# 計劃書 Thesis proposal

國立台灣大學社會科學院社會學系
碩士論文計畫書
CC4.0 By Sam Robbins

*Facing the Ocean (of data): Taiwanese Civic Tech, International Exchange and the Transnational Open Data Imaginary*

*This is from the beginning of September, my thinking on some of the issues has changed since then. I will likely replace "civic tech practitioners" with "g0v community", so ignore my discussion of the term.

*My title is a reference to the 面海黑客松，thank you to the organisers for allowing me to use this title. I will disucss the hackathon in more depth in my actual thesis.

研究生：Sam Robbins （羅維）
指導教授：吳嘉苓
2020 年8月
[e-mail]

Introduction
This project uses the specific case of Taiwan’s civic tech practitioners to ask and address broader questions about the international connections of open data activism. The aim is to consider what motivates different types of open data activists to engage in international exchanges in varying forms. Although social movement literature has begun addressing the motivations behind a range of social movements, less research has been done into the international connections of data activists, whose form of political participation has a different relationship to political goals and strategies than other social movements. Although this type of political participation has received significant attention from scholars of data activism, scholarship has tended to focus on political action in the domestic context, and thus has not yet considered the nature or motivations of international exchanges among activists.

This project thus combines from these two literatures to shed light on the international connections of civic tech practitioners. In doing so, it examines two broadly defined factors, namely material and cultural factors, with the focus being on the latter. By material factors, this thesis will take account for the reliance on ICT’s as a medium of both communication and political action; the background of civic tech activists and the international nature of their personal networks; as well as the development and institutionalisation of different platforms and organisations designed to facilitate such international exchange and how these elements create contexts that facilitate international exchange. With regards to cultural factors, this essay will weave together threads present in both literatures with Jasanoff and Kim’s concept of the sociotechnical imaginary (2015) to understand how collective representations of data, hacking and internationalism (or, perhaps, international visibility) are interlinked and the development of these linkages to demonstrate the centrality of framings and shared visions to the decision of activists to engage in international exchange. It will also link these shared visions back to the actual practises and actions that take place within certain exchanges.

The idea of international exchange requires further clarification. In fact, both component words have a variety of meanings that must be addressed. To begin with “international”, not all networks are equal. Although international exchange might imply connection with activists all over the world, there is a noticeable degree of regionalism that exists and guides international exchange in the Taiwanese context. The linkages between certain organisations or countries is much stronger than others. With regard to exchange, this term encompasses a range of different practises. This includes participation in international summits or conferences; direct person-to-person visits and exchange; participation in, and running of, international hackathons or other collaborative projects; and participation in the production of international civic tech media.

The specifics of the type of activism in question, civic tech, and the specific country-context, Taiwan, also require further clarification. This project sees civic tech as a specific form of open data activism (Schrock, 2016). Open data activism broadly has the goal of “open[ing] all non-personal and non- commercial data, especially (but not exclusively) all data collected and processed by government organizations." to public use (Braunschweig et al, 2012; 1). Civic tech is a somewhat nebulous and broad term. It refers to the use of technology to "promote, facilitate, or coordinate civic actions" (Gordon & Lopez, 2019; 57). Although not typically explicitly limited as such, references to civic tech typically understand technology as digital technology, for example, apps, websites or social media tools (ibid) and it is typically connected to data activism (Patel, 2013; 11). Civic tech communities tend to focus on projects to build government transparency or foster citizen-government interaction (Dietrich, 2015; 7). As will be discussed further later, they are interesting because of their focus on building or designing as a form of political action, which is what makes them distinct from other types of activism.

Taiwan is a useful case to think about international civic tech for a few reasons. Firstly, partly due to its bourgeoning high-tech industry at the time, Taiwan was relatively early to get online and has a relatively high level of internet penetration. Taiwanese activists were also relatively early in getting involved with the earlier iterations of the open data movement, and open software organisations have been around for roughly 20 years. More recently, Taiwan has become the home to a large civic tech community centred around the group, g0v, which begun in 2012. Surrounding g0v are a range of different organisations and projects which connect to international actors in a variety of different contexts and in a variety of different forms.

