00:02 Is on,
00:03 uh,
00:03 uh,
00:04 ISO.
00:06 And
00:07 she's doing a lot of work on standard setting practices,
00:11 and
00:12 she will today
00:13 talk about the politics of international standardization.
00:18 The floor is yours.
00:19 The seminar is about an hour,
00:20 and
00:22 we'll.
00:24 Defer all the questions
00:26 for the second part of the seminar,
00:27 so you can talk for like
00:29 30,
00:30 40 minutes and then we open up
00:31 for,
00:32 for Q&A.
00:34 All right.
00:35 Thank you.
00:36 Uh,
00:37 and thank you very much for letting me talk about this topic.
00:41 It's,
00:42 uh,
00:43 that's been part of my PhD
00:45 for,
00:45 yeah,
00:45 4 years now,
00:46 and I've just handed in my dissertation.
00:48 So
00:49 this project is basically done,
00:51 and I'm,
00:52 I'm really happy to be able to present it to you and
00:55 It's also,
00:56 it's really nice when you do research and you're very
00:58 much into something to see that it can have practical
01:01 meaning for people outside of academia,
01:03 and I think that is,
01:04 that's really great.
01:05 So thank you a lot for that.
01:06 Um,
01:07 and this,
01:08 uh,
01:09 the topic or the title of dissertation
01:11 is the Politics of International Standardization,
01:13 and I am within political science,
01:15 so it is this kind of angle where I'm looking at how
01:18 international standardization can be political.
01:22 And I think for the world development report that uh you have uh on your agenda now,
01:27 I think it specifically speaks to
01:29 this part here that I have underlined,
01:31 who sets standards and why does that matter?
01:35 It's specifically this question of
01:38 how can standards be a form of global governance
01:41 and
01:43 why does that matter at all.
01:44 So I think it fits,
01:46 it,
01:46 it hopefully fits nice into your
01:48 uh upcoming report.
01:52 And the question is then,
01:54 it goes into this larger question in political science.
01:56 It asks how is the world governed,
01:58 and this is a big question because the world,
02:01 of course,
02:01 is governed in
02:02 a lot of different ways.
02:05 Some people look at international
02:08 agreements
02:08 here,
02:09 for example,
02:10 multilateral multilateral environmental agreements that have
02:13 increased a lot over time,
02:14 both in
02:15 how many,
02:16 uh,
02:16 parts that have signed these agreements and how many agreements that do exist.
02:21 The other
02:22 examples of these international agreements.
02:24 And
02:25 this is often what people think about.
02:27 They say that when they talk about the,
02:29 um,
02:31 Global governance,
02:31 but there's also other aspects.
02:33 For example,
02:34 research collaboration is often seen as 11 aspect of global governance.
02:41 And of course in political economy you have trade and
02:46 global value chains.
02:47 It's a very
02:48 important
02:49 aspect of this question of who governs,
02:51 who sets the regulations,
02:53 and who are coming out of this,
02:57 this network of collaborating states and institutions.
03:01 And what does that mean?
03:05 And this is where I situate international standardization.
03:08 It is a way
03:10 of
03:12 Doing global governance.
03:14 And it is
03:16 Something,
03:16 it's not new to say this,
03:18 but it has been a bit understudied over.
03:21 For the
03:22 years.
03:26 So,
03:26 sorry,
03:27 I heard somebody say something.
03:28 Is uh
03:29 everything OK?
03:35 Yeah,
03:35 yeah,
03:36 please,
03:36 please go on.
03:37 Very good,
03:38 very good.
03:38 Just shout out if the slides disappear or anything like that.
03:41 Um,
03:42 it has been a bit understood that this aspect of
03:44 how standardization can be a form of global governance.
03:47 Um,
03:48 so I think it's,
03:48 it's,
03:49 uh,
03:49 it's an interesting thing to look into.
03:51 And one of the
03:53 great anecdotes to show how standards are important is the anecdote of,
03:56 uh,
03:57 containerization.
03:59 Maybe you've heard about.
04:00 Um,
04:01 There is this great book called The Box
04:04 by Levinson from 2007,
04:05 I think,
04:06 where it talks about how
04:07 containerization has
04:09 basically enabled the world economy,
04:11 and standards are often called this,
04:13 they're called the invisible lubricants of the world economy.
04:16 And
04:17 here to the
04:19 right,
04:19 you can see an example of how,
04:21 how cargo was shipped before the containers
04:25 came to the world.
04:26 It was before the 1950s.
04:28 You had these
04:28 break bulk ships where cargo was transported in sacks,
04:32 in barrels,
04:33 and it took ages.
04:35 So you had ships at the dock standing there for days,
04:39 weeks,
04:40 sometimes even months because the dockworkers here had a lot of power.
04:44 They were the ones who took
04:46 Cargo off the ship,
04:48 who took cargo on the ship,
04:50 and who sorted everything into trains and trucks for further transportation.
04:54 And this meant that these dockworkers
04:58 They could actually strike for quite good wages because without them,
05:02 nothing would happen.
05:03 And that meant
05:04 a lot of loss of profit for the,
05:07 for the owners of the shipping industry,
05:09 basically.
05:10 But then in the 1950s,
05:12 there was this guy,
05:14 um,
05:15 uh,
05:15 Malcolm McLean.
05:17 He started working on containers as a way of transporting
05:21 cargo
05:22 between different ports.
05:24 And he did a lot of work to get this.
05:28 If
05:30 Um funny
05:31 Containers you have,
05:32 how to put this on the ship.
05:34 But once you've done that,
05:36 came the second issue,
05:37 and that is,
05:38 it doesn't really work to have a
05:41 container ship
05:42 if
05:43 none of the other ports are made for containerized cargo.
05:47 You need
05:49 the
05:49 equipment in place to unload and offload those containers,
05:54 and you also need the ships that can take the containers
05:57 back or further depending on where you want to go.
06:00 So what you really needed here was an
06:03 International agreement on what kind of containers you needed.
06:07 And this is where the International Organization for Standardization came in.
06:11 They started working on international standards for these containers,
06:15 including their dimensions and many many other aspects like the hooks
06:20 that you need to,
06:21 to lift them.
06:22 And this,
06:23 this happened in the 1960s.
06:26 They made some standards.
06:27 It took some time for them to come into effect,
06:29 but
06:30 by
06:31 the 1970s,
06:32 they mostly containerized shipping all over the world.
