Public Consensus Research Articles

A Flexible Cap-and-Trade Policy and Limited Demand Information Effects on a Sustainable Supply Chain

Carbon emission reduction is increasingly becoming a public consensus, with governments formulating carbon emission policies, enterprises investing in emission abatement equipment, and consumers having a low-carbon preference. On the other hand, it is difficult for industry managers to obtain all the demand information. Based on this, this paper aims to investigate operations and coordination for a sustainable system with a flexible cap-and-trade policy and limited demand information. Newsvendor and distribution-free newsvendor models are formulated to show the validity of limited information. Stackelberg game is exploited to derive optimal abatement and order quantity solutions under centralized and decentralized systems. The revenue-sharing and two-part tariff contracts are then proposed to coordinate the decentralized system with limited demand information. Numerical analyses complement the theoretical results. We list some major findings. Firstly, we discover that using abatement equipment can effectively reduce emissions and increase profits. Secondly, the distribution-free approach is effective and acceptable for a system where only mean and variance information is informed. Thirdly, the mean parameter has a greater impact on profits and emissions comparing with the other seven parameters. Finally, we show that both contracts may achieve perfect coordination, and the two-part tariff contract is more robust.

Promoting and Protecting Mental Health: A Delphi Consensus Study for Actionable Public Mental Health Messages

Purpose: Public health campaigns are still relatively rare in mental health. This paper aims to find consensus on the preventive self-management actions (i.e. “healthy behaviors”) for common mental health problems (e.g. depression and anxiety) that should be recommended in mental health campaigns directed at the general public. Approach: A 3-round Delphi study Participants: 23 international experts in mental health and 1447 members of the public, most of whom had lived experience of mental health problems. Method: The modified Delphi study combined quantitative and qualitative data collection: 1) online qualitative survey data collection thematically analyzed, 2) recommendations rated for consensus, 3) consensus items rated by public panel on a Likert scale. Results: Expert consensus was reached on 15 behaviors that individuals can engage in to sustain mental health. Eight were rated as appropriate by more than half (50%) of the public panel, including: avoiding illicit drugs (80%, n = 1154), reducing debt (72%, n = 1043), improving sleep (69%, n = 1000), regulating mood (65%, n = 941), having things to look forward to (60%, n = 869). Conclusions: A series of healthy behaviors for the promotion and protection of mental health received expert and public consensus. To our knowledge, this is the first study to offer a set of actions for public health messaging for the prevention of poor mental health. Future research should focus on evaluating effectiveness of these actions in a universal primary prevention context.

Perceiving Immigrants as a Threat: A Motivational Approach to False Consensus

False consensus, or biased projection of one’s opinion onto others, has repeatedly been described by political communication scholars as a derivative of selective exposure to attitude-consistent information. This study proposes a distinctive approach to understanding the phenomenon by suggesting “perceived threat” as a motivational factor that contributes to self-serving estimates of public opinion. Based on a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults, we test a path model in which political ideology relates to false consensus regarding the issue of immigration through cognitive assessments of communication environment and perceived immigration threat. Results suggest that the relationship between cognition and false consensus may not be direct but instead works through motivational factors when one perceives threat, and that conservatives are more sensitive to outgroup threat and thus are more likely to overestimate public consensus for their attitudes on immigration than their ideological counterparts. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Engaging with Dewey’s Valuation in Religious Education to Enhance Children’s Spirituality for Democratic Life

In this paper, we want to address how the educative growth of children’s spirituality within religious education can be better understood through Dewey’s theory of valuation. We would like to draw attention to the link between an education for authentic spirituality and the pursuit of a genuine democratic life, because education, even religious education, is always political. In doing so, we point to the urgency and importance of fostering spiritual education for children in the face of the current rise of authoritarianism throughout the world and the demise of authentic democratic life. In order for genuine democracies to survive and thrive, their citizens must be educated. Unlike indoctrination and propaganda, which control populations through manufacturing public opinion by which individuals are compelled to comply to an officially approved consensus, education is emancipatory by offering opportunity for dissensus. Emancipatory education enables individual citizens to initiate and participate in activities at the grass-roots level that pursue public and global goods, without waiting to be led by various authorities. Such an educated way of being, which is essential for democratic life, requires young people to be educated spiritually so that they are able to transcend the pressures to conform to public consensus and the will of authoritarianism, and instead to actively live their spirituality by undertaking activities that pursue the good, even when such activities are deemed to dissent from public opinion.

