Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences

Workshops 2021-2022

 

Toward a Theory of AI Practice (Virtual) - September 23, 2021, December 16, 2021, April 1, 2022

The goal of the successive workshops is to compose a jointly authored position paper arguing for the creation of a theoretically grounded field of AI practice that integrates ideas from data sciences and social/behavioral sciences. Jim Guszcza will write and progressively refine this piece based on the workshop conversations and other input along the way. Create a framework of scientific and ethical design principles needed to guide more responsible applied AI practice. Building systems of human-machine collaboration requires a scientific foundation that extends beyond machine learning to encompass principles from other disciplines. This initiative aims to facilitate the tools and collaborations needed to develop such a field.

Convocation for the Summer Institute on Organizations and Their Effectiveness (Virtual) - July 19-21, 2022

This virtual convocation combines previous classes of the CASBS summer institute on Organizations and Their Effectiveness.

Supply Side Progressivism - May 18-19, 2022 

This is an in-person workshop on Supply-Side Progressivism in collaboration with the Center for Economy and Society at the SNF Agora Institute, Johns Hopkins University. This initiative is led by Steve Teles and Ezra Klein and is part of the Creating a New Moral Political Economy program at CASBS, led by Margaret Levi and Zachary Ugolnik. American progressivism has traditionally worked on the demand side. It asks what people need, and it imagines ways to distribute those things, or subsidize access to them. But the deficiencies of this approach have come clearer in recent years. It’s incredibly expensive, and sometimes simply impossible, to subsidize access to what you don’t have enough of in the first place. And there’s much that we don’t have enough of: Homes, clean energy, PPE, rapid tests, public universities, public transit. Worse, some of the scarcity is the direct result of progressive policy making: Either because progressive ideas or institutions have made building too difficult, or subsidizing access without increasing supply has made the goods too scarce. So what would a progressivism that took supply seriously look like?

The Social Science of Caregiving - April 8, 2022

This is the second workshop in a series designed to jumpstart a larger interdisciplinary project, led by Alison Gopnik, in collaboration with CASBS and supported by the Templeton World Charity Foundation. It aims to help rethink the philosophical, biological, political, and economic foundations of care and care-giving and consider how to translate those insights into practical policies and better design principles.

The Hybrid Office: Creating A Family friendly Gender Equitable Workplace Culture - March 31, 2022

This virtual discussion is designed to bring together prominent researchers who have been studying remote work and who are deeply involved in tracking the switch to hybrid office arrangements.

CASBS Institutional Courage Workshop - March 18, 2022

The workshop is a one day event, which brings together scholars and professionals from across disciplines to cross-talk and share ideas regarding concrete institutional change. The workshop consists of research talks and discussions, followed by lunch, and closing with a fireside chat on actionable steps of institutional courage and change across different institutions, kinds of harm, and types of marginalization. The goals of the workshop are: 1. To familiarize attendees with the Center for Institutional Courage and its mission, 2. Share recent research to develop interdisciplinary insights, with a focus on racism and violence, and 3. Identify measurable manifestations of institutional courage across different institutions, kinds of harm, and types of marginalization

Daedalus Issue on Moral Political Economy (Virtual) - January 20-21, 2022

Our goal is to help develop the special issue of Dædalus devoted to “Creating a New Moral Political Economy,” edited by Margaret Levi (Stanford University) and Henry Farrell (Johns Hopkins University). We’re planning a two-day workshop on January 20 & 21, 2022 to gather as many authors, advisors, and contributors to the issue as possible prior to the deadline of the first drafts. The objective is to socialize on the direction of the issue as a whole and exchange feedback on the ideas of the specific essays and responses. Getting together as a group will most efficiently advance our thinking on these pressing challenges.

Governance for Good Jobs - December 3, 2021

We envision this intimate gathering as an opportunity to collaborate on our shared interests in work and workers and advance the goals of the CASBS program Creating a New Moral Political Economy. We are particularly interested in further developing the concept and application of a “Good Jobs Guarantee.” Imagine a world where not only is there a guarantee of subsistence (a “jobs guarantee” or Universal Basic Income) but that paid jobs involve work worth doing under good conditions. What are the institutional and governance arrangements that produce access to economic citizenship, mobility, stability/predictability, and dignity? What are the political and organizational necessities for these arrangements? We hope the workshop advances our thought on the possibility and challenges of a good jobs guarantee and serves as a launchpad for a broader discussion on labor in a moral political economy. 

Biophilic Institutions (Virtual) - November 19, 2021

We envision this convening as an opportunity to collaborate on our shared interests on the inherent relationship between economies and ecologies. Natasha Iskander and Nichola Lowe will provide a brief framing to jump-start the discussion. CASBS hopes the workshop serves as a launchpad for collaborations going forward. The gathering, for instance, will help develop an essay, by Natasha Iskander and Nichola Lowe, and accompanying responses to be published in a special issue of Daedalus. We also anticipate the workshop informing other possible activities aligned with CASBS’s commitment to ensuring sustainable livelihoods and our programs Creating a New Moral Political Economy and Humans, Nature, and Machines.

Group Identity Stratification (Virtual) - November 16, 2021

Darrick Hamilton will provide a brief framing to jump-start the discussion, based on the following prompt. Traditional political economy analyses have ignored the importance of socially constructed identity group stratifications in driving economic and political outcomes. For example, class has been the main unit of analysis in Marxian political economy with contestations over society’s resources playing out in the class struggle. In public choice analyses, the clash of societal interests is between the “rent-seekers” and the rest of society. For Marxian political economy, society is better off when there is a dictatorship of the working class. A policy implication of public choice analyses is limited government. We hope the workshop serves as a launchpad for collaborations going forward. The gathering, for instance, will help develop an essay, by Darrick Hamilton, and accompanying responses to be published in a special issue of Daedalus edited by Maragaret Levi and Henry Farrell. We also anticipate the workshop informing other possible activities aligned with CASBS program Creating a New Moral Political Economy and the objectives of the Institute on Race and Political Economy. 

Seminar Series for the Organizations and Their Effectiveness Institute (Virtual) - 2021-2022

This seminar series combines previous classes of the CASBS summer institute on Organizations and Their Effectiveness. It provides an opportunity to present works in progress, receive feedback, and continue collaboration throughout the academic year.