06:36 And
06:37 this.
06:39 Made the cost of shipping go down
06:41 a lot.
06:43 And this
06:44 has in effect enabled the global value chains of today
06:49 because without these low costs of transportation,
06:52 we wouldn't be able to transport
06:54 so much cargo to such a
06:56 cheap
06:57 price as we do.
06:59 This also meant that these dockworkers on the other picture here.
07:02 Uh,
07:03 mainly lost,
07:04 they lost their jobs and the
07:06 work on the dock was transformed.
07:10 Significantly,
07:11 so it became
07:12 something completely different from what it was here.
07:17 Another example of how standards are important is
07:20 the Mars Climate Orbiter incident from 1999.
07:23 Also,
07:23 maybe some of you have heard about.
07:25 It shows really how standards are this invisible
07:28 lubricant.
07:29 There are
07:31 Very important,
07:31 but we don't really notice them unless
07:34 they aren't there often.
07:35 So in this
07:37 happens,
07:38 we had NASA
07:39 wanted to make a
07:40 satellite to go and check the
07:43 climate on Mars.
07:45 There were two teams working on the satellite,
07:47 and one of them used imperial metrics and another another used metrics,
07:53 metrical
07:54 units,
07:55 and
07:56 They weren't really communicating that with each other,
07:59 which led to a miscalculation in the trajectory of the orbiter,
08:03 and it effectively went.
08:06 Into the atmosphere of Mars with a too low speed and then just disintegrated.
08:12 And as maybe you know,
08:13 we have still not managed to standardize
08:16 imperial and metric
08:18 units.
08:19 Uh,
08:19 and
08:20 if we had,
08:21 this would probably not have been an issue.
08:25 Um,
08:26 so these are some examples of why standards are important and why,
08:30 how they work in the background.
08:31 But what do we mean by
08:33 standards actually being a form of,
08:35 of governance?
08:36 Um,
08:37 so,
08:37 governance is a very,
08:39 very old concept,
08:40 and there's many different
08:42 definitions of what governance means.
08:44 I have taken this,
08:46 uh,
08:46 definition from Fukuyama.
08:48 A steering or regulating social behavior,
08:50 which is a very broad definition,
08:52 but it shows how governance is a,
08:54 is a mean of means of creating
08:57 organization,
08:58 uh,
08:58 in a
08:59 social environment.
09:00 And
09:02 This might seem strange at first gaze because
09:06 standards are usually very detailed and very technical.
09:09 Here is an example from ISO
09:11 on an example standard,
09:13 not really anything specific,
09:15 but just showing how a standard could be set up.
09:18 And it is very technical.
09:20 And
09:21 with first glance,
09:22 one might think that this,
09:23 how is this even supposed to regulate social behavior at all,
09:27 um,
09:28 with the
09:28 physical and chemical characteristics of something.
09:33 But it is,
09:34 it is
09:34 in the end a very detailed and very technical rule
09:38 that regulates and steers
09:41 behavior
09:42 within this very specific context.
09:45 And this means that it is basically a form of rulemaking
09:49 by experts.
09:52 And this also situates
09:54 standards
09:55 in a form of depoliticized governance,
09:58 which also includes other institutions such as central banks
10:03 and courts.
10:04 They also have this form of
10:06 expert-based governance where they set rules.
10:09 Which their social behavior,
10:12 but they're very technical and quite detailed,
10:15 which makes them seem depoliticized.
10:21 And then
10:22 uh
10:23 Another way to look at this form of
10:25 depoliticized governance is to situate standardization in this,
10:28 uh,
10:29 2 by 2 table by Bethan Mali.
10:31 And here we can see that international standard setting
10:34 is often coupled in a form of rulemaking that is
10:37 private.
10:39 And in the case of
10:41 the International Organization for Standardization
10:43 and other committee-based standardization institutions,
10:47 is non-market based.
10:49 So we have standards that are made de facto in the market.
10:52 It's just
10:53 coming from the market,
10:54 having standardized something,
10:55 and that that type of standard wins out.
10:58 But what I'm looking at here is institutions that go together
11:01 to make these standards
11:04 um
11:04 outside of the market.
11:06 And this is also different from public non-market based standardization,
11:10 where,
11:10 for example,
11:11 the United Nations makes some standards,
11:13 but they are
11:14 in the end
11:16 made by governments
11:18 coming together,
11:19 and this makes them a public form of
11:22 standardization.
11:23 So here we really have
11:25 private non-market based rulemaking.
11:31 And then the question arises,
11:32 does this mean that standards are apolitical?
11:36 And as you might
11:38 understand by now,
11:39 my answer to this is no.
11:40 First,
11:41 standards can have redistributive consequences
11:44 by shifting production patterns,
11:45 as we saw with the dockworkers.
11:47 They,
11:49 the job of a dockworker disappeared
11:52 because
11:53 they almost made a standard on shipping containers,
11:55 and this is a sort of broad.
11:58 Redistributive consequences that,
12:00 uh,
12:00 a standard can have.
12:02 And then
12:02 standards
12:03 always will make some economic winners and losers by favoring a specific solution.
12:09 Uh,
12:09 for example,
12:10 Windows operative system is by now a de facto standard,
12:14 not committee-based,
12:15 market-based,
12:16 but it does make
12:17 the Windows operative system,
12:19 uh,
12:19 a very
12:21 economically,
12:22 um,
12:22 profitable solution.
12:25 And then standards can,
12:26 can give significant,
12:28 uh,
12:28 make
12:29 significant dispute over which standards to choose
12:31 and whether to standardize at all.
12:33 I think the best example of this is,
12:35 uh,
12:35 in ISO there was talk about making a standard on humane traps for animals,
12:42 and then there were many
12:43 animal
12:44 protection groups that lobbied against.
12:47 The standard because they believe
12:49 that one shouldn't really standardize animal traps at all,
12:53 because
12:53 that would mean saying that trapping animals is OK.
12:57 And they believed
12:58 humane or not,
12:59 it's not OK to,
13:00 to make traps for animals.
13:08 And here comes the tricky part.
13:10 When the political decisions are clouded in technicalities like we saw,
13:14 they can become depoliticized.
13:17 And when something is depoliticized,
13:19 it means that we don't really think of it as political.
13:22 We don't think that it is something we can
13:24 change and participate in and have opinions about,
13:28 which
13:29 reduces democratic involvement in that decision making.
