GV252      Half Unit
Politics and Policy of Data Science

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

Requisites

Pre-requisites:

Students must have completed GV101 before taking this course.

How do information technology, social media, and big data shape politics and public policy? How are they, in turn, shaped by politics and public policy? How are data science tools used in politics and public policy themselves? This course offers students a critical understanding of these key intersections between data science and politics.

Major topics include debates over how social media shapes politics, the global confrontations over rules governing data, how data are used in administrative and policymaking processes, the dangers of algorithmic bias, and how politics shapes and is shaped by innovation and openness. The course will offer a conceptual, non-technical overview of key data science tools and how they are applied by policymakers in settings such as health policy, economic policy, crisis decision-making and public participation. It will also address the challenges faced by policymakers as AI applications continue to develop. The course will also include talks from policymakers who are themselves engaged in data science in their own fields, thereby enabling students to better understand how data science applies in various policy areas.

15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

Essay (1500 words)

Students will be expected to complete an essay of 1,500 words in the AT.

• Zuboff, Shoshana. 2019. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
• Lehdonvirta, Vili. 2022. Cloud Empires: How Digital Platforms are Overtaking the State and How We Can Regain Control
• Bernholz, Landemore and Reich. 2021. Digital Technology and Democratic Theory

Exam (100%), duration: 120 Minutes in the January exam period