cannot but note the first rule of knowledge communities--to serve oneselves.

The Executive Summary follows

Read the Final Report

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European Union Chamber of Commerce in China Position Paper 2024/2025

 

 The European Chamber has recently published its European Business in China Position Paper.  It si described by Jens Eskelund, President of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, as "the culmination of six months’ hard work by the European Chamber’s working groups, all of which remain committed to the China market." The Press Release nicely summarized the Report and its principal point:

Beijing, 11^th September 2024 – The European Chamber today published its European Business in China Position Paper 2024/2025 (Position Paper 2024/2025). The report focuses on the urgent need for the Chinese authorities to follow through on reform pledges announced in the past year, with business confidence now at an all-time low. 

European companies previously viewed the complex challenges of doing business in China as the ‘growing pains’ of an emerging market. However, with the risks of doing business increasing and the rewards decreasing, many investors are now confronted with the reality that their approach to the China market requires a strategic rethink.

There have been positive signals that China intends to address some of the challenges faced by foreign enterprises, most notably via the State Council’s 13^th August 2023 Opinions on Further Optimising the Foreign Investment Environment and Increasing the Attraction of Foreign Investment (Opinions). However, one year on from the Opinions’ publication, limited progress has been made on the implementation of key points contained in the document. Meanwhile, some European Chamber members have begun both siloing their China supply chains and operations, and shifting investments previously planned for China to other markets to increase supply chain resilience, take advantage of comparatively lower labour costs and hedge against future geopolitical shocks.

The Position Paper 2024/2025 details the challenges faced by European companies operating in China and provides more than 1,000 constructive recommendations to the Chinese Government on how they can be resolved. It provides a blueprint for rebuilding business confidence in the Chinese market and restoring it as the preferred destination for global investment.

“For a growing number of companies, a tipping point has been reached, with investors now scrutinising their China operations more closely as the challenges of doing business are beginning to outweigh the returns,” said Jens Eskelund, president of the European Chamber. “While China still holds significant potential, this situation urgently requires more action from the Chinese Government, not more action plans.”

Click here to download the report. 

 中国欧盟商会呼吁中国政府更加注重实际行动，而非行动方案

2024年9月11日，北京—中国欧盟商会今日发布《欧盟企业在中国建议书2024/2025》（简称《建议书》）。报告强调，如今商业信心处于低谷，中国有关政府部门应及时采取切实行动，践行去年宣布的改革方案。

欧盟在华企业曾认为，在华营商面临的复杂挑战是新兴市场的“成长痛”。然而，随着营商风险增高、回报降低，许多投资者不得不直面现实挑战，重新思考对于中国市场的战略规划。

多项政策释放积极信号，表明中国政府有意解决外资企业面临的相关挑战。其中，国务院于2023 年8月13日发布的《关于进一步优化外商投资环境 加大吸引外商投资力度的意见》（《意见》）尤为瞩目。然而《意见》发布一年至今，政策文件中重点举措落实进展有限。同时，部分中国欧盟商会会员企业开始在华建立孤立于全球体系的供应链和运营，并将计划投入中国市场的投资转至其他市场，以提高供应链韧性、利用相对较低的劳动力成本、防御潜在地缘政治风险的冲击。

《建议书》详细列举了欧盟在华企业经营难题，并向中国政府提供了1000余条建设性的建议，以期解决相关问题。《建议书》提出了新蓝图，以重建企业对华市场商业信心，重塑中国作为国际投资首选目的地的地位。

中国欧盟商会主席彦辞强调：“越来越多的公司表示其在华业务已达临界点。营商挑战逐步超过投资回报，投资者开始重新审视其在华运营。诚然中国潜力巨大，但是目前的局面亟须中国政府更加注重实际行动，而非行动方案。”

点击这里下载报告全文。

 In some interesting ways, its serves as an effort to  enhance the many recommendations in the Chnese 3rd Plenum deicion but in ways that might stimulate China's economic relations with the European Unon.  The United States remains, of course, sui generis.

The Executive Summary, Report pp. 4.10,  follows below.

