Managing Equality in Social Dilemmas: Emotional and Retributive Implications

The equality rule is an important coordination rule in symmetric public good dilemmas. Although prior research emphasized that people use the equality rule out of efficiency concerns (as it helps to obtain the public good in the most efficient manner among group members), it may also reflect a true preference for fairness. More precisely, research examining emotional and retributive reactions as a result of a violation of the equality rule by a fellow group member showed that equality indeed is related to people’s personal values and what they consider to be fair. The present paper suggests that a violation of the equality rule results in emotional reactions, and these emotional experiences encourage further retributive actions. The different reactions following an equality violation are described as a function of three features: (1) the motives to use equality, (2) attributions for explaining the violation, and (3) the honesty of the given explanation. The write-up of this paper was partly supported by GOA/05/04 from the Research Fund of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. The research and write-up was supported by a fellowship of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO, Grant No. 016.005.019), awarded to the second author.     

What does Brexit Tell Us about Our Understanding of European Identity?

This paper reports on a number of Eurobarometer surveys undertaken by the European Commission as a way of reflecting on Brexit and the challenges it poses to European identity. Our work with the surveys has been undertaken in the context of developing an educational game (RU EU?) which will explore European identity. European citizenship and identity have been strongly promoted by the EU but, while they appear to have been accepted at an elite level, the EU—and the UK in particular—have so far not constructed a narrative which has been supported by ‘ordinary’ citizens. Brexit has therefore exposed the failings of European elites in this regard. That said, there is some evidence that the complexities of Brexit have led to a strengthening of European identity in the other EU 27 countries.     

Brexit,Fisheries and Scottish Devolution: An Intergovernmental Disruption

With the UK set to leave the EU, the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) will no longer apply and an alternative legislative framework will need to be put in place, simultaneously navigating the devolved settlement. However, aspects of fisheries management fall under the area of international negotiation which is reserved to the UK government. Disagreements between the UK and Scottish governments over where the line between devolved and reserved lies in this matter has led to difficulties in formulating a post‐Brexit fisheries framework. This dispute has exposed weaknesses in relations between the two governments.     

Stability,Autonomy, and the Foundations of Political Liberalism

Law and Philosophy - An attractive form of social stability is realized when the members of a well-ordered society give that society’s organizing principles their free and reflective...     

Corruption experiences and attitudes to political,interpersonal, and domestic violence

It is understood that corruption can change the incentives to engage in political violence. However, the scope for corruption to change attitudes toward the permissibility of violence has received less attention. Drawing on Moral Foundations Theory, we argue that experiences of corruption in the social environment are likely to shape individual attitudes toward violent behavior. Using Afrobarometer data, we document a statistically significant and sizable relationship between an individual's experience of paying bribes and their attitudes to political, interpersonal, and domestic violence. These relationships are evident, and not significantly different, for men and women and are robust to the inclusion of variables capturing the local incidence of corruption, local norms regarding violence, and a proxy for the local incidence of violence with the community. Corruption is associated with permissive attitudes to violence even after controlling for the perceived legitimacy of the police and courts.     

The economics of pre-crime interventions

Several observers suggest that we may have undergone a shift from a post-crime to a pre-crime society in which the principal focus has become the pursuit of security by anticipating and forestalling future harms, rather than responding retrospectively to harms that have actually happened. This paper is about the economics of pre-crime interventions. It investigates the welfare consequences of risk assessment and early interventions to prevent individuals from engaging in criminal activities. Furthermore, it deals with the question of what constitutes an optimal application of risk assessment and early intervention. Finally, it presents three rules of thumb to identify conditions where pre-crime intervention may be welfare enhancing.