Stature,Skills and Adult Life Outcomes: Evidence from Indonesia

We investigate the effect of height on earnings, occupational choices and a subjective measure of wellbeing among Indonesian men. We explore the extent to which height captures the effects of endowments set before entry in the labour market. Physical and cognitive skills, co-determined with stature early in life, do not explain much of the height earnings premium directly. Yet, human capital more broadly, including cognition, educational attainment and other factors related to childhood conditions, explains around half of the height premium and does so through occupational sorting. Indeed, taller workers tend to have more education, and educated workers tend to work in more lucrative occupations that require brain and social skills, not brawn. The unexplained share of the height earnings premium may reflect a specific role of stature on social interaction, labour market advantages or self-assurance. We also find a height premium in happiness, half of which simply accounts for the educational and earnings advantages of taller workers.     

On seduction (and flirting) in the twenty-first century: A communication-theoretical perspective

Abstract

This paper draws on a mathematics audit of a South African newspaper to make a quantitative assessment of numerical accuracy in that local paper. It attempts to answer three research questions: how often do news reports in a daily newspaper include a quantitative element? How often do mathematical errors occur in those reports? What types of mathematical errors occur in those reports? Twelve consecutive weekday editions of the Cape Times, a daily newspaper based in Cape Town, South Africa, were examined to measure the frequency of quantitative elements in news reports, the frequency of mathematical errors in those reports containing quantitative elements, and the types of errors that occur. The data revealed that a large proportion of news reports include a quantitative element, supporting the hypothesis that journalists need to be mathematically literate. News reports with a quantitative element had a high rate of numerical errors, mostly due to a lack of ability in or attention to basic arithmetic. The findings raise questions about the numerical competency of South African journalists and concerns about the ability of the South African media to perform their normative role within a developing democracy.     

Pseudo-communication and the return of the sophist: Thank you for smoking,at first sight

Abstract

The present era is one of pseudo-communication and overwhelming relativism, where, at best, the ability to persuade one's opponents or a potential audience of the ‘rightness’ (as opposed to the communicable ‘truth’) of one's position, is all important. A closer look at the recent film, Thank you for smoking, shows it to be a stalking horse for precisely this kind of pseudo-communication and relativism, and an all the more successful one in light of its rhetorical sophistication and entertainment value. However, this is no reason to give up on the old-fashioned notion of communication (or ‘truth’), even if one has to reject the illusion – so long entertained by Western philosophy – of unambiguously clear communication of the ‘truth’ in any univocal or absolute sense. Through an analysis of the film in question an attempt is made here to demonstrate that it is a supremely persuasive piece of sophistry in the sense that Plato gave to the term, but that today (given what one has learned from the post-structuralist thinkers), instead of rejecting it on this basis, one should appropriate its lessons in rhetoric and turn it against itself, showing how a complex notion of communication and ‘truth’ of a certain kind may be uncovered in its interstitial rhetorical spaces. This is of particular importance to South Africa, given the fact that ‘persuasive communication’ forms part of curricula in communication studies. The paper aims to show how short sighted the unqualified emphasis on ‘persuasion’ is, especially in South Africa.     

Risk and the limits of governance: Exploring varied patterns of risk‐based governance across Europe

Risk‐based approaches to governance are widely promoted as universally applicable foundations for improving the quality, efficiency, and rationality of governance across policy domains. Premised on the idea that governance cannot eliminate all adverse outcomes, these approaches provide a method for establishing priorities and allocating scarce resources, and, in so doing, rationalise the limits of what governance interventions can, and should, achieve. Yet cursory observation suggests that risk‐based approaches have spread unevenly across countries. Based on a comparison of the UK, France, and Germany, this article explores the ways in which, and why, such approaches have “colonised” governance regimes in the UK, but have had much more limited application in France and Germany. We argue that the institutionally patterned adoption of risk‐based governance across these three countries is related to how entrenched governance norms and accountability structures within their national polities handle both the identification and acceptance of adverse governance outcomes.     

Adoption of the UN Global Compact in Spanish banking: a case study

The aim of this work is to analyse the process involving adoption of a corporate social responsibility initiative—the United Nations Global Compact—in a Spanish financial institution. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted for such purpose with managers, workers and customers from this organisation. From the analysis carried out, it can be ascertained that only professionals from the specific field of corporate social responsibility in the organisation being analysed have suitable knowledge about the initiative adopted, while the other professionals are practically unaware of it—even among professionals such as accountants who should clearly have suitable knowledge about the subject in order to draft sustainability reports. As a result, the research also provides evidence about the ceremonial adoption of the United Nations Global Compact, highlighting the internal friction existing within an organisation that until very recently stood out in the Spanish banking sector for the amount of externally obtained awards in recognition of its sustainability practices. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of African Union law in integrating Africa

This article traces how the development of regional law is linked to the state of regional integration in Africa. Given the prominent role European Union law plays in the functioning of the European Union, the question is posed whether there is similar scope for the development of ‘African Union law’, a term not established hitherto. Initially devoid from the necessary supranational elements required to adopt law that would automatically bind member states, the African Union is leaning towards a functionalist approach paving the way for transfer of sovereign powers to African Union institutions. It is argued that law-making capacity, be it through the activities of the Pan-African Parliament, the Peace and Security Council or the African court system, is a necessary requirement to accelerate the process of regional integration. African Union law will hold member states accountable to comply with international and continentally agreed standards on, inter alia, democracy, good governance and human rights.     

To Scrutinise or Not to Scrutinise? Explaining Variation in EU-Related Activities in National Parliaments

There is an on-going debate in the literature as to whether national parliaments can and do play an active role in EU policy-making. The main reason for persistent disagreement is the lack of comparative empirical data on parliamentary behaviour in EU affairs. The article aims to contribute to this debate by presenting the first comparative quantitative data on European affairs activities of national parliaments and by explaining the empirical variation. The development of a unique dataset including all 27 national parliaments allows a series of explanatory variables to be tested for the level of parliamentary activity at both the committee and the plenary levels. The analysis shows that institutional strength in EU affairs plays an important role. Overall, however, EU activities can be better explained with a mix of institutional capacities and motivational incentives. The specific combinations vary for different types of activities.     

Focusing Events and Changes in Ecologies of Policy Games: Evidence from the Paraná River Delta

Solving environmental problems on a regional scale demands joint efforts by multiple stakeholders, but coordinating such efforts can be difficult in complex governance systems. In this article, we combine the literature in Adaptive Governance with the Ecology of Policy Games (EPGs) framework to enhance our understanding of how complex governance systems react to environmental focusing events. We study the EPGs in the Paraná River delta in Argentina following widespread fires caused by slash‐and‐burn practices in 2008, and analyze how new forums created to address the consequences of this event differ from the forums created prior to the event in terms of their capacity to attract stakeholders and to provide higher interconnectivity to the whole governance system. Furthermore, we offer an initial evaluation of the Comprehensive Strategic Plan for the Conservation and Sustainability of the Paraná River delta, the main forum in the EPGs created to address the negative consequences of the focusing event. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for the study of complex governance systems where stakeholders are able to address the management of natural resources at a regional scale.