poli-sci@ucbvax.ARPA (11/05/84)
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Poli-Sci Digest Mon 5 Nov 84 Volume 4 Number 99
Contents: electronic democracy
CORPS posting
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 25 Oct 84 0805 PDT
From: Robert Maas <REM@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Discussion of electronic proxy republic
Subject: electronic democracy, many replies below...
Date: Friday, 19 Oct 1984 14:30-EDT
From: sjc@Mitre-Bedford
Subject: Electronic Democracy
Each senator and representative should have an electronic
mailbox on a network so that people could send email to their
representatives.
I've been wanting this for a long time. I agree it's a good idea.
Since the government already pays for free mail from congresscritters
to their constituency, it's reasonable for it to also pay for free
mail in the reverse direction, so it's not unreasonable for
congresscritters to have mailboxes on MILNET with permitted access
from ExpArpanet all paid by the government, and permitted access from
USENET CSNET BITNET et al with the ExpArpanet&MILNET part paid by the
government. Perhaps this government-paid email should be only for
constituents to their own congresscritters (two senators and one
representative), not to others; If you want to mass-mail to all of the
House or Senate you have to use snail-mail at your own expense.
Any reason this wouldn't be a good idea or it'd be politially infeasible?
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 84 20:37:57 EDT
From: Brint <abc@BRL-TGR.ARPA>
2. that the "n" key will be the first to wear out on most keyboards;
Could people please refrain from making statements that assume
everyone will convert over to using whatever particular mail-reading
program is the only one the particular author has used? I don't use
the same mail-reader you use, and don't even know what "n" does in
yours. Please translate to something more meaningful independent of
what particular key on your system invokes it. (I.e. flush the
system-dependent jargon and talk plain English/Computerese.)
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 84 17:43:53 PDT
From: David Booth <booth@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA>
Subject: Electronic Democracy -- Discussion?
". . . Participatory democracy includes discussion and debate
as well as decision-making."
That is a problem. I would suggest some kind of tiered system, based
on coalitions: anyone could express a view or opinion to a small
coalition. If it the idea was accepted by this group, it would be
passed on to a group representing a larger segment of the population,
and they would consider it. This process would continue up to the
national level.
I suggested something like this a couple years ago and I still think
it's a good idea to try. It's a reasonable way to generally reduce the
amount of junk mail as well as to correct typographic errors and other
blunders before too many people have to stub their minds on them. Even
if an idea is good, the initial presentation may be suboptimal, and
the merging of several viewpoints at a low level can improve the
presentation before the idea gets lots of exposure.
Date: Thu 18 Oct 84 15:52:39-EDT
From: Bernard Gunther <BMG@MIT-XX.ARPA>
Subject: Proxy voting
One small group of people, who are devoted to some goal, can
effectively stop the government from working except when they agree
with what is going on. In a networked system around the US, this
group could generate mail at such volumes as to prevent an useful
messages from being sent.
I think the tiered (tree-structure of committees) solves this problem.
Date: Fri 19 Oct 84 20:17:53-PDT
From: Tom Dietterich <DIETTERICH@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Electronic democracy
Networks seem to be good vehicles for collecting bug reports and
suggestions for improvements, but I don't think they work well for
consensus-building.
The Common-LISP@SU-AI mailing list is currently trying to refine the
Common-LISP standard to be acceptable to most members. This may
qualify as a consensus-building experiment. Perhaps somebody who has
been in that group (or another similar group) for a long time could
offer comments on whether it's succeeding or not and how much
concensus is actually achived online versus how much goes on at
in-person meetings after the mailing list has collected random opinions.
Date: Sat, 20 Oct 1984 17:07 EDT
From: ASP%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: Electronic Democracy proposal (V7 #62)
As far as writing your Congressman for 'free' goes, how about going
one further and letting everyone read his mail? This would allow
interested parties to debate (?) each other in the Representative's inbox
That should be the choice of the sender of a message, an "open letter"
to the congressman, or a normal closed letter. It would be rude to
publish a closed letter you receive or even to quote parts of it
without permission. If you're shy about feedback from strangers or you
think maybe your position is too controversial and might provoke the
wrath of Jerry Falwell, you send a closed letter. If you want to get
wide exposure of your idea and want feedback so you can tune your idea
to get rid of minor bugs, you send an open letter.
Date: Sat, 20 Oct 84 18:36:54 PDT
From: David Booth <booth@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA>
Subject: Electronic Democracy -- Proxies vs. representatives
Proxies should be paid based on how many people they represented, but
not necessarily proportionately. There should probably be a ceiling,
or the pay should taper off at the top.