13:33 It's not entirely negative because it often increases efficiency.
13:38 It enables the making of more technical and expert-based solutions often,
13:44 but it can also fuel a sense
13:45 of powerlessness among the global citizenry because they
13:48 basically feel like this is not something we can change.
13:51 It's not something we can participate in.
13:53 It's
13:55 without the scope of
13:56 what we can do anything about,
13:58 so why even care?
14:00 And therefore I think it's important to actually illuminate how standardization
14:05 is political.
14:07 And this takes us to the first.
14:11 He
14:12 first um
14:14 challenge of the dissertation is to
14:16 Define what the political actually is.
14:18 And here I rely on Colin Hayesberg from 2007.
14:22 He defines the political as the capacity for agency and
14:25 deliberation in situations of genuine collective or social choice.
14:31 You can see here that has a few core concepts agency and deliberation,
14:35 and
14:36 the existence of genuine
14:38 collective or social
14:39 choice.
14:41 And from this definition,
14:42 I draw
14:43 two aspects.
14:45 One is uh
14:47 Do we see any need for legitimation when it comes to a decision-making process?
14:54 And we're basically asking,
14:57 Can an institution make a decision without really
15:00 justifying making that this uh decision at all?
15:04 Or does it have to
15:05 legitimize the decision
15:07 to a broader collective?
15:10 This would mean that
15:11 people feel like they actually can change it,
15:14 so they need to say,
15:15 OK,
15:15 we made this decision,
15:17 and
15:18 this decision is the best one because of A,
15:20 B,
15:21 C,
15:21 and D.
15:21 So it implies that
15:24 they need to go out and tell
15:25 a broader collective that this is why we did this.
15:28 You can participate,
15:30 and we have done this for
15:32 the best sake
15:33 of everybody.
15:34 Uh,
15:34 and the other part is the existence of negotiation and
15:39 This taps directly into this deliberation and agency part.
15:44 So our decisions being deliberated and discussed.
15:48 Which,
15:49 which brings me on to the research question,
15:51 how
15:52 are the political process of legitimation
15:55 and negotiation reflected in standardization processes?
15:58 But there is a bracket here,
16:00 and this bracket comes from the fact that
16:02 Every
16:04 research question needs to study something,
16:06 right?
16:06 And what are the standardization processes that we're studying.
16:10 They could be national,
16:12 could
16:12 study the standardization processes within Norway,
16:15 for example,
16:16 where I'm from.
16:17 Um,
16:18 but
16:19 I am looking specifically at international standardization
16:22 processes.
16:23 No matter where you look,
16:24 however,
16:25 you run into the same issue,
16:26 and that is that there's very little data on standardization at all.
16:30 In fact,
16:30 compared to other science and technology indicators like
16:34 international property rights and research and development,
16:38 there is very little
16:39 data on standards at all.
16:41 Um,
16:42 and this means that the
16:43 general
16:44 literature on this
16:45 topic has many good case studies,
16:47 many good conceptual studies as well,
16:50 but
16:50 it
16:51 does not really have many generalizable studies.
16:54 It has a few,
16:55 but not
16:56 a lot,
16:57 and this,
16:58 uh,
16:58 prevents us from drawing broader conclusions about
17:01 political aspects of standards.
17:03 So what did I do?
17:04 I started collecting data
17:05 on standards,
17:06 and I did that through web scraping.
17:08 And I focus specifically on the International Organization for Standardization.
17:15 Why did I do that?
17:16 It's because
17:17 ISO,
17:18 International Organization for Standardization,
17:20 is
17:22 one of the major international standardization organizations that do exist,
17:26 and it's also the most diverse in terms of scope.
17:28 So they make
17:30 standards on a lot of different things like,
17:32 uh,
17:32 shipping containers,
17:33 for example,
17:34 dimension of screws,
17:35 but also
17:37 environmental management,
17:38 and
17:39 many,
17:39 many other topics.
17:41 They have operated for a long time since 1947.
17:44 And they have a very broad membership base,
17:47 172 full member countries
17:49 by now,
17:50 and they are represented by the national standards bodies.
17:53 And these national standard bodies,
17:55 again,
17:56 organize representatives nationally,
17:58 often called experts by ISO,
18:01 and they are from various sectors.
18:03 Most of them
18:04 are from industry.
18:06 Some of them are from NGOs,
18:07 academia and professional organizations,
18:09 and many other sorts of,
18:10 um,
18:11 organizations.
18:12 And then they come together.
18:14 Through their national standard body into these technical
18:19 committees that you see exemplified here on the,
18:22 on the top,
18:22 uh,
18:22 right
18:23 as
18:24 the technical Committee on automation Systems and integration,
18:28 and they come there and they talk about what standards to make within this topic.
18:32 And often these technical committees have various
18:35 subcommittees,
18:35 and sometimes these subcommittees also have working groups underneath them.
18:39 So that's the organizational structure of the
18:40 technical committees where standard standards are made.
18:44 And then I saw on the left,
18:45 you see a broader organizational structure.
18:48 Technical committees are
18:50 further down,
18:51 which also means that most of the work is happening in the technical committee
18:56 is the,
18:56 the work in terms of standard setting and
18:59 the actual nitty-gritty,
19:01 um,
19:02 work on what a standard should be,
19:03 while the more,
19:04 um,
19:06 leadership aspects,
19:07 management,
19:08 the,
19:09 the
19:10 broader vision for the organization is,
19:12 is
19:13 further open the organization as it usually is,
19:16 but I am mostly focusing on the technical,
19:18 so that's the main thing I will
19:20 bother you with here today.
19:22 And ISO has many
19:25 various
19:26 important
19:28 Things happen throughout its
19:30 existence.
19:31 I think the two most important things to highlight in this graph here
19:35 is,
19:35 uh,
19:36 first,
19:37 well,
19:37 first of all,
19:38 the number of standards have increased.
19:41 A lot over the years.
19:43 In 1971,
19:45 ISO went from publishing what it called recommendation
19:48 to saying we are making international standards.
19:51 So at this point they said,
19:54 That's,
19:55 that's what we're doing.
19:56 It's not just a recommendation,
19:57 it's an international standard,
19:59 um,
19:59 which is the first step towards becoming this large standardization
20:04 organization.
