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%meta{property: 'og:description', content: 'The London College of Political Technology'}/
%meta{property: 'og:image', content: asset_url('book-logo-black-2-sq.jpg')}/

%h2.no-topping Political Technology 2023-2024 Course Handbook
%h2.no-topping Political Technology 2023-2024
%h3 Course Handbook
%p A one year course for anyone who believes in technology as an important cause of social change. Participants will have the opportunity to observe and experiment with real-world emerging practices in organising and governance.

%h2 Core Modules
%p Core modules are mandatory activities that all students participate in throughout the year, and are taught in collaboration by the entire faculty.

%h3 Self Governance
%p Students learn to organise themselves to live together and act as an effective student body.

%h3 Fieldwork
%p Students will engage with a broad variety of emerging civic communities of practice and understanding how they work. Students will also familiarise themselves with the landscape of political technologies through exploring the library and undertaking a grantmaking exercise.

%h3 Fellowship Thesis
%p Students produce an original contribution to the field of political technology.


%h2 Advanced Modules
%p Advanced modules focus on more specific skills and understanding, and are lead by a single faculty member.

%h3 Sociotechnical Systems
%div.profile-subtitle
Dr Six Silberman
%p
%strong How the ‘technical’ and the ‘nontechnical’ shape each other
%p
‘Technical’ things like train cars, computer systems, power plants, and standards are shaped by ‘nontechnical’ things like laws, politics, business models, organisational culture, and the psychology of user groups and influential individuals. ‘Nontechnical’ things can in turn be (re-)shaped by new possibilities — or constraints — afforded by technical systems.
%p
This module has no fixed curriculum. It aims to support Fellows’ projects and other ongoing work by serving as a place to discuss the interplay between the apparently ‘technical’ and the apparently ‘nontechnical.’ We will work out concrete ways in which to do this as we go along. This could include going to external events, formal presentations, informal discussions, reading, empirical research, system building, or other (joint or individual) activities, as best support Fellows’ ongoing work.
%p
Silberman has previously worked as a programmer in nonprofits and social enterprises and as a trade union official, and now works in a law school studying technology policy. Silberman’s practical experiences and some familiarity with literatures in human-computer interaction, sociology of technology, and technology policy will support our discussions. It is expected that Fellows also have diverse experiences and backgrounds. Fellows will be expected to bring these experiences into our discussions to reflect on, understand, and support one another’s ongoing work.

%h3 Decision-making
%div.profile-subtitle
Dr Joshua Becker
%p
There is no such thing as an independent individual: everything you do and know and think is shaped by other people.
%p
This module will develop a sociophysics-based framework for understanding and engineering decision-making in teams, organizations, and networks. A core component of this module will be experiential learning activities that engage you directly in real and simulated decisions. Each activity will be linked to a formal computational model of decision-making that explains macro-level outcomes as a result of individual agent behavior. This module will present a practical survey of the emerging field of collective intelligence with a focus on technology-enabled solutions for optimizing decisions.

%h3 Mechanism Design
%div.profile-subtitle
Mustafa Warsi
%p
If game theory is the study of optimal decision-making by agents given a set of resources, utilities, and constraints, [i.e. given a decision architecture, how should agents behave?] then mechanism design is the study of the inverse problem, namely, given a set of desirable behaviours, how do we design a decision architecture so that agents playing this game converge to the desired behaviour?
%p
i.e if microeconomics is the science of predicting the behaviour of optimising agents, then mechanism design is an attempt to engineer that behaviour.
%p
We will first specify motivating cases, then lay out the theoretical foundations of the field in the abstract, go through some results, and then see what they can teach us about those case studies.

%h3 Political Organising
%div.profile-subtitle
Hannah O’Rourke
%p
As technology reshapes the political landscape, traditional wisdom in political strategy is being upended. This offers huge opportunities for campaigners and political institutions, but also challenges.
%p
In this module, you will learn about the current state of political campaigning and organising in the UK and explore how this is being changed by technology. It is designed to support students to develop and operationalise their own political strategies for the causes they care about.
%p
How can you make change actually happen? What pressure points can you target? This module will teach you how to navigate the realpolitik of the political system and how to make lasting systemic political change.
%p
Alongside this, students will learn about theoretical cutting edge of technology in organising. How do you run a decentralised campaign effectively using the platforms available? What tools are best for organising in your own campaigns?