CfP: Promoting Democracy and the Rule of Law – Global Perspectives Santiago de Chile, 5-6 December 2024

 

 

I am delighted to pass along the Call for Paper for the International Conference Promoting Democracy and the Rule of Law – Global Perspectives to be held in Santiago de Chile, 5-6 December 2024. It follows below.

The Mass Line from a Liberal Democratic Point of View: Clyde Yicheng Wang, "The Self-Image of Propaganda: Biopolitics of Yuqing Governance"

 

Pix Credit Here (Serve the Revolutionary People of the World)

 

 Clyde Yicheng Wang (Washington & Lee) has published a quite fascinating article in Critical Asian Studies. Entitled "The Self-Image of Propaganda: Biopolitics of Yuqing Governance," the article applies a biopolitics lens to the dialectics of propaganda (so-called by all sides) to more deeply interrogate the dynamics of the relationship between mas opinion and its management by and through the Chinese propaganda system.  The analysis is thoughtful and quite revealing. The article's abstract nicely summarizes the argument, as well as the perspective that underlies the analysis:

This article explores how China’s propaganda system operates as an aspect of governance, especially how propagandists understand the public opinion they seek to influence. Understanding the concept of yuqing (public opinion conditions) is crucial for understanding propaganda in China. Yuqing is considered akin to the medical condition of public opinion (yulun). Hence, propaganda is treatment that the state provides to an organic social body of public opinion, which is subject to constant monitoring and treatment. The party-state is keen on establishing standards and norms about what a healthy and clean society should be. Thus, this paper argues that the propaganda system does not contribute to responsive authoritarianism by collecting grassroots information, but instead prioritizes cleansing public discourse in accordance with party-state logic. Furthermore, contrary to the belief that authoritarian propaganda focuses on demobilizing collective resistance and forcing compliance, China’s propaganda system disciplines the public by actively constructing discursive norms.

And, indeed, the author makes a strong case for the proposition that yuqing represents something of the tip of a heavily managerial curation of public opinion that requires public pinion for its management. From the perception universe of liberal democracy that can be troublesome--it makes explicit--and industrializes in a sense--the principle that individuals, and collectives other than the vanguard of social forces organized as a communist party, ought to lead and guide opinion toward certain ends. The idea, stated explicitly, that the individual is no longer the master of the cultivation of their own opinions, does not align well with a set of social relations premised on the opposite principle that the ordering of social relations ought to, at least formally, strive toward the cultivation of individual self management of opinion.  Of course, that is not quite true within liberal democracy--it is just that such yuqing systems are forbidden the State and its apparatus and made fair game among privatized collectives of self styled leading social forces in social media, enterprises, academics and public intellectuals. Still, for liberal democracy, that fractious fracturing serves the purpose both of denying the State apparatus a decisive role and encouraging debate among influential bit not politically authoritative factions (the current curation of "social justice" provides a nice example). The State might be used as  a tool by powerful factions, but generally the driving forces are non-governmental--mostly. In this sense the article nicely analyzes the current state, as well as the discursive state of awareness, of opinion cultivation within China, with respect to which the medical analogy works nicely. And it fits nicely with other work, for instance the 2016 consideration of this issue by Peking University Professor Hu Yong. The view from liberal democracy is thud well developed and convincing on its own terms.

Nonetheless, getting past the heavily baggaged (though de rigeur within communities of scholars and policymakers) terminology of authoritarianism popular in the United States and elsewhere, it might be possible to see in the analysis in a little different light. From the inside the system, from the foundations of the Chinese Marxist-Leninist operating system, what might be described is a variant, perhaps successful on its own terms, of the application of the mass line in ways that align closely with its dialectic and mimetic objectives. In a Marxist-Leninist system that is committed, as a fundamental source of its legitimacy and authority, to forward (as they it) movement along a socialist path toward the establishment of a communist society (eventually), the cultivation and management of mass opinion is an essential task of the vanguard of social forces (the Communist Party of China) as an important element in undertaking this forward movement toward that objective. From this starting point, of course, there is a basic and likely irreconcilable difference, with the libel democratic baseline of self-actualization and fulfillment with no direction other than maximizing welfare (as that may be understood in a complex interplay of individual and collective sentiment that varies with the times and interests of those living). Liberal democracy has nowhere specific to go; Marxist-Leninism on the other hand does.

