Fallback Position Research Articles

The conveyor belt for older people nearing the end of life.

The current fallback position for the elderly frail nearing the end of life (less than 12 months to live) is hospitalisation. There is a reluctance to use the term 'terminally ill' for this population, resulting in overtreatment, overdiagnosis and management that is not consistent with the wishes of people. This is the major contributor to the so-called hospital crisis, including decreased capacity of hospitals, reduced ability to conduct elective surgery, increased attendances at emergency departments and ambulance ramping. The authors recently conducted the largest randomised study, to their knowledge, attempting to inform specialist hospital medical teams about the terminally ill status of their admitted patients. This information did not influence their clinical decisions in any way. The authors discuss the reasons why this may have occurred, such as the current avoidance of discussing death and dying by society and the concentration of healthcare workers on actively managing the acute presenting problem and ignoring the underlying prognosis in the elderly frail. The authors discuss ways of improving the management of the elderly nearing the end of life, such as more detailed goals of care discussions using the concept of shared decision-making rather than simply completing Advanced Care Decision documents. Empowering people in this way could become the most important driver of people's health care.

Revisiting Neuroscientific Skepticism about Free Will

Benefiting from recent work in neuroscience, this paper rebuts a pair of neuroscience-based arguments for the non-existence of free will. Well-known neuroscientific experiments that have often been cited in support of skepticism about free will are critically examined. Various problems are identified with attempts to use their findings to support the claim that free will is an illusion. It is argued on scientific grounds that certain assumptions made in these skeptical arguments are unjustified—namely, assumptions about the times at which decisions are made and the times at which the point of no re­turn for the making of a decision is reached. It is argued as well that alleged findings about decisions of the kind featured in these experiments—arbitrary decisions made in the absence of conscious reasoning about what to do—fail to support certain crucial claims about non-arbitrary decisions made after careful deliberation. The paper also examines a fallback position for skeptics about free will. Some scientific skeptics about free will contend that free will, by definition, depends on the existence of immaterial souls. Survey-style studies that bring free will down to earth are brought to bear on this contention.

Hedging in Non-Traditional Security: The Case of Vietnam’s Disaster Response Cooperation

Abstract Although much has been written on hedging in traditional security, few studies have focused on hedging in the non-traditional security (NTS) domains. This essay examines NTS hedging through the case of Vietnam’s disaster response cooperation with the USA and with China. “Hedging” is insurance-seeking behaviour, characterised by avoidance of irrevocable commitment, adoption of impartial and inclusive diversification, and the pursuit of prudent contradictions—all aimed at offsetting risks and cultivating a fallback position. We argue that it is Vietnam’s elite-defined strategic considerations and functional needs amid uncertainty that both drive and constrain its hedging approach to disaster management cooperation with the competing powers—China and the USA. While not fully aligning with either power, Vietnam has sought closer cooperation with both, with different objectives in mind: engaging China to maintain a good relationship, while engaging the USA to enhance its capabilities. The net result is cooperation that is symbolic in posture and selective in practice, which serves the substantive purposes of mitigating risks while acquiring concrete gains. In the world of hedging, symbolism is substance.

Greece, Germany and the Eurozone Crisis: Preferences, Strategies and Power Asymmetry

ABSTRACT This paper shares the premises that it is the power asymmetry factor that has framed Greece’s preferences and strategies in EMU governance and reform. Still, Greece’s shifting negotiation tactics during the eurozone crisis have been heavily influenced by the overriding policy-making model and political leadership in the country. As power asymmetry deepened during the crisis years and while standing on the brink of economic collapse and eurozone exit, Greece did not have a viable fall-back position in pursuing its preferences. This paper explains why Athens pursued a fence-sitting strategy in EMU reform with, however, instances of foot-dragging primarily when negotiating the bailout programmes, reflecting the absence of an alternative and viable crisis-exit strategy tabled by Athens. The persuasion-based interaction between Athens and Berlin is also discussed. The paper shows that domestic politics can be indispensable to adequately explain specific small state strategies and players’ interaction in the context of EMU governance.

