Normative Dimensions Research Articles

Critique and expansion of conceptions of control

AbstractNeil Fligstein's Conceptions of control have multiple theoretical origins in the institutional, political, and cultural perspectives of the new economic sociology. However, conceptions of control as a key concept of market structure have not systematically been formulated in Fligstein's works, remaining insightfully but relatively fragmentally. This paper summarizes the normative, power, and cognitive dimensions of conceptions of control, respectively corresponding to market agreement, dominant relationship and common understanding. On this basis, this paper provides a clear definition of conceptions of control. Additionally, this paper summarizes the formation of the conceptions of control and its change, distinguishes the differences between conceptions of control and other related concepts, and presents the evolution of the concept that has taken place in subsequent studies, as well as the criticisms to which it has been subjected. This paper suggests that this concept needs to be expanded in terms of the connotation of market actors, the role of government, and the forms of existence. Conceptions of control provide a concise conceptual tool for analyzing market transformation. We believe that the market changes triggered by the new business formats in the digital economy era will be more frequent, and conception of control will have a broader application prospect.

Strategy Is Only Partly an Illusion: “Relative Foresight” as an Objective Standard for Evaluating Foreign Policy Competence

Abstract Foreign policymakers must grapple with complexity, uncertainty, and subjectivity. These challenges raise the possibility that “strategy is an illusion”: that there is no reliable method for assessing skill at managing international politics. By contrast, we show that researchers can objectively evaluate a critical component of foreign policy competence using a standard we call “relative foresight,” defined as decision-makers’ ability to anticipate consequences of their choices as compared to alternative views based on similar information. Relative foresight can be measured without relying on value judgments or subjective probabilities. By contrast, other common frameworks for gauging foreign policy competence, such as comparing leaders’ behavior to the rational actor model or assessing procedural rationality, almost always leave room for reasonable disagreement. We demonstrate that relative foresight provides a useful tool for evaluating major foreign policy choices through case studies of Barack Obama’s decisions regarding the Afghan Surge and the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound. Our framework has broad implications for research on normative, prescriptive, and descriptive dimensions of foreign policy analysis.

Journalism Between Science and Development—A Decolonised and Dewesternised Normative Framework

ABSTRACT This introductory paper will (a) review the intersection between science, journalism and development from a historical perspective, (b) propose normative directions for science journalism of the Global South, (c) contrast that normative framework with the rather weak state of science journalism across the South, (d) identify potential solutions to current problems, and (e) propose a research agenda for the future. Throughout, I will advance a framework of theoretical and practical principles to transform the science–journalism–development relationship in the Global South, which entails four normative dimensions: glocalisation, decolonisation, indigenisation and dewesternisation.

Promising the future, encoding the past: AI hype and public media imagery

In recent years, “AI hype” has taken over public media, oscillating between sensationalism and concerns about the societal implications of AI growth. The latest historical wave of AI hype indexes a period of increased research, investment, and speculation on machine learning, centred around generative AI, a novel class of machine learning that can generate original media from textual prompts. In this paper, I dive into the production of AI hype in online media, with the aim of prioritising the normative and political dimension of AI hype. Formulating AI as a promise reframes it as a normative project, centrally involving the formation of public and institutional confidence in the technology. The production and dissemination of images, in this context, plays a pivotal role in reinforcing these normative commitments to the public. My argument is divided into four sections. First, I examine the political relevance of stock images as the dominant imagery used to convey AI concepts to the public. These stock images encode specific readings of AI and circulate through public media, significantly influencing perceptions. Second, I look at the dominant images of AI as matters of political concern. Third, as generative AI increasingly contributes to the production of stock imagery, I compare the epistemic work performed by AI-generated outputs and stock images, as both encode style, content, and taxonomic structures of the world. I employ an entity relationship diagram (ERD) to investigate the political economy of AI imagery in digital media, providing a snapshot of how AI hype is materialised and amplified online. With this study, I reaffirm AI’s normative character at the forefront of its political and ethical discourse.

The pragmatic view on dual character concepts and expressions

This article introduces a new pragmatic framework for dual character concepts and their expressions, offering an alternative to the received lexical‐semantic view. On the prevalent lexical‐semantic view, expressions such as “philosopher” or “scientist” are construed as lexical polysemes, comprising both a descriptive and a normative dimension. Thereby, this view prioritizes established norms, neglecting normative expressions emerging in specific contexts. In contrast, the pragmatic view integrates pragmatic modulation as a central element in explaining context‐dependent dual character concepts and expressions. This not only accounts for a wider range of phenomena but also addresses several theoretical shortcomings of the lexical view.

Registering births: What’s care got to do with it?

