Dominant View Research Articles

Indonesia’s Renewable Natural Resource Management in the Low-Carbon Transition: A Conundrum in Changing Trajectories

A paradigm shift is required to transform current natural resource management (NRM) in Indonesia’s decision to move into low-carbon development to achieve the greenhouse gas emission target. No study has been conducted to assess whether or not the current approaches are reliable in anticipating the conundrum of the new juncture. We reviewed 10 cases of NRM practices in Indonesia from 2019–2023 collected from the Scopus dataset by integrating the prisoner’s dilemma approach into the socio-ecological framework to analyze the practices and the anticipated gaps. Our finding revealed that socio-economic governance is the dominant view in interpreting the competition between personal and collective interests in NRM. Seeing NRM as an allocation problem and the excessive use of the legal normative approach in interpreting and addressing the problem are flaws in the approach. Combining the prisoner’s dilemma approach with the socio-ecological governance framework enabled us to address the flaws. Promoting polycentric governance that accommodates social trust, reciprocities, and socio-ecological beliefs and reduces uncertainties about ownership and the resources necessary to reduce defective behavior is a solution to transform the structure of the competition. Revising the socio-economic payoff into a socio-ecological value-oriented institution is the strategy to address the conundrum.

Subcortical brain anatomy as a potential biomarker of persistent pain after total knee replacement in osteoarthritis.

The neural mechanisms for the persistence of pain after a technically successful arthroplasty in osteoarthritis (OA) remain minimally studied, and direct evidence of the brain as a predisposing factor for pain chronicity in this setting has not been investigated. We undertook this study as a first effort to identify presurgical brain and clinical markers of postarthroplasty pain in knee OA. Patients with knee OA (n = 81) awaiting total arthroplasty underwent clinical and psychological assessment and brain magnetic resonance imagining. Postoperative pain scores were measured at 6 months after surgery. Brain subcortical anatomic properties (volume and shape) and clinical indices were studied as determinants of postoperative pain. We show that presurgical subcortical volumes (bilateral amygdala, thalamus, and left hippocampus), together with shape deformations of the right anterior hippocampus and right amygdala, associate with pain persistence 6 months after surgery in OA. Longer pain duration, higher levels of presurgical anxiety, and the neuropathic character of pain were also prognostic of postsurgical pain outcome. Brain and clinical indices accounted for unique influences on postoperative pain. Our study demonstrates the presence of presurgical subcortical brain factors that relate to postsurgical persistence of OA pain. These preliminary results challenge the current dominant view that mechanisms of OA pain predominantly underlie local joint mechanisms, implying novel clinical management and treatment strategies.

The functional form of value normalization in human reinforcement learning.

Reinforcement learning research in humans and other species indicates that rewards are represented in a context-dependent manner. More specifically, reward representations seem to be normalized as a function of the value of the alternative options. The dominant view postulates that value context-dependence is achieved via a divisive normalization rule, inspired by perceptual decision-making research. However, behavioral and neural evidence points to another plausible mechanism: range normalization. Critically, previous experimental designs were ill-suited to disentangle the divisive and the range normalization accounts, which generate similar behavioral predictions in many circumstances. To address this question, we designed a new learning task where we manipulated, across learning contexts, the number of options and the value ranges. Behavioral and computational analyses falsify the divisive normalization account and rather provide support for the range normalization rule. Together, these results shed new light on the computational mechanisms underlying context-dependence in learning and decision-making.