20:04 And then in 1994,
20:07 you had the extension of the technical barriers to trade,
20:10 uh,
20:11 which
20:11 basically meant that,
20:12 uh,
20:15 Uh,
20:15 through
20:16 the World Trade Organization,
20:19 members were required to rely on international
20:21 standards to reduce barriers to trade.
20:23 Um,
20:25 And what this meant was that if,
20:26 if two nations trade and one nation has a national standard
20:31 that prevents
20:32 that trade from
20:34 functioning as smoothly as it,
20:35 as it,
20:36 as it could,
20:37 the other nation can go to the WTO and say
20:41 this national standard is impeding trade,
20:43 and
20:45 there exists this international standard that we could use instead.
20:48 So I think this other nation should use that standard.
20:52 And then they could basically be um
20:55 They opted to rely on that standard by the WTO.
21:03 OK,
21:03 so this fills in this bracket.
21:04 It's ISO that is the focus on this dissertation.
21:14 And this also introduces the first.
21:17 first paper of the dissertation,
21:18 which is a data paper.
21:20 It's,
21:21 it shows how I collected the data on ISO.
21:24 The data is
21:26 to the largest extent collected through web scraping.
21:28 And for anybody who's done web scraping,
21:30 you know that it
21:32 basically an automated copy and paste process which you can see here,
21:36 going into these various
21:38 links
21:39 and then
21:41 Taking this relevant information and
21:44 basically copy pasting it and then structuring it into a,
21:47 a functional format.
21:56 And the database is a database because there are
22:00 many different data sets included in the database.
22:03 We have this first,
22:05 uh,
22:06 part of it on the standards themselves
22:09 that I showed in the video.
22:11 And then we have another part on the participation
22:15 in the technical committees.
22:17 So which countries are participating and which
22:20 licensed organizations are participating.
22:23 And here I also use the Wayback Machine to go back in time because
22:27 they
22:28 don't really have historical data on their web page for this part of the database.
22:33 So I had to use historical web pages.
22:36 And then we have this historical part,
22:38 which is basically parsing a PDF file,
22:40 and then the certifications are parsing Excel files from the ISO survey.
22:44 We can talk more about that later if you want to.
22:47 Just go through the
22:49 different parts of the database quickly.
22:51 and also mention that
22:52 when I use the Wayback Machine,
22:54 um,
22:56 as also you may know if you use the Wayback Machine before,
22:59 they don't
23:00 snapshot
23:02 Every single
23:03 web page there is,
23:05 so
23:06 I had to use some imputation methods to
23:08 impute basically the participation of various countries in technical
23:12 committees where there might have been missing data.
23:17 And the database is
23:19 here,
23:20 you can access it,
23:20 it's free.
23:24 And in this paper,
23:25 I also
23:26 show
23:27 an example of how to use this data by
23:30 uh basically looking at bilateral trade volumes between countries.
23:34 And showing that there is a very high
23:36 correlation between participating in the same technical committees
23:40 for countries and also having
23:42 very large joint bilateral trade volumes,
23:46 so
23:46 countries that trade together also standardize together basically.
23:54 All right,
23:54 so this,
23:55 uh,
23:55 this means that we now have the database at hand,
23:58 have some data.
23:59 It's possible to go back to that first question,
24:02 which is
24:04 Uh,
24:04 uh,
24:04 how are standards political?
24:07 And as I said,
24:08 I'm boiling this down to legitimation and negotiation.
24:12 So let's start
24:13 by looking at
24:15 legitimation
24:16 within international standardization of ISIL.
24:21 For this paper,
24:22 I am.
24:23 Asking,
24:24 does ISO seek legitimation
24:27 for its standards.
24:29 And I think this basically means asking a question of legitimation strategy.
24:34 And this is a concept that is a bit new in the literature,
24:37 uh,
24:38 but it's,
24:39 it's,
24:39 uh,
24:40 more and more researched and it's,
24:42 uh,
24:42 there's a,
24:43 a large volume of work on it,
24:46 especially for international organizations,
24:47 but not
24:49 So much
24:52 information strategy can be defined as
24:55 an attempt to convince relevant audiences
24:58 that their authority is normatively appropriate.
25:00 So it basically means if I am a rulemaker,
25:03 I try to assess
25:05 whether
25:06 my stakeholders believe that the rules I
25:08 make are appropriate given what they think are
25:12 normatively appropriate to do in this situation.
25:16 So it's like trying to assess
25:18 what
25:19 my
25:20 stakeholders think and then do that.
25:24 And to study this,
25:25 I looked at
25:27 specifically these.
25:30 3
25:31 Conjointation from these three developments in our.
25:37 management theory
25:39 So.
25:41 And 196,
25:41 they published Environmental Management Standards Series.
25:43 And in 2010,
25:45 they published a standard series on social responsibility,
25:49 which is uh,
25:49 uh,
25:50 mainly recommendations,
25:51 but,
25:51 um,
25:52 still a,
25:52 uh,
25:53 a standard on social,
25:55 a standard series on social responsibility.
25:57 And as you can see here,
25:58 this
25:59 illustrates somewhat of a shift.
26:02 For ISO,
26:03 it's a shift towards standardizing more societal
26:07 topics and societal issue areas.
26:10 So they're not really
26:11 standardizing something very technical and,
26:14 uh,
26:14 industrial,
26:14 like a,
26:15 the size of containers,
26:16 for example,
26:18 but going into these more societies.
26:20 Sexual aspects.
26:22 The question then is
26:25 Different ident
26:26 strategy.
26:28 Yes,
26:28 the expression
26:29 To the society shares you see
26:31 in the database too on the left side here
26:33 they're increasing establishment of societal technical committees.
26:39 And on the right side,
26:40 the relative increase in societal standards that they make compared to
26:49 I have
26:51 Fans on a paper by from 2011.
27:00 To study this shift,
27:03 whether this shift in what they standardize has
27:06 influenced.
27:08 strategies,
27:08 I draw on this conceptualization.
27:11 2019
27:13 Where
27:15 Democratic and technocratic legitimation specifically.
27:18 OK
27:20 Here the
27:21 Democratic legacy information.
27:24 I
27:27 I think I'm not
27:28 The wheel
27:31 Put importance on qualities like.
27:33 Participation,
27:33 accountability
27:35 See the liberation transparent
27:37 interface,
27:38 but also protection of rights,
27:40 protection of democratic processes,
27:41 and other sorts of
27:42 um
27:43 protection of diversity,
27:44 for example.
