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1. Against Engagement

   Richards, Neil; Hartzog, Woodraw (July 2024, Boston University Law Review)

   n this Article, we focus on a key dimension of commercial surveillance by data-intensive digital platforms that is too often treated as a supporting cast member instead of a star of the show: the concept of engagement. Engagement is, simply put, a measure of time, attention, and other interactions with a service. The economic logic of engagement is simple: more engagement equals more ads watched equals more revenue. Engagement is a lucrative digital business model, but it is problematic in several ways that lurk beneath the happy sloganeering of a “free” internet Our goal in this Article is to isolate engagement as a distinct and dangerous concept that should be specifically regulated. There is a benefit to seeing past the glib justificatory rhetoric and taking a hard look at engagement-based, surveillance-advertising-funded models as potentially problematic. Unfettered engagement strategies bear significant and under-appreciated costs that are endangering our privacy, our democracy, and our culture itself. It’s time that wrongful engagement, and the asserted “free” business models it generates, started to bear the burden of those costs. 

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2. Voting Against Autocracy

   https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.2023.a908772  

   Svolik, Milan W. (October 2023, World Politics)

   When and how do voters punish politicians for subverting democracy? To investigate the role of the public in democratic backsliding, I develop a conceptual framework that differentiates among three mechanisms: vote switching, backlash, and disengagement. The first mechanism entails defection by voters from a candidate who undermines democracy to one who does not; the latter two mechanisms entail transitions between voting and abstention. I estimate the magnitude of each mechanism by combining evidence from a series of original survey experiments, traditional surveys, and a quasi-experiment afforded by the rerun of the 2019 Istanbul mayoral election, in which the governing party, akp, attempted to overturn the result of an election that it had lost. I find that although vote switching and backlash contributed to the akp's eventual defeat the most, each of the three mechanisms served as a democratic check in some subset of the Istanbul electorate. Persuasion, mobilization, and even demobilization are all viable tools for curbing the authoritarian tendencies of elected politicians. 

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3. Co-making against antiBlackness

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   Roby, ReAnna S.; Calabrese Barton, Angela; Tan, Edna; Greenberg, Day (July 2023, Equity & Excellence in Education)
4. Data Activism Against Feminicide

   Cruxên, Isadora; JungsDeAlmeida, Alessandra (August 2025, Queen Mary University)
5. Colluding Against Environmental Regulation

   https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdaf024  

   Alé-Chilet, Jorge; Chen, Cuicui; Li, Jing; Reynaert, Mathias (April 2025, Review of Economic Studies)

   Molinari, Francesca (Ed.)

   Abstract We study collusion among firms against imperfectly monitored environmental regulation. Firms increase variable profits by violating regulation and reduce expected noncompliance penalties by violating jointly. We consider a case of three German automakers colluding to reduce the effectiveness of emissions control technology. By estimating a structural model of the European automobile industry from 2007 to 2018, we find that collusion lowers expected noncompliance penalties substantially and increases buyer and producer surplus. Due to increased pollution, welfare decreases by € 1.57–5.57 billion. We show how environmental policy design and antitrust play complementary roles in preventing noncompliance. 

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