Steven Livingston is a professor of public affairs and International affairs at George Washington University with appointments in the School of Media and Public Affairs and the Elliott School of International Affairs. He also has affiliate appointments in the political science department and the Space Policy Institute. He is also Senior Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University. In 2016-2017, Livingston was a Visiting Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Governance and Human Rights, POLIS, University of Cambridge. In the spring 2017, he was a visiting professorship at the University St. Gallen, Switzerland. In 2016-17 he was a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution’s program in Governance Studies. His research centers on the role of technology in governance and the provisioning of public goods, including human security and rights. At present, he is working on several projects revolving around the use of digital technologies and data by human rights organizations. Among other publications, Livingston has written When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina (W. Lance Bennett and Regina Lawrence, co-authors) (University of Chicago Press, 2007). In 2016, it won the Doris Graber Outstanding Book Award, American Political Science Association. With Gregor Walter-Drop he edited Bits and Atoms: Information and Communication Technology in Areas of Limited Statehood (Oxford University Press, 2014). Africa’s Evolving Infosystems: A Pathway to Security and Stability (NDU Press, 2011) and Africa’s Information Revolution: Implications for Crime, Policing, and Citizen Security (NDU Press, 2013). Over the last decade, Livingston has worked in over 50 countries, mostly in Africa and South America, but also on several occasions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mobilizing Ideas 