Elite Stakeholders Research Articles

Toward cultural and creative industry: Chinese eSports through a business ecosystem lens

ABSTRACT The field of electronic sports (eSports) is thriving worldwide but has received limited attention as a cultural and creative industry (CCI). This study is the first to employ three layers (productivity, robustness, and niche creation) of the business ecosystem (BE) to systematically examine the flourishing eSports sector and its development as a CCI-BE. It also maps out the dynamic and emerging stakeholders that have contributed to the eSports ecosystem. We conducted content analysis combined with observations, fifty interviews with elite stakeholders, and analysis of financial and investment data. We found that the development of eSports as a CCI-BE reflects great potential and precarity. First, the business agenda of the media conglomerate Tencent aligns with the ‘cultural confidence’ slogan proposed by the government, thus ensuring the robustness and stability of the eSports ecosystem. Second, municipal governments, local real estate developers, and eSports tournaments are increasingly interconnected and their contemporary business models and innovation activities in the eSports industry have co-evolved. Third, the role of real estate developers remains nascent without the ability to coordinate and co-evolve with the eSports value chain. eSports may provide a novel converging territory for contemporary cultural and creative industries/traits in the Chinese digital society.

Banalisation of communications surveillance in the debate on Finnish intelligence legislation

A case study of both public and non-public debate on civil and military intelligence laws in Finland examined policy documents, news coverage, and interviews with key elite stakeholders to reveal various political and media actors’ connections with the banalisation of communications surveillance. The analysis suggests that debate on Finnish intelligence legislation has been conditioned by governmentalities that have anchored communications surveillance as (1) control of the population for preventing or limiting hybrid threats, (2) care in legitimating trust in the authorities and their oversight, and (3) authorities’ empowerment in control over confidential communication and freedom of the press. Empirical analysis shed light also on how new surveillance powers become difficult to challenge once policymakers and state authorities have obtained consent for communications surveillance. Once banalised in policymaking and mediated debate on civil and military intelligence, that surveillance becomes a commonplace, taken-for-granted, banal aspect of everyday life.

Effectiveness of Public Finance Management Frameworks/Reforms in Uganda

In the last three decades, the Government of Uganda has put in place frameworks and executed reforms aimed at establishing an effective and participatory public finance management (PFM) system. This article examines the successes and failures of these reforms/frameworks. The main findings of this article are twofold. On the one hand, decent success in civil society and elite stakeholders’ participation in budgetary processes, fiscal discipline, allocative and operational efficiency, and budget transparency have been achieved using the adopted PFM frameworks. On the other hand, there is ineffective local citizen participation in PFM processes, misallocation of public funds, a bloated administrative and legislative structure, excessive borrowing, poor absorption of borrowed funds, corruption and the impact of Covid-19 pandemic are eroding the initial success of PFM reforms in Uganda.

Upside-down diplomacy – foreign perceptions about Bolsonaro’s intentions and initial transformations of Brazil’s foreign policy and status

The election of Jair Bolsonaro for president in 2018 turned Brazil onto a conservative extreme right political path. Beyond the domestic impacts on institutions and democracy, the rise of the far right also transformed the country’s foreign policy as well as affecting its global prestige. The country’s reputation abroad has deteriorated, and both Brazil and the president have been heavily criticised in foreign media. This paper moves beyond the views of the press and the public. It analyses changes in the country’s international status after the election of Bolsonaro from the point of view of elite stakeholders. It draws from a reflexive thematic analysis of primary data collected in 94 semi-structured interviews with experts from the foreign policy community of great powers at the end of 2018 and in the first months of 2019. This article argues that the new president was seen as changing everything, creating a feeling of uncertainty regarding other nations’ relations with Brazil and hindering the chances of Brazil improving its international standing.

