The shaping of collective values through deliberative democracy: An empirical study from New York's North Country

Participatory planning and policy analysis has gained increasing attention in recent years because of its potential to improve the knowledge base for policy design (substantive benefits), increase the likelihood of stakeholder compliance and support (instrumental benefits), and strengthen the democratic legitimacy of public policies (normative benefits). Deliberation among stakeholders is considered essential for participatory policy analysis, representing a democratic process for clarifying the particular as well as the collective goals and values as well as the potential impacts of alternative policies. This study examines the effects of democratic deliberation on participants' viewpoints of the policy domain (the local food system), based on two-and-a-half day participatory planning events in each of six rural counties in northern New York. Participant viewpoints were assessed several weeks before and after these events, using Q methodology. The results reveal three major viewpoints, representing concerns for social justice, the viability of conventional agriculture, and the potential environmental and social externalities associated with conventional agriculture. The substance of these viewpoints remain unchanged before and after the deliberative events, but the salience of the conventional agriculture viewpoint increased and the salience of the social justice and alternative agriculture viewpoints decreased significantly, even among those participants who most clearly defined the latter two viewpoints. These findings, together with an analysis of the action agendas emerging from these planning events, suggest that local deliberative processes may produce outcomes that are neither fair nor efficient and that reflect the values and interests of certain stakeholders more than others, even in the absence of overt conflict. Moreover, it appears that such processes may cause some participants to alter their viewpoints in ways that appear contrary to their values and interests as expressed prior to the deliberative event. The implications for participatory policy analysis are explored.     

The pious or the doctrinaire? who supports suicide terrorism in Indonesia?

ABSTRACT

Indonesia is generally viewed as a moderate Muslim nation that episodically struggles with terrorism. Between 1981 and the end of 2016, Indonesia experienced 156 attacks from some 15 Islamist militant groups. However, the lineaments of popular support for Islamist militancy in Indonesia remain understudied. In this paper, we expand upon the existing literature on popular support for Islamist violence in Indonesia by replicating and extending the empirical framework for modeling the relationship between support for various conceptualizations of Shari’a and support for Islamist violence offered by Fair, Littman and Nugent (2018) for Pakistan and extended to Bangladesh by Fair, Hamza and Heller (2017). To do so, we conduct ordered logistical regression analysis of Pew survey data which includes information about respondents’ religious beliefs and practice as well as support for Islamist violence. We find considerable evidence that their framework is useful for understanding support for violence in Indonesia.     

To What Extent Do Third Parties Influence Business Compliance?

Regulatory scholars have increasingly observed that it is not only public regulatory agencies and official enforcement action that motivate and enforce businesses' compliance with the law; in many situations, certain third parties may have greater capacity and power to motivate and enforce compliance with the law than do official regulatory agencies. This paper examines the extent to which businesses' worries about, and perceptions of pressure from, various third parties influence their internal compliance management activities and moral commitment in relation to complying with the objectives of competition and consumer protection law. Using data from a survey of 999 large Australian businesses, we find that businesses worry a lot about the reactions of a range of third parties including customers, shareholders, employees, and business partners to non-compliance. We find little evidence that these worries have much impact on what businesses actually do. However, perceptions of risk of complaints do influence what they do.