27:46 in the
27:48 Of the
27:51 democratic legitimation
27:53 studies focusing
27:54 on these sorts of norms
27:55 while tech
27:56 democratic legitimation.
27:58 Studies
27:59 Here
28:00 I think that my stakeholders mostly focused on more like expert advice,
28:03 efficiency,
28:03 and legality,
28:05 and also in the output phase,
28:06 problem solving,
28:07 collecting welfare gains,
28:09 and distributive fairness.
28:13 I don't have to go into
28:15 I will see
28:16 the face.
28:17 To be taken
28:18 if you're interested.
28:19 What's important
28:20 carries a distinction between.
28:22 Democratic and.
28:24 That is.
28:25 And the question that
28:27 when.
28:28 And on
28:30 Peopleical topics.
28:31 Are they focusing on
28:32 To
28:35 And it's like
28:36 Vital topics like environmental management or.
28:38 Social responsibility
28:40 I didn't
28:42 migration.
28:45 And um I want
28:46 Going through all the
28:49 Was talking about
28:51 In this,
28:51 we can talk more about it.
28:53 You just,
28:54 I just show you the result.
28:56 To a large degree,
28:56 show what we would expect.
28:59 Here to the top left,
29:01 so we see technocratic input legitimation,
29:04 and when a
29:05 standard is societal,
29:07 there is a negative correlation with technocratic input legitimation.
29:12 On the other hand,
29:13 when
29:14 a standard is
29:17 There's a positive correlation,
29:18 uh,
29:18 with technocratic input legitimation and
29:21 largely see the same pattern for output legitimation.
29:25 Again,
29:26 bottom,
29:27 we see that when a standard is societal,
29:30 there's more democratic legitimation,
29:32 and when a standard is physical,
29:34 there's
29:34 to a large degree less
29:36 democratic legitimation.
29:44 And the many different
29:47 Measurements here is uh is to assess this through different measures of
29:53 Legitimation because it's a very complex,
29:55 complex concept.
29:57 Uh,
29:57 so it's basically a robustness check with all these different measures.
30:03 OK,
30:03 so let's jump to negotiation in the last part here.
30:07 Negotiation asks
30:09 basically goes back to this this paradox that standards are very
30:14 technical and
30:15 made by experts,
30:16 and yet they can be seen as political.
30:20 In fact,
30:20 in an official interview I made with our representative,
30:24 uh,
30:24 I was told that conflicts between countries come out in standards too.
30:29 So,
30:30 then I thought,
30:31 OK,
30:31 let's look into that.
30:32 Can we actually observe
30:34 these conflicts between countries?
30:36 And uh anecdotal evidence shows that there is some kind of,
30:40 there's something going on here.
30:41 China has this China standards 2035
30:45 um
30:46 project going on where they aim to
30:48 become a global standard setter in emerging technologies by 2035.
30:53 And,
30:54 uh,
30:55 in the US,
30:57 There's less of this kind of
30:59 overarching
31:00 um
31:01 Overarching project for standards,
31:03 but in the Senate hearing,
31:05 Marco Rubio said that
31:07 Of all kinds of international collaboration,
31:11 setting standards will be critical for the US to engage with moving forward.
31:15 So
31:16 it shows that
31:18 They also have
31:20 their antennas set on this sort of international collaboration.
31:24 And in this paper,
31:25 I basically look at
31:27 Whether
31:28 international standardization can be viewed
31:32 Feed as a way of achieving technological sovereignty.
31:33 And technological sovereignty is the absence of
31:36 one-sided structural dependency on foreign technology.
31:39 So it means that a,
31:41 a country is,
31:41 for example,
31:42 not dependent on,
31:43 um,
31:44 technology from China,
31:45 for example,
31:46 because it can be seen as an infringement on,
31:48 uh,
31:48 uh,
31:49 security by
31:51 the national governments.
31:52 So it means basically having access to your own
31:55 technology.
31:56 And if we think about it,
31:58 international standards,
31:59 they are detailed technical regulations for products and processes.
32:03 And when we make a standard international,
32:05 it means spreading
32:07 that technology to other countries.
32:10 And when
32:11 I make my technological solution
32:14 international,
32:16 It means that all others have to rely on that technology which
32:20 promotes my technological sovereignty.
32:23 And that is the basic idea here.
32:26 I studied this by looking at two main things.
32:29 The first is
32:30 the existence of strategic standardization,
32:34 which assumes that states will actively promote
32:36 technologies that align with their domestic priorities.
32:39 And the second is the presence of geopolitical rivalry
32:42 that assumes that standardization processes will not
32:45 just be affected by technical factors,
32:47 but also political and economic factors.
32:50 For the first expectation,
32:52 I posed a hypothesis that said that general purpose technologies
32:56 would be more likely to be objects of strategic standardization,
32:59 and this is,
32:59 for example,
33:00 AI,
33:01 telecom,
33:02 energy.
33:02 It's
33:03 technologies that are very influential for
33:06 national infrastructure.
33:07 And because they're so influential for national infrastructure,
33:10 one would think that they would be specifically important
33:14 for strategic standardization.
33:17 And again,
33:19 jumping over the measurements,
33:20 we can talk more about it if you want.
33:22 Here we see a significant correlation between a
33:26 Standard being,
33:28 uh,
33:28 a technology being
33:30 so-called general purpose
33:31 and the presence of
33:33 strategic standardization.
33:36 So basically when a technology is general purpose,
33:41 They are more likely to be objects of strategic standardization,
33:44 which again means
33:45 that countries are more likely
33:48 to
33:49 ensure that standard,
33:50 that the technology and the standards align with their domestic
33:55 priorities.
33:58 For the second expectation,
34:00 I'm looking at geopolitical rivalry.
34:03 Here.
34:03 I pose two hypotheses.
34:05 First,
34:05 the first relates to
34:07 economic distance,
34:08 assuming that greater economic distance will lead to slower
34:11 standardization processes and also the opposite way around.
34:15 And the same for political distance.
34:19 And this assumes that
34:20 when you have
34:22 Countries that have economic and political distance,
34:26 it will influence the negotiation process,
34:28 so it will actually become slower.
34:31 Compared to when
34:32 you don't have these variables influencing the negotiation process.
34:37 If standards are
34:39 only a technical process,
34:41 it shouldn't really matter.