Problems of the labor market development in the conditions of the modern crisis (on the example of the countries of South-Eastern Europe)

The relevance of the topic under consideration is not in doubt because in modern conditions the world labor market is not stable for various reasons. And if at the present stage in this market there is a decline due to the development of the pandemic, then in the period before its occurrence there were other destabilizing factors. The purpose of the study is to consider the problems of the development of the labor market in the conditions of the current crisis (on the example of the countries of South-Eastern Europe). In the process of writing the study, comparative and analytical methods of research were used. A certain body of literature was also analyzed within the framework of the research topic. According to the results of the study, the author notes that the solution to the problem of economic development and, consequently, the improvement of labor market conditions in the countries of the region is investment and, as a result, the creation of jobs. Thus, the main task of policy makers in the South-Eastern European region is to attract more investment by creating incentives for firms to enter the market, reducing red tape, developing infrastructure, and investing in human capital to increase productivity. Even though all countries are trying to implement active labor market policies, their share of GDP is significantly lower than in other European countries. In conclusion, the author notes that significant changes in the labor markets of the SEE countries are impossible without external financial resources, but the main problem is the lack of public consensus due to constant political instability.

Modern Slavery as the New Moral Asset for the Production and Reproduction of State-Corporate Harm

The rise of the humanitarian narrative in relation to modern slavery has enabled corporations to profit from large-scale human exploitation with public consensus. Nation-states have legislated on modern slavery on the premise of protection, which has led to the entities involved evading or being exempt from responsibility for such practices by working with their suppliers to combat such practices despite evidence that their supply chains are linked to, or create further, vulnerability for workers. Other third parties praise such mechanism as transparent, reinforcing a moral consensus that is proving difficult to critique. By using the case study of the manufacture and import to Australia of medical gloves, this article unveils the perverseness of the moral, benevolent state-corporation narrative.

Legal mechanism of state regulation and provision of publicity of constitutional process in Ukraine

Problem setting. The relevance of this problem is determined by the importance of the publicity, transparency, openness, and accountability of the activity of governmental bodies and local self-government bodies in the implementation of public policy, availability, and openness of information for the citizens of Ukraine. The controversial attitude of the Ukrainian society to the reformation of public administration and a low level of public support, which is growing while the openness and transparency of the authority power bodies are increasing, should be pointed out. Constitutional changes shall be the tool for settlement of political and legal conflicts, guarantee the provision of public agreement and consensus in the society, since through constitutional changes the adjustment of the forms and methods of the state authority bodies’ activity is made.
 Recent research and publications analysis. The problem of the formation of the authority’s openness has been studied by such scientists as: A. Bukhanevych, E. Afonin, O. Babinova, I. Vasylenko, Yu. Habermas; the problems of the modern constitutional process and its reformation have been studied by such scientists as V. Bakumenko, L. Prokopenko, V. Tatsii, O. Sushynskyi, Yu. Shemshuchenko, and others.
 Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. Although the problem of the publicity of the state authority bodies has been studied to some extent, there is the understanding of the mechanism of public administration and a great number of publications regarding the constitutional process from different points of view, we still have no complex research of the legal mechanism of the state regulation and provision of the publicity of the constitutional process in Ukraine.
 Paper main body. According to the scientists, the principle of publicity of the constitutional process has several aspects. Firstly, it is the openness, that is the provision of information for the society about the planned reforms, the process of their implementation at different stages, free access of the public to the information about the content of reformation, assessment of constitutional innovations, and forecasts of the national and international expert community. For such information cannot be classified as a state secret. The second aspect of the principle of publicity determines the role of the constitutional process as the tool for the promotion of public interests – the interests of the country, people and nation, which directly correlate with the provision of the country’s sovereignty. Thus, the publicity of the constitutional process must contain three interrelated principles of proper governance – transparency, openness and accountability. It means the understanding and awareness by the society of the aims and consequences of the processes, access to the information necessary for their understanding, the possibility of participation of different groups of the society, institutions of civil society, political parties, etc. in the process of the development, change and interpretation of the constitutional norms and other legal norms according to the constitution and under the set procedure at different stages.
 The legal mechanism of state regulation and provision of the publicity of the constitutional process in Ukraine can be defined as the complex of interrelated legal means necessary and sufficient for the understanding and awareness by the society of the aims and consequences of the constitutional reforms, access to the information necessary for their understanding, the possibilities of participation of authorized subjects, different groups of the society, institutions of the civil society, political parties, etc. in the process of the development, change and interpretation of the constitutional norms or other legal norms according to the constitution and under the set procedure at different stages.
 Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. The development of the methods of public administration regarding the content of the legal mechanism of the state regulation and provision of the publicity of the constitutional process in Ukraine are in the process of formation. The formation of the methods of approaches to the understanding of the category “publicity” in the public and governance relations, determination of the constituents, stages and subjects of the Constitutional process in Ukraine, special features of its implementation, and legal support of all stages can be added to the prospect of further research in this direction.