ABSTRACT This article sheds light on the normative dimension of birth registration and explores how birth registration practices intertwine with traditional notions of child care. It shows that, while birth registration may appear a straightforward and factual procedure, it actually rests upon and perpetuates the notion that care ‘naturally’ stems from gestation and birth, and is by definition maternal. This normative dimension of birth registration becomes especially apparent when trans families and families created through surrogacy are denied registration in line with their lived experience. By delving into two case studies, namely the Swiss Federal Supreme Court’s latest case-law on surrogacy and recent cases involving trans birthing men, this article shows that birth registration practices fail to recognise caring relationships in non-traditional families on their own terms. In the context of surrogacy, the understanding of care as ‘naturally’ arising from gestation and birth downgrades the relationship between the child and the intended mother by requiring her to pursue step-child adoption, despite having cared for the child since birth and sometimes being genetically connected. In a similar vein, birth registration practices tend to (mis)classify a caring relationship between a trans birthing man and his child as ‘mother-child’, thus rendering trans male care invisible.

Mind the Gap: Defining Urban Resilience Knowledge-Implementation Gaps

Background: As the use of the term urban resilience has gathered momentum, its meaning has diverged from a clear academic concept toward fuzzy and increasingly vague definitions that seek to address the normative dimensions of resilience for whom, of what, and for when. While the academic discourse is putting forward theoretical advances in the conceptualization of resilience, there is growing concern that, in practice, the term is being co-opted as a mechanism for implementing policies that support business as usual. Methods: This paper identifies current urban resilience knowledge-implementation gaps and how they occur. It does so through a systematic literature review and 21 semi-structured interviews with mid-career urban resilience professionals (researchers, practitioners, policymakers). Results and conclusions: The findings point to five types of gaps: definitional, epistemic, multiscalar, methodological, and values gaps. Because the increased concern for how urban resilience knowledge production systems operate and the operationalization barriers they create are a relatively recent issue, there is a pressing need not only to identify them but to explore how they can be addressed. The paper concludes by putting forward potential next steps to address the identified gaps through transdisciplinarity: fostering skills and capabilities for systemic approaches at individual, team, and organizational levels and facilitating inter- and intra-organizational learning through communities of practice.

다차원 분석모형을 활용한 디지털교과서 정책 분석

This study aims to provide policy implications for the effective implementation of AI digital textbooks, which are scheduled to be fully introduced in 2025. To this end, the digital textbook policy changes from the late 1990s to the present were comprehensively analyzed using the multi-dimensional educational policy analysis framework by Cooper, Fusarelli & Randall (2004). The analysis revealed that, in the normative dimension, digital textbook policy can be seen as a tool for transforming future education, with varying detailed strategies over time. In the structural dimension, laws and systems related to digital textbooks have become more flexible and improved. In the constitutive dimension, the policy was implemented under the government, supported by provincial education offices, schools, and related institutions, with recent increases in private sector participation. In the technical dimension, the emphasis has been on enhancing teacher competencies from the inception of the policy, shifting from a focus on technology use to high-touch, high-tech capabilities for educational innovation. Based on the analysis, four main implications were derived. First, it is essential to clearly set the values and goals of the digital textbook policy and form a consensus among stakeholders. Second, the continuous improvement of flexible laws and systems is necessary to facilitate the implementation of digital textbooks. Third, establishing a monitoring system for role division and collaboration among the government, related institutions, educational offices, schools, and private companies is crucial. Fourth, enhancing teacher competencies and fostering students’ digital literacy are essential for realizing high-touch, high-tech education.

Navigating tensions: A critical policy analysis of expectations for English educators in Georgia

We compare the institutional standards and expectations for English language arts (ELA) educators from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the leading professional organization in this field, and the state of Georgia. By conducting a critical policy analysis of documents from NCTE and the Georgia Department of Education (GADoE) we sought to understand the tension between standards set for training English education students in institutions of higher education and the standards those teachers would be required to use in Georgia K-12 schools. We analyze these documents through Cooper et al.’s (2004) policy analysis framework, which questions the normative, structural, constituent, and technical dimensions of policy development. We found that the ideological beliefs and values embedded in the policies and documents from NCTE and GADoE have developed divergent sets of expectations for ELA teachers in Georgia, particularly around how teachers respond to oppression in our society; how we understand the overall purpose of ELA instruction; and the scope of responsibilities for educators. We end by presenting implications for educators working among these two sets of policies, in recognizing where these expectations may overlap as well as diverge.

