Robust reputation independence in ranking systems for multiple sensitive attributes

Ranking systems have an unprecedented influence on how and what information people access, and their impact on our society is being analyzed from different perspectives, such as users’ discrimination. A notable example is represented by reputation-based ranking systems, a class of systems that rely on users’ reputation to generate a non-personalized item-ranking, proved to be biased against certain demographic classes. To safeguard that a given sensitive user’s attribute does not systematically affect the reputation of that user, prior work has operationalized a reputation independence constraint on this class of systems. In this paper, we uncover that guaranteeing reputation independence for a single sensitive attribute is not enough. When mitigating biases based on one sensitive attribute (e.g., gender), the final ranking might still be biased against certain demographic groups formed based on another attribute (e.g., age). Hence, we propose a novel approach to introduce reputation independence for multiple sensitive attributes simultaneously. We then analyze the extent to which our approach impacts on discrimination and other important properties of the ranking system, such as its quality and robustness against attacks. Experiments on two real-world datasets show that our approach leads to less biased rankings with respect to multiple users’ sensitive attributes, without affecting the system’s quality and robustness

Challenges, Inertia, and Corruption in the Mexican Federal Judiciary

abstract: This thesis examines the Mexican federal judiciary and the problem of corruption in this institution, particularly related to cases of drug trafficking. Given the clandestine nature of corruption and the complexities of this investigation, ethnographic methods were used to collect data. I conducted fieldwork as a "returning member" to the site under study, based on my former experience and interaction with the federal judicial system. I interviewed 45 individuals who work in the federal courts in six different Mexican cities. I also studied case files associated with an important criminal trial of suspected narco-traffickers known in Mexico as "El Michoacanazo." My study reveals the complicated nature of judicial corruption and how it can occur under certain circumstances. I conclude that the Mexican federal judiciary has become a more professional, efficient, and trustworthy institution over the past fifteen years, though institutionalized practices such as nepotism, cronyism, personal abuse of power, and gender inequalities still exist, tending to thwart the full professionalization of these courts and facilitating instances of misconduct and corruption. Although structural factors prevent full professionalization and corruption does occur in these courts, the system works better than it ever has before.Dissertation/ThesisPh.D. Justice Studies 201

Mechanisms of Endogenous Institutional Change

This paper proposes an analytical-cum-conceptual framework for understanding the nature of institutions as well as their changes. In doing so, it attempts to achieve two things: First, it proposes a way to reconcile an equilibrium (endogenous) view of institutions with the notion of agents’ bounded rationality by introducing such concepts as a summary representation of equilibrium as common knowledge of agents. Second, it specifies some generic mechanisms of institutional coherence and change -- overlapping social embededdness, Schumpeterian innovation in bundling games and dynamic institutional complementarities -- useful for understanding the dynamic interactions of economic, political, social and organizational factors.

Corruption. A review of Contemporary Research

During the last decade corruption has become a topical issue in the international development policy debate. Research on corruption has also expanded rapidly, taking many different directions both within and across disciplines. This report provides an overview of contemporary research on corruption. The academic focus is on economic approaches, but perspectives from political science and social anthropology are also included. The presentation is mostly non-technical, although a few expositions of more analytically demanding matters are included. Relevance for development policy is the underlying guide for the selection of topics that are included in the study. The report should be useful for development practitioners and foreign aid officials, as well as for students and journalists interested in development issues

Political and Economic Governance in the Balkans and Eastern Europe Compared. CEPS Working Document No 2018/06, July 2018

This paper seeks to compare the quality of governance of the non-EU member states of the Western Balkans and certain states of Eastern Europe, namely Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, which share Association Agreements with the EU. Both groups of states aspire to full membership of the EU. While the EU differentiates between the two groups, acknowledging the ‘European perspectives’ (i.e. future EU membership) of the former but not of the latter, the commitments to achieve EU political and economic standards and to adopt or approximate to EU law and policies made by both groups are similar. This makes comparisons between the two groups both feasible and politically significant. Numerous political and economic indicators are used to make these comparisons, from which an overall pattern emerges. The EU now ranks the Balkan states in three tiers according to their accession prospects: Montenegro and Serbia are frontrunners in tier one; Macedonia and Albania in tier two; and Bosnia and Kosovo in tier three. Combining the political and economic indicators, Georgia is comparable and slightly ahead of the Balkan tier one, while Moldova and Ukraine are roughly comparable to the Balkan tier 2, and more advanced than the Balkan tier three. The paper discusses three alternatives for how the EU should adapt its enlargement and neighbourhood policies to these realities. In the first case, the EU would become more consistent and extend the membership perspective to Georgia. In the second case the EU would stick to its current political positions, notwithstanding their obsolescence, yet quietly continue to develop the commonality of the actual policy instruments being applied to both groups. Third, the EU would choose to give strategic profile to this set of common policy instruments by creating a new tier of European integration in the spirit of a multi-speed Europe, which might be called the Wider European Economic Area, or Space, or Community

Ukraine's Anti-Corruption Front: Helping Ukrainians Win the War and the Peace by Having Their Backs against Oligarchy

Remarkably, while fighting for their lives against Russian invasion, Ukrainians continue to wage their long internal battle against oligarchy and corruption. Ukraine is midway through this generational struggle, which began on the streets of the Maidan in Kyiv nearly a decade ago. In 2014, after deposing a kleptocratic president whose campaigns were bankrolled by agents of the Kremlin, Ukrainians got to work transforming this post-Soviet oligarchy into a modern European state under the rule of law.Continuing to uproot oligarchy—a critical part of winning the war, rebuilding the country, and preparing for EU accession—will require heavy domestic and foreign support. Anti-corruption must be central in that support. This issue drove Ukrainians into the streets a decade ago. It has topped voters' minds in every Ukrainian election since, helped trigger the largest war in Europe since WWII, and is now motivating Ukrainians to win even at enormous cost. Transparency and accountability mechanisms are essential to reassuring Western taxpayers that their wartime aid to Ukraine is safeguarded. They must also be key conditions of the ambitious reconstruction and European modernization that will inspire freedom's cause globally. Countering corruption is as strategically vital today as the policy of containing communism was in the Cold War