34:44 I use a lot of different measurements again,
34:47 to increase robustness of results,
34:49 and possibly,
34:51 uh,
34:52 probe out whether there are some variations here.
34:55 And again,
34:56 without going into the measurements,
34:57 uh,
34:57 here you can see various measures of
35:00 economic and political distance and closeness.
35:03 And for productivity or the speed of the negotiation process,
35:08 I simply measure
35:10 the
35:11 this difference between the last day of the uh
35:15 standardization process that is a deliberative
35:18 stage
35:18 and the beginning of that deliberative standardization process.
35:25 The results,
35:27 um,
35:28 sure.
35:29 some very interesting
35:31 When technical committees are dominated by countries with
35:35 large
35:35 bilateral tariffs,
35:37 they do have slower standardization processes.
35:41 When the committees
35:44 have many strategic rivals present in them,
35:46 the
35:48 process is also slower.
35:49 And when the committees have countries with many defensive alliances in them,
35:53 processes are actually faster.
35:55 Otherwise,
35:56 there are some
35:58 Um,
35:58 correlations that are significant on the 10% level and some that are,
36:02 aren't really significant at all.
36:06 Interestingly,
36:07 when I
36:10 Include an interaction term for what kind of standard they are making.
36:14 It shows that
36:16 it gives some indication that this is
36:18 actually driven by the fact that they are making these
36:21 more political standards.
36:22 So for example,
36:23 if you look at the last uh correlation here for average regime distance,
36:27 when countries are dominate,
36:28 when technical committees are,
36:30 have a lot of countries that
36:32 have very different regimes.
36:34 So
36:34 many autocracies and many democracies in the same committee.
36:39 They don't have less productivity overall,
36:42 but they have less productivity when making standards on
36:46 fundamentals and governance.
36:51 OK,
36:52 so this
36:53 largely gives support for both of the expectations,
36:56 and
36:57 it's a
36:59 It shows that
37:01 standards can be thought of as this form of outward technology diffusion that
37:05 possibly can
37:06 increase technological sovereignty.
37:10 OK,
37:10 so to clear,
37:11 um,
37:13 I asked how are the political processes of
37:15 legitimation and negotiation reflected in ISIS standardization processes,
37:19 and
37:20 I find that international standardization is
37:22 characterized by both legitimation and negotiation.
37:25 So when ISIS shifts towards producing more societally sensitive standards,
37:30 they are more concerned with democratic legitimation
37:33 compared to when they make technical standards.
37:35 And negotiations of standards can be contentious as countries seek
37:39 outward technology diffusion through standards
37:42 to promote technology sovereignty.
37:46 And
37:47 this means that
37:48 although those standards can be highly technical objects and even depoliticized,
37:52 they are far from apolitical,
37:54 and
37:55 depoliticization
37:56 can be reduced by democratic legitimation on societal standards.
38:01 And strategic engagement in standardization from states that puts it
38:05 on their national political agendas and spurs democratic engagement.
38:10 All right.
38:11 Thank you very much.
38:15 Thank you very much,
38:16 Survey.
38:17 That was super interesting and
38:20 I think
38:22 M
38:23 I'm
38:25 and the,
38:25 you know,
38:27 Thank you
38:29 Prin
38:29 The
38:31 of these.
38:32 Uh
38:33 Yes
38:35 So
38:37 Yes.
38:39 Uh
38:40 Thank you so much
38:41 A very encouraging presentation.
38:42 I have just two questions for you.
38:44 One is,
38:44 you've chosen the ISO and as you know,
38:47 in political science,
38:48 when we
38:50 Look at a case study
38:51 We ask the first question is,
38:53 what is it representative of?
38:55 There's a whole,
38:57 uh,
38:57 huge number of standards,
38:59 uh,
38:59 set in lots and lots of bodies around the world.
39:04 And
39:05 is the ISO
39:06 unusual in some ways?
39:08 Is it an outlier?
39:09 Is it representative of something?
39:11 Because
39:12 that's how.
39:14 Like
39:16 With
39:17 For your findings.
39:19 It
39:20 It is related to the
39:22 which is
39:23 Is it the case that the
39:25 ISOs moving from physical to social standards
39:28 actually is the result
39:29 of the fact
39:31 that
39:31 uh
39:32 increasing number of standards
39:34 in technology are being set outside the ISO.
39:39 Very clearly,
39:40 if you look at the internet standards,
39:42 if you look at IETF,
39:44 you look at W3C,
39:46 you look at ICANN,
39:47 the vast number of internet standards,
39:49 and that's where technology standards have grown the fastest since 1990,
39:54 or actually since the 1980s.
39:56 They're being done outside the ISO.
39:59 So is it the ISO is trying to move to social standards to remain relevant?
40:06 And what does it therefore imply about the ISO's role
40:10 and your
40:12 case studies lecture.
40:15 Thank you.
40:19 All right.
40:20 I
40:22 So much for uh
40:24 Um,
40:25 I think the first question.
40:28 This,
40:28 this is a very timely question.
40:29 What is
40:32 Supported by
40:34 Uh,
40:34 on my child depends,
40:34 um,
40:35 I think it depends a bit.
40:36 From
40:38 which paper you look at in the paper on
40:41 legitimation,
40:42 it's meant as a case for transnational private institutions.
40:46 So,
40:48 How are transnational private institutions like ICANN,
40:52 for example,
40:53 um,
40:54 but also the Forest Stewardship Council,
40:56 how are they
40:58 legitimating their standards?
41:00 And is there a difference between when they set standards on the societal issues?
41:06 Some technical issues.
41:08 So here ISO is
41:09 representative of these,
41:10 these transnational private institutions.
41:13 For the second paper,
41:15 it's a bit more
41:17 complicated.
41:17 I think here I
41:20 I tried to make more of this case that
41:23 Standards are a form of
41:26 Of
41:27 Governance.
41:34 So here I would say that
41:37 I still can be seen more as a case of depoliticized governance,
41:40 as for example,
41:41 courts.
41:42 And central banks.
41:44 And it could then be used as a way to to look at how
41:48 this form of governance
41:50 is political,
41:51 even though it's very technical and often depoliticized.
41:58 I
42:00 So that's the,
42:01 the short answer to the question,
42:02 what is that's OK,
42:03 so it depends a bit.
42:13 I think survey,
42:14 we don't hear you
42:16 anymore.
42:33 So,
42:33 maybe you wanna try to
42:35 disconnect and reconnect again.