Regelfolgen und Normativität: Ansätze einer transzendentalen Semantik

Wittgenstein's discussion of rule-following can be considered as a part of his criticism of metaphysics: Naturalistic as well as non-naturalistic ontologies fail to present us an adequate explanation of the normative dimension of linguistic behavior. In this paper, we will reconstruct this criticism of metaphysics and show that thereby we gain an important philosophical insight: Wittgenstein's criticism implies that the normativity of language is not a phenomenon that stands in need for an explanation but rather – to the contrary – has to be considered as a primitive, non-reducible condition that we have to presuppose in order to show how linguistic meaning is possible at all. In this sense, the notion of rule-following gives rise to a transcendental semantics.

Democracy and Breach of Contract Risk: An Assessment of How Different Dimensions of Democracy Weigh on Postcolonial States

ABSTRACT This article compares different measures of democracy to determine how they impact breach of contract risk, especially in postcolonial states that are more likely to suffer from neopatrimonialism with their imported state apparatus. By demonstrating how the normative measure of democracy, which emphasises respect for civil liberties, is more impactful in reducing breach of contract risk than the procedural measure that emphasises institutions, this article highlights the nonoptimal consequences of institutionalised democratisation without the normative dimension. The main findings are that while there is significant variation between the normative and procedural measures of democracy, it is increases in the normative measure of democracy that better promote accountability and the rule of law, thereby more effectively reducing breach of contract risk. We conclude that democratic norms must parallel progress in democratic form so to enable better (lower) breach of contract risk.

Public space democracy: performative, visual and normative dimensions of politics in a global age

Public space democracy: performative, visual and normative dimensions of politics in a global age

Investigating the Relationship between University Environment and Female Student’s Entrepreneurial Thinking in Algeria

Investigating the Relationship between University Environment and Female Student’s Entrepreneurial Thinking in Algeria

Institution or Individuality? Some Reflections on the Lessons To Be Learned From Personal Accounts of Recovery From Schizophrenia

Abstract: In this paper, I argue for a social conception of subjectivity, via a philosophical reading of first-person accounts of recovery from schizophrenia, published in the Schizophrenia Bulletin . Following the hypothesis that these accounts exemplify a more general tension between, on the one hand, normative and social dimensions of the self, and on the other, experiential and psychological dimensions, the first section of the paper formulates the problem from a philosophical perspective inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein's grammatical approach. The second section explores and rejects different possible readings (sociologistic, phenomenological, or narrativist readings), as conceiving the subject in too passive a relationship with him or herself, and as leading to overly skeptical conclusions about the claims in the first-person accounts insisting on the notion of recovery as a restoration of a sense of self and as empowerment. The third section suggests that a more positive answer can be given via the idea of a certain grammar of recovery governing these narratives, and sketches out how this relates to the more general philosophical question on subjectivity.

Impact of multi-dimensional religiosity on party support in Poland

This article delves into the profound implications of multi-dimensional religiosity on political party support, with a special focus on the case of Poland (N = 1203). In a society undergoing a transformative journey towards secularism and progressiveness, the traditional role of religiosity in shaping political attitudes has been reevaluated. In order to check the impact of religiosity, binomial logistic regression models were conducted. In the study, combined Wave 7 World Value Survey and European Value Study database was used. With the obtained results, a significant role of normative religiosity was detected. The results do not confirm conclusions discussed by other leading authors in Poland, who use other models and indicators of religiosity. The proposed study provokes and encourages for change in the methodological approach in building party-support models in Poland by including and measuring the normative dimension of religiosity as the leading source of individual party support motivation, discarding thus more traditional ritualistic behaviour measuring.

PERAN HUKUM ADAT DAN HUKUM ISLAM DALAM HUKUM PERDATA DI INDONESIA

The character of customary law and Islamic law on Indonesian civil law provides a rich backdrop for the cultural and religious values that form the country’s legal framework. Customary law, with roots in local traditions, presents local wisdom principles integrated into civil regulations, while Islamic law provides a deep normative dimension based on religious teachings. These two systems contribute to civil law in Indonesia, creating a unique and complex legal foundation that combines cultural heritage and religious values.