I think I agree but I'd like to hear some rebuttal. Like if it
tapers off then somebody with lots of proxy-constituents won't want
any more because they aren't cost-effective, so might get sloppy and
not do a good job because if a few constituents are lost it doesn't
mean a big deal. Maybe a better idea is to simply have an absolute
limit on proxies, with pay linear up to the cutoff point, and a
waiting list of additional people who asked for this particular
representative too late and are granting their proxies to some other
representative (or voting directly) during the wait. If some
constituent drops off a particular representative's list,
somebody on the waiting list automatically takes the place,
automatically dropping off some other constituency list, which if
full-with-waiting automatically gets replaced on that list, etc. Since
this domino effect is always in the favor of a more-desirable
representative for each constituent transferred, the algorithm does
terminate in finite time, and with computers doing the transferring
automatically the whole process could be almost instantaneous.
Second, with a proxy system, if we felt particularly strongly about an
upcoming issue, we could bypass the proxy and vote ourselves.
But unless we were informed of each vote that was upcoming how would
we get to revoke our proxy in time to avoid missing the vote? I think
we need a way to indicate different proxies for different subjects.
For example I'd probably trust Lauren Weinstein or Mark Crispin or Mel
Pleasant or Charles McGrew to be my proxy on matters of computer
security, but I'd want somebody else to be my proxy on space habitat,
and probably Carl Sagan on arms control, but I'd vote myself on some
topics just to make sure the correct vote is entered. If the subject
automatically determined who the proxy was, I would have to spend time
checking each bill to see whom to assign the proxy to or whether to
vote myself. Occasionally my chosen proxy would vote the wrong way
from my point of view, but those exceptions would be many fewer
than either the present system or a single-proxy system, and much less
work for me than keeping track of all bills myself.
One problem, subject designations are difficult to assign, and
misleading when lots of riders are attached to bills. Maybe if we all
vote against any mixed-bag-of-topics bills they will stop getting
proposed and the subject designations will become effective at sorting
bills according to which proxy?
Third, we would have a much wider range of possible proxies than
we do of representatives.
Yup. Carl Sagan space proxy, unburdened by the 99% of bills unrelated
to space or arms control, able to represent us on space and arms
control while spending the rest of his time doing other things he does
now. With special-topic-only representatives like that able to spend
most of their time on useful work and only a little bit on
representing us when a bill comes up, a lot more people will be
willing to be representatives. It won't be an all-or-nothing thing
where you have to give up the rest of your life to be a fulltime
congresscritter.
------------------------------
Date: 24 Oct 84 13:41:10 EDT
From: Mike <ZALESKI@RU-BLUE.ARPA>
Subject: Electronic mail and voting
Electronic democracy: Much as I distrust the government, I don't
think this is the answer. Some questions:
Many people don't bother voting now. Why should such a system
inspire any more interest?
Given the amount of trash that flows every day in Washington
(take a look at the Congressional Record in your library some time),
how can people keep up with all of it? Of course, the volume might
fall off somewhat (no more National Hot Dog Week resolutions), but
more likely people will just ignore vast amounts of it, just like
now.
Of those who bother to vote, how many know where their elected
officials stand on various issues? How many check to see how these
officials have voted? Would people be more likely to do this
sort of checking on their proxies?
This whole idea also strikes me as rather elitist. If one has to
pay a proxy to handle their voting, then the poor will have to do
their own voting, since they won't have the money for a proxy.
Of course, voting will still be difficult for them, as they
have no money for terminals. (See closing note below.) Of
course, the government could pay the proxies, but that seems like
an interesting new opportunity for corruption. The government could
provide terminals for the poor or public terminals (sort of like
voting machines) but both of these approaches might be quite
expensive.
Finally, has anyone given any consideration the the security of
such a grand system? How will we prevent 15 year old crackers
(criminals) from disrupting the whole system? What computer
system could possibly support such a grand national operation
with reasonable reliability, response time, and security?
Closing note: Not only don't the poor have terminals. Most
people don't. Sometimes when I read Human-Nets, I get the idea
that the people who submit ideas to introduce computers into
every facit of life (mail/voting/banking/shopping/magazines/news/etc)
have lost sight of one thing: Most people don't want to spend
their lives logged in to a computer shuffling through this trash.