What then, does the mass line contribute to the shaping of propaganda, at least a s a matter of theory? At its simplest, the mass line is a feedback loop. That, of course, was Clyde Yicheng Wang’s point in part. The question is what sort of feedback loop it is. Again, Clyde Yicheng Wang did a marvelous job of describing its characteristics and operations using the now fashionable discourse of responsive authoritarianism. And, indeed, from a liberal democratic perspective e, that is from out of the core values and foundational operating premises of liberal democracy, the critical analysis (with the emphasis on the first word) is unavoidable—the object is not merely to monitor and perhaps respond, but also to guide and shape the discourse. That is, precisely what the mass line requires if the vanguard is to fulfill its obligation to move the masses in the correct direction along the Socialist path. What from the lens of liberal democracy is understood as a critique, through the lens of Marxist-Leninism the analysis serves as an affirmation.

That affirmation has a fundamentally dialectical dimension. The mass line posits that the masses drive the system; but it also posits that the system must guide the masses. That is the fundamental nature of the loop—not a circle but a spiral bent to a particular pathway and toward a specific ends. What comes from the masses informs the vanguard. That informing function has at least three principle elements. The first touches on the work of the vanguard itself and through its organs; it is the quality control or accountability element. It is the “responsive” element of responsive authoritarianism in the language of liberal democracy. The second is the corrective element, one tightly connected with the responsive element. Here mass reaction to a situation may alert the authorities about the gravity of a situation requiring correction--one way or another.  And the third is the instructive or responsive element. What is received from the masses must be evaluated through the lens of the principles and objectives of the vanguard; it is received but also produce a response that serves to instruct as well as to curate the message in ways that push mass opinion and perception in the “right” direction along the socialist path. The dialectics, then, are inherent in a process of “receiving” from the masses and “responding” to the masses in a patterned set f iterative interactions that each shape the other within and to some extent on the reshaping also move the enterprise forward. If it works right. To that end, disciplining the public by actively constructing discursive norms is precisely what the political economic model requires. This requirement, of course, is incompatible with liberal democratic values. But then this is not a liberal democratic system. Clyde Yicheng Wang’s excellent article draws that distinction clearly—and nicely extracts the inevitable judgment from a liberal democratic perch: the mass line is incompatible with liberal democratic values. It is, however, a core Marxist-Leninist value and essential to its fundamental project of reshaping society in the most specific ways. From that lens, Clyde Yicheng Wang may well have evidenced not only how it works, and the discursive tropes used in its performance. He may also have evidenced its success. In the process, in this excellent article, he reveals another dialectic--that between the imaginaries of liberal democracy and Marxist-Leninism in the new era.

 

 

World Justice Project Report: U.S. Rule of Law Trends & 2024 Election Trust Repors

 

 

The World Justice Project has just released its U.S. Rule  of Law Trends and 2024 Election Trust Report. The Press Release provides short synopsis.

 Our timely new U.S. report provides crucial insights into eroding trust as the 2024 election nears. Citizen concerns about fair elections are widespread, and trust in the courts that may get involved is falling and polarized. But the report does more than reveal challenges to U.S. institutions and democracy. It shows remarkable, bipartisan unity on core rule of law values.

The Report is well worth reading.  Perhaps emblematic of the c ontradicvitons of the current moment was best captured y these findings:

The Executive Finds follow below.

Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC): Upcoming Hearing "Bringing Home Americans Detained in China"

 

Pix Credit here

 

The  Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), like other American authorities, have stepped up their pressure on US companies to more resolutely comply with US based sanctions regimes directed. among other places, to China. To that end they have been engaging in what I have called a two thrust policy: putting pressure on private market players to evidence fidelity to national (and perhaps international) human rights values in accordance with a specific application and simultaneously using legality pro-actively to develop an authoritative narrative embedded in law. It6 is to the second part of this two thrust policy strategy that CECC has organized a hearing focusing in U.S. citizens imprisoned in China.

Bringing Home Americans Detained in China
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
10:00 am (EDT)
106 Dirksen Senate Office Building

There are more Americans detained in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) than anywhere else in the world. Following the high-profile release of Americans unjustly jailed in Russia, attention to the cases of Americans imprisoned in China, many jailed for over or nearly a decade, remains a pressing diplomatic concern.

