Intellectualizing about the moon-ghetto metaphor: A study of the current malaise of rational analysis of social problems

The title refers to the widely held view that advanced western societies (particularly the United States) have been vastly more successful in meeting certain kinds of objectives, than others, and that rectifying this imbalance is a high priority social objective. The paper is concerned with three intellectual traditions that have purported to explain the reasons for the problem, and to provide guidance for helping with the lot of the ghetto. One of these traditions views the problems in terms of inadequate policy machinery, and the resolution in terms of better analysis feeding into the policymaking process. A second views the problem in terms of organizational structure, and searches for a solution in terms of institutional reform or redesign. Still a third tradition sees the problem as stemming from the past allocation of scientific and technical talent, and proposes a solution in terms of a significant reallocation of research and development activity. It is apparent that these traditions of analysis, neither separately nor together, have been very successful in resolving social problems. The purpose of the essay is, through examination of the intellectual traditions and their interaction with the policymaking process, to try to illuminate the nature of their weaknesses and, if possible, to see what lessons can be learned regarding how to make analysis more useful, and map out some potentially fruitful directions for intellectual exploration.The author is indebted to Graham Allison, Harvey Brooks, John Patrick Crecine, Lee Friedman, A. O. Hirschman, C. E. Lindblom, Keith Pavitt, Kenneth Warner, and Douglas Yates for helpful criticism and encouragement. The debt I owe to these intellectual colleagues goes far beyond their reactions to this paper. Many of my better ideas have been lifted from them. I could list here a number of other important influences but in a paper of this sort the author is faced with a Hobson's choice regarding footnote acknowledgements. On the one hand he could footnote all of the obvious sources and influences on particular points, in which case the footnotes would take up more space than the text. Or he can be parsimonious and be accused of stealing, without acknowledgement, other people's ideas. With apologies, and misgivings, I have opted for the second strategy both in this opening footnote and throughout the paper.     

Russia Today’s strategy and effectiveness on YouTube

Many countries now operate state-funded international broadcasters, communicating directly with foreign publics to promote a variety of foreign policy goals. RT (formerly known as Russia Today) is currently one of the most prominent broadcasters in a crowded field. What is RT’s strategy, the size of its audience, and the effectiveness of its broadcasts in implementing its strategy? To answer these questions, we explore a case study of RT’s YouTube programming utilizing a new dataset of 70,220 video titles spanning the 2 years from February 2015 through January 2017. RT’s three-prong strategy focuses attention on strategic groups outside the West, including Arabic, Russian, and Spanish speakers, circumvents local media in target countries to promote Kremlin aims, and spreads a positive image of Russian accomplishments, particularly in Syria, which it considers a foreign policy success. The data presented here show that RT’s strategy is only partially successful since it underperforms among Arabic speakers, its main target, while doing relatively better among Russian, global English, and Spanish audiences.     

Trust,institutions, and indigenous self‐governance: An exploratory study

Trust is important to the institutions that make societies successful. Globally, Indigenous peoples are actively building institutions for self‐governance, but there remains little empirical work on trust in this context. To address this gap, we use a mixed methods approach to explore three levels of trust among individual members from three related, but politically distinct First Nations (Indigenous peoples) in British Columbia, Canada. British Columbia offers a unique and dynamic context to explore trust and its relationship with the diverse institutional choices among First Nations. Survey results show that trust is low among respondents and individual variables predictive of trust in mainstream contexts, like education and employment, are not determinative. However, interpersonal trust and political trust were highest in the First Nation most active in institution building, and who linked this with a cultural revitalization narrative. Interviews suggested a bidirectional relationship between individual and collective drivers of trust in this context.     

Change in the Australian Electricity Industry: A Case Analysis

In this article a contextualist framework is used for theoretical analysis, in which context, content and process are linked over time. Within this framework we begin with the contextual factors which appear to be significant in restructuring the electricity industry, then outline the pathway taken by reform in the United States of America, United Kingdom and Australia, before describing the principal changes to one organisation and the management issues which have arisen as a result of these changes.     

Community Sustainability and Land Use

Books reviewed:
Timothy Beatley, Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities
Amer El-Ahraf, Mohammad Qayoumi and Ron Dowd, The Impact of Public Policy on Environmental Quality and Health: The Case of Land Use Management and Planning
Daniel A. Mazmanian and Michael E. Kraft, (eds.) Toward Sustainable Communities: Transition and Transformations in Environmental Policy
Kee Warner and Harvey Molotch, Building Rules: How Local Rules Shape Community Environments and Economies     

The five‐factor model and safety in the workplace: Investigating the relationships between personality and accident involvement

Two hundred and two undergraduate participants (134 female, 68 male) completed both the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO‐PI‐R) and self‐report measures of prior workplace accident involvement. Significant inverse relationships were found between the factor of Agreeableness and the total reported number of work‐related accidents and between the factor of Conscientiousness and the total reported number of not‐at‐fault work‐related accidents alone, as well as the total reported number of work‐related accidents. Further, regression analyses indicate that both Agreeableness and Conscientiousness factors may be useful for predicting certain types of workplace accidents. Implications and potential future directions for research are discussed.     

Inter-Institutional Dynamics: Assessments of the Supreme Court in a Separation of Powers Context

Using data collected from a survey experiment, we examine whether information about the nature of the interactions between the Supreme Court and Congress influences respondents’ assessments of the Court. We find that political sophistication is key to understanding how individuals incorporate the separation of powers context into their evaluations of the Court. Political sophisticates give the Court its highest assessments when told that the Court and Congress are often in disagreement, and that Congress is most responsible for this disagreement. Assessments of the Court are significantly lower, however, when sophisticates believe that high levels of disagreement between the Court and Congress are due to the Court’s actions and when these respondents believe that the Court and Congress agree a high proportion of the time. These results suggest that for political sophisticates, the Court’s institutional standing is related to the balance it strikes between deference to Congress and judicial independence.