-- Mike^Z Zaleski@Rutgers [allegra!, ihnp4!] pegasus!mzal
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 84 19:40:21 PST
From: David Booth <booth@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA>
Subject: Electronic democracy; Hierarchical discussion groups
Re: Proxies directly charging their clients for the
service they provide -- $10/year?
This certainly wouldn't work: it would discourage people from using
proxies, thus discouraging them from being represented. The poor would
go completely unrepresented. This is precisely why each of us doesn't
have to pay to vote right now, though elections certainly cost money to
hold. No, proxies should be paid by the government, as representatives
are now.
Re: "[Before telecommunications] it was not possible to have
direct democracy on a national scale, but direct democracy was
considered (and tried) on a smaller scale and rejected for
completely different reasons." [Dehn@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (Joseph
W. Dehn III)]
Joseph Dehn gives no explanation as to where, how, by whom, or what
kind of "direct democracy" was "considered", and for what "completely
different reasons" it was rejected, so all I can do is refute his claim
point blank with regard to the proxy system.
The proxy system has been tried on a smaller scale and *accepted* --
not "rejected": it has been successfully used for shareholder
representation in large companies for a long time. The proxy system
per se is not a new idea, but coupling it with today's electronic
technology yields some important differences.
Along the same lines, hierarchical discussion groups which allow
thousands -- no, *millions* -- to participate efficiently were
practically impossible before they could be conducted electronically.
Now such groups may radically change how we receive information, debate
issues, and make decisions.
Re: Hierarchical discussion groups -- try them now?
Networks such as the Arpanet and UUCP network could provide the basis
for experimenting with hierarchical discussion groups right now -- all
it would take is some software.
Anyone interested in this subject or electronic democracy in general,
please send me mail so that followup is possible.
-- David Booth
{sdcrdcf,ihnp4,trwspp,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!booth booth@ucla-locus.ARPA
------------------------------
Date: Tue 30 Oct 84 12:57:48-PST
From: Richard Treitel <TREITEL@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
More problems of democracy:
It is also quite strongly (and plausibly) alleged that Mondale was initially
opposed to the Grenada operation, until his opinion polls told him to be in
favour of it.
I think most voters have the feeling that there is a large group of people "out
there" who want to, and probably will, overthrow everything that is good,
right, and decent unless strong checks and balances are in place to make this
hard to do. My personal feeling is that direct democracy would make it much
harder to take actions which benefit society while appearing to harm
individuals (e.g. require pollution controls on cars). While it can be argued
that there are too many of these "do-gooder" laws now, I don't want to swing
the pendulum all the way back.
- Richard
------------------------------
Date: Tue 30 Oct 84 14:11:13-PST
From: WYLAND@SRI-KL.ARPA
Subject: Electronic Democracy by Proxy
<Now for a *radical* proposal. How about giving our proxy the
<direct power to vote our taxes? Specifically, how about
<assigning part or all of our individual tax dollars directly to
<the proxy for assignment by him to worthy projects? There are
<many secondary problems to solve, such as long term dollar
<commitments and their approval by the voter, but it could be
<really interesting. Money is political power. Control of the
<money is control of the power. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to
<choose - directly, by ourselves - what our tax money is spent on?
From: Dehn@MIT
<This is a very nice suggestion, except for one slight problem: the
<whole POINT of a tax system is to spend your money on things that you
<don't want it spent on. This has nothing to do with whether the
<government doing the taxing is a "democracy", electronic or otherwise.
<If you are going to have the ultimate choice about how your money will
<be spent, there is no need for representatives or proxies or tax
<collectors; you just write a check (oops, sorry... an EFT request) to
<whatever enterprise you want to support. If you don't want to make
<all the decisions yourself, you can give to a fund that supports
<various worthwhile (according to your view) activities. [...]
I'd like to clarify my proxy tax proposal. I assumed that a
conventional tax system would be voted where each member of the
society pays a tax according to a negotiated rule system, such as
the current income tax system. Proxies would then be assigned
some or all of the individual's tax amount for voting purposes.
I disagree with the idea that the point of a tax system is to
"spend [my] money on things I don't want to spend it on." This
implies that I am to be used rather than represented by the
government. Taxation without representation has never been
popular in the US, even in theory. I may not want to spend money
on missles and the CIA, but I accept them as necessary evils that
we (i.e., the majority) have agreed to support. (Please, no
flames. If you don't like my choice, there are many things I am
sure you wish you didn't have to support, but accept as
necessary.)