Affective politics and online culture: Reserved’s digital marketing campaign in post-hegemonic perspective

The article employs post-hegemonic theory to reframe how power operates within online cultures. To that end, it investigates a digital marketing campaign for a Polish clothing brand, Reserved, and its reception in social media. Examining over one thousand comments on Facebook, it argues that while the initial viral success abruptly turned into public outcry, the actual response was much more varied, encompassing a multiplicity of different feelings and immediate orientations, not necessarily congruent with the backlash. In this sense, the shifting balance of power was not contingent on the emergence of a public consensus that challenged corporate hegemony, but pertained to the arrangement of affective intensities to habituate the multitude to the networked media environment. Consequently, the article approaches Reserved’s campaign and its online reception as involving a series of corporeal attunements that re-territorialized multiple and incongruent affective flows into established networked structures and corresponding relations of power.

Bad parrhesia: the limits of cynicism in the public sphere

Bad parrhesia: the limits of cynicism in the public sphere

Assessing the influence of individual factors on visual and auditory preference for rural landscape: the case of Chengdu, China

The fast pace of work life has resulted in increased attention toward the rural landscape. Most research on rural landscapes has focused on visual preferences based on public consensus, but in-depth studies assessing a broad range of individual factors influencing visual and auditory preferences are still lacking. This study assessed the influence of 6 social/demographic/health factors and 7 visit-related factors on the preference for 11 visual and auditory elements of rural environments. Visit-related factors had a more significant impact on landscape preference than social/demographical/health factors. Length of stay was the most important factor, associated with 5 visual elements and 4 sounds. Females and older people showed greater preference for biological sounds. Thus, it is necessary to pay attention to the influence of individual factors on landscape preference and strengthen the support of rural internal and external environment to people’s needs to provide more rich and satisfying experiences in rural areas.

Public Moral Discourse

Public moral discourse encompasses open discussions in which moral concepts of good and right are brought to bear on questions of public policy and on broader issues of basic rights and the goals and rules that guide social institutions. These public questions also raise practical, apologetic, and political concerns that are central to Christian ethics and moral theology. Public discourse frames legal and political understandings of religious freedom, and Christian ethics has a practical interest in ensuring that these choices do not limit Christian worship and formation or unduly restrict the institutional life of the church. Public discourse also engages apologetic theology in a moral task because the questions raised in public discourse involve conceptions of human good, human nature, and human community that have been discussed in Christian theology across the centuries. Christians have a distinctive understanding of persons in society that they hope to make effective, or at least to make understood, in a wider public discussion. Finally, public moral discourse gives rise to a moral responsibility for Christian participation in politics to create a public consensus on the creation of shared human goods.