Afghanistan's energy sociotechnical imaginaries: Alternative visions in a conflict zone

Imaginaries are understood to be both discursive and cognitive constructs that shape behaviour, policies, and institutions – but how do longstanding imaginaries evolve in new circumstances, and how do they interact with existing power structures in changed circumstances? Drawing on conceptions of discursive power, this paper investigates the interplay of power with both new and old imaginaries in the case of Afghanistan, specifically regarding alternative energy futures. Employing an interpretive approach, we draw on document analysis and semi-structured interviews with elite stakeholders and policy observers, to provide an account of the relations between alternative energy futures imaginaries and political power. We demonstrate, how certain discursive practices are made possible, authorised and articulated through imaginative geographies. Critically, the government-advocated imaginary of Afghanistan as an energy corridor and hence an energy importer both represents the views of several powerful interests and concurs with the long-held idea of Afghanistan as a buffer state. In this way, political path dependencies are reinforced through a supportive imaginary, just as the dominant imaginary is itself reinforced by the main stakeholders. While in line with our interpretive epistemology we do not make claims for the specific configuration of imaginaries being generalisable elsewhere, we do find the general theoretical approach useful for understanding discursive aspects of conflict zone politics, particularly vis-à-vis energy system trajectories.

Contesting the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ in Southeast Asia: Rejection or Normative Resistance?

Abstract This article explores the engagement of Southeast Asian states with the Responsibility to Protect principle (R2P) in relation to the Rohingya in Myanmar and the ‘war on drugs’ in the Philippines. It finds a form of contestation based upon subsidiary principles and local interests in which states have offered normative resistance to international scrutiny in order to justify their limited response to the atrocities. Elite stakeholders have emphasised that asean already has principles and frameworks to address abuses – which reflect the historical experience, social context, and political culture of the region – in order to support their resistance to R2P. While existing debates about the R2P principle in Southeast Asia tend to be oriented around the opposing poles of incremental adaptation and adoption versus outright rejection, our conclusion is distinct: R2P is consciously contested in Southeast Asia on normative grounds which must be understood in the context of the region.

Towards a funding mechanism for loss and damage from climate change impacts

Finance for loss and damage from human-induced climate change impacts as it is recognised in the Paris Agreement is contentiously discussed in international negotiations, so far without any resolution. Based on 43 interviews with elite stakeholders working on loss and damage (L&D), this paper explores what components a funding mechanism requires to avert, minimise and address L&D, how funds are best mobilised and how they should be administered or distributed. Interviewees included actors in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations, small island developing states (SIDS) and developing country representatives, non-governmental organisations (NGO), Executive Committee members of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (WIM), multilateral organisations, environmental actors in the private sector, and developed countries. Through analysis of responses, diverse perspectives are presented and distilled into one potential mechanism. The paper offers insights into where opinions of interviewees align or misalign and inform a way forward for L&D funding in a politically sensitive environment. The majority of interviewees believed that L&D funds should be mobilised through the ‘polluter pays principle’ to finance components of a L&D mechanism that relate to a) adaptation and disaster risk reduction, b) insurance and c) solidarity. The Green Climate Fund or the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage have the potential to play an administrative role in a L&D finance mechanism. Compensation payments are overall considered impractical, not desired by developing countries and rejected by developed nations. Unexpected responses were related to investments into gender equality to reduce L&D, establishment of sovereign funds and usage of philanthropic organisations as a funding source for L&D.

How to tackle variations in elite interviews: Access, strategies, and power dynamics

Existing work on elite interviewing methods falls short in two ways: first, there is no systematic comparison between the practices of interviewing different elite groups; second, most reflections are confined to Anglo-American contexts. To address these gaps, I reflect on how to tackle variations in elite interviews by analyzing my experience conducting over 150 interviews with a diverse set of elite stakeholders in a Chinese high-tech sector. I aim to make two arguments. First, the elite interviewee’s sphere of influence—national or local—is crucial to shaping interview access and power dynamics. Two distinct reference modes are compared: formal national networks and informal local connections, with university professors and government officials as gatekeepers, respectively. Second, to carve out a space for meaningful engagement with an informant, researchers need to adopt different positioning strategies according to the elite interviewee’s identity: a trustworthy, policy-oriented scholar for political elites; a neutral, non-profit stakeholder for economic elites; and, a perceptive, well-informed sociologist for professional elites.

