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Regardless of whether digitalization is sui generis, the impacts of this change for political science are enormous. Digitalization has revolutionized data’s volume, velocity, and variety (Brynjolfsson and MacAffee, 2012). As Brady (2019: 2) writes: “political scientists can observe and analyze (sometimes in real time) the information that people choose to consume, the information produced by political actors, the environment in which they live, and many other aspects of people’s lives.” Political scientists are able to leverage new types of data from the internet, administrative records, political texts, remote sensing technologies, and new media. Massive amounts of these new types of data make exact replication of information possible. Digitalization transforms data analysis from using small samples to ones with “near-universal population coverage” (Eivan and Levin, 2014: 715).

The digital revolution is at the forefront of many methodological advances. With increasing frequency, political scientists leverage automated text analysis (Grimmer and Stewart, 2013; Wilkerson and Casas 2017), probabilistic matching models (Enamorado et al 2018), penalized regression techniques and sparse estimation procedures (Varian 2014; Ratkovic and Tingley 2017), network analysis (Patty and Penn, 2017), clustering methods (Ahlquist and Breuning 2012), and crowd-sourcing (Benoit, et al 2016). Digitalization complements but does not substitute for solid research designs, carefully constructed theories, and appropriate analytical tools (Titiunik 2015).

With many commentators claiming “data as the new oil” (see Haupt, 2016), digitalization’s impact on economic development is also substantial. As Cowhey and Aronson (2017: xi) point out: “[t]hese digital technologies are the ‘digital DNA’ that unleashes dazzling changes in the information, communication, and production capabilities that are transforming how the world works.” Big data enables economic growth through network connections. Economists have found that U. S. firms adopting big data analytics have “output and productivity that is five to six percent higher” than would be absent these technologies (Hilbert 2016: 142). Digitization is massively disrupting almost every aspect of life, leading to revolutionary changes in banking, telecommunications, health care, and education for instance.

In politics, leaders have new channels to understand their constituents and mobilize voters. Governments have harnessed big data to prioritize services and rapidly respond to natural disasters and emergent threats (e. g., Mergel et al 2016). The McKinsey Global Institute (2018: vi) estimates that big data could help cities become “smart” and improve quality-of-life indicators by 10-30 percent over current levels. “Smart cities” can help reduce crime, improve traffic and public transport, help fight preventable disease, and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The digital revolution has unquestionably generated extraordinary opportunities for political scientists, but it also raises serious questions about politics, issues like the future of work, privacy, regulatory oversight, international conflict, and democracy. Many of these problems are old, but digitalization has magnified their difficulties and importance.

A key issue these days is how the digital revolution is affecting the workplace and workforce. Automated systems, artificial intelligence, and big data are combining to change the way almost all features of work operate. Moreover, there is concern about to what extent and at what speed humans will be replaced in the labor force. Rising inequality and worries over wages and unemployment due to this technological change are critical issues. The political effects of this dramatic labor force change are much debated and worrisome (Frey and Osborne, 2017; Goos, Manning, and Salomons 2014). Some link the rise of populism with the workforce problems created by the digital revolution (Acemoglu and Restrepo 2017; Levy, 2018).

[9] In the digital world, consumers (sometimes unknowingly) exchange their personal data for “free” or low-cost services (Ciuriak, 2018: 8). The same individuals are frequently linked across datasets, which exacerbates the risks of leaking potentially sensitive information. Heffetz and Ligett (2014) document numerous cases where researchers were able to easily identify individuals in datasets which were ostensibly already anonymized. In addition to inadvertent information disclosure, cybersecurity is a critical problem. Individual and state-sponsored hackers have routinely sought to break into confidential databases to obtain credit reports, email records, proprietary business data, and government secrets.

These problems are exacerbated by the overwhelming concentration of data among a small of number of firms. Steep economies of scale for digitization provide the largest corporations with distinct advantages in data collection where new data is given to the largest aggregators of data Add Ciriuak, 2018 to list of citiations. The five most valuable American companies — Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft — control most of the internet and online infrastructure, from app stores to operating systems to cloud storage to online ad business. Another group of broadband companies — AT&T, Charter, Comcast, Verizon — control all internet connections to homes and smartphones in the US. Much of the technology behind “Smart Cities” is controlled by private firms which are loath to make their underlying algorithms and source code public (Brauneis and Goodman 2018). The concentration of data among a small number of companies has led to an extensive debate over the extent these firms should have in providing access to consumers and how they should safeguard information.

In politics, we confront many of the same difficulties. Technological dominance by the United States and now China of patents and other intellectual property rights is a source of anxiety for many governments (Ciuriak, 2017). Some fear that database vulnerability and reliance on foreign technology may increase the risk of corporate and political espionage by adversaries. Political parties and election candidates have leveraged detailed voter data to affect electoral strategies and disseminate party election programs (Enos and Fowler, 2018; Hersh and Schaffner 2013), but big data may bypass political parties completely. Private firms and foreign governments can exploit big data and disseminate false information (Lazer, et al 2018). This problem is exacerbated by people seeking information that reconfirms their preexisting biases (Allcott and Gentzkow 2017) as well as the fact that fake news disseminates “faster” and “farther” on social media (Vosoughi et al, 2018).

Moreover, the access to information by authoritarian governments poses a unique set of challenges. Big data may help reinforce autocracy by limiting and shaping information flows (Roberts 2017; King, Pan, and Roberts 2013, 2017; Guriev and Treisman, 2018). Authoritarian governments are also harnessing big data to bolster their control and surveillance over dissent by integrating traditional credit scoring mechanisms with social media activity, online shopping data, and social networks to build an all-encompassing view of its citizens (Stockmann, 2018: 403). Many fear that these digital tools will help solidify rather than weaken autocrats' control of over society.

These challenges pose serious questions for political scientists to consider:

1. How will digitalization affect the prospect of democracy? The acceleration of information flows may empower citizens and bolster government accountability (Peixoto and Fox 2016). Some believe that greater information has the potential to create a more deliberative and egalitarian democracy (Singh 2013). However, the empirical evidence is mixed. Instead of fostering citizen oversight, does digitialization threaten democracy and make autocracy more stable and likely? Can social media, big data, phone apps for all sorts of services (like location), enable political leaders to take control and manipulate citizens? Does it enable them to monitor and control all aspects of citizens’ lives?

2. [10] What types of governance structures and regimes do we need to deal with the negative effects of the digital transformation? How do we craft rules and regulations that allow innovation and efficient use of the digital processes yet still mitigate or prevent its deleterious effects?

3. How will the digital revolution affect world politics? Will digitalization make competition and conflict more likely among countries and other actors? Or will it make the costs of conflict even higher and foster greater communication, cooperation, and peace? Is cyberwar likely? How damaging will cyberwarfare be and can it be controlled? Does more information and transparency mean more cooperation among nations? Will we need new international governance regimes to control and manage such technologies? What will these new rules and regulations look like? Can countries agree on them? What is national security in an open and highly connected digital world?