Data, knowledge and power in the 21st Century

在21世纪，对知识的生产、传播和使用的控制是行使政治和经济权力的关键载体。这样的例子在我们身边随处可见，从现代垄断企业的崛起、依赖于数据收集、控制和商业化的在线平台，到世界各地越来越多地利用数据为政策制定提供信息并使其合法化。由于传染病的预防和控制是一个数据驱动的问题，COVID-19大流行只是加强和提高了在世界各地的政策制定中以数据形式使用知识。此外，随着疫情期间世界各地实施封锁和保持社交距离措施，更多的人在更长时间内逃离网络，导致网络平台本已丰厚的利润大幅增加。然而，知识、数据和权力之间的关系还没有得到很好的理解。谁控制数据；这种控制如何成为权力的来源，并对社会、经济和政治结果产生影响；数据如何在政策制定（政治权力）或广告销售（经济权力）中成为一种合法化的力量。这些都是需要解决的关键治理问题，以便能够对影响世界各地命运和生活机会以及行动者的运作中的权力结构、过程和机构采取批判性的看法。知识作为权力的一种形式，在主流的国际政治经济学研究中仍未得到充分的研究。该项目旨在通过提出以下问题来解决这一不足和上述问题：在21世纪，数据和知识如何被用作一种权力形式？该项目采用单一案例研究方法，审查在英国政府大流行应对的初始阶段在决策中使用知识和数据。具体来说，该研究描述并检验了权力结构的具体“几何形状”（在这种情况下是中央集权的权力结构），并调查了由此产生的社会、政治和经济结果。最后，本项目评估了现有权力结构的一些实际好处和局限性（例如资源限制和隐私影响），并结合产生这种结构的紧急大流行病背景以及一切照旧的情况对这些好处和局限性进行了评估

Control over the production, communication, and use of knowledge are a key vector through which political and economic power is exercised in the 21st century. Examples of this can be seen all around us from the ascendancy of the modern monopoly, the online platform, contingent on data collection, control and commercialisation to the increasing use of data to inform and legitimise policy making around the world.With infectious disease prevention and control a data-driven problem, the COVID-19 pandemic has only fortified and elevated the use of knowledge in the form of data within policy making around the world. Further, with lock-downs and social distancing measures enforced around the world during the pandemic, more people have fled online for longer periods of time, resulting in a dramatic increase in already vast profits reaped by online platforms. And yet the relationship between knowledge, data and power is not well understood. Who controls data; how that control is a source of power and influence on social and economic and political outcomes; how the data works as a legitimising force in policy making (political power) or advertising sales (economic power). These are key governance questions that require addressing for it to be possible to take a critical view on power structures, processes and institutions in operation which shape the fates and life chances and actors around the world.Knowledge as a form of power remains significantly under-studied within mainstream IPE scholarship. This project aims to address this shortfall and the questions above by asking the question: how is data and knowledge used as a form of power in the 21st century? The project takes a single case study approach, examining the use of knowledge and data in policy making within the initial phase of the UK government's pandemic response. Specifically, the research describes and examines the specific 'geometry' of the power structure in play (in this case a centralised power structure), and investigates social, political and economic outcomes that result from it. Finally, the project assesses some of the practical benefits and limitations of the power structure in place (such as resource constraints and privacy implications) and assesses these in relation to the emergency pandemic context from which it emerged, as well as a business-as-usual scenari