42:37 We don't hear you.
43:50 Oh,
43:51 there you are.
43:52 OK.
43:52 Yeah,
43:53 I think
43:54 I'm not sure,
43:54 probably my internet.
43:56 Yeah,
43:56 what was the,
43:58 did you hear my answer at all,
43:59 or
44:00 I think we,
44:01 we heard your answer on the first question.
44:04 And
44:06 I don't think you
44:07 much on the on the second one on the relevance of ISO today.
44:11 Yeah,
44:11 exactly,
44:12 yeah,
44:12 yeah,
44:13 yeah,
44:14 um,
44:15 so on the,
44:15 uh,
44:16 the technical,
44:16 I think it's,
44:17 it's a very interesting question,
44:18 uh.
44:21 It's that
44:23 we know that ISIS has struggled a bit,
44:25 especially with this.
44:26 Emerging technology
44:29 Because
44:30 they
44:31 rough.
44:32 processes that can
44:34 take quite a.
44:35 Which is also a technology field that moves very fast.
44:38 So they have tried to make this
44:40 fast track standardization processes,
44:42 for example,
44:43 to make things go faster in this field.
44:45 Um,
44:46 and
44:49 It's definitely possible that the
44:51 actors are simply seeking other
44:54 institutions to
44:56 make these standards
44:58 because it's
44:59 It's not as relevant anymore to do it in Iceland.
45:01 Maybe they are not providing the,
45:03 the infrastructure that is
45:04 the best for this field.
45:06 At the same time,
45:07 I
45:08 think
45:09 because ISO is such a large and established organization and because they are in
45:14 with this TBT agreement,
45:15 for example,
45:16 it is very powerful to make a standard
45:19 through the ISO.
45:22 So,
45:24 I'm not sure.
45:25 I think it's a very interesting question,
45:27 and I think
45:30 We need more dataization organizations as well,
45:33 and I would really love to have a larger
45:35 project where I could start collecting this data.
45:38 Um,
45:39 but,
45:40 uh,
45:41 it's definitely possible that they are indeed seeing that they are
45:44 becoming less relevant in this field and are therefore moving on to
45:47 societal standards more
45:49 relative to technical
45:51 standards.
45:52 I think it's also the case because multilateralism in general is declining.
45:55 If the if it's linked to the WTO and the WTO's relevance is declining,
46:00 then by definition,
46:01 the ISO's relevance
46:02 will also decline.
46:06 That's very true,
46:07 yeah.
46:08 Uh,
46:08 I think,
46:09 uh,
46:10 to the degree that multilateralism is declining is also very
46:14 Very interesting question to pursue.
46:19 All right.
46:19 Um,
46:21 If there are other questions,
46:23 please don't hesitate to.
46:25 Raise your hand or
46:26 write in the chat.
46:32 Uh
46:34 But
46:36 I think they're very much in line with you on the,
46:37 on the perspective of,
46:39 of the.
46:41 Uh,
46:41 standard
46:43 process as a political,
46:44 uh,
46:45 process and
46:49 And that
46:50 To the
46:52 You know.
46:56 And,
46:56 uh,
46:56 also the,
46:57 the,
46:57 the,
46:58 the skills that,
46:58 that this country can bring,
46:59 uh,
46:59 to the table.
47:02 So
47:02 I don't know if you have looked in your thesis uh on
47:07 try to measure somehow
47:09 both the participation of so and our angle in the
47:12 report is really to to try to understand what's the,
47:14 what are the costs
47:16 for for developing countries
47:18 when they're not sitting at the table or what could be the benefit of,
47:21 of,
47:21 of developing countries.
47:23 In participating
47:25 So I don't know if you have looked a little bit in your research or whatever a view.
47:30 And on this aspect,
47:31 you know,
47:31 the extent to which developing countries.
47:35 Participate in
47:37 But,
47:37 uh,
47:38 notably in the one debash was,
47:39 was mentioning on technological,
47:40 uh,
47:40 standards.
47:42 Uh,
47:42 whether they do it,
47:43 uh,
47:44 just as a passive,
47:45 uh,
47:46 actor,
47:47 or they can,
47:47 you know,
47:48 bring some view in the table,
47:50 um,
47:51 so a little bit,
47:52 what are the cost and benefit,
47:53 or first,
47:54 what is the extent of participation,
47:55 and second,
47:55 what are the cost and benefit of participation?
47:58 I don't know if you've
48:00 got any,
48:01 you know.
48:02 Evidence or data on that or
48:04 just any view based on your research.
48:08 Uh,
48:08 yeah,
48:08 so I haven't looked at developing countries' participation specifically,
48:13 um,
48:13 but from what I've seen in the data,
48:15 it
48:16 seems to have,
48:17 uh,
48:17 increased over time,
48:18 even though it's still at a
48:21 too low level.
48:22 Um,
48:24 And
48:27 Uh
48:32 of showing how countries are participating.
48:35 Participating technical committees over time.
48:37 So,
48:37 I think it's really great that you can use
48:39 this data in your report to study that further.
48:42 It is.
48:44 Um,
48:46 Many reasons to think that developing countries
48:49 might
48:51 find it difficult to participate.
48:52 It's
48:53 costly,
48:53 first of all,
48:54 because you have to send these experts
48:57 and representatives to meetings across the world.
49:00 The meeting seems to also increasingly after COVID be
49:03 digital,
49:04 so that probably helps a bit,
49:05 but there's still a lot of physical meetings.
49:08 You have to attend.
49:09 And and then you also
49:11 The expertise domestically
49:13 to contribute
49:14 meaningfully to the negotiations and
49:18 The people who do like interview work on the sales report that it's
49:22 You,
49:22 you really have to put in the hours to,
49:25 to read the documentation and to,
49:28 to also be
49:30 be
49:31 fluent enough in this technology to actually understand.
49:34 And what's going on.
49:35 So,
49:35 there is a lot of resources going into it.
49:37 At the same time,
49:38 you can get a lot of uh,
49:39 uh,
49:39 a lot out of it as well because you are then able to participate in making
49:44 broader guidelines for this technology.
49:47 So I actually I was,
49:48 uh,
49:48 at the,
49:49 a conference a few weeks ago
49:52 and listening to a presentation on how,
49:54 uh,
49:55 How developing countries are
49:58 indeed increasingly
50:00 participating in
50:01 um
50:02 the technical committees,
50:04 but it seems also to be a bit correlated with
50:07 the extent to which
50:08 multi
50:09 multinational enterprises are coming into that country and establishing
50:15 investment schemes in the country so that
50:17 they might seem to push.
