Economic growth is uneven within many developing countries as some sectors and industries grow faster than others. India is no exception, where anemic performance in manufacturing has been offset by robust growth in services. Standard scholarly explanations fail to explain this kind of variation. For instance, the factor endowments that are required for services—such as an educated workforce or access to electricity and other infrastructure—should also complement manufacturing. Reciprocally, if a state’s institutions hold back manufacturing, they should also impair growth in services. Why have services in India outperformed manufacturing? We examine India’s performance in the computing industry, where a dynamic software services sector has emerged even as its computer hardware manufacturing sector has flagged. We argue that the uneven outcomes between the software and hardware sectors are due to the variable needs of the respective sectors and the state’s capacity to coordinate agencies. The policies required to promote the software sector needed minimal coordination between state agencies, whereas the computer hardware sector required a more centralized state apparatus for successful state-business engagement. Domestic and transnational political networks were critical for the success of the software sector, but similar networks could not deliver the same benefits to the computer hardware industry, which required more coordination-intensive policies than software. A state’s ability to coordinate industrial policy is thus a critical determinant for effective sectoral political networks, shaping sectoral variations within an economy.

The Chinese government is revolutionizing digital surveillance at home and exporting these technologies abroad. Do these technology transfers help recipient governments expand digital surveillance, impose internet shutdowns, filter the internet, and target repression for online content? We focus on Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications provider, which is partly state-owned and increasingly regarded as an instrument of its foreign policy. Using a global sample and an identification strategy based on generalized synthetic controls, we show that the effect of Huawei transfers depends on preexisting political institutions in recipient countries. In the world’s autocracies, Huawei technology facilitates digital repression. We find no effect in the world’s democracies, which are more likely to have laws that regulate digital privacy, institutions that punish government violations, and vibrant civil societies that step in when institutions come under strain. Most broadly, this article advances a large literature about the geopolitical implications of China’s rise.

We are on the verge of a revolution in public sector decision-making processes, where computers will take over many of the governance tasks previously assigned to human bureaucrats. Governance decisions based on algorithmic information processing are increasing in numbers and scope, contributing to decisions that impact the lives of individual citizens. While significant attention in the recent few years has been devoted to normative discussions on fairness, accountability, and transparency related to algorithmic decision-making based on artificial intelligence, less is known about citizens’ considered views on this issue. To put society in-the-loop, a Deliberative Poll was thus carried out on the topic of using artificial intelligence in the public sector, as a form of in-depth public consultation. The three use cases that were selected for deliberation were refugee reallocation, a welfare-to-work program, and parole. A key finding was that after having acquired more knowledge about the concrete use cases, participants were overall more supportive of using artificial intelligence in the decision processes. The event was set up with a pretest/post-test control group experimental design, and as such, the results offer experimental evidence to extant observational studies showing positive associations between knowledge and support for using artificial intelligence.

The Chinese government is revolutionizing digital surveillance at home. Are digital technology transfers from Huawei, China’s leading information technology company, enabling recipient governments to expand their digital surveillance operations and engage in more targeted repression against dissidents? To answer this question, we focus on the African continent, which has received nearly half of all global Huawei technology transfers. Using a series of identification strategies, we show that the effect of Huawei transfers on digital surveillance and targeted repression depends on preexisting political institutions in recipient countries. In Africa’s autocracies, which account for 81% of transfers to the continent, Huawei technology transfers facilitate digital surveillance, internet shutdowns, and targeted repression. In Africa’s democracies, Huawei technology may induce a small reduction in human rights abuses, though the effects are less consistently estimated. Most broadly, this paper suggests that China’s digital technology exports are reinforcing repressive governments.