I also accept the necessity of a uniform, negotiated and
agreed-to tax system. I think it is a direct expression of
representative government: you are fairly and uniformly taxed in
the same sense that you are fairly and uniformly represented. If
properly created and maintained, it helps prevent rule by men
instead of law, and rule by the rich at the expense of the poor.
I think the proxy system makes sense as an extension of current
methods rather than as a new form of government. I think of the
proxy system is a variation on the existing House of
Representatives. Instead of representatives that are elected for
years, you have proxy representatives that are elected for as
long as proxies are assigned to them, and have political power
proportional to the number of assigned proxies. The House is set
up on this basis, with representatives proportional to
population.
The advantage of the proxy system is that it could make
the representatives more responsive to their constituants. In
the current system, you get a chance to "throw the rascals out"
only once every two years or so. In the proxy system, this could
occur every few days until someone finally got the message and
did what the voters wanted. The proxy system would operate more
like a parlimentary vote of confidence on the proxy holder rather
than the current, fixed term election system.
I agree with others that the proxy system is not a good
choice for the executive or judicial arms of the government. In
the executive case, it is too slow: executive decisions should
not be made by a committee. In the judicial case, it is too
fast: the interpretation of the law is based on precedent, i.e.
long-term social patterns, not the opinion of the moment.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 84 18:41:24 PST
From: David Booth <booth@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA>
Subject: Electronic Democracy -- Electronic Issue Selection
Re: "I'm afraid I can't see the advantages of [electronic
democracy]. . . . What's wrong with letting representatives
make the decisions in [some areas]?" [eyal@wisdom (Eyal mozes)]
Several advantages of Electronic Democracy have been mentioned in
previous messages, for example: the ability to choose a proxy you
really want, rather than choosing between the lesser of two evils when
representatives are elected; the ability to bypass your proxy if you
are not sure your proxy will vote the way you want; and the ability to
change proxies at any time if you feel your proxy no longer represents
your views.
The constitution of the United States, flawed as it is, is the
best system yet devised . . . . [Electronic Democracy] seems
like a prescription for mob rule and a tyranny of the
majority. [eyal@wisdom (Eyal mozes)]
The constitution -- and little else -- protects minorities from the
"tyranny of the majority". It certainly should not be eliminated when
electronic democracy is instituted, nor should the judiciary or certain
roles of the presidency (notably, command of the armed forces in
emergencies). The house and senate could be eliminated if a suitable
electronic mechanism for discussing and introducing bills is
instituted.
Most importantly, Electronic Democracy could help eliminate the tyranny
of special interest, which plagues our current system.
"[Electronic Democracy] leaves little room for leadership,
something which many people value." [ihnp4!utzoo!henry@Berkeley
(Henry Spencer)]
On the contrary, Electronic Democracy leaves *more* room for
leadership: some proxies would undoubtably become very popular, and
would provide leadership for many people. By being able to choose
*anyone* -- not just the between two competing candidates -- we can
each choose the "leader" who best inspires our own confidence and
following.
Furthermore, people look for leadership in many different areas and
forms -- morality, education, technology, economics, to name a few. A
single individual cannot possibly fill all these leadership roles as
well as separate individuals, specializing more in one area or
another. This problem is evident right now: recent polls show that
President Reagan's economic leadership has been very popular, but his
environmental leadership has not.
Why place all our leadership requirements on one person? We do not
need an individual leader to fill all leadership roles any more than we
need a dictator.
Electronic Issue Selection
This brings up another possibility. Could we designate a different
person to represent us on different issues? Like searching for a mate,
it is much easier to find several people who collectively fit the bill,
than it is to find a single person with all the right qualities. Could
we specify electronically, which proxy should vote for us on what kinds
of issues? And if so, how would the issues be catagorized?
-- David Booth
{sdcrdcf,ihnp4,trwspp,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!booth booth@ucla-locus.ARPA
------------------------------
Date: 1 November 1984 05:20-EST
From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POURNE @ MIT-MC>
Subject: Electronic Democracy
maybe we could given sufficient electronic communications do
away with the legislature entirely except for, say, 30 days a
year?
"The legislature is in session, and no man's property is
safe."
or -- but no, Jefferson is no longer in fashion.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 84 15:39:41 EST
From: Brint <abc@BRL-TGR.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Electronic Democracy
I guess we'd have to work up to it gradually. For the next few
years, I'd be ELATED if a nationwide, terminal-based citizen
(constituent, taxpayer, you name it) polling scheme were implemented.
Experiments with Usenet-like discussions could follow, preceding some
national, binding referendum on a topic of great national interest but
(at least at first) not of national survival.