Die Deutschen im Banat, von der Kolonisation bis zur Integration in den rumänischen Staat Ein kurzer Rückblick

In the historical process of expelling the Ottomans from Europe, Habsburg rule spread across Central and Eastern Europe. In the context of the somewhat later dominant views that guided pol itics, such as the Enlightenment or the populationist politics, the settlement of colonists became more and more important, also in Banat, a depopulated area during the Turkish wars, which was mainly used for defense purposes. Here, the new colonists, the new types of settlements and the industrial activities in a highly multicultural environment made Banat one of the most developed and industrialized regions of the Habsburg Monarchy. In the description of the settlement of Ger man population groups that took place in the 18th century, the example of the Transylvanian Sax ons is used first, who were settled very early on by the kings of Hungary on the eastern border of the kingdom in order to protect them and also to farm. Over time they have developed and always defended their own identity and dialect as well as their own laws and constitutional status. The settlement of the Banat Germans, which took place in several waves, is followed along the social, geographical, economic and last but not least demographic coordinates. Later, the constitutional status of Banat also changed, until this multicultural region became part of Greater Romania after the First World War. All these changes always brought new challenges for the Banat Germans, who had their own organizational forms at that time. Political activity in defense of collective rights continued throughout the interwar period, marked by political instability.

Stigma: The Shaming Model

AbstractAccording to a dominant view of stigma, a person is stigmatized within a community if sufficiently many people within that community hold a bad view of her. I call this the ‘Bad View Model’. In this paper, I argue against the Bad View Model on the grounds that such beliefs are neither necessary nor sufficient for stigma, and that the account cannot explain the distinctive phenomenology of stigma, including certain vulnerabilities to shame. I then develop an alternative that explains these features of stigma, which I call the ‘Shaming Model’. On this view, a person is stigmatized within a community if she is shamed by members of that community, and this is explained by their belief that she has deviated from some social norm and/or standard.

Justice in the Process of Regional Conflict Settlement: Analysis of Russia’s Strategy, 1992-2021

Research in the field of regional conflict resolution rarely touches on the issue of justice. This paper aims to identify what understanding of international justice underlies Russia’s actions as a mediator/peacekeeper in the process of regional conflict resolution in the 1990s-2010s. The study also contributes to the understanding of Russia’s foreign policy by clarifying Moscow’s views on the essence and parameters of a just global order. The paper provides a study of the dominant Russian views on the essence of justice in international relations. It offers an insight into Russia’s peace-making and conflict resolution activities in the context of the three concepts of global justice and taking into account the factor of national interests. The study concludes that the dominant understanding of international justice in Russia is that which corresponds to Allen Buchanan’s concept of subjective justice. In Moscow’s view, international justice is a set of rules developed in the process of consensus driven negotiations between the great powers. According to this logic, a just settlement of the regional conflict is possible only on the basis of the consensus of the parties to the conflict and in accordance with the interests of the global and regional powers concerned. The fair interaction of the great powers in the settlement of the regional conflict and the impact that the conflict resolution could have on the development of the international order were of crucial importance for Moscow within the period under consideration. Moscow’s activity in the conflict resolution in the post-Soviet space generally corresponded to the model of justice as mutual recognition, but with absolute priority of Russian national interests. The strategy for resolving regional conflicts in the post-Soviet space could only be understood in the broad context of relations with Western countries and has changed in line with the development of these relations.

Foucault’s Virtual Force Ontology

ABSTRACT Gilles Deleuze’s monograph on Michel Foucault has often been construed as a “metaphysical fiction,” to use Frédéric Gros’s sympathetic phrase. This article takes a different approach, arguing that Foucault’s microphysics of power and Deleuze’s metaphysics of the virtual in fact share a common ontology of forces. In addition to enriching understanding of the two thinkers’ philosophical relation, the article argues that this virtual force ontology clarifies the continuity between Foucault’s earlier and later formulations of power, from microphysics to governmentality. Reading Foucault in this way not only challenges the dominant view in Foucault studies but also suggests the continued relevance of his work for grasping the contemporary exercise of power. By acting on the conditions of possible action, power performs an anticipatory function, intervening, as Foucault puts it, “at the point when the virtual is becoming real.” This is precisely how techniques like algorithmic policing function today.