%h3 Open Source
%div.profile-subtitle
Theodore Keloglou
%p
Open Source is not just open source. One can claim it’s also a movement, but it’s even more than that. It’s a fresh mode of production. It’s Kojin Karatani’s mode of exchange D. It’s anarchism’s direct action. It’s real world gift economy. It might even be a paradigm-shifting spark for the next phase of humanity’s economic substratum. Let’s make it so.
%p
This module’s content is real world open source contribution. We will gather for a few hours every two Mondays and try to have a useful and meaningful impact (large or small) to an open source project (ours or someone else’s).

%h3 Network Development
%div.profile-subtitle
James Moulding
%p
Networks surround us, support us and breathe through us. When people think of networking, they may think of handing out business cards at a conference, selling themselves to the crowd - selling themselves. But they can be so much more.
%p
In this module we’ll explore network development as building community, as developing the spatial awareness of social interactions, helping disparate and disconnected groups to get to know each other so they can work together.
%p
Together, we will work to understand the building blocks of networks and a key set of practices that can enable you to better understand and weave community interaction wherever you are, including network mapping, asynchronous events, handbook practices, seeing as a network, communication channels and network leadership behaviours.

%h3 Game Design
%div.profile-subtitle
Edward Saperia
%p
A one year course for anyone who believes in technology as an important cause of social change. Participants will have the opportunity to observe and experiment with real-world emerging practices in organising and governance.
Games are systems carefully designed to evoke specific emotions in their participants. Political regimes in the real world are in fact also such systems, albeit for different ends. What can the craft of game design teach us that is applicable to designing policy? In this module, you’ll learn some game design theory from the commercial games industry, and also get hands-on experience of making game-design decisions.

%h2 Faculty

%h3 Edward Saperia
%div.profile-subtitle
Dean of Newspeak House
%div.profile
%div.profile-pic{:style => "background-image: url(#{image_path "edward.jpg"})"}
%p
Expand All @@ -20,7 +103,7 @@
•
%a{:href => "https://tinyletter.com/edsaperia"} newsletter
%p
Edward is dean of Newspeak House, responsible for setting its research direction as well as the day-to-day running of the college. His area of study is infrastructure for organising and network development, and he spends his time trying to connect up bits of civil society, or making tools to do so: chair
Edward is the dean of Newspeak House, responsible for setting its research direction as well as the day-to-day running of the college. His area of study is infrastructure for organising and network development, and he spends his time trying to connect up bits of civil society, or making tools to do so: chair
%a{:href => "https://centrefordemocracy.org.uk/"}>  Centre for Democracy
, board member
%a{:href => "https://www.compassonline.org.uk/"}>  Compass
Expand All @@ -37,6 +120,8 @@
, founder Environmental Permit Data Service (coming soon!)

%h3 Matt Stempeck
%div.profile-subtitle
Librarian of Newspeak House
%div.profile
%div.profile-pic{:style => "background-image: url(#{image_path "matt-stempeck.png"})"}
%p
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -190,83 +275,3 @@
%p
Warsi studied Pure Mathematics (BA + MMath) at the University of Cambridge with a focus on Algebra. Warsi also co-runs a charity in India to provide scholarships for girls from lower-caste communities.

%h2 Core Modules

%h3 Self Governance
%p Students learn to organise themselves to live together and act as an effective student body.

%h3 Fieldwork
%p Students will engage with a broad variety of emerging civic communities of practice and understanding how they work. Students will also familiarise themselves with the landscape of political technologies through exploring the library and undertaking a grantmaking exercise.

%h3 Fellowship Thesis
%p Students produce an original contribution to the field of political technology.