Two-Way Risk Communication, Public Value Consensus, and Citizens’ Policy Compliance Willingness About COVID-19: Multilevel Analysis Based on a Nudge View

COVID-19 has spawned a surge in the number of public epidemic prevention policies. More important than active policy-making is how to increase citizens’ policy compliance willingness. Based on public value theory and nudge theory, this study adopts a multilevel mediation and moderation model to analyze the relationships among the government’s authoritarian control, two-way risk communication, public value consensus, nudge, and citizens’ policy compliance willingness. A sample of 2,616 citizens nested in 86 Chinese cities was collected. The study found that (a) local governments can improve citizens’ policy compliance willingness by adopting both “stick” (authoritarian control) and “sermon” (two-way risk communication) policies, whereas two-way risk communication demonstrates a uniquely positive effect on public value consensus; and (b) the effect of two-way risk communication on policy compliance willingness is mediated by public value consensus. By enhancing public value consensus, two-way risk communication helps establish consensus between citizens and the government on “what needs/needs not to be done” and “what should/should not be done” to slow down the pandemic, thus coalescing efforts in a cooperative spirit; (c) nudge intervention positively moderates the effect of two-way risk communication on public value consensus, but has no effect on the authoritarian control–policy compliance willingness relationship. In other words, nudge intervention is a better companion to “sermons,” not “sticks.” Findings of the nuanced relationship manifested the differentiated effect of authoritarian control and two-way risk communication on citizens’ policy compliance willingness during a pandemic. The results provide theoretical implications for scholars to unlock the “black box” of public values and practical implications for strategies from behavioral public administration aspects to curb the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Programs implementation prospects for the large city territories development in Russia: institutional aspect

The article shows that the development of large cities as centers and locomotives of economic growth requires efficient use of urban areas, ensuring their sustainable and balanced development. This necessitates improving the institutional framework and methodology for spatial planning. The authors note that the functioning of the institutions on which the rational land use in large cities depends does not meet modern requirements, primarily in the field of integrated sustainable territorial development (ISTD). The article analyzes the experience of St. Petersburg in the urban areas‘ development aspect, which made it possible to identify the main problems, including the lack of public consensus on the choice of territories for the programs‘ implementation. ISTD and insufficiently active participation of the city in the implementation of these programs, especially in terms of engineering infrastructure Preparation. Analysis of literature and practice in the study area showed the need to improve the mechanism for the formation and implementation of programs for the territorial development in large cities, the development of real estate market institutions, rules and regulations related to ISTD. The article presents the recommendations of the authors, to a certain extent filling the existing gaps. The author‘s definition of the “depressed territory” concept is proposed (to solve the problem of choosing the territories for ISTD), substantiated the need to form a unified city program for ISTD project development with their introduction into the General Plan of the city development, as well as the use of the economic-spatial model of the developed territory to determine the possible effect of its development and the costs necessary to obtain it. The article proposes a unified methodological basis for the territorial development programs‘ formation and implementation. The recommended methodological approach is aimed at improving the analysis and assessment quality oof development programs for the territories in a megapolis, at ensuring the effective use of urban land.

Communication strategies in the public political space of Russia: from integration to protest

The article is devoted to the analysis of communication strategies of various political actors in the public space of Russia, as well as the conceptual understanding of integration and protest moods in Russian society. The research problem is to clarify the optimal strategies for the communicative interaction of various subjects of the political process, including society and the authorities in the process of implementing public policy. Special attention is paid to the interpretation of the integration and protest moods of the population of the Russian Federation in the conditions of constant transformations of the Russian political system. The methodological basis of the study was the basic provisions of political communication studies, as well as a non-institutional paradigm according to which the communication process is presented in the form of multidimensional interactions influenced by formal and informal factors of public policy implementation.The research is aimed at conceptualizing mass communication in the context of achieving public consensus. Quantitative content analysis of strategies of socio-economic development of the regions of the Russian Federation, as well as statistical analysis of secondary empirical data of Russian sociological centers were used as special methods. In the course of the study, the conditions for the functioning of public policy determining the variability of communication strategies are determined, consisting both in the regulatory differences in the involvement of various public institutions and in the uncertainty of the actions of communication subjects to achieve public consent. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that, based on the results of empirical research, three strategies of communication and institutional interaction between various subjects of the domestic political process are proposed, taking into account their socio-psychological attitudes: "integration dialog interaction", "separate coexistence", "patron-client relations".