Legislative electoral incumbent defeats: Cues from Ghana

ABSTRACT The argument that incumbent politicians are frequently reelected into office gained traction in the legislative literature – giving birth to the incumbency advantage theory. This paper investigates why incumbents lost elections they are supposed to win – subjecting the incumbency advantage theory to new scrutiny. Using interview data collected in 2017 examining Ghana's 2016 parliamentary and presidential elections, including relying on data from the Electoral Commission (EC) and parliamentary archives, the article evaluates the sources of incumbency disadvantage among Ghanaian sitting legislators. It traces the growing trend in incumbency disadvantage to: (a) the overbearing effects of a strong executive arm of government on the legislature, (b) management of primary elections, (c) effective opposition party dynamics, and (d) perceptions of incumbent parliamentarians’ governance effectiveness. The evidence emerging from Ghana shows incumbents are susceptible to electoral defeats as their challengers, contrary to the dominant view that incumbents’ defeats are challenging, especially in African politics.

International Law´s premature farewell to the concept of War

According to the dominant view, the supposedly state-centric concept of war has been successively replaced after the Second World War by the concepts of use of force, aggression, and armed attack in international security law, on the one hand, and the concept(s) of armed conflict in international humanitarian law, on the other. Based on an analysis of post-war codifications, in particular, international human rights law, this article argues that it is yet still too premature to bid farewell to war as a concept that for centuries has shaped the practice and theory of international law. Rather, it should be treated as a dynamic umbrella concept recognizing that non-state actors may be capable of committing acts of war, i.e., armed attacks triggering a state´s inherent right to self-defence. As further explained by the authors, this 21st century concept of war might be located in international law´s general part, thus overstretching its different subareas and without altering the lex specialis-concepts contained therein.

'I am more than just my label': Rights, fights, validation and negotiation. Exploring theoretical debates on childhood disability with disabled young people.

Through the creation of safe spaces in which to explore and challenge dominant negative views of disabled children and young people, this co-written paper presents unique insight into the meaning and impact upon disabled young people's lives of medical lenses and deficit models of disability. Bodies of work and dominant debates in medical sociology, disability studies and childhood studies have so far largely overlooked the experiences and positioning of disabled children and young people and have rarely involved them in the development or discussion of theory. Drawing on empirical data, and through a series of creative, reflective workshops with a UK-based disabled young researchers' collective (RIP:STARS), this paper discusses areas of theoretical importance identified by the disabled young researcher collective-the validation of their lives, negotiation of their identity and acceptance in society. The implications, and possibilities, of platforming disabled children and young people's voices in theoretical debates are deliberated and are achieved through the yielding of privileged academic voice and the development of a symbiotic, genuine partnership which resonates with disabled young people and recognises them as experts in their own lives.

Federalism as an institutional doctrine

Federalism as an institutional doctrine

Contested values: Economic expertise in the comparable worth controversy, USA, 1979–1989

The comparable worth principle – a call for a general readjustment of wages according to a measure of the worth of an occupation – gained policy momentum in the United States in the early 1980s. A Supreme Court decision, multiple bills, congressional hearings as well as an arsenal of initiatives from women and labour groups all over the United States shaped the debate both as a technical as well as a political issue. At the core of the quarrel lie diverse opinions on the criteria and practices of setting fair wages. This paper follows the deployment of economic arguments on both sides of the controversy between the start of a national movement in 1979, and when all US government agencies declared the principle unsound in 1985. The dominant view on the origin of biases affecting pay practices and the criteria for rational wage determination shifted radically over this period: from the market to job analysts for the responsibility of the biases, and from bureaucratic procedures to market for the locus of rationality. I document this shift using discussions about scientific evidence brought by economists in legal and political hearings. The paper describes three moments in the relationship between science and policy: first the scientization of policy, second, the politicization of knowledge claims, and finally, the weaponization of economic knowledge.

