Defining risk

Risk is the focal topic in the management of many activities and technologies. For that management to be successful, an explicit and accepted definition of the term risk is essential. Creation of that definition is a political act, expressing the definers' values regarding the relative importance of different possible adverse consequences for a particular decision. Those values, and with them the definition of risk, can change with changes in the decisionmaker, the technologies considered, or the decision problem. After a review of the sources of controversy in defining risk, a general framework is developed, showing how these value issues can be systematically addressed. As an example, the approach is applied to characterizing the risks of six competing energy technologies, the relative riskeness of which depends upon the particular definition used.     

How Surrogate Impact Panels Function in the Context of Intimate Partner Violence: A Mixed-Methods Study

ABSTRACT

Intimate partner violence (IPV) continues to be an urgent social problem, despite decades of intervention and prevention efforts. Restorative justice programs (e.g., victim impact panels) may be a useful addition to intimate partner violence (IPV) intervention, but it is unclear how these panels operate and to what extent they are consistent with restorative justice models. This naturalistic study of IPV surrogate impact panels used ethnographic observation of panels (n = 18), archival analysis of audience responses to the panel (N = 287), and focus groups and interviews (k = 4) with IPV survivors, an audience member, and batterer intervention providers to investigate these gaps. Findings suggest the panels manifest interactional processes consistent with restorative justice principles. Implications, limitations, and future aims of research on these panels are discussed.     

Stuck in the Middle: Taiwan's Semiconductor Industry,the U.S.-China Tech Fight,and Cross-Strait Stability

The Trump administration has worked to restrict the People's Republic of China's ability to manufacture and acquire semiconductor chips since 2018. Caught in the crossfire of this burgeoning tech war is Taiwan, which is home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer. With the United States banning companies that use U.S. technology in their chip manufacturing process from doing business with Huawei, TSMC can no longer do business with the Chinese tech company, one of its most important clients. Until the Trump administration announced the license restriction on Huawei, TSMC had managed to walk the fine line of doing business with both China and the United States, without riling either. This article argues that the TSMC example is indicative of how great power competition between the two countries will play out for the foreseeable future. TSMC has announced that it will build a new factory in Arizona as it faces Chinese firms poaching its employees and Chinese actors hacking its systems and code for trade secrets—all actions demonstrating how great power competition will play out for tech dominance. Avoiding direct live-fire conflict, China and the United States will work to restrict the other's actions and development by forcing important tech companies, such as TSMC, into picking a side.     

Fresh Thinking on U.S. Engagement with Africa: Probing the Limits of Engagement

The Biden administration faces the opportunity to reset U.S. policy towards Africa and possesses a variety of tools to use in doing so, including traditional diplomacy, economic statecraft, development assistance, and military engagement. With the increased militarization of U.S. foreign policy over the past few decades, there is an unfortunate tendency to default to military engagement when confronted with even remote threats to U.S. national security interests, and Africa is no exception. With vital security interests in Africa, it can be argued that military engagement should be limited in its application and targeted to those situations that do not lend themselves to solution through traditional diplomacy or development assistance.     

The R and D contract and democratic theory

The purposes of this essay are to describe how federal research and development policy has altered authority relationships and to suggest a new concept of legitimacy in accord with the changed conditions. Research and development (R and D) creates an indeterminate future. Thus, the politics of research and development incorporates an apparent contradiction : political leadership demands that jobs be done which require creative and unpredictable actions on the part of private organizations, while it also demands that contractors be held responsible for fulfilling goals efficiently, avoiding deleterious secondary consequences, and refraining from abuses of power. The paradox can be resolved by creating norms of responsibility that allow for judgments on how a job is done rather than what is to be done. New institutions for technological assessment to check on unintended consequences of projects and citizen review boards to estimate the quality of life engendered by projects may provide such norms of responsibility.