2025/12/11 by Helen Margetts, Cosmina Dorobantu · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Computational and Text Analysis Methods #Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice #Qualitative Comparative Analysis Research
paper · doi:10.4337/9781802207309.00009
openalex publication_date 2025/12/11 · openalex created_date 2026/01/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Computational social science (CSS) has great potential to improve public policymaking and governance, and hence the quality of citizens’ lives. However, in the past, governments have struggled to maximize the potential of successive generations of information technology and may face similar challenges with CSS. This chapter outlines how policymakers might best develop and use CSS to solve policy problems and design better services. We explain how we built up the Public Policy Programme at the UK’s National Institute for Data Science and AI (the Alan Turing Institute) to work with policymakers to employ CSS methodologies and tools. The chapter presents some of the Programme’s research, showing how both technical and ethical challenges have been approached. Finally, the chapter discusses how CSS might have been used to make better decisions and design policy interventions during the pandemic, and might help to build resilience into policymaking processes for the future.