Special Issue Co-Editors: 

Eric Best, Penn State Harrisburg, ericbest@psu.edu

Pedro Robles, Penn State Lehigh Valley, par13@psu.edu

Daniel J. Mallinson, Penn State Harrisburg, mallinson@psu.edu

Governments across the globe and at all levels (national, subnational, and local) are wrestling with how to use and support the development of artificial intelligence (AI), while also trying to protect the public from potential excesses. The public sector is using or considering AI to help with myriad decisions including resource allocation, national security, forest fire fighting, health system administration, fraud detection, and much more. Private sector uses run the gamut from healthcare decision making to autonomous vehicle development. How should governments regulate these new technologies? What is the most effective framework for AI governance? Can a unified framework be developed or is governance dependent on the country and technology context? How do governments build public confidence in AI? How does the public sector collaborate with the private sector in AI governance without the threat of regulatory capture? How are companies that develop AI engaged in lobbying? What interests are they advancing? What does public-private collaboration look like and how can it be improved? These are but a few governance questions that practitioners and scholars are asking.

AI has substantial promise for increasing economic growth and improving the lives of citizens, but it also can reinforce structural inequalities and threaten citizen privacy. How do governments balance privacy protection with effective AI development? How can we address biases in algorithms trained on data in policy areas like criminal justice, fraud detection, housing, healthcare, and more? What policy feedback effects are possible from the use of AI by the public or private sectors? How does the fragmented policy environment in federal systems affect AI regulation and development? 

The above are some of the possible questions that researchers could tackle for this special issue. We welcome papers that address them from a range of disciplinary perspectives, and we attach no priority to specific methodological approaches. We do, however, want papers that make necessary theoretical and/or empirical advancements on the study of AI politics and policy. This work can be at the international, national, subnational, or local levels. It can focus on particular technologies or consider AI governance more broadly.

Submission guidelines: 

1. Word Limit: 8,000-12,000 words

2. Paper submission deadline: April 1, 2023

3. Authors should follow the journal's style guidelines, which can be found on its website and submissions should be sent via the journal's Scholar One site here

4. While submission of full papers are due April 1, 2023, we welcome submission of papers or proposals in earlier stages of completion prior to that deadline for feedback.