Getting hedging right: a small-state perspective

Hedging is one of the more commonly used but least studied concepts in international relations. This essay conceptualizes hedging and operationalizes it to the alignment choices of Southeast Asian smaller states. I define hedging as insurance-seeking behavior under situations of high uncertainty and high stakes, where a rational state avoids taking sides and pursues opposite measures vis-à-vis competing powers to have a fallback position. I argue that while Washington and Beijing understandably dislike small-state hedging, they both overlook that it is the uncertainties stemming from their actions that push the weak to hedge. As uncertainties deepen, the non-great powers in Southeast Asia—as elsewhere—are compelled to hedge one way or another, even as the space to hedge is shrinking. Hedging is not a panacea and it entails its own problems. But acting out of their survival instincts, smaller states opt to hedge for as long as conditions compel. Unless US–China rivalry escalates into a direct conflict, or unless strategic certainty prevails, e.g., if Washington retreats or reduces its long-term commitment to Asia—raising certainty about the absence of a reliable aligned support—then states will stop hedging and start bandwagoning with China; or if Beijing’s actions directly threaten most actors on all major fronts—heightening certainty about an imminent, across-the-board danger—then hedging will be replaced by balancing against China. Short of that, hedging is likely to persist, making ambiguities a defining theme of our time.

Rational Suspension

AbstractThe article argues that there are different ways of justifying suspension of judgement. We suspend judgement not only privatively, that is, because we lack evidence, but also positively, that is, because there is evidence that provides reasons for suspending judgement: suspension is more than the rational fallback position in cases of insufficient evidence. The article applies the distinction to recent discussions about the role of suspension for inquiry, Turri's puzzle about withholding, and formal representations of suspension.

Wittgensteins vergebliche Suche nach einer Methode der Metaphysik Betrachtungen anlässlich des einhundertjährigen Jubiläums der Erstveröffentlichung des Tractatus

As we celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the first publication of the Tractatus, I take a look back at this foundational work of the analytic philosophical tradition. In particular, I examine Wittgenstein’s conception of metaphysics in this work and explore the question of what Wittgenstein considers to be the correct method of metaphysics. As a careful analysis shows, the Tractatus suggests at least three completely different methods of metaphysics: arguing by transcendental argument, logical analysis of the propositions of our language, and some kind of immediate insight. None of them seems to work within the framework of the book: transcendental arguments are ruled out by the infamous proposition 6.54, according to which there are no meaningful philosophical arguments. Logical analysis is declared to be part of a mere application of logic that falls outside the scope of the Tractatus. And immediate insight looks like a dubious fallback position that cannot be made plausible and does not meet Wittgenstein’s own standards for justification. All in all, the method of metaphysics in the Tractatus remains unclear.

Examining Small and Middle States’ Behaviour Vis-à-vis Rival Great Powers Through a Case Study of Australia

One of the most significant questions in international relations today is whether the world is heading towards a new Cold War. It is important to examine this issue from the viewpoint of small and middle states, whose behaviour vis-à-vis the great powers during the Cold War basically consisted of siding with one or the other. Are we seeing the same behaviour today, or are small and middle states employing different strategies due to the different circumstances? This paper seeks to answer this question through a case study of Australia, a middle power, whose security is guaranteed by the US but whose main trading partner is China. While during the Cold War Australia clearly belonged to the US-led Western bloc, its situation in the current power struggle between the US and China is more complicated. The paper examines Australia’s relationship with both superpowers and concludes that it follows a hedging strategy, whereby it maximises rewards from both sides while also preparing a fallback position in case circumstances change. This strategy is necessitated by the global economic interdependence that has resulted from globalisation. The study finds that Australia’s strategy vis-à-vis the two rival great powers of today is different from its strategy during the Cold War. Many other small and middle states are hedging in a similar way, and this fundamental difference in their behaviour compared to the Cold War leads to the conclusion that there will be no return to a Cold War with clearly separate blocks.