Whether through the hosting of international summits; participation in international hackathons or collaboration with similar institutions in neighbouring countries, Taiwan’s civic tech community has been active at home and abroad G0v members regularly work on projects with members of civic tech communities in organisations in Asia and further afield. Taiwan’s civic tech practitioners are thus engaged in a range of international networks and connections that this thesis aims to shine a light on.

The phrasing “civic tech practitioners” refers firstly to Taiwan’s largest civic tech community, g0v, which is non-government affiliated and organisations connected to it, such as the Open Culture Foundation (OCF); secondly, to international organisations which connect civic tech communities such as the Asia Open Data Partnership (AODP); and thirdly, to state actors such as Public Digital Innovation Space (PDIS). The vagueness of the concept of civic tech itself explains why it is somewhat difficult to define the concept of civic tech practitioners, as civic tech exists within a broader open data environment. Although perhaps only g0v is truly a civic tech project, it is difficult to understand civic tech fully without understanding the ecosystem of activist and political actors it exists within. Indeed, although this thesis focuses on the Taiwan case, it does not take Taiwan as a singularity nor assume that all actors or institutions will act or think in the same way. Rather, this study aims to present a picture of the range of different types of civic tech practitioners to understand the Taiwan case more broadly.

In addition to the vibrancy and diversity of Taiwan’s civic tech community, Taiwan is also interesting for its marginalised international status. For example, the aforementioned government-led diplomatic efforts can be seen in part as a response to Taiwan’s exclusion for crucial international partnerships, such as the Open Government Directive (OGD), started in 2009 by US president Barack Obama. Although Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation does not directly limit the actions of most non-governmental civic tech activists in Taiwan, it may lead to shifts in how actors engage internationally or how the meaning of such engagements is understood. For example, existing research has highlighted the value state and non-state actors put on generating soft power and on the politics of visibility "soft power" for Taiwan in the face of political exclusion (Rawnsley, 2014; Lee, 2005, Gong, 2013).

This thesis will be conscious of the specifics of the Taiwan case in both terms of the nature of Taiwan’s civic tech community and also of the governmental/international context of Taiwan whilst using this case as a way to think about the nature of international civic tech, and open data activism, more broadly. Whilst the specifics of the Taiwan case influence and interact with the factors identified in this study, it is my conviction that the combination of a material and cultural approach can have implications and usages beyond this specific case. Indeed, it is by being cognisant of the specificities of this case that the broadly generally applicable insights can be gleaned from those that are more case-specific.

Literature Review

International Social Movements
The sociology of social movements provides insights into how collective action can be orientated towards international audiences, causes and networks. These studies have often employed the political process framework, which combines the study of more material factors such as political opportunities and mobilizing structures with the more cultural factor of strategic action frames (Polleta and Amenta, 2001). With regards to material factors, Tarrow (2005) suggests that the uptick in transnational collective action is a direct result of the ongoing process of globalisation, a phenomenon which Keohane (2002) has defined as “the increasing volume and speed of flows of capital and goods, information and ideas, people and forces that connect actors between countries”. Milan (2013) echoes this in her study of communication-technology based social movements, arguing that the international nature of many communication networks lends itself to international forms of collective action. She also notes that for web-based collective action, transnational cooperation is practically much more achievable. Transnational networks of individuals with common goals are also crucial (Keckand Sikkink, 1998). Similarly, Fan (2018) has highlighted the importance of studying the personal background of social movement participants as a way to study the broader patterns present within social movements
The last three decades or so has seen a shift back toward cultural analysis within social movement studies (Steinberg, 2002; Zald, 1996; Johnston and Klandermans, 1992). Culture is notoriously difficult to define (Steinmetz, 1999), so it is perhaps tempting to disregard it as a factor in explaining collective action. Common to most definitions in the context of social movement is the idea that cultural is fluid and can be subject to quick change (Jasper and Polletta, 2019). Scholars have grouped such research into three main focuses: framing, or the study of social movement objectives; the study of mobilisation; and the study of “repertoires” (Tilly, 1995) or the study of social movement tactics (Jasper and Polletta, 2019). Similarly, Zhao (2010) has argued that culture influences social movements through three ideal-type factors, namely toolkits of actions; scripts that are used to consolidate shared values; and as “instincts” which affect action inadvertently (46).
To study social movement culture is thus to study ‘shared understandings and their representations’ (Tilly, 1992; 412). Scholars of international social movements have begun to do this. For example, Tarrow (2005) has spoken about how social movements can employ transnational framings to create resonance with causes in different locations. This notion of the transnational frame has been defined as “the processes through which physically, socially and culturally dispersed social actors develop a degree of common understanding, enabling us to speak about the existence of informal transnational networks” (Olesen, 2005, p. 22).
One critique of the framing approach has come from scholars of emotions and politics, which have seen collective emotions as an overlooked aspect of social movement mobilisation (Goodwin et al, 2001). Such scholars have demonstrated how collective emotions can also function as a powerful mobilising force (Wood, 2001) and of the role of emotions a social movement tactic (Stein, 2001), and how emotions create the meaning of social movements for participants (Jasper, 2011). Linked to the idea of emotion is the idea of performance, which is seen as the site in which emotions unfold and cultural scripts are enacted (Juris, 2011). This thesis thus takes emotions and performances seriously as a way to understand how different activists decide how to engage in different types of international exchange.

