Research and policy advice map · 50 outputs · 6 portfolios · 6 initiatives

I am excited to join the Multistakeholder Consultation Group of the United Nations Group on the Information Society (UNGIS-MCG). We just had our kick-off meeting for the first cohort (2026-28). The MCG is a direct result of the WSIS+20 review (WSIS Process), which the United Nations General Assembly concluded in December 2025. Following the ECOSOC call for UNGIS to draw on multi-stakeholder advice, UNGIS convenes this consultative body to receive input from diverse stakeholders and to help put WSIS commitments into practice.

New publication! 🔔 🇪🇺 The #EU has developed a diverse menu of policy instruments to protect #democracy and human rights in its #trade policy. But with geopolitical tensions, tariff wars, and increased pressure to boost competitiveness, withdrawing trade preferences and imposing sanctions on partner governments has become more politically costly. 🛡 But that doesn't mean the EU should abandon its commitment to democracy in its trade policy. There is a feasible alternative.

How is #AI currently being used in #development cooperation? To assess the sector's AI engagement, I collected a database of AI deployments by development cooperation organizations. In a recent co-authored piece with Michael Roll, PhD, we argue that monitoring, evaluation, and coordination, which are the functions that would actually change how the sector learns, make up only about 19%. ▶In other words, the sector uses AI to do its existing work faster, not to change how it works and learns.

#APSA2026 was a blast! I presented our measurement paper with Lucan Way, Steve Levitsky, and Yashar Talebirad. It is an event-level dataset that tracks autocratization globally, built on a precision-first #LLM pipeline that lets you trace every registered incident to its source. It is also very cost-efficient. We see it as a complementary measure to expert-coded #data. Our paper was part of a panel I put together to offer fresh perspectives on measuring regime trends in innovative ways.

I've been in #Geneva since the beginning of the week to represent the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) at the inaugural United Nations Global Dialogue on AI Governance and the AI For Good Global Summit. While the #GlobalDialogue presented the first opportunity to convene diverse stakeholders for productive conversations on ensuring regulatory and technical interoperability, instituting safeguards, and building trust, the #AI4Good Summit showcased cutting-edge AI innovations across sectors, including development cooperation.

#FIMI operations' effectiveness has so far been an open empirical question, with evidence suggesting their impact might be more limited than initially assumed. That's about to change with malicious #AI swarms. These are AI agents with persistent identities and memory that would come across as a real, diverse crowd of people, and could self-coordinate and infiltrate online communities. The risk is real and imminent. To discuss the effects of AI swarms on electoral integrity, we convened a panel for the DW Global Media Forum #GMF2026, which took place this year at the World Conference Center Bonn.