Structural sources of Malaysia's South China Sea policy: power uncertainties and small-state hedging

ABSTRACT This essay traces the structural sources of Malaysia's South China Sea policy. It argues that Malaysia's ‘light-hedging’ approach is primarily a smaller-state's response to growing systemic pressure arising from power asymmetry, rivalry, and uncertainties. The features of this approach are: an insistence on not taking sides, concurrent adoption of open deference and indirect defiance, and an active effort to cultivate a fallback position, all aimed at reducing multiple risks associated with the uncertainties of US commitment , China's long-term intentions, and their future relations. We have arrived at three main findings. First, structural impact matters: as geopolitical uncertainty increases, weaker states hedge more deeply. Second, smaller states do have agency, even if only in a low-profile manner. Because smaller states have been disadvantaged under an asymmetric power structure, they often use a combination of diplomatic, legal, developmental, and defence means to shape favourable external conditions. Third, while hedging is chiefly a result of structural factors, the forms and degree of a state's hedging activism are necessarily a function of its threat perceptions, elite interests and other unit-level variables. These factors explain Malaysia's light form of hedging: quiet action and limited defiance alongside open accommodation in managing the South China Sea disputes.

Atomic Assurance: The Alliance Politics of Nuclear Proliferation. Alexander Lanoszka, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018. 216 pp. $49.95.

<i>Atomic Assurance: The Alliance Politics of Nuclear Proliferation</i>. Alexander Lanoszka, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018. 216 pp. $49.95.

Food Security in the Afro-China Cooperation: The Hanging, Untapped ‘Win-Win’ Partnership

Abstract China-Africa cooperation, is a story of many successes, while also raising many eye-brows, as the world comes into terms with the alternative approach to development aid. The indebted African countries, hitherto considered unsuitable for funding by the west have had a fall-back position with China and successfully applied for development funding to support mainly infrastructure projects. Livelihood sustainability (food security) is therefore neglected, herein referred to as the hanging and untapped ‘win-win’ opportunity for partnership. The article is based on secondary data and adopts the theories of human-ecological system model and the sustainable livelihoods approach. In the discussions, some of the global challenges in the Afro-China cooperation, besides food security, include climate change, trade imbalance, migration and deforestation, which require multidisciplinary approach to handle. The conclusions underlined prioritizing of food security by leveraging on synergies within sustainable development goals for sustainability. Careful evaluation of new future partnerships is recommended.

Exit strategy or exit trap? Basic income and the ‘power to say no’ in the age of precarious employment

AbstractAn increasingly influential claim is that exit-based empowerment through an unconditional basic income offers the cornerstone of an effective strategy for supporting precarious workers in contemporary labor markets. However, it is plausible to assume that supporting the ‘power to say no’—to avoid or leave unattractive jobs—will empower precarious workers only to the extent that it offers the basis of a credible exit threat. In this article, we argue that a basic income-induced exit strategy amounts to a hollow threat. In light of a realistic understanding of how labor markets operate and how the opportunities of disadvantaged workers are presently structured, we show that the basic income-centered exit option can easily become an exit trap rather than an empowered fallback position.

An approach to gain more with less concessions: Transitive strategic responses of organizations under the effect of organizational identity and relations with environment

Strategic responses of organizations can be triggered by both environmental and organizational antecedents. Even though environments impose some constraints on organizations, they still have a range of response. We find that newspapers, in Turkey, have three different identities. One rooted in journalistic values. One rooted in running the newspaper as a business. And one rooted in maintaining its leadership role. These identities trigger three different transitive strategic responses. A transitive response is one in which an organization has an attack and a fall-back position. Further, we show how the link between an organization’s identity and its strategic response is moderated by the dominance of relations with institutional environment and the dominance of relations with technical environment. We tested these ideas in a pilot test with supportive interviews, and then in a large scale quantitative study.

