Public Administration Commons^™

Aclp - Broadband Planning Tool Kit - October 2022, New York Law School

Reports and Resources

This Tool Kit provides state and local policymakers with a range of resources and analyses for use during broadband planning. The Tool Kit focuses on the array of grant and other funding opportunities available to states and localities as a result of the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act, as well as other pandemic-era stimulus programs. However, the Tool Kit is also useful for broadband planning outside of these specific funding programs. Indeed, the Tool Kit offers foundational planning resources that can be used now and in the future by officials, ISPs, and other stakeholders in the broadband space.

Solving The Congressional Review Act’S Conundrum, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

Congress routinely enacts statutes that require federal agencies to adopt specific regulations. When Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, for example, it mandated that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopt an anti-corruption regulation requiring energy companies to disclose payments they make to foreign governments. Although the Dodd-Frank Act specifically required the SEC to adopt this disclosure requirement, the agency’s eventual regulation was also, like other administrative rules, subject to disapproval by Congress under a process outlined in a separate statute known as the Congressional Review Act (CRA).

After the SEC issued its …

Assessing Automated Administration, Cary Coglianese, Alicia Lai

All Faculty Scholarship

To fulfill their responsibilities, governments rely on administrators and employees who, simply because they are human, are prone to individual and group decision-making errors. These errors have at times produced both major tragedies and minor inefficiencies. One potential strategy for overcoming cognitive limitations and group fallibilities is to invest in artificial intelligence (AI) tools that allow for the automation of governmental tasks, thereby reducing reliance on human decision-making. Yet as much as AI tools show promise for improving public administration, automation itself can fail or can generate controversy. Public administrators face the question of when exactly they should use automation. …

Moving Toward Personalized Law, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

Rules operate as a tool of governance by making generalizations, thereby cutting down on government officials’ need to make individual determinations. But because they are generalizations, rules can result in inefficient or perverse outcomes due to their over- and under-inclusiveness. With the aid of advances in machine-learning algorithms, however, it is becoming increasingly possible to imagine governments shifting away from a predominant reliance on general rules and instead moving toward increased reliance on precise individual determinations—or on “personalized law,” to use the term Omri Ben-Shahar and Ariel Porat use in the title of their 2021 book. Among the various technological, …

The Kind Of Solution A Smart City Is: Knowledge Commons And Postindustrial Pittsburgh, Michael J. Madison

Book Chapters

This case study brings new attention to a critical but under-appreciated dimension of so-called “smart” cities: how smart city governance builds and relies on institutionalized sharing of data, information, and other forms of knowledge across all sectors of public administration. Those smart city practices are referred to here as knowledge commons and systematized using the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) research framework. That framework extends and modifies Ostrom’s research tradition as to community-based resource governance. As with other GKC-focused research, this work relies on a qualitative case study. It draws a detailed, context-specific portrait of a smart city as knowledge commons …

Algorithm Vs. Algorithm, Cary Coglianese, Alicia Lai

All Faculty Scholarship

Critics raise alarm bells about governmental use of digital algorithms, charging that they are too complex, inscrutable, and prone to bias. A realistic assessment of digital algorithms, though, must acknowledge that government is already driven by algorithms of arguably greater complexity and potential for abuse: the algorithms implicit in human decision-making. The human brain operates algorithmically through complex neural networks. And when humans make collective decisions, they operate via algorithms too—those reflected in legislative, judicial, and administrative processes. Yet these human algorithms undeniably fail and are far from transparent. On an individual level, human decision-making suffers from memory limitations, fatigue, …

Cannibalizing The Constitution: On Terrorism, The Second Amendment, And The Threat To Civil Liberties, Francesca Laguardia

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This article explores the links between internet radicalization, access to weapons, and the current threat from terrorists who have been radicalized online. The prevalence of domestic terrorism, domestic hate groups, and online incitement and radicalization have led to considerable focus on the tension between counterterror efforts and the First Amendment. Many scholars recommend rethinking the extent of First Amendment protection, as well as Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment protections, and some judges appear to be listening. Yet the Second Amendment has avoided this consideration, despite the fact that easy access to weapons is a necessary ingredient for the level of …

From Negative To Positive Algorithm Rights, Cary Coglianese, Kat Hefter

All Faculty Scholarship

Artificial intelligence, or “AI,” is raising alarm bells. Advocates and scholars propose policies to constrain or even prohibit certain AI uses by governmental entities. These efforts to establish a negative right to be free from AI stem from an understandable motivation to protect the public from arbitrary, biased, or unjust applications of algorithms. This movement to enshrine protective rights follows a familiar pattern of suspicion that has accompanied the introduction of other technologies into governmental processes. Sometimes this initial suspicion of a new technology later transforms into widespread acceptance and even a demand for its use. In this paper, we …

Examining The Social Security Tribunal’S Navigator Service: Access To Administrative Justice For Marginalized Communities, Laverne Jacobs, Sule Tomkinson

Law Publications

An accessible MS Word version of this document is available for download at the bottom of this screen under "Additional files."

This report provides the findings, analysis and recommendations of a research study conducted on the federal Social Security Tribunal’s Navigator Service (SST Navigator Service). The SST Navigator Service was established in 2019 for tribunal users without a professional representative. The study examines the use of the Navigator Service for Canada Pension Plan–Disability (CPP–Disability) appeals heard by the Income Security - General Division of the Social Security Tribunal.

This research study focuses on access to administrative justice on the …

Examen Du Service D’Accompagnement Du Tribunal De La Sécurité Sociale : Accès À La Justice Administrative Pour Les Communautés Marginalisées, Laverne Jacobs, Sule Tomkinson

Law Publications

Ce rapport présente les constatations, l'analyse et les recommandations d'une étude menée sur le service d’accompagnement du Tribunal fédéral de la sécurité sociale (service d’accompagnement du TSS). Le service d’accompagnement du TSS a été créé en 2019, pour veiller à la bonne information des appelants sans représentation professionnelle ainsi qu’à leur participation sereine aux audiences. L'étude examine l'utilisation du service d’accompagnement pour le Régime de pensions du Canada – Invalidité (RPC – Invalidité) entendue par la Division générale de la sécurité du revenu du Tribunal de la sécurité sociale du Canada.

Cette recherche porte sur l'accès à la justice administrative …

Antitrust By Algorithm, Cary Coglianese, Alicia Lai

All Faculty Scholarship

Technological innovation is changing private markets around the world. New advances in digital technology have created new opportunities for subtle and evasive forms of anticompetitive behavior by private firms. But some of these same technological advances could also help antitrust regulators improve their performance in detecting and responding to unlawful private conduct. We foresee that the growing digital complexity of the marketplace will necessitate that antitrust authorities increasingly rely on machine-learning algorithms to oversee market behavior. In making this transition, authorities will need to meet several key institutional challenges—building organizational capacity, avoiding legal pitfalls, and establishing public trust—to ensure successful …