Diversity and constructive conflict in stakeholder dialogue: considerations for design and methods

Diversity is generally recognized as a key issue for learning in stakeholder dialogue on wicked sustainability issues. Yet the question on how design of stakeholder dialogue and supporting methods actually enhance learning in stakeholder dialogue deserves more attention. This paper presents constructive conflict as a central design issue for stakeholder dialogue. This means that a dialogue entails the articulation of a diversity of perspectives and the confrontation of claims and ideas based on these perspectives. Building on three properties of diversity (variety, balance and disparity), the methodological implications of constructive conflict as a central design issue will be derived. These implications are structured according to three design steps: stakeholder identification and selection, articulation of perspectives and confrontation of claims and ideas. It is argued that social scientific methods are needed to support design of stakeholder dialogue. Q methodology is presented as an example that was used in a stakeholder dialogue on sustainable biomass in the Netherlands to identify stakeholder perspectives, to select stakeholders and to structure the dialogue. The paper wraps up with conclusions on constructive conflict as a design issue.     

The winning of the 1995 French presidential election

The article analyses the processes which conditioned the outcome of the 1995 presidential election in France. By a fresh evaluation of four frequently made propositions, namely (1) the presidential contest is above party politics, (2) presidential candidacy is pre‐eminently about individual leadership, (3) the confrontation is between the incumbent (or his surrogates) and one or more ‘challengers’, and (4) this confrontation reinforces political polarisation, the unique configuration of the current French polity is delineated. In conclusion, the interaction between social and political fractures is shown to have been crucial to Chirac's victory.     

尼克松时期中美关系缓和的国际背景

二十世纪七十年代初,随着冷战国际形势的变化,在东北亚对峙的中美两国开始调整自己的对外政策,两国关系由对峙走向缓和。这一趋势的出现有着深刻的国际背景。美国国力衰退,受越南战争和国内反战形势影响,对共产主义的全面遏制战略转变为全球收缩、拉拢盟友共同抵抗苏联;苏联在这一时期开始展现出全面的进攻态势,四面出击;中苏关系交恶。在这些国际大背景的推动下,中美关系走向缓和。     

The Negotiated Economy: Is There a Theory?

The original concept of the negotiated economy from the late 1970s provided some heuristic insights into significant developments of political, economic, and administrative processes. The later development of the concept has not brought the theory of the negotiated economy any further. This is a reply to an article published in SPS (Andersen et al. 1996) which responded to criticisms brought by me in an earlier article (1W.4). The defence of the theory of the negotiated economy is not consistent. The theory is both non-positive and positive, and normally accepted criteria for empirical confrontation are not adhered to.     

学术的功利性与超功利性——以美学研究为例

本试图以美学研究为例,讨论学术(人-社会科学研究)的功利必然性与超功利可能性。全重点在疏理对当今中国学术影响明显的为学术功利性辩护倾向的由来和内在基本理路,目的则是为了面对汹涌而来的学术功利性浪潮(现象及其合理性理论),为学术超功利的可能性争取应得的存在权利。本认为,学术必然要在面对功利性、抗拒功利性中追求学术的超功利性。     

Turbulence in the Taiwan Strait

The election of Tsai Ing-wen as president of Taiwan by an electorate increasingly inclined towards independence has made Beijing less tolerant of strategic ambiguity and more apt to attempt to impose reunification. Washington may need to undertake more proactive diplomacy to stave off a military confrontation.     

The Socio-Economic Background of the Gwangju Uprising

The Gwangju Uprising is fully explained when it is viewed not as a single event for 10 days but as the eruption of socio-economic contradictions of South Korean society in the late 1970s. Located between the Bak Jeong-hee dictatorship and the June Breakthrough of the working class in 1987, it was an explosion of the confrontation between monopoly capitalists and the unruling classes that had been alienated in the process of industrialization in the 1960s to 1970s. This contradiction appeared as the confrontation of troops commanded by the new military coup leaders versus Gwangju citizens demanding democratization.     

Thailand’s unrest: a test for democracy

There is no obvious or easy way out of the long-running confrontation that lies at the heart of Thailand’s politics. And in the absence of decisive intervention by either the monarch or the army, there is good reason to believe that the current unrest will continue.     

How parties compete for votes: A test of saliency theory

Saliency theory is among the most influential accounts of party competition, not least in providing the theoretical framework for the Comparative Manifesto Project – one of the most widely used data collections in comparative politics. Despite its prominence, not all empirical implications of the saliency theory of party competition have yet been systematically tested. This article addresses five predictions of saliency theory, the central claim of which is that parties compete by selective issue emphasis rather than by direct confrontation. Since a fair test of the theory's assumptions needs to rely on data that measures party issue saliency and party positions independently, this article draws on new manifesto data from the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES). Analysing all manifestos issued for the 2002, 2006 and 2008 general elections, it shows that saliency theory correctly identifies some features of party competition. For instance, parties disproportionally emphasise issues they ‘own’. Yet, the core assumption of saliency theory that parties compete via selective issue emphasis rather than direct confrontation over the same issues fails to materialise in the majority of cases.     

Growing tensions in the East China Sea

Continuing tensions between China and Japan over the sovereignty of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands have fuelled international speculation that the two countries could be drawn into a military confrontation. Incidents such as an alleged ‘lock-on’ of a Chinese radar on a Japanese ship have underlined increasing maritime friction between the two countries.     