Data Activism
The last decade has seen a rise in scholarship shining light on a range of open data activism practises, of which civic tech and civic hacking represent a specific iteration of. Open data refers to a specific orientation to the politics of data. Connected to open data is thus a concept of open data activism, which has been defined as actions that resist government accumulation of data or that reclaims or produces data for alternative purposes (Milan and van der Velden, 2016). This thesis hopes to build upon existing research that has examined civic hacking, civic tech and open data internationally that has engaged with “how social actors respond to the processes of data collection" (Baack, 2015,1). One common theme in such research is the fact that civic hacking and open data activism more broadly has a certain ambiguity when it comes to its ideological orientations (Gregg, 2014; Lehtiniemi and Reckenstein, 2019; Ourdari, 2018). This research has framed civic hacking as lying at somewhere in the crossroads of liberational and reformist and techno-determinism and political engagement. Scholars of civic tech have noted the uniqueness and ambiguity of the type of action embodied in civic tech. Ermoshina (2018) has referred to civic hacking as an apolitical movement that prefers to see itself as a problem-oriented method that searches for “concrete solutions” not shaped by ideology. Schrock (2018) has provided a slightly different account, instead calling civic hacking a form of utopian realist politics, suggesting that civic hackers are not interested in "creating concrete" solutions but in "ways of acting and creating that are immediately apprehensible", creating instead shards of a "possible future" (594). To return to repertoires, this suggests an employment of tactics which immediately create a microcosm of the desired end, rather than tactics which help lead to the desired end.

A connected line of research has considered how data itself is understood and the meanings attached to the idea of data (Kelty, 2008; Deflanti and Laconesi, 2016; Lee, forthcoming). These approaches have focused less on the political implication or political ideologies of specific types of data activism, but on the meanings of data more broadly. Shrock and Shaffer (2017) have discussed how orientations to data, which they describe as “data ideologies” are shaped by past experiences and previous understandings of the meanings and potential of data, highlighting how data activism is shaped by specific contexts. Cinnamon (2019) has developed this context-specific approach and discusses how the political context of South Africa shapes data activism in the country. He states that “the capacity of data to enact political goals and attain justice for the grassroots might be contingent on the specific distribution of agentic capacities between human, technological, and political actors”, arguing that "data power is discursively and materially interwoven with other forms of power” (14). Others have historicised the values of openness and traced the meanings attached to hacking to earlier periods of internet history (Flichy, 2008) or struggles over the legal status of software (Coleman, 2013).

A recent turn in the study of data politics research has been the shift to international practises of open data and of data itself, whether it be in the form of international data security (Tregeur, 2019); the postcolonial power dynamics of data politics and data gathering (Isin and Ruppert, 2019) and the role of international institutions in data rights claims (Guild, 2019) or in the comparative study of open data governance (Schnell and Jo, 2019), scholars of data politics have begun to highlight how the world of data is not one with clear national borders, meaning that many stakeholders act transnationally (Guild, 2019; Treguer, 2019).