Sir John Salmond and Maori Land Tenure

This chapter is deals with Salmond's engagement with Maori land issues, principally in his capacity as counsel to the Law Drafting Office and while Solicitor-General. Salmond appears to have had firm views on the extent of Native title in New Zealand, arguing either that all land vested in dominium in the Crown on the acquisition of British sovereignty, or, as a kind of fall-back position, that there were at least some parts of the Dominion, such as navigable lakes or the foreshore, where native title could not be asserted in any circumstances, not even in the Native Land Court. While it is tempting to conclude that Salmond's views were nothing more than the orthodoxy of the day, this paper argues that matters were more contested than is sometimes thought. Salmond developed considerable expertise in the technicalities of Maori land law, an expertise developed initially in the drafting of the Native Lands Bill of 1909 and which is reflected in various opinions he prepared while Solicitor-General and in his famous dissenting judgment in Boyd v Mayor of Wellington.

Setting Up a French Military-Industrial Complex in Algeria (1945-1959)

This article analyses a little-known episode in Franco-Algerian relations. When France was facing defeat in 1940, there was hope in some quarters that military resistance could continue in Algeria where a sizable 100 000-man army was based. However, it quickly became clear that no prolonged action could be undertaken, in part because colonial Algeria lacked the industrial capacity to equip or re-supply armed forces. During the Cold War, decision-makers in France feared another occupation of the country, this time by Soviet troops. Military thinking involved the use of Algeria as a strategic fallback position from which to pursue the war. The Soviet Union provided a compelling precedent by concentrating industry in the Ural Mountains and relying on it in its successful counteroffensive to drive out the Wehrmacht. Application to France pointed to the creation in North Africa of an industrial capacity adequate to equip an army. The project was to industrialise Algeria for military purposes. Its outcome was quite removed from the original intent.

Health Policy Was Bustin' Out All Over.

The Trump administration refused to defend important provisions of the ACA in court and pursued rules that could open the door to less-regulated insurance options.

Trade Unions and the Minimum Wage

Why do labor unions and left/labor parties support the statutory minimum wage in some countries, such as the United States, but oppose it in others, such as Denmark or Sweden? This paper presents a formal model of trade union preferences for the statutory minimum wage. On the one hand, the minimum wage can raise above-minimum negotiated wages by increasing the union’s fallback position and increasing the labor costs of nonunion competitor firms. On the other hand, the minimum wage presents certain dangers: it may (1) set wages higher or lower than unions prefer, (2) reduce the incentives of workers to join unions in the short term, and (3) undermine the social custom that sustains union membership in the long term. For these reasons, we predict that unions and left/labor parties will support a statutory minimum wage only when unions are too weak — when unions bargain with a smaller share of firms, when they are legally restricted from engaging in certain strike actions, and wage bargaining is less coordinated — to sustain high wages on their own. Empirically, we document a robust, cross-national correlation between several of the key variables in our model and the type of minimum wage setting institution and illustrate the model’s mechanisms using case studies of union preferences in the US, UK, Germany, and Sweden and party preferences in the UK and Germany.

Bitcoin as an Innovative Payment Currency in Germany: Development of the e-Gold Standard

Recent years have witnessed the advances of e-money systems such as Bitcoin, PayPal and various forms of stored-value cards. This paper adopts a mechanism design approach to identify some essential features of different payment systems that implement and improve the constrained optimal resource allocation in Germany. Bitcoin is a digital, decentralized, partially anonymous currency, not backed by German or any government or other legal entity, and not redeemable for gold or other commodities. Bitcoin relies on peer-to-peer networking and cryptography to maintain its integrity. Compared to most currencies or online payment services, such as PayPal, bitcoins are highly liquid, have low transaction costs, and can be used to make micropayments in Germany. Although the Bitcoin economy is flourishing, Bitcoin users are anxious about Bitcoin’s legal status. This paper examines a few relevant legal issues. The research question is to investigate how supplementary digital terminating currency Bitcoin can provide a superior fallback position as e-gold standard in Germany and worldwide. Digital self-liquidating e-Gold ounce could be distributed immediately to voters by using swipe cards used by some governments for transit facilities. Bitcoins as e-Gold ounce do not provide a viable medium of exchange because of the cost of their purchase, creation and/or exchange.