浅谈文化消融

"文化"无时不在,无处不在。文化产生和发展的根本基础是人,人与人之间的关系无不被文化关系所包纳。文化消融属于文化整合同化论的范畴,对其的探讨有利我们妥善应对不同文化间的接触与交锋。     

Trump’s erratic Middle East policy

The Trump administration's Middle East policy has become impulsive and inconsistent, as with its intervention in Qatar's dispute with Saudi Arabia, other Gulf Cooperation Council members and Egypt. The United States is also leaning towards intensified confrontation with Iran – especially over Syria. In any case, the administration's policy is unlikely to lend needed stability to the region.     

South Korea’s presidential transition and strategic challenges

Moon Jae-in, South Korea's new president, faces stiff domestic challenges and is less inclined towards confrontation with North Korea than either his predecessor or the Trump administration. Nevertheless, South Korea’s alliance with the United States is likely to endure with some modifications and perhaps, given North Korea’s provocations, some upgrades.     

Fear and Loathing across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization

When defined in terms of social identity and affect toward copartisans and opposing partisans, the polarization of the American electorate has dramatically increased. We document the scope and consequences of affective polarization of partisans using implicit, explicit, and behavioral indicators. Our evidence demonstrates that hostile feelings for the opposing party are ingrained or automatic in voters' minds, and that affective polarization based on party is just as strong as polarization based on race. We further show that party cues exert powerful effects on nonpolitical judgments and behaviors. Partisans discriminate against opposing partisans, doing so to a degree that exceeds discrimination based on race. We note that the willingness of partisans to display open animus for opposing partisans can be attributed to the absence of norms governing the expression of negative sentiment and that increased partisan affect provides an incentive for elites to engage in confrontation rather than cooperation.     

Equilibria of collective action in different distributions of protest thresholds

To understand why political protests show the effects of tipping over into revolution – effects that stun observers, participants, and even the opposition or incumbent government – scholars have constructed threshold models of revolt to illustrate that an important feature of collective rebellion is people deciding to join based on knowing how many others have already participated. I conduct equilibrium analyses to observe the effects of normal, bimodal, and skewed distributions of thresholds upon the dynamics of opposition movements. The results shed some light on how various patterns of domestic confrontation affect the outcome of collective dissent.     

Mill and the Value of Moral Distress

People are sometimes distressed by the bare knowledge that lifestyles are being practised or opinions held which they take to be immoral. Is this distress to be regarded as harm for the purposes of Mill's Harm Principle? I argue, first, that this is an issue that is to be resolved not by analysis of the concept of harm but by reference to the arguments in On Liberty with which the Harm Principle is supported. Secondly, I argue that reference to those arguments makes it clear beyond doubt that, since Mill valued moral confrontation and the shattering of moral complacency as means to social progress, he must have regarded moral distress as a positive good rather than as a harm that society ought to intervene to prevent. Thirdly, I relate this interpretation to Mill's points about temperance, decency and good manners. I argue, finally, that my interpretation is inconsistent with Mill's underlying utilitarianism only if the latter is understood in a crudely hedonistic way.     

French Enlightenment: truth and life

This paper considers the relations of truth, life and norm in the work of Georges Canguilhem and Michel Foucault argued that in France it was in the philosophy of science that one finds the clearest formulations of the problems of rationality and the sovereignty of reason. This distintive confrontation can be termed French Modern. For Canguilhem, an ontological and existential pathos arose from the fact that living beings were fated to struggle in the face of circumstances. For Foucault, this ontology became historical and political. For both, the key question was the relationship between life itself and the understanding of life. The paper concludes by reflecting upon some implications of the ways in which the relation between life and lived experience is posed today.     

The Iliad: A Song of Political Protest*

Since protest poetry is considered a voice on behalf of victims of war and the oppressed, an epic poem such as the Iliad, which appears to celebrate a culture of male violence, is an unlikely example of protest poetry. This epic story of Achilles, however, brings to the forefront several themes of protest poetry: challenge to authority, anger at injustice, and confrontation with the fragility of the human condition. Even the form of epic as a product of oral culture reflects traditional protest song. Specifically, this article argues that revisiting the themes of protest in the Iliad provides insights into why human beings protest, connects political poetry to philosophic questions, and highlights the human being as a perennial protester who must face the inevitable choice of safety or perilous political action.     

The Geopolitics of James Bond

This article considers the politics of James Bond in order to throw light on the interaction of 'real' geopolitics and literary and cinematic representations. The Bond literature provides many opportunities for considering aspects of the popular perception of the worlds of intelligence, including, for example, the stress on covert operations and on human intelligence rather than on signals operations. The stories can also be used to consider changing images of Britain, the United States and the world, and can at times be seen as efforts to create an impression of the normality of British imperial rule and Empire. Echoes of Anglo-American competition and tension are also to be found in the Bond literature. An important, albeit concealed, theme is Britain's diminished political and military presence in Cold War confrontations and a corresponding need to adapt to the United States. Cinematic representations of Bond have presented the world with an image of global struggle through Western eyes, having depicted shifts in the Cold War and addressing themes such as the space race, nuclear confrontation and drugs.