A Confucian Reappraisal of Christian Love: Ahn Changho Contra Augustinian Studies Conducted in South Korea

This paper tackles the dominant views of Augustine’s notion of ‘love’ in South Korea which have been described as the puritan pathos of distance from civic commonality. A complete guide to the reception and transmission of Augustine’s philosophy in South Korea would be almost unmanageable. However, the essential key to understanding the place of Augustine’s philosophy in South Korea can be found in the interpretations of Augustine’s notion of love. In all its complexity in these interpretations, the legacy of Augustine in South Korea turns out to consist exclusively of anti-political or non-communal eschatological longings for salvation. In a similar vein, the dominant views of Augustine’s notion of love have been convoluted with their emphasis on the superiority of love of God over love of neighbor. Based on these observations, this paper suggests Ahn Changho’s Confucian reappraisal of Christian love as an alternative to the dominant views of Augustine’s notion of love in South Korea, by investigating his view of filial piety as mutual love with respect to the possible implications of Augustine’s notion of love for shaping or consolidating civic friendship beyond brotherly commonality in Christianity.

Why Gun Control Reform Is So Difficult: A Latent Class Analysis of Gun Policy Preferences

ABSTRACT Americans have a reoccurring discussion about firearms and gun culture in America with no policy changes. We used data from Pew Research fielded just after the Sandy Hook tragedy in 2012 to conduct a latent class analysis of gun policy positions and assess how demographic characteristics, such as religion, impact belonging to particular gun policy latent classes. Unlike much previous research, we analyzed not just individuals’ viewpoints on gun policy but also the actions they take regarding their viewpoints. In this attempt to understand why a seemingly dominant view (i.e., a desire to change gun laws) never seems to move forward, we found that the largest latent class is respondents favoring gun control but who are not active. Further, unlike those within the active gun control class, respondents in the active pro-gun latent class are more likely to contribute financially rather than just sign petitions or speak out.

On the Origins of the Récades of the Kings of Dahomey

On the Origins of the <i>Récades</i> of the Kings of Dahomey

Who Benefits from Special District Service Delivery?: Water Affordability in the United States

Despite decades of controversy about the relationship between special districts and public policy, questions remain about the impact of government specialization on service delivery. In this paper, we explore one aspect of this debate, how special districts impact equity in the costs of service delivery, using water affordability as our empirical case. Two dominant views of special districts have emerged from the literature that are relevant to our empirical exploration. The first asserts that special districts are a form of “shadow government,” set up for the benefits of developers and other special interests and unaccountable to the general population. The second claims that special districts fit into a polycentric vision of local government, better representing the interests of residents due to their singular policy focus, and improving residents’ ability to pinpoint politicians responsible for specific services. Using an original dataset of all public water utility in the United States serving over 40,000 people and two measures of water affordability, we quantitatively test whether special districts have systematically less affordable water rates. We find some evidence that this is the case, additionally finding that the gap in affordability grows as community poverty levels increase.

Storytelling and Visual Designs in Collective Movements: The Case of GameStop 2021

Interactive media involve the process of evaluating information flows by users, following which a chain reaction is initiated among various perspectives on the relevant topic. Dominant views arise as a consequence of the process of memetic selection. These feedbacks gain a visual form through posters, "memes," and illustrations designed by anonymous users. These designs are critically important in maintaining and storytelling of a social movement. In this article, the function of visual designs in storytelling processes is discussed in the context of collective movements. In this context, a recent financial conflict, known in the literature as “The Case of GameStop 2021" which is a recent social movement, has been taken as sample. Study is based on the “case study research method” a type of qualitative research method. The data used was obtained from a social media group actively involved in individual investing and data providers in the investment sector. With this data, the correlation between the two variables was investigated. My findings suggest that these visual designs were utilized as a means of impact in the relevant financial struggle and successful results were achieved. It has also been found that these visual designs can form the main outlines of a collective storytelling process.

