Governance is where you find it

The concept of governance is used frequently and in a variety of different ways. This article discusses Mark Bevir’s use of an interpretative approach to governance and its implications for understanding better how we govern. This approach has particular relevance to democratic forms of governance, and to the use of deliberative and direct forms of democracy.     

The Moral Superiority Effect: Self Versus Other Differences in Satisfaction with Being Overpaid

This paper focuses on how people think about their own and other's reactions to being overpaid. Two experiments investigate the discrepancy between people's own satisfaction and their perception of other's satisfaction with overpayment. The results of both experiments support our hypothesis that people think others are more satisfied with being overpaid than they are themselves. Our results are consistent with the idea that people think others are more influenced by egoism-based considerations whereas they themselves are more influenced by considerations of right and wrong. In other words, people show a moral superiority effect. In the general discussion, we argue why it is less likely to find moral superiority effects on people's reactions to being equally paid and underpaid, and we relate our findings to the literature of self-serving biases.     

Justifying the Lindahl solution as an outcome of fair cooperation

The motivation for the Lindahl equilibrium is mostly a rather artificial price mechanism. Even though the analogy to a competitive market was emphasised by Lindahl himself, his approach does not directly explain the normative ideas behind his concept. In the present paper we therefore show how the Lindahl equilibrium can be deduced from some simple equity axioms. These normative assumptions are the benefit principle on the one hand and the equal sacrifice principle (or, equivalently, a non-envy condition) as a postulate for distributional equity on the other. Fairness among agents with different preferences and incomes is taken into account by considering their marginal willingness to pay as shadow prices. In this way, the reason why the Lindahl solution can be perceived as an outcome of fair cooperation might become more understandable.     

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.     

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.