U.S. citizens Kai Li and Mark Swidan are serving long prison sentences in China. Both are considered by the U.S. State Department to be “unjustly detained,” affording them the diplomatic attention of the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs. Yet, each remains imprisoned with no clear diplomatic progress made in gaining their release, and they both face ongoing health concerns while in prison. The CECC Chairs urged President Biden to raise these cases and others with Xi Jinping by name during the November 2023 APEC Summit in San Francisco. Gaining their freedom should be a priority of the Administration in the upcoming months. Still, there are other Americans currently serving long prison sentences in China who are not well known and who also did not receive a fair and transparent trial, with a genuine defense, in front of an independent judge, in an impartial court. These prisoners also face serious health challenges because of the poor conditions in PRC prisons, often experience torture or mistreatment by guards and other prisoners and suffer from insufficient medical care and nutrition.

Representatives of American prisoners currently held in Chinese jails, former prisoners in China, and experts in the PRC’s prison system will testify at the hearing examining how to focus greater diplomatic attention on the cases of Americans detained in China and what more can be done to secure their release.

The hearing will be live-streamed via the CECC’s YouTube channel.

Witnesses:

Nelson Wells, Sr.: Father of detained American citizen Nelson Wells, Jr.
Harrison Li: Son of detained American citizen Kai Li
Tim Hunt: Brother of detained American citizen Dawn Michelle Hunt
Peter Humphrey: Journalist, due diligence specialist, sinologist, and former prisoner of China

The hearing can be viewed on the CECC’s YouTube Channel.

 The links to the opening Statements and testimony follows along with a summary of testimony prepared by CECC..

Workshop Presentation--"Whole Process People's Democracy"-- Public Law and Human Rights Forum, School of Law of City University of Hong Kong; "Exploring Cutting Edge Constitutional Issues in the "New Era" of China"

 

 

It was my great pleasure to have participated in the Workshop organized  by the Public Law and Human Rights Forum, School of Law of City University of Hong Kong. The workshop, entitled "Exploring Cutting Edge Constitutional Issues in the "New Era" of China," brought together scholars from Mainland China, Hong Kong and abroad to discuss pressing issues in Chinese constitutional research, including State-Party interactions, protection of fundamental rights, and challenges in constitutional implementation. Great thanks to the remarkable Guobin Zhu,  Director, Public Law and Human Rights Forum, CityU School of Law and Co-Associate Director, CityU Centre for Public Affairs and Law, City University of Hing Kong for making this all possible.

The workshop was part of a series of events that are being held around the drafting of what hopefully will be published as The Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Constitutional Law (Guobin Zhu, Björn Ahl & Larry Catá Backer, eds.). 

My contribution focused on the development of Whole Process People's Democracy. It considers the development of dual track structures of endogenous (voting for representatives) and exogenous (collectivized popular consultations) democratic practices within and through the leadership and guidance of a vanguard party. These structures, long in the making had been effectively parallel structures of socialist democratic engagement. The exogenous element of democratic structuring is embedded in the People's Congress system; the mandatory structures of democratic consultation has emerged through the system of the CPPC and collective mass organizations, including the old United Front parties. The Decision/Resolution of the 3rd Plenum of the 20th CPC Congress, concluded in July 2024 formally embedded a principle of coordination among these two institutional elements. Together these elements constitute the whole of whole process peoples democracy.  Whole process people's democracy and its processes (especially) are then embedded in the evolving construct of socialist modernization and its high quality productive forces modalities. These then further integrate the political and consultative structures of democratic operation within the broader ideologies of the comprehensive development of all of the society's productive forces, now through focused innovation.  The essay first situates the "issue" of democratic expression its its core framework--the spectrum of possibilities within which it is possible to express premise of rule or governance by the people. It then contrasts the baseline approaches of liberal democracy's centering of exogenous  democratic practices (through the election fo representatives) with the expression of Chinese Marxist-Leninist democratic practices through endogenous (institutionalized consultation) approach. 

The PPT of the presentation of the contribution follows below. The discussion daft may be accessed here.