Working with epistemic uncertainties: Emerging entanglements within conditional reimbursement practices

ObjectivesHTA agencies are experimenting with conditional reimbursement approaches allowing greater flexibility to cope with epistemic uncertainties generated by new health technologies and pharmaceuticals lacking evidence. While some research into promises and effects of conditional reimbursement is conducted, little empirical research investigates how such policies play out in practice. In this paper, we analyze two cases of conditional reimbursement in the Netherlands. MethodsCase studies were purposively selected. We conducted document analysis combined with semi-structured in-depth interviews (n = 28). We analyzed both case studies together through initial thematic analysis and additional abductive analysis. Results were verified through data triangulation. We performed a member check in which we presented our preliminary analysis during a reflection meeting with key stakeholders. ResultsWe identified three tensions in the practices of CED-schemes: proceduralism versus improvisation, steering professionals versus providing leeway, involving patients as data subjects versus legitimate stakeholders. These tensions explicate several sources of epistemic uncertainties that extend beyond methodological and more well-known socio-political pressures such as from industry on regular reimbursement decision-making process. We note the importance of improvisation work, of normative considerations, and of epistemic hierarchies. ConclusionsWe postulate that the emerging uncertainties within the practice of CED-schemes are to an extent unavoidable as they emerge from the necessarily interactive and normative nature of human relations. We conceptualize this with the notion of ‘epistemic entanglements’, which highlights how normative and scientific dimensions are interwoven in reimbursement decisions. As epistemic uncertainties are difficult to reduce and tame in practice the need for a more reflexive and inclusive approach to conditional reimbursement decision-making becomes apparent. Public interest abstractNew technologies and personalized medicines can have great health benefits for patients, but often not enough knowledge is available to assess whether these innovations live up to their expectations. At the same time, despite this uncertainty, governments need to make a decision about whether or not to reimburse these innovations. Many countries are experimenting with forms of conditional reimbursement: temporarily reimbursement of technologies until more evidence is collected regarding (cost-)effectiveness in practice. Although much literature addresses potential benefits and drawbacks of conditional reimbursement policies, few studies look into how such policies play out in practice. In our research we study two examples of conditional reimbursement practices. We show conditional reimbursement practices lead to three new tensions. We conclude that HTA agencies would benefit from approaches that recognize that evidence-development and normative considerations are intertwined.

The Perceived Fit Between Music and Movement: A Multisensory Account of Dance as a Novel Feature Type

Abstract Whether you are a sophisticated critic or an untrained spectator, when it comes to our experience of dance, we are generally able to appreciate the way a dancer’s bodily movements fit the music. Our experience of dance thus lends itself to a range of crossmodal judgments, that is, our perception of dance enables us to make claims that purport to be about how bodily movements which can be visually seen fit together with aspects of the music which can be heard or felt. But we are not determined to perceive every case of fit unproblematically. That it is possible one may fail to initially perceive a fit that others claim ought to be viewable suggests that there is a normative dimension to this phenomenon. In this article, I argue that we can explain the source of this normativity with a multisensory account of dance. More specifically, I argue that dance is a novel feature type, a feature of perceptual experience that is essentially multimodal. The basic perception of dance, which grounds more sophisticated forms of judgment concerning crossmodal fit downstream, is the actualization of a unique multisensory capacity that non-inferentially tracks a real, fundamental connection between music and movement.

Intergenerational solidarity in a developing welfare state: The case of South Korea

AbstractWith our analysis of the Korean society we intend to make an innovative contribution to research on intergenerational solidarity by examining how the introduction of welfare policies has changed patterns of intergenerational solidarity. Using aggregated data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging, the Korean General Social Survey, and the Korean Social Survey, we examine the changing character of intergenerational solidarity by focusing on national trends in both societal practice and intergenerational norms from 2002 to 2018. Our findings show that patterns of Korean intergenerational solidarity have modified in various respects. The normative dimension of the familial/filial contract has profoundly changed along with the developing welfare state, shifting from a dominantly filial piety‐centric character to more complementarity contract‐based norms in which children, welfare state and society are all assigned responsibility for the well‐being of parents. Intergenerational “functional” solidarity, however, in terms of the exchange of money and practical support has not de‐filialized.

Analytical framework for institutional power orientation towards earthquake resilience: A case study on urban development policies in Karaj, Iran

The concept of urban resilience, originating from ecological sciences, poses challenges in its introduction and explanation as an objective and approach in urban planning. Expanding the social and normative dimensions of urban resilience is challenging due to its conservative and non-political ecological background. Critically, the reductionist approach and depoliticization of urban resilience in planning are significant concerns. This paper addresses the analysis of institutional power orientations in defining the concept of urban resilience and targeting its achievement. According to this purpose, this paper provides a theoretical framework for analyzing institutional power orientations towards earthquake resilience, developed in two primary parts, as the main novelty and contribution of the proposed research. The city of Karaj is selected as a case study to test this framework. The research methodology involves a triple analysis of epistemology, ontology, and axiology of resilience from institutional power point of view, utilizing qualitative content analysis, semi-structured interviews, and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) questionnaire. In conclusion, emphasizing the importance of exploring the logical connection between ideas, the need for attention, and analyzing decision-taking processes is highlighted based on the research findings.