Socio-technical Imaginaries
The themes of culture, change, technologically empowered action and collective visions all resonate with existing literature on imaginaries, making it a good theoretical fit. Theories of imaginaries provide a useful way to think about the linkages between utopias, repertoires of action, and collective visions. This thesis draws on theories of imaginaries, particularly the theory of sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff and Kim 2015) as a way to bring in insights from the culture of social movements together with insights from STS about the co-constitution of (new) technologies, materiality and publics (Jasanoff and Kim 2009, 2015) as a new schema to think about collective discourses, images and projects involving technology. Sociotechnical imaginaries (SI) are "collectively held and performed visions of desirable futures” that are “animated by shared understandings of social life and social order attainable through, and supportive of, advances in science and technology” (Jasanoff and Kim 2015; 19). Not only does this concept highlight the importance of interactions with science and technology to visions of modernity, it also highlights multiplicities, context-specific nature of such interactions. The theory of SI has been utilised in much subsequent research to demonstrate or shine light on different phenomena. It has often been used to highlight the possibility for multiple imaginaries to exist at once (Smith and Tidwell 2016; Lehtiniemi and Ruckenstein 2019) or to highlight the process of the crystallisation (Felt, 2015) or shifting nature (Barker, 2015) of a specific vision.

Although research using the SI framework have reflected on how nations come to see themselves vis-a-vis technology (Bowmen, 2015; Felt, 2015), they have arguably have typically reproduced a degree of methodological nationalism (Wilmer and Schiller, 2002) by not taking analysis of national narratives beyond or outside the nation. This said, this is not an inherent issue to the theory itself, and this thesis will demonstrate reflect on how to think about transnational SI’s. The main challenge present in this is that the size of such a transnational SI would make it difficult to study comprehensively, and also means that there is considerable room for local variations on a broader collective vision. As suggested by Cinnamon (2019), this is likely the case in the terms of data activism. This project thus considers the SI in Taiwan as part of and connected to a larger transnational SI, such that the local SI is used as a way to reflect on the larger, transnational one.

Taiwan Research
To do this, it is important to be aware of the specifics of the Taiwan case. This can be achieved through understanding the specific context of Taiwan’s data activism community, as well as the broader specifics of Taiwan’s place in the international order. With regards to Taiwan’s data activism community, the g0v community has received significant attention. Cheng (2018) has examined the politics of participation as it pertains to the community's activities, suggesting that g0v has made it easier for citizens to collaborate in decision making and policy decisions. Chen (2015) has provided an account of those who participate in the community, specifically shining a light on those with information engineering backgrounds. Lee (forthcoming) has shed light on the forms of meaning making that take place as part of the activist process, demonstrating how data comes into being as a material with political significance through the interactions of the community.

The importance of identity and identity claims to Taiwanese politics has been noted by many scholars (Fell, 2018). Identity has been described as one of “the most contentious issues in the domestic arena of Taiwanese politics” with international relations (Damm and Schubert, 2011). One ramification has been the heightened importance placed on creating "soft power" for Taiwan in the face of political exclusion (Rawnsley, 2014; Lee, 2005) and also on the heightened symbolic importance placed on international representation within Taiwanese society more broadly (Gong, 2013). Although certain scholars have highlighted the complicated nature of Taiwanese identity and its orientation to the world through cultural texts (Chang and Lin, 2019) and political scientists have considered how Taiwanese political actors engage internationally (Fell, 2018); it is currently less clear whether Taiwanese non-state actors’ international strategies are affected by the specificities of Taiwan’s status, and if so, exactly how. This thesis will hope to keep this question in mind whilst considering the framings and mindsets of Taiwan’s civic tech practitioners.

Research Questions

This thesis attempts to explain exactly why civic tech practitioners decide to engage in international exchanges, broadly defined. This thesis will answer this question through four lines of inquiry, with the analytic focus being placed on the third of the four.