Rhetoric and reality in Bangladesh: elite stakeholder perceptions of the implementation of tourism policy

ABSTRACT National tourism policy in Bangladesh is a relatively new development and this research is the first to focus on the implementation of tourism policy in Bangladesh. Taking a social constructivist perspective, interviews were carried out with 13 elite stakeholders, from the public and private sectors, who are associated with the creation and implementation of tourism policy in Bangladesh. The data were analysed qualitatively using a content analysis approach to examine perceptions of the policy implementation process, and its success. In the case of Bangladesh, it is the persistence of hierarchical governance structures that appears to be hindering the effective implementation of tourism policy. This can be seen in the selection of priority areas by the government, the preferred policy instruments, and in the ways in which the private sector is being incentivised to support national tourism development.

Tackling antisemitism within English football: a critical analysis of policies and campaigns using a multiple streams approach

ABSTRACTWhile the anti-racist movement in English football has been established for 25 years, antisemitism was not specifically addressed until much later – most publicly through anti-discrimination organisation Kick It Out’s The Y-Word (2011) film campaigning against the use of ‘Yid’ in football fan culture. Antisemitism has occupied a sporadic position on football’s wider anti-racism agenda. Antisemitism in football is also a neglected area of research. The article addresses this academic indifference by contributing a critical analysis of the intermittent responses to antisemitism in English men’s football – by governing bodies, campaigners, and the criminal justice system – using a multiple streams approach to understand policy formulation, legitimation and implementation, arguing these attempts have usually been reactive and sometimes misguided, inconsistent, or misaligned with existing legislation. The role of ‘policy entrepreneurs’ is considered in relation to individuals lobbying for and influencing the priority of tackling formations of antisemitism amidst broader attempts to combat racism and faith-based abuse in football. This empirically-grounded critical analysis is informed by primary data from interviews with elite stakeholders from English football (The Football Association; Kick It Out) and Jewish community (Board of Deputies of British Jews; Jewish Leadership Council; Community Security Trust; Maccabi GB). The article explains the changing political salience of combating antisemitism and concludes with a call for a more congruous and coherent approach to addressing antisemitism, faith-based abuse and other forms of discrimination in football, which might lend itself to other sports and contexts. It also critiques the utility of the multiple streams approach.

Risk Communication as Government Agency Organizational Practice.

The dynamics of organizational risk communication is an understudied topic in risk research. This article investigates how public officials at six government agencies in Sweden understand and relate to risk communication and its uses in the context of agency organizational work on policy and regulation. Qualitative interviews were used to explore the practitioners’ views on some key topics in the academic literature on risk communication. A main finding is that there is little consensus on what the goals of risk communication are; if, and how, uncertainty should be communicated; and what role is to be played by transparency in risk communication. However, the practitioners agree that dissemination (top down) to the public of robust scientific and expert knowledge is a crucial element. Dialogue and participation is used mainly with other agencies and elite stakeholders with whom agencies collaborate to implement policy goals. Dialogue with the public on issues of risk is very limited. Some implications of the findings for the practice of risk communication by government agencies are suggested.

An analysis of well-being in urban Nigeria

ABSTRACTImproving the well-being of Nigerians is the aim of Nigeria Vision 20:2020, the key development policy document in Nigeria. However, as well-being is an emerging and contested concept, this article explores how the well-being of urban citizens is understood in Nigeria, and identifies key trends affecting urban well-being as expressed by a selection of strategic elite stakeholders in Nigerian society. These included senior civil servants and politicians, and various senior members of civil society groups and academia. The analysis also reveals characteristics underpinning policies for urban well-being.

Elite Repudiation of the R-Word and Public Opinion About Intellectual Disability.

Part of the motivation for encouraging elite stakeholders—like governments, professionals, and advocacy groups—to replace the language of "mental retardation" with "intellectual disability" (ID) is the belief that elite endorsement could undermine negative attitudes and influence the public to follow suit. We examine the veracity of this expectation empirically with an experiment that exposed individuals to information about endorsements of the terminology change made by the federal government, Special Olympics, or professional psychologists. We subsequently measured attitudes about persons with ID and the language used to describe ID. Results indicate that exposure to information about elite endorsement of the terminological shift either exacerbated negative attitudes or had no effect, suggesting that other factors may have primacy over "expert" opinion.