Best regards,
Brint
------------------------------
Date: 2 November 1984 02:20-EST
From: Don M. Matheson <DMM @ MIT-MC>
To: David Booth, HUMAN-NETS
From: Robert Kubala (c/o DMM@MIT-MC)
RE: Computer Aided Democracy.
I have been reading with interest the recent Human-Nets discussion that
I believe you initiated. I am attempting to write a book on "Computer
aided Participatory Democracy" and have a few comments to offer:
1) The worth of computerized aids to democracy seem to rest heavily on
two fundamental aspects:
a) it can be vastly easier and quicker for 'ordinary' citizens to
access information than ever before possible. Pertinant information
subjects are problem descriptions, budgets, project progress reports,
voting records - and the opinions of other citizens and informal dis-
cussions (such as the recent Human-Nets dialog).
b) such aids can permit those who have pertinant information to
make it available to the public with ease and lack of censor-
ship. This might encourage potential providers to make available an
abundance of "decision making" information to the public.
The idea is to provide true city-wide, national, and perhaps world-
wide "market places of ideas" using technology only recently available
to humankind. "Decision making information" of political relevance has
just been too hard for people to get on a continual, habitual basis.
2) Many arrangements for a Public Information Utility in support of democracy
seem to be possible. Two extremes are:
a) completely independent "political" data base operations to which
people volunlarily subscribe based on interest, and which are owned
and operated by private entrepeuners.
b) a more formally chartered local Information Utility with published and
legally binding rules concerning access by information seekers & pro-
viders. And with definite proceedures for submitting proposals to be
put up for vote.
3) The problems of filtering out spurious or malicious information, and in
forming consensus ar real but probably entirely solvable:
a) one solution lay perhaps in the existence of political interest groups
which are able to formulate coherent plans of action on which the
population as a whole might vote yes or no.
b) authors of information might be required to reliably identify themselves
and deliberate, malicious abusers deprived of future rights to contrib-
ute.
c) items provided not for reference only, but to be "mailed" to the
population (broadcast style), might first be reviewed by randomly
selected sets of people who vote on whether the material should be
propogated.
d) consensus requires real discussion and understanding. But once
practical problems and solution choices are apparent, agreement
should usually be possible.
In contrast it is normally not possible to gain consensus on matters
of personality or ideology. Fortunately practical decisions are what
are required to enable people and organizations to function.
There is going to have to be much evolution and experimentation before
truly democratic action becomes the dominant way of government and
organization in general.
4) There is room for delegating limited authority to project leaders,
department administrative heads, and a commander-in-chief of national
defense. We people do not have to be involved in all details, and
emergencies must be handled swiftly.
But we people have got to monitor the exercise of power like we
have never done before. How and to what extent we must do this
is going to have to evolve.
5) "Proxies" as discussed might not be such a good idea. The "demagogery"
one might fear in true democracy is based upon the ability of some few
to manipulate the many. In order for us people to contribute responsibility
to decisions made, we need to be forced to confront practical issues. IE.
if we don't study and understand an issue, we shouldn't vote. In voting
for representatives or choosing proxies (I'am not sure I see much differ-
ence), matters are and will continue to be settled on the basis of person-
alities and ideology which they probably should not.
Part of the problem with current politics is that politicians and lobbiests
can accomplish their dirty little practical matters by throwing up a smoke
screen of personality and ideology.
6) If we people want democracy, we can build it within the framework of the
U.S. Constitution. The problems are real but solvable. And past Americans
have given us the gift of institutions and social instincts which are
adeqate to build upon.
If we fail to do so, then the very technology which might make us truly
free will almost certainly be used against us in a world in which highly
centralized rulership has its fingers on increasingly powerful instruments
of control and destruction.
We're going to get what we deserve.
Bob Kubala (c/o DMM@MIT-MC)
------------------------------
Date: 02 Nov 84 10:34:20 PST (Fri)
Subject: Electronic Democracy
I know that this isn't quite what is meant, but the Democratic and
Republican National committees set up discussion groups on CompuServe.
While this went more to the party staff than to the candidates, it did
serve as a useful place to discuss the campaign with those running it.
(I had a beef about a particular line of republican fundraising letters,
complained about it, and haven't received one since!) Since CompuServe
has in excess of 100,000 subscribers, it is probably a reasonable size
for a "test" of electronic democracy. (Now, if we could just get them
to put an acceptable mail system on line....)
