Theoretical and operational challenges of “high-reliability organizations”: air-traffic control and aircraft carriers

This is an empirical and theoretical examination of high reliability organizations. The empirical referents are the U.S. Navy's nuclear aircraft carriers and the air traffic control system of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. Three modes of organizational behavior are observed ranging from routine or bureaucratic to high-tempo to emergency. Each mode has distinctive authority patterns, communications pathways and leadership perspectives.

Since 1984, an interdisciplinary group of scholars at Berkeley has been involved in making observations of and theorizing about “high reliability organizations” (HROs), which operate technical systems that are very beneficial, costly, and hazardous. Major operational errors in these organizations are likely to produce catastrophic consequences; therefore, HROs take on the dual goals of sustaining delivery at maximum capacity and operating in nearly error-free fashion. They are so effective that the probability of serious error is very low.

Other kinds of organizations systematically use trial-and-error learning. HROs, however, have less confidence in this process for conducting hazardous operations, because their next error may be their last trial.

This paper draws on experience with two of the Navy's nuclear aircraft carriers and the Federal Aviation Administration's air-traffic control system. Current theories derive primarily from studies of “failure-tolerant,” trial-and-error operating bureaucracies. Is this literature a sure guide to HROs? Do the phenomena challenge contemporary thinking about complex organizations? “High-reliability” operations reveal a range of theoretical (and operational) surprises. The remainder of this discussion explores a single dimension of this theoretical arena.     

Can 14,737 women be wrong? A meta‐analysis of the LSI‐R and recidivism for female offenders*

Research Summary Over the past two decades, researchers have been increasingly interested in measuring the risk of offender recidivism as a means of advancing public safety and of directing treatment interventions. In this context, one instrument widely used in assessing offenders is the Level of Service Inventory‐Revised (LSI‐R). Recently, however, the LSI‐R has been criticized for being a male‐specific assessment instrument that is a weak predictor of criminal behavior in females. Through the use of meta‐analytic techniques, we assessed this assertion. A total of 27 effect sizes yielded an average r value of .35 ([confidence interval] CI = .34 to .36) for the relationship of the LSI‐R with recidivism for female offenders (N= 14,737). When available, we also made within‐sample comparisons based on gender. These comparisons produced effect sizes for males and females that were statistically similar. Policy Implications These results are consistent with those generated in previous research on the LSI‐R. They call into question prevailing critiques that the LSI‐R has predictive validity for male but not for female offenders. At this stage, it seems that corrections officials should be advised that the LSI‐R remains an important instrument for assessing all offenders as a prelude to the delivery of treatment services, especially those based on the principles of effective intervention. Critics should be encouraged, however, to construct and validate through research additional gender‐specific instruments that revise, if not rival, the LSI‐R.     

Die zivilrechtliche Haftung für Grenzbäume – geklärte und ungeklärte Fragen

Natur und Recht - Grenzbäume werfen in der Praxis immer wieder verschiedene Rechtsfragen auf. Sie können durch Überwuchs störende Wirkungen auf Nachbargrundstücke haben....     

Reflective Judgement and Prudential Rationality: A Contribution to an Inclusive Practical Application of Law

Hannah Arendt has developed a theory of the importance of judgment of taste for political manners, founded on the Kantian aesthetic theory. Nowadays this theory is considered a current theoretical reference for establishing a political way to reconcile the demands of the radicalization of deliberative democracy with the need for political inclusion (Iris Marion Young, Seyla Benhabib). Albena Azmanova in her The Scandal of Reason: A Critical Theory of Political Judgment proposes an inclusive political rhetoric. The political theory founded on judgment is based on Kant’s philosophy; it was developed by Arendt and has greatly influenced the current debate, as an alternative theory in which the moral basis of law can be more sensitive to human contexts; a universalist theory more adequate for dealing with the tragic dimension of human life. The theory of political judgment uses the concepts of reflective judgment and ‘enlarged thought’ as its main concepts. As a starting point, a theory like this considers the singular judgments of justice that each person makes. The background, therefore, is not a rational foundation of principles, but the capacity of rational beings to make judgments. This post-metaphysical theory of law, based on a theory of judgment, is a critique of legal positivism, but presents itself as an alternative to the idealistic theory of law. But this theoretical project has received some criticism related to the adequacy of Arendt’s rereading of Kantian philosophy and her attempt to approximate Kant’s reflective judgment to the Aristotelian concept of phronêsis. Some critics, such as Bryan Garsten, believe that Kant’s rhetoric of public reason diminished and displaced the prudential faculty of judgment that Arendt is to be interested in reviving. Arendt’s attempt to find a theory of judgment in Kant’s aesthetic theory is not successful, in Garsten’s view. Our purpose is to show that a critical theory of judicial judgment is not only possible, but necessary; Arendt’s theory of judgment offers an important contribution to a critical theory of judicial judgment, particularly one devoted to the construction of a legal theory that prioritizes a politics of social inclusion. This theory proposes a critical approach to the project of the procedural conception of democracy, since it can mask social exclusion. An adequate understanding of judicial argumentation cannot forget that it happens in a rhetorical context: it is not only important what a discourse says, but how it says it. The radicalization of deliberative democracy supposes a revision of the ways judicial deliberation is thought: not by reference to universal or at least general principles, but taking into consideration what is ‘critically relevant’, with a view to remedying social injustice (following Azmanova).