Feedback loops in a world of complexity: a cybernetic approach at the interface of foreign policy analysis and international relations theory

Feedback in foreign policy occurs when a state's foreign policy affects the international context of that state and those changes in context subsequently impact on the state's future foreign policy decisions. In this way, feedback loops can develop, which may become self-reinforcing and in which foreign policy and international context continuously affect each other. Even though such processes are ubiquitous especially in a globalized world, they have hitherto received little systematic attention. We introduce cybernetics as a perspective that puts such feedback effects at the centre of attention and provides an accessible sequential framework for analysing them. Such a cybernetic analysis not only demonstrates the significance of feedback processes in foreign policies but also speaks to several recent debates in international relations theory and foreign policy analysis. In particular, it highlights processes of learning and change, of non-linearity and indeterminacy, and enables the researcher to integrate insights from structure- and agency-based approaches. We outline the merits of a cybernetic analysis by discussing the effects of feedback in the United States' War on Terror.     

Panacea or Snake Oil? Interest‐Based Bargaining in the U.S. Airline and Rail Industries

This study of interest‐based bargaining (IBB) examined past usage, current preferences, and future intentions to use this approach in U.S. airline and railroad labor negotiations. Based on a survey of eighty‐four union and management chief negotiators, we found that the personal attributes of the chief negotiator (orientation toward relationships, personal conflict handling style, and competency in IBB approaches) were strong predictors of the past use of IBB. However, personal affinities and styles became irrelevant as experience with IBB accumulated. The negotiator's preferences for IBB in general were strongly correlated to his or her awareness of other carriers' and unions' experiences with IBB, as well as to his or her own direct experience. The negotiator's intention to use IBB in the future was also related to the quality of the contract personally obtained through IBB practices. The study also revealed the unpopularity of IBB among labor negotiators relative to their management counterparts.     

Television and Contraceptive Use – A Weak Signal?

Abstract

In recent years, rural electrification and access to television have spread throughout the developing world. The values and cultural norms embodied in television programming have potentially profound implications for influencing behaviour, including reproductive decisions. After replicating Westoff and Koffman’s (2011) finding of a positive correlation between television ownership and contraception using pooled Indonesian data, we proceed to estimate a fixed-effects model. The coefficient on television loses its significance while other policy relevant variables retain theirs. We conclude that the growing corpus of cross-sectional evidence on a link between television and contraception should be interpreted cautiously.     

Suicide reporting content analysis: abstract development and reliability

Despite substantial research on media influences and the development of media guidelines on suicide reporting, research on the specifics of media stories that facilitate suicide contagion has been limited. The goal of the present study was to develop a content analytic strategy to code features in media suicide reports presumed to be influential in suicide contagion and determine the interrater reliability of the qualitative characteristics abstracted from newspaper stories. A random subset of 151 articles from a database of 1851 newspaper suicide stories published during 1988 through 1996, which were collected as part of a national study in the United States to identify factors associated with the initiation of youth suicide clusters, were evaluated. Using a well-defined content-analysis procedure, the agreement between raters in scoring key concepts of suicide reports from the headline, the pictorial presentation, and the text were evaluated. The results show that while the majority of variables in the content analysis were very reliable, assessed using the kappa statistic, and obtained excellent percentages of agreement, the reliability of complicated constructs, such as sensationalizing, glorifying, or romanticizing the suicide, was comparatively low. The data emphasize that before effective guidelines and responsible suicide reporting can ensue, further explication of suicide story constructs is necessary to ensure the implementation and compliance of responsible reporting on behalf of the media.     

Who Are Truant Youth? Examining Distinctive Profiles of Truant Youth Using Latent Profile Analysis

The present study explored the heterogeneity of truant youth to provide a more nuanced examination of the nature of adolescent truancy and examine distinct profiles of truant youth as they relate to externalizing behaviors. Latent profile analysis was employed to examine the heterogeneity of truant youth by using a nationally representative sample of 1,646 truant adolescents (49.8?% female) from the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Five key indicator variables were utilized to identify latent classes: school engagement, participation in school-based activities, grades, parental academic involvement, and number of school days skipped. Additionally, multinomial regression was employed to examine the relationship between latent truant youth classes and externalizing behaviors. Four classes of truant youth were identified: achievers (28.55?%), moderate students (24.30?%), academically disengaged (40.89?%), and chronic skippers (6.26?%). Additionally, group membership was found to be associated differentially with marijuana use, fighting, theft and selling drugs. Results from the present study suggest that truant youth are not a homogenous group, but rather present with different risk profiles as they relate to key indicators, demographic characteristics and externalizing behaviors. Implications for practice, policy and future research are discussed.     