Postmodernism in Visual Arts Lesson and Its Reflections on Students

Postmodernism emerged as a movement that opposed the dominant views of modernism in the field of art. Postmodernism, which originated in architecture and gradually influenced many areas of art, is discussed in this study with a focus on painting and visual arts education. In high school programs in Turkey, it is important for students to be able to examine the past, embrace the present, the era, and the postmodern way of thinking. When the relevant literature was reviewed, it was determined that there is no research on how postmodernism is used in art education in terms of student learning outcomes. The aim of this research is to determine how high school visual arts teachers incorporate the postmodernism movement into their teaching and to identify any changes in students&amp;rsquo; interest levels in the course. In this study, a qualitative research method was used, specifically the case study design. The sample of the study consisted of four visual arts teachers who work in one central and three district schools in Yalova province. Two semi-structured interview forms and document analysis were used as data collection tools. The findings were analyzed using thematic analysis. According to the research findings, it was determined that the participating teachers conveyed the artistic and intellectual structure of postmodernism to students through various teaching methods during the lesson process. However, they were unable to achieve all the learning outcomes related to postmodernism. The study also revealed that students demonstrated changes in the methods they preferred to employ in their artwork after learning about postmodernism and being exposed to examples of postmodern art. Moreover, students provided both positive and negative critiques, reflecting their aesthetic perspectives on postmodern artworks. This research is considered important in terms of serving as an example for teachers and contributing to the literature.

Dominant attitudes and values toward wildlife and the environment in coastal Alabama

AbstractSurveys assessing attitudes and values about the environment can help predict human behavior toward wildlife and develop effective conservation goals alongside local communities. Coastal Alabama, in the southeastern United States, is a hotspot for biodiversity and endemism and needs protection. Land and wildlife management practices in Alabama have moved from indigenous‐led, which is more in harmony with the environment, to larger‐scale exploitative uses for agriculture and plantations. We therefore predicted that a large proportion of the population has a dominant view of the environment in which land and wildlife are primarily for human benefit. To test this hypothesis, we surveyed over 1300 residents in Mobile and Baldwin counties—the two southernmost counties in Alabama—to assess attitudes toward local vertebrate wildlife, knowledge of the region's biodiversity, and whether individuals value protected areas where they live and/or work. As hunting is generally considered a dominant behavior, we used self‐identified hunters versus non‐hunters to examine the relationship between humans and the environment. Overall, hunters would kill or kill to eat more often than non‐hunters, and would kill even when it is not for food. Furthermore, regardless of hunting status, most participants in our survey would kill a snake, indicating that targeted environmental education is needed for this group. Both hunters and non‐hunters, independently of demographic differences including education and income levels, were not familiar with the especially rich biodiversity of the area and would not be willing to invest money to protect it. Our results indicate that targeted education about the unique and rich biodiversity of southern Alabama compared to the rest of the United States is needed to support successful environmental management, conservation actions, and local participation.

The humanist challenge to China’s dominant policies for popularizing science and technology (PST)

ABSTRACT In the early 2000s, a group of Chinese scholars who often refer to themselves as scientific humanists (科学文化人, or 科学人文主义者) launched a critique of dominant approaches to science popularization known as ‘kepu’ or science popularization (科普). Their scientific humanism connects traditional Chinese ideas about scientism and humanism to Western philosophy and STS, in particular the sociology of scientific knowledge. Challenging science popularization policies, the scientific humanists in 2001 launched the so-called Critical School of Science Communication (CSSC), which combines scientific humanism with STS approaches to science communication, namely critical public understanding of science and public engagement with science. The CSSC criticized the Popularization of Science and Technology (PST) policy adopted by China’s government and main scientific institutions to promote her technoscientific and technocratic visions. The CSSC is in favor of science communication, rather than science popularization, aimed at reconciling science with the humanities, stimulating genuine dialogue between science and the public, and ultimately increasing civic empowerment. CSSC proponents have engaged in a series of public interventions where they challenged dominant views on the social role of technoscience and PST. China’s explicit emphasis on, even legislative commitment to PST provided a unique context to which the CSSC responded by appropriating scientific humanism, itself an assemblage of Chinese ideas and STS theory, and STS-related concepts about science communication.