Tim
------------------------------
From: Liz Allen <liz@tove>
Date: 2 Nov 1984 1057-EST (Friday)
Subject: Electronic proxy republic
One thing that concerns me about the idea of an electornic proxy
democracy is based on some history in choosing representatives in
a somewhat similar fashion. In New York state (in the 1930's?),
a system was tried in which the number of representatives each
party had in the legislature was proportional to the number of
votes each party had received state-wide. But, the idea had to be
discarded because it caused the legislature to be so splintered
that they weren't able to form the majorities necessary to get
legislation formulated and passed. I suspect that a proxy system
would suffer from the same difficulties...
Re: a good proxy losing power due to a false rumour: It is hoped
that the proxy could regain their power once the rumour was proved
false -- and could be quickly reinstated. However, I'm concerned
that good news never spreads as quickly as bad news and the proxy
is likely to have quite a lot of trouble regaining the confidence
of his former supporters. My concern here is increased by the
media's tendancy to report more on charges that might be raised
against someone while neglecting to say a whole lot about it if
that person is later cleared of the charges... Part of that has
to do with what's news and what's not news, but even so, it leaves
mistaken impressions with people. It's possible that increased
electronic communication could help reverse this -- the proxy's
loyal supporters would have more of an opportunity to publicize
the positive outcome -- but I don't know if that'll be enough to
offset the damage already done.
-Liz Allen
------------------------------
Date: 3 Nov 1984 1158-PST
From: Rob-Kling <Kling%UCI-20B@UCI-750a>
Subject: Social Impacts of Computing: Graduate Study at UC-Irvine
CORPS
-------
Graduate Education in
Computing, Organizations, Policy, and Society
at the University of California, Irvine
This graduate concentration at the University of California,
Irvine provides an opportunity for scholars and students to
investigate the social dimensions of computerization in a setting
which supports reflective and sustained inquiry.
The primary educational opportunities are PhD concentrations in
the Department of Information and Computer Science (ICS) and MS and
PhD concentrations in the Graduate School of Management (GSM).
Students in each concentration can specialize in studying the social
dimensions of computing.
The faculty at Irvine have been active in this area, with many
interdisciplinary projects, since the early 1970's. The faculty and
students in the CORPS have approached them with methods drawn from the
social sciences.
The CORPS concentration focuses upon four related areas of
inquiry:
1. Examining the social consequences of different kinds of
computerization on social life in organizations and in the larger
society.
2. Examining the social dimensions of the work and organizational
worlds in which computer technologies are developed, marketed,
disseminated, deployed, and sustained.
3. Evaluating the effectiveness of strategies for managing the
deployment and use of computer-based technologies.
4. Evaluating and proposing public policies which facilitate the
development and use of computing in pro-social ways.
Studies of these questions have focussed on complex information
systems, computer-based modelling, decision-support systems, the
myriad forms of office automation, electronic funds transfer systems,
expert systems, instructional computing, personal computers, automated
command and control systems, and computing at home. The questions
vary from study to study. They have included questions about the
effectiveness of these technologies, effective ways to manage them,
the social choices that they open or close off, the kind of social and
cultural life that develops around them, their political consequences,
and their social carrying costs.
CORPS studies at Irvine have a distinctive orientation -
(i) in focussing on both public and private sectors,
(ii) in examining computerization in public life as well as within
organizations,
(iii) by examining advanced and common computer-based technologies "in
vivo" in ordinary settings, and
(iv) by employing analytical methods drawn from the social sciences.
Organizational Arrangements and Admissions for CORPS
The CORPS concentration is a special track within the normal
graduate degree programs of ICS and GSM. Admission requirements for
this concentration are the same as for students who apply for a PhD in
ICS or an MS or PhD in GSM. Students with varying backgrounds are
encouraged to apply for the PhD programs if they show strong research
promise.
The seven primary faculty in the CORPS concentration hold
appointments in the Department of Information and Computer Science and
the Graduate School of Management. Additional faculty in the School
of Social Sciences, and the program on Social Ecology, have
collaborated in research or have taught key courses for CORPS
students. Research is administered through an interdisciplinary
research institute at UCI which is part of the Graduate Division, the
Public Policy Research Organization.
Students who wish additional information about the CORPS concentration
should write to:
Professor Rob Kling (Kling@uci)
Department of Information and Computer Science
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, Ca. 92717
714-856-5955 or 856-7403
or to:
Professor Kenneth Kraemer (Kraemer@uci)
Graduate School of Management
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, Ca. 92717
714-856-5246
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End of POLI-SCI Digest
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