Bouncing back: A commentary on resilience in sustainability narratives

Resilience is an increasingly common element in the sustainability and sustainable growth narratives of a growing number of companies and organisations. At the same time, a number of meanings are claimed for resilience and the relationship between resilience and sustainability has been depicted in a number of ways. With these thoughts in mind, this short commentary paper outlines the characteristic features of the concept of resilience, provides some illustrations of how a number of companies and organisations are harnessing the concept as an integral part of their sustainability strategies and policies, offers some general reflections on the application of the concept, and concludes with some thoughts on how public relations and communications professionals can contribute to resilience planning.     

论网络阅读视觉信息负载理论

人类已有六千年的阅读史,阅读是从图象阅读到文字阅读,自从网络改变了人的阅读方式后,传统阅读转向网络阅读的发展空间,阅读又从文字到图像.揭示阅读的本质是每个学者不断的诉求.自20世纪中叶美国艺术心理学家鲁道夫·阿恩海姆创立了<视觉思维>与<艺术与视知觉>理论,特别是人的信息加工理论创立以来,很少有学者以此为视角对阅读理论进行研究.前苏联著名教育家苏霍姆林斯基有句名言:"教育的全部问题都可以归结为阅读问题."本文提出了在网络信息超载的情况下网络阅读信息负载理论,验证理论在网络阅读中的运用.     

A theory of credit bureaus

When both the buyer and seller have the potential to exercise opportunistic behavior some balancing of these mal-incentives must be found. Seller financing has the potential to work as a quality assurance device because the lien holder is clearly at risk when mortgaged property fails. The buyer is at risk in the amount of the down payment and installments if the property is abused. Credit bureaus act as arbitrators. Our model accurately predicts the shifting in contract terms to account for relative opportunism and the incidence of this contract based on changes in the relative costs and benefits.     

A theory of the spoils system

In a spoils system, it is axiomatic that ‘to the winners go the spoils.’ This essay formalizes spoils systems as cooperative games, with winners given by a simple game structure, and represented by a fixed number of political appointments. We analyze the resulting spoils games by means of the non-transferable utility value, and we offer two practical applications of the results.     

A communotropic theory of economic voting

Within the social sciences, there is a long and storied history of the effect of economic conditions on vote choice. The traditional arguments are that voters have personal (egotropic) and/or other-regarding (sociotropic) preferences and that they reward and punish politicians electorally based on economic conditions at these levels. However, there is a third option. As industries, employment, and economic conditions are not uniformly distributed across the country, preferences may be locally based. This project combines unique survey data with Metropolitan Statistical Area unemployment numbers and finds evidence of distinct preferences at a third “communotropic” level.     

A distributional theory of government growth

This article presents a closed form solution for time-consistent taxation and public spending in a dynamic game between government and median voter. Extending Meltzer and Richard’s static analysis of government size the article offers a theory of growth of government. At low stages of economic development the median voter, identified as a relatively poor worker, prefers to have no or only small redistributive taxation in order to foster savings. Through this channel he expects improvements of his labor productivity and wage. At higher stages of development, however, when capital is relatively abundant and prospects of further labor productivity gains through capital accumulation are smaller, the incentive to tax and redistribute income rises. Yet, in line with previous work on growth and infrastructure spending the median voter prefers a constant share of productive public spending at all times. Hence, government growth is solely driven by an expanding welfare state.     

A general theory of interpersonal exchange

A general theory of interpersonal exchange is developed from a public goods, public choice point of view and within an analytical context that assesses both the benefits and the costs of social interaction. Social transaction benefits and costs are specified as a composite function of interpersonal bindingness, which itself depends upon five parameters. The model provides for the determination of an optimal personal degree of bindingness in a two-person relationship. Extensions encompass the more interesting reaction case, where two individuals each select their own optimal personal bindingness levels. Applications and conclusions complete the paper. qu]When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep ... For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Kahlil Gibran The Prophet     

A threat-centered theory of policy entrepreneurship

Policy Sciences - We know relatively little about the conditions that encourage people to jump into the political fray as policy entrepreneurs, advocates who devote substantial time, energy, and...     

A political theory of intergovernmental grants

This paper formulates a political theory of intergovernmental grants. A model of vote-maximizing federal politicians is developed. Grants are assumed to buy the support of state voters and the ‘political capital or resources’ of state politicians and interest groups which can be used to further increase the support of state voters for the federal politician. The model is tested for 49 states. Similarity of party affiliation between federal and state politicians and the size of the Democrat majority in the state legislature increases the per capita dollar amount of grants made to a state. Likewise, increases in both the size of the state bureaucracy and union membership lead to greater grants for a state. Over time, the importance of interest groups (bureaucracy and unions) has increased relative to political groups (state politicians).     

A mixed-utility theory of vote choice regret

The paper builds upon an original pre- and post-election survey that we conducted before and after the 2015 Canadian election. Directly after Election Day, we asked Canadians for which party they voted, and whether they regret their choice. We find that 39% of them are not perfectly happy with their decision, and 4% even say that they made a bad decision. We show that the propensity to regret can be explained by a mixed-utility theory, whereby voters attempt to maximize a mixture of instrumental and expressive utilities. Our study contributes to the literatures on voting behaviour and political economy, which usually considers that voters are either instrumental or expressive, but not both at the same time.     

A general probabilistic spatial theory of elections

In this paper, we construct a general probabilistic spatial theory of elections and examine sufficient conditions for equilibrium in two-candidate contests with expected vote-maximizing candidates. Given strict concavity of the candidate objective function, a unique equilibrium exists and the candidates adopt the same set of policy positions. Prospective uncertainty, reduced policy salience, degree of concavity of voter utility functions, some degree of centrality in the feasible set of policy locations, and restrictions on the dimensionality of the policy space are all stabilizing factors in two-candidate elections. 3. CITIZEN. We have been called so of many, not that our heads are some brown, some black, some auburn, some bald, but that our wits are so diversely colored. And truly I think if all our wits were to issue out of one skill, they would fly east, west, north, south, and their consent of one direct way should be at once to all points o' the compass. (Shakespeare, coriolanus II.iii. 19–26)     

Citizenship studies: A general theory

Societies face two contradictory principles. They are organised around issues of scarcity, which result in exclusionary structures such as gender divisions, social classes and status groups, but they must also secure social solidarity. In social science, these contradictory principles are characteristically referred to as the allocative and integrative requirements. In a secular society, especially where social inequality is intensified by economic rationalism, citizenship functions as a major foundation of social solidarity. The article also explores the scope of citizenship studies through an examination of identity, civic virtue and community. It concludes with an extensive critique of the legacy of T. H. Marshall, pointing to the future of citizenship studies around the theme of globalisation and human rights.     

授课式法学学习模式初探——以研究性学习能力培养为视角

授课式法学学习模式是指在法学学习过程中充分发挥学生的主体作用,在教师的辅助下由学生自主选题、备课、面向师生授课的一种法学学习方法。它是一种法学学习模式而不单纯是一种法学教学模式。它贯彻了研究性学习理论的价值精髓,能够激发学生自主学习法学的积极性,培养综合的法学学科能力和团体协作意识。同时,该模式也有自身的局限性,适用时应力求扬长避短。