1)What types of international exchange takes (and has taken) place between Taiwanese and non-Taiwanese civic tech practitioners?
Which types of exchange are the most common and why? Which countries do Taiwanese civic tech practitioners tend to work with and why? Which countries do Taiwanese civic tech practitioners avoid working with? What are the different forums through which international cooperation takes place and which organisations run these forums? How have connections to international networks developed over time?

2)How do material factors and personal networks affect the motivation/practise of international exchanges?
How do the personal backgrounds of civic tech practitioners affect their willingness or ability to engage in international exchanges? What are the connections and communication channels like between Taiwanese and non-Taiwanese civic tech practitioners?

3)How do cultural factors, broadly defined, affect the motivation/practise of international exchanges?
What is understood as the meaning and value of international exchanges? How do collective visions of data shape practitioners’ interest in international exchange? How do the collective emotions and performances of civic tech and its international exchange shape the types of international exchange practised? How do these factors lead to the use of international framings?

4)How do the above two factors interact with the specifics of the Taiwan case?
(How) does the politics of visibility interact with collective visions of open data and international exchange? (How) does the split between government and civil society actors shape the participation strategies of both? Do Taiwanese civic tech prefer partnership with neighbours and why?
Methods
Interviews
This thesis combines semi-structured interviews with members of Taiwan’s civic tech community with qualitative document analysis. The interviews will be the main source of data for this study and I plan to conduct around 15-20 interviews. The call for interview participants will be made directly through g0v’s channels. In order to respect g0v’s community guidelines regarding interviews , participants will not be filtered or denied based on their experience or position within the community. All who want to participate will be able to do so. I will contact some people of direct interest to my study, but I will make initial contact in public forums where possible. Participants will be able to choose whether to interview in person or online. Those who want to participate but are not able to accept an interview will be able to directly provide feedback to the research questions in written form through an online collective document.

In addition, following g0v community recommendations, decisions regarding anonymity and the openness of interview data will be decided in discussion with participants before each interview takes place, such that participants can decide whether to remain anonymous, use an identifiable nickname, or use their real name. Participants will also be able to decide whether interview transcripts are made public or kept private. Participants will be able to change their decision during any part of the research process. If a participant chooses to keep the transcript private, the discussion will be made available only to myself and the participant. If they choose to make the transcript open, it will be placed online in an non-editable document for all to view and shared with the g0v community. These documents can be removed from the public if the interviewee chooses so. I will also provide draft copies of my thesis to the participants and to the g0v community to comment on.

1)direct, person-to-person exchange with members of civic tech activists from other countries;
2)participation in scheduled group exchanges and events such as summits;
3) participation in international hackahtons/working on international projects;
4) interaction with international journalists or media systems;

The goal of such interviews will be three-fold. The first is to better understand the personal background of participants, their personal connections abroad as well as how they became involved in civic tech. The second will be interviewee-specific and will seek to understand how certain organisations or events came into being. The third will build on these two findings to ask questions aimed at uncovering the cultural meanings and emotions attached to data, civic tech and international exchange. This will focus on understanding the subjective understandings that participants place on the international actions they participate in.

Secondary data sources
Inspired by Jasanoff’s (2015) methodological suggestions, this paper engages with a range of texts understood to be revealing of the discursive and practical dynamics of the international strategies in discussion in this paper. Press releases/records of archived events will be examined as well. This will be achieved to document what international connections appear enduring and how these connections have developed over the eight years g0v has existed. In addition to examining what international events or exchanges have taken place, this document analysis will examine how such events are described, with special attention being payed to the discursive space between g0v, Taiwan, and the Taiwanese government, but also how ideas of internationalism, civic tech communities and globalism/regionalism etc is invoked. Where possible, I will inform the original owners/creators of the content that I am using their material.

In addition, where possible, participant observation will be used to compliment the findings of the interviews and content analysis. This participant observation will take place at bi-monthly hackathons and g0v's 2020 summit, both of which are regularly attended by international guests. This will be used to examine how the connections between civic tech, Taiwan and the international community are navigated in practise in day-to-day practice. All observations made will be anonymous and any discussion of such events will avoid revealing the identity of anyone present. If direct discussion of talks is necessary, I will verify that such a talk is already on the public record.

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