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State and politics

Small cluster

The cluster has only two sources: one secondary source (Mazzucato 2018) and one primary document (NOU 2022:11). There is therefore little to synthesise. The page describes what the two say and points to connections with the other clusters.

Primary document in the cluster

NOU 2022:11 is a primary document. The page only describes what the NOU itself says, without analysing it or applying theoretical concepts to it.

What the cluster is about

The cluster brings together sources on the role of the state and policy-making [T]. Mazzucato 2018 concerns mission-oriented innovation policy and argues that the state must shape and create markets, not only fix market failures (pp. 803, 806–807) [U].

NOU 2022:11 is the Privacy Commission's report on the state of privacy (personvern) in Norway. It calls for a national privacy policy and states that digitalisation happens at the expense of privacy (pp. 9, 11) [U]. The NOU is the central primary document in the source list [T].

Sources in the cluster

Source Main claim in one sentence Role in the cluster (central/peripheral)
Mazzucato 2018 Missions require the state to shape and create markets; the question is what kind of public and what kind of private (pp. 803, 808) [U] Secondary source [T]
NOU 2022:11 Primary document: digitalisation happens at the expense of privacy, and the government should develop a privacy policy (pp. 9, 11) [U] Primary document

Shared questions and assumptions

  • Both texts concern what the state should do in the face of new technology and new markets [T].
  • Mazzucato wants defining missions to be opened up to wider stakeholders and civil society (pp. 808–809) [U]. The NOU wants privacy lifted out of expert circles and made a question for public debate (p. 9) [U].
  • Mazzucato mentions digital solutions and artificial intelligence only as possible areas for missions (p. 811) [U]. Privacy is not addressed [T].

Disagreements and tensions

  • The sources do not address each other, and there is no direct disagreement to show [T].
  • A possible tension, phrased as a question: Mazzucato describes the state as an actor that takes risks and shapes markets (pp. 806–809) [U]. The NOU describes a digitalisation policy that is ambitious on behalf of the administration, and calls for a privacy policy that can ‘balance’ it (p. 73) [U]. Whether these two images of the state are in tension is a question for Rebekka's analysis [T].

Use of concepts

  • Public value / public good: Mazzucato prefers public value to public good, and writes that the public good concept has often been used to limit public actors (pp. 807, 809) [U]. The NOU calls privacy a samfunnsgode (societal good) and a collective and solidary value (pp. 9–10, 31) [U]. Together with Fairfield & Engel and Bear & Mathur, this gives four different uses of the word ‘good’ in the source list [T].
  • Innovation: Mazzucato writes that innovation has both a rate and a direction (p. 803) [U]. The NOU wants a privacy policy to promote privacy-friendly innovation (p. 12) [U].
  • No separate concept pages have been made yet (docs/begreper/).

Connections to other clusters

  • Documents and issues: Asdal links the genre of expert reports to today's NOUs (Asdal 2015, p. 82) [U]. Asdal et al. 2023 analyse Norwegian policy documents, including a 1977 NOU, and how the state is modelled on the enterprise (pp. 14–15, 18–19) [U]. See dokumenter-saker.
  • Privacy and law: The NOU compares privacy with the environment and climate debate and the ‘tragedy of the commons’ (p. 32) [U]. Fairfield & Engel describe privacy as a public good subject to social dilemmas (p. 423) [U]. Whether the NOU and Fairfield & Engel use the same figure of thought is a question for Rebekka [T]. See personvern-rett.
  • Democracy and trust: The NOU emphasises trust in the public administration and cites the OECD trust survey (p. 61) [U]. See demokrati-tillit.
  • Governance and surveillance: The NOU discusses chilling effects, the panopticon and Snowden (pp. 32–33) [U]. See styring-overvaking.

Possible use in the thesis [T]

  • Mazzucato can provide vocabulary for reading how documents describe the state as an actor in the data-driven economy, for example the white paper Data som ressurs, which the NOU cites (p. 60) [T].
  • The cluster could grow if Rebekka adds more primary documents, for example white papers or Data Protection Authority reports, as PLAN.md suggests [T].

Open questions for Rebekka

  • Should NOU 2022:11 sit in this cluster, or is it a starting point against which all clusters are read?
  • Are there more primary documents that should be added, for example Data som ressurs (Meld. St. 22 (2020–2021)) or the digitalisation strategy?
  • Is Mazzucato in the thesis as theory of the state or as an example of a policy discourse?
  • Does the cluster need more secondary sources on the state and digitalisation policy?