50:20 Through the developing country,
50:23 more
50:24 participation in the technical committees can be interpreted both ways.
50:28 It can be seen as a way of
50:29 the developing country to increasingly participate and then actually
50:34 make standards on technology that is important to them.
50:37 It can also be seen as a way for these multinational corporations to
50:41 basically,
50:42 um,
50:43 use the developing countries to promote their own schemes.
50:46 So.
50:47 And it's a very interesting field to look more into.
50:52 Another point related to this,
50:55 you know,
50:55 we,
50:56 we are,
50:56 we are
50:57 now in the process of writing some policy recommendation,
50:59 um.
51:02 on the,
51:02 on the report and
51:04 you know,
51:04 one aspect that we would like to touch is.
51:07 Um
51:08 is again on the participation of international
51:10 standards or in the standard setting process in
51:13 International
51:15 Organization,
51:15 uh
51:18 What would be your,
51:19 your
51:19 Uh,
51:20 you know,
51:20 priorities that are based on,
51:21 on.
51:23 On your research,
51:23 you know how to.
51:25 You know,
51:26 Increase legitimation,
51:28 how to improve the process.
51:31 Would you have some policy recommendation that,
51:32 that,
51:33 that you would
51:34 suggest?
51:36 A policy recommendation for ISO or for participation in
51:43 The the standard setting process for improving
51:45 the standard setting process in this.
51:48 Uh,
51:48 International,
51:49 so both,
51:49 you know,
51:49 the,
51:50 the functioning of ISO if you want,
51:52 but,
51:52 but.
51:53 But also the participation.
51:56 In,
51:56 in
51:58 Yeah,
51:58 so,
51:58 um,
52:01 I think this boils down to the main
52:04 takeaway or the,
52:05 the thing I try to make the main takeaway from my dissertation is that standards
52:10 are not
52:12 apolitical
52:13 and
52:15 They are very important regulatory instruments,
52:19 and I would say this,
52:20 this is perhaps the most important thing to make clear that standards,
52:24 they,
52:26 they are very important,
52:26 they have redistributive consequences.
52:29 They make economic winners and losers.
52:31 They also make political winners and losers.
52:34 They are political in many respects,
52:36 and we should
52:37 Uh,
52:38 make sure that they are not seen as
52:40 this depoliticized form of governance that can create this
52:43 democratic apathy where people feel like they don't really
52:46 have any power over what happens to them,
52:49 which is the issue with a lot of
52:52 international
52:53 governance
52:55 to begin with and
52:56 probably even more for this very technical form.
52:59 Any specific policy recommendation?
53:02 I don't think I am
53:04 uh equipped to come with specifics right here and now,
53:07 but I,
53:07 I would say that this is the most important thing,
53:10 uh,
53:11 that I would take away
53:12 from,
53:13 from the presentation.
53:17 I think that's,
53:17 that's a very,
53:18 very,
53:19 you know,
53:19 very useful,
53:19 very powerful message,
53:20 and,
53:20 uh,
53:21 you know,
53:21 all the work
53:23 that you've done collectively.
53:25 The data and making this data available is is uh
53:28 Deserving a lot the,
53:30 the policy,
53:30 the policy community,
53:31 so,
53:31 so.
53:32 So thanks a lot for that.
53:33 Uh,
53:34 we are almost
53:35 done with the,
53:35 with the,
53:35 maybe sure,
53:38 sure.
53:41 So one of the
53:42 points you've made is about
53:45 the importance of
53:47 deliberation.
53:50 For a democratic process.
53:55 But deliberation and speed
53:57 are somewhat antithetical.
53:59 Medical.
54:01 When
54:01 technologies
54:03 Those technologies that are changing very rapidly.
54:08 Need
54:10 Far greater speed in standard.
54:13 Meeting or standing
54:17 And therefore,
54:18 the
54:19 more it
54:20 Believes in celebration
54:21 And
54:25 The
54:26 And
54:27 The
54:28 moving technology.
54:31 And which is probably why that in.
54:34 Happy moving
54:36 I always
54:39 Because
54:40 It has said
54:41 it's my baby.
54:43 And that is
54:44 why rapidly moving
54:46 technologies,
54:47 the standard setting has been moving out of the ISO.
54:51 And in some ways,
54:52 that is an irreconcilable to tension.
54:59 Yes,
55:00 I think this is a great observation.
55:02 Um,
55:03 It is,
55:04 uh,
55:05 it is also,
55:06 it's,
55:06 um,
55:07 the liberation is also a bit at odds with
55:12 Expert-based
55:14 decision making,
55:14 because if you want to include a lot of stakeholders,
55:17 you have to
55:18 reduce the rate of
55:21 so that everybody can understand what's going on.
55:23 Um,
55:23 and possibly also maybe,
55:26 um,
55:26 in contradiction with transparency.
55:29 If you want to be transparent
55:31 to the stakeholders
55:33 And
55:36 is to reduce the technicality and also takes more time.
55:39 Uh,
55:40 so it's,
55:41 it's definitely a paradox to,
55:43 to think about and
55:45 particularly as you say,
55:46 within these emerging technologies that are moving very rapidly,
55:49 um,
55:50 possibly that,
55:51 uh,
55:53 The regulation of AI
55:55 specifically in the EU
55:57 and how they
55:58 include standards into that process could be an interesting case study
56:01 to see how they kind of balance those 22 things out.
56:07 Yeah
56:08 Thank you.
56:10 OK,
56:11 I think time is up,
56:12 unfortunately.
56:13 So Serbek,
56:13 thanks,
56:13 thanks a lot for your presentation
56:16 and thanks a lot for your work,
56:18 uh,
56:19 on the dissertation and on the,
56:20 on the data.
56:22 Again,
56:23 thanks for making this data available.
56:25 And
56:27 We,
56:27 we look forward to,
56:27 to read more about this,
56:29 um.
56:30 We
56:33 Thanks to everyone for that.
56:34 Participating to the,
56:35 to the seminar.
56:37 Or they're gonna be next to next to.
56:39 OK
56:40 and uh talk to you there.
56:42 Thank you.
56:44 But
56:45 OK.
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