Latin America Confronts the United States: Asymmetry and Influence, by Tom Long

Reviewed by : Oliver Stuenkel, Fundacao Getulio Vargas, BrazilThe history of US-Latin American relations is, above all, shaped by the vast power asymmetry between the two, US-American dominance over its weaker neighbours in the South, and attempts by Latin American leaders to reduce the influence of the Colossus of the North. Indeed, in International Relations theory, large states are seen as decisive, while small and weak states are vulnerable and usually enjoy only limited autonomy. Most traditional analyses of the topic - ranging from Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano's famous text The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent (1971), and American scholar Lars Schoultz's Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy toward Latin America (1998), to the works of Brazilian political scientist Moniz Bandeira - use this framework and generally identify attempts by the United States to dominate or weaken Latin America, framing the latter as an object or victim.In a new book on the subject, Tom Long questions this traditional approach, examining how Latin American leaders have been able to overcome power asymmetries to influence US foreign policy. Latin America Confronts the United States explores a series of moments in post-Second World War inter-American relations - foreign economic policy before the Alliance for Progress, the negotiation of the Panama Canal Treaties, the NAFTA agreement, and the growth of counter-narcotics strategies in Colombia - to show how Latin American leaders influenced Washington's behaviour.Aside from providing detailed and engaging historical accounts of the cases above, Long makes interesting points vis-a-vis the dynamics shaping asymmetrical relations between great and weaker powers, arguing Latin America has exercised more influence in US-Latin America relations than is normally understood.Long's first case describes Brazilian president Juscelino Kubitschek's efforts during the late 1950s to rally the region to obtain more development aid from the United States - a remarkable and often overlooked example of regional cooperation at a time when ties between Brazil and its neighbours were still incipient (it took another three decades before Brazil's president Joao Figueiredo would become the country's first head of state to visit Colombia and Peru). Long says while Latin American attempts to convince President Eisenhower to finance a new Marshall Plan failed, they set the stage for Kennedy's 1961 Alliance for Progress, which aimed to establish economic cooperation between the US and Latin America.The second case, perhaps the most remarkable, explains how Omar Torrijos, dictator of one of the hemisphere's smallest countries, shrewdly used postcolonial rhetoric and international institutions to convince the United States to hand over control of the Panama Canal, something US foreign policymakers were strongly opposed to at first. Comparing Torrijos's goals in 1972 with the final treaty signed in 1977, it becomes evident Panama attained most of its objectives, Long writes. Most importantly, the treaties eliminated perpetuity. Panama began seeking a full transfer of the canal by 1995. After more than five years of negotiations, Panama's fallback position of 2000 was accepted - a remarkable concession from the 1972 US goal of perpetual defence rights, or a 90-year extension. Rejecting traditional historical accounts, which point to US president Jimmy Carter's arrival as the transformative event in the negotiations, Long argues: that the treaties figured so high on Carter's agenda was a testament to a long Panamanian struggle to put them there (110). …

Terminating Currency Options for Distressed Economies

The research question is to investigate how supplementary digital terminating currencies can provide a superior fallback position to Bitcoin in a financial crisis and/or provide a basis for rehabilitating distressed economies. Greece lost the opportunity to regain monetary sovereignty because its finance Minister believed a year would be required to introduce new notes and coins. Digital self-liquidating Euros could be distributed immediately to voters by using swipe cards used by some governments for transit facilities. Bitcoins do not provide a viable medium of exchange because of the cost of their purchase, creation and/or exchange. Self-liquidating paper based “Stamp Scrip” privately issued in Europe and the US in the Great Depression minimises the complications and cost of money creation and/or exchange. Self-liquidating money was called “Speed” money because it circulated faster. Its private issue again in Germany since 2003 demonstrate its acceptance and attraction for Governments to introduce digital Speed money.