Investigating urban transformations: GIS, map-elicitation and the role of the state in regeneration

The value of mixed-methods research has recently re-gained impetus among geographers interested in the production of knowledge (Elwood, 2010). Key conversations have centred on efforts to blend traditionally viewed quantitative tools such as GIS with more qualitative practices and data. While discussions in qualitative GIS have demonstrated the value of merging the qualitative in GIS, we highlight the unexplored potential of GIS in the enactment of qualitative research, specifically as visual method. Our argument is based on research which explored the role of the state in urban change in Dublin City. We conclude that there is significant potential to better incorporate GIS into visual methods, particularly through photo-elicitation style interviews. Contrary to some of the existing literature, the persuasive power of the map as visual resource can prove particularly successful in engaging elite stakeholders. Further, we conclude that the methodological approach we took, facilitated the production of different kinds of knowledge around processes of urban governance.

Challenges to the Aarhus Convention: Public Participation in the Energy Planning Process in the United Kingdom

This article examines the tension between the democratic right of public participation on specific environmental issues, guaranteed by European Law, and the degree to which it is being challenged in the UK as a consequence of recent approaches to energy infrastructure planning. Recent trends in UK government policy frameworks seem both to threaten effective public participation and challenge EU planning strategy, in particular those outlined in the Aarhus convention. The research outlined in this study involves an assessment of the changing context of planning and energy policy, in addition to recent changes in legislation formulation in the UK. The research findings, derived from an extensive interview process of elite stakeholders engaged in policy and legislation formulation in the UK and the EU provide a new categorisation system of stakeholders in energy policy that can be utilised in future research. The article concludes with a second order analysis of the interviewee data and provides solutions to increase public participation in the planning of energy infrastructure that emerge from the different perspectives.

Power, progress and prevarication

Genetically engineered (GE) papaya was developed in the 1990s to improve the livelihoods of small scale farmers in Thailand. Yet these farmers have been excluded from the discourse around its deregulation and deployment. While elite stakeholders continue to debate in Bangkok, little is known about small scale farmers’ understanding of biotechnology, their perceptions of the technology and whether or not they are likely to be adopters if it became available. In this case study, I report on farmer knowledge of agricultural biotechnology and genetically engineered papaya in northeast Thailand. Forty farmers in four villages were surveyed with regard to their knowledge and perceptions of GE papaya. A qualitative grounded theory approach was employed to understand their responses, from which three themes emerged: progress, power and prevarication. From these themes, the decision-making process of farmers seems to be dominated by their existing local knowledge and their interest in progressing their economic status. The responses of small-scale Isaan farmers provide a new perspective on the debate over GE virus-resistant papaya in Thailand. Based on the results of this study, we can conclude that this small subset of Thai papaya growers perceive GE virus-resistant papaya as a compatible innovation that is likely to be adopted by Thai farmers if it becomes available.

Engineering corporate social responsibility: elite stakeholders, states and the resilience of neoliberalism

This article aims to introduce corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an ideational concept that is being globally and regionally engineered by an epistemic community of elite stakeholders that include business, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations and government. The concept of CSR engineering seeks to address gaps in the literature that neglect the emergence of a highly integrated network of elite brokers committed to neoliberal ideology and the manufacturing of ethical corporate governance. Conclusions are drawn from 60 semi-structured interviews with key CSR stakeholders and well over 250 ‘off-the-record’ conversations held at six industry-led conferences. The findings suggest that when powerbases within the elite networks are exposed, the Western nation-state is revealed as the most dominant stakeholder.

EU perceptions in Northeast Asia: a cross-national comparative study of press coverage and citizens’ opinion

This study provides a unique and innovative comparative investigation of the press coverage and citizens’ opinion towards the European Union (EU) and its bilateral relations with the three most important Northeast Asian countries, People’s Republic of China, Japan and South Korea. On the basis of media content analysis of mainstream national newspapers and opinion surveys of the general public and elite stakeholders, the analysis explores the extent to which media agenda and framing, the shared interests between the EU and the respective country, and social and personal connections influence citizens’ opinions of the EU and its bilateral relations in these three countries.