%h2 Advanced Modules

%h3 Sociotechnical Systems
%div.profile-subtitle
Dr Six Silberman
%p
%strong How the ‘technical’ and the ‘nontechnical’ shape each other
%p
‘Technical’ things like train cars, computer systems, power plants, and standards are shaped by ‘nontechnical’ things like laws, politics, business models, organisational culture, and the psychology of user groups and influential individuals. ‘Nontechnical’ things can in turn be (re-)shaped by new possibilities — or constraints — afforded by technical systems.
%p
This module has no fixed curriculum. It aims to support Fellows’ projects and other ongoing work by serving as a place to discuss the interplay between the apparently ‘technical’ and the apparently ‘nontechnical.’ We will work out concrete ways in which to do this as we go along. This could include going to external events, formal presentations, informal discussions, reading, empirical research, system building, or other (joint or individual) activities, as best support Fellows’ ongoing work.
%p
Silberman has previously worked as a programmer in nonprofits and social enterprises and as a trade union official, and now works in a law school studying technology policy. Silberman’s practical experiences and some familiarity with literatures in human-computer interaction, sociology of technology, and technology policy will support our discussions. It is expected that Fellows also have diverse experiences and backgrounds. Fellows will be expected to bring these experiences into our discussions to reflect on, understand, and support one another’s ongoing work.

%h3 Decision-making
%div.profile-subtitle
Dr Joshua Becker
%p
There is no such thing as an independent individual: everything you do and know and think is shaped by other people.
%p
This module will develop a sociophysics-based framework for understanding and engineering decision-making in teams, organizations, and networks. A core component of this module will be experiential learning activities that engage you directly in real and simulated decisions. Each activity will be linked to a formal computational model of decision-making that explains macro-level outcomes as a result of individual agent behavior. This module will present a practical survey of the emerging field of collective intelligence with a focus on technology-enabled solutions for optimizing decisions.

%h3 Mechanism Design
%div.profile-subtitle
Mustafa Warsi
%p
If game theory is the study of optimal decision-making by agents given a set of resources, utilities, and constraints, [i.e. given a decision architecture, how should agents behave?] then mechanism design is the study of the inverse problem, namely, given a set of desirable behaviours, how do we design a decision architecture so that agents playing this game converge to the desired behaviour?
%p
i.e if microeconomics is the science of predicting the behaviour of optimising agents, then mechanism design is an attempt to engineer that behaviour.
%p
We will first specify motivating cases, then lay out the theoretical foundations of the field in the abstract, go through some results, and then see what they can teach us about those case studies.

%h3 Political Organising
%div.profile-subtitle
Hannah O’Rourke
%p
As technology reshapes the political landscape, traditional wisdom in political strategy is being upended. This offers huge opportunities for campaigners and political institutions, but also challenges.
%p
In this module, you will learn about the current state of political campaigning and organising in the UK and explore how this is being changed by technology. It is designed to support students to develop and operationalise their own political strategies for the causes they care about.
%p
How can you make change actually happen? What pressure points can you target? This module will teach you how to navigate the realpolitik of the political system and how to make lasting systemic political change.
%p
Alongside this, students will learn about theoretical cutting edge of technology in organising. How do you run a decentralised campaign effectively using the platforms available? What tools are best for organising in your own campaigns?

%h3 Open Source
%div.profile-subtitle
Theodore Keloglou
%p
Open Source is not just open source. One can claim it’s also a movement, but it’s even more than that. It’s a fresh mode of production. It’s Kojin Karatani’s mode of exchange D. It’s anarchism’s direct action. It’s real world gift economy. It might even be a paradigm-shifting spark for the next phase of humanity’s economic substratum. Let’s make it so.
%p
This module’s content is real world open source contribution. We will gather for a few hours every two Mondays and try to have a useful and meaningful impact (large or small) to an open source project (ours or someone else’s).

%h3 Network Development
%div.profile-subtitle
James Moulding
%p
Networks surround us, support us and breathe through us. When people think of networking, they may think of handing out business cards at a conference, selling themselves to the crowd - selling themselves. But they can be so much more.
%p
In this module we’ll explore network development as building community, as developing the spatial awareness of social interactions, helping disparate and disconnected groups to get to know each other so they can work together.
%p
Together, we will work to understand the building blocks of networks and a key set of practices that can enable you to better understand and weave community interaction wherever you are, including network mapping, asynchronous events, handbook practices, seeing as a network, communication channels and network leadership behaviours.

%h3 Game Design
%div.profile-subtitle
Edward Saperia
%p
Games are systems carefully designed to evoke specific emotions in their participants. Political regimes in the real world are in fact also such systems, albeit for different ends. What can the craft of game design teach us that is applicable to designing policy? In this module, you’ll learn some game design theory from the commercial games industry, and also get hands-on experience of making game-design decisions.

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