When Fairness is Especially Important: Reactions to Being Inequitably Paid in Communal Relationships

This article focuses on when justice is especially important to people and, in doing so, explores the social conditions under which the importance of justice may change in social interactions. More specifically, the authors examine how different types of relationships affect evaluations of equitable and inequitable situations. It is argued that when people are confronted with friends as interaction partners, as opposed to unknown others, they are motivated to attend to the needs of their friends (Clark & Mills, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 12–24, 1979) and, therefore, they are not only concerned with their own outcomes, but also with their friends’ outcomes. As predicted on the basis of this line of reasoning, two experiments demonstrate that when people’s interaction partners are friends, people are indeed more satisfied with being underpaid and less satisfied with being overpaid compared to when their interaction partners are unknown others. In the discussion, it is argued that these findings suggest that justice is especially important to people when they are in communal relationships.

Protection for Whom? Creditor Conflict and Bankruptcy

In the absence of a bankruptcy law, private debt collectionremedies generally result in an ad hoc disposal of the debtor'sassets, which reduces the aggregate value of creditors' claims.We show that creditors will often choose not to write privatecontracts that would prevent this inefficient behavior, eventhough these contracts would be to the mutual benefit of allcreditors. Our analysis therefore provides an economic rationalefor the existence of a bankruptcy law that makes a collectiveresolution compulsory for all creditors. We argue that sucha mandate is a requisite part of any effective bankruptcy system,including proposals for market-based resolutions of insolvency.     

Towards community‐based monitoring in Manitoba's hog industry

Abstract: Rapid changes in the hog industry in Manitoba have resulted in a gap in the province's resource and environmental policy regime. Concerns about potential, uncertain environmental impacts and an outdated regulatory framework led to a moratorium on new hog industry operations and a provincial hearing. Based on extensive literature, documentary and legislative reviews, this article explores the role of monitoring, and the potential for community‐based monitoring specifically, to address these policy issues. Given the non‐point nature of the pollution in question, the social and economic conditions in southern Manitoba and the strengths of community‐based monitoring initiatives, this approach is a promising solution. Furthermore, the existing legal framework provides an existing grounding through which the program could be vested with authority. Sommaire: Des changements rapides dans l'industrie porcine au Manitoba ont entraîné un fossé entre la politique des ressources et celle de l'environnement de la province. Les inquiétudes au sujet d'éventuelles conséquences environnementales et d'un cadre de réglementation dépassé ont conduit à un moratoire sur les nouvelles opérations dans l'industrie porcine et à une audience provinciale. En s'appuyant sur une importante documentation et sur des études documentaires et législatives, cet article approfondit le rôle de la surveillance, et plus particulièrement le rôle possible de la surveillance communautaire, pour s'attaquer à ces questions de politiques. Étant donné la nature non ponctuelle de la pollution en question, les conditions sociales et économiques dans le sud du Manitoba et la force des initiatives communautaires, cette approche est une solution prometteuse. En outre, le cadre juridique actuel fournit une base existante qui permettrait au programme d'être investi d'une certaine autorité.     

Does the American experience with alcohol prohibition generalize to marijuana?

It is common to compare contemporary legal prohibitions against drugs with the prohibition against alcohol in the 1930s. Making this analogy presumes similarities between the two prohibitions which have policy implicatioas for the current legal response to drugs. This study focuses on one drug, marijuana. Moonshiners of the 1930s are compared with contemporary domestic marijuana cultivators, the effects of alcohol prohibition are compared with the effects of prohibiting marijuana, and issues relevant to current marijuana policies are examined.