북한 헌법에 대한 이해와 새로운 통일교육

북한 헌법에 대한 이해와 새로운 통일교육

Anti-crisis resource of memory policy in Ukraine

The proposed article considers the politics of memory as a tool for overcoming crises in contemporary Ukrainian society. In an open information society, memory is a resource of social dialogue, which provides the construction of a conventional grand narrative, multilateral communication of different groups and segments of the population, the search for opportunities for understanding and reconciliation. There is still no general public consensus in Ukraine on the „alien”, anti-Ukrainian nature of imperial and communist power imposed from outside. Political discussions continue on the interpretation of the Russian imperial and totalitarian Soviet past between the bearers of different conflicting models of memory – neo-Soviet, national-state and liberal. In the post-Maidan period, Ukrainian society is testing a wide range of mnemonic tools of historical policy related to the realities of hybrid warfare and the need to change the emphasis in the language of memory. Decommunization has become an essential step towards the dialogic practices of commemoration and departure from the speculative verbal-symbolic arsenal of post-truth. The implementation of new accents of memory policy is organically connected with digital mobility, which provides alternative platforms of mnemonic practices and expands the possibilities of recalling, remembering, reassessing the events of the past in virtual communicative discourse. The author substantiates the thesis about the ambivalence of memory policy in Ukraine, argues that the Russian cultural and informational influence negatively affects the processes of implementation of constructive directions of memory policy in Ukraine, the establishment of national dialogue. Key words: memory policy, social dialogue, hybrid war, commemoration, postmemory, post-truth, digital mobility.

Robust Naïve Learning in Social Networks

We study a model of opinion exchange in social networks where a state of the world is realized and every agent receives a zero-mean noisy signal of the realized state. It is known from Golub and Jackson that under the DeGroot dynamics agents reach a consensus which is close to the state of the world when the network is large. The DeGroot dynamics, however, is highly non-robust and the presence of a single `bot' that does not adhere to the updating rule, can sway the public consensus to any other value.

National Consciousness as a Factor of the Socio-Economic Development of Russia in the 17th — 19th Centuries

Capitalist relations in Russia emerged and developed in the 17th — 19th centuries. These relations were superimposed on the specific features of the public consensus that was achieved in 16th century and predetermined the particularities of the national socio-economic model. The origins of this model goes back to the religious and ethical discourse of the 15th century, as well as to the understanding of the foundations and nature of Russian statehood of the 15th — 16th centuries. All these features led to the formation of certain attributes of national consciousness and had a significant impact on the nature of socio-economic institutions. The humanistic values of the Russian Middle Ages had arisen out of Orthodoxy. The collective humanism of the state and its religious and ethical mission gave a minor role to the development of individualistic principles, which, on the contrary, were of great significance in Western Europe. This article shows a set of historical and spiritual factors that have played an important role in the formation of specific national consciousness characteristics. The authors make an attempt to analyze the influence of such factors on the nature of the national socio-economic model and its development in Russia in the 16th — 19th centuries. The article proposes an original concept according to which, in the course of the historical development of Russia, the most important economic categories (property, wealth, labor, capital, economic activity) obtained not only an economic, but also a kind of ethical interpretation, that is, they can be considered both as economic concepts and as cultural and moral phenomena. The methods of identifying historical and spiritual dominant factors that influenced the formation of the Russian socio-economic model give new opportunities to study national peculiarities. These methods allow clarifying the historical and cultural institutional potential for creating an effective economic policy in Russia and other countries.

Государство и общественный выбор: контуры посткоронавирусной реальности

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed fundamental problems in the functioning of national societies, which require intensive scientific research. COVID-19 predetermined the growing importance of political and economic approaches to the interpretation of basic principles of the functioning of future post-coronavirus reality. The societal crisis, which has been a consequence of the ineffectiveness of the state in preventing extreme threats to the life and health of citizens such as COVID-19, has actualized the “new normal” problem, which is being actively discussed by experts from international research and practical organizations. The post-coronavirus reality will begin to form after the COVID-19 pandemic and will be based on different principles. The author interprets it in the context of restoring the societal integrity of national communities under the following conditions: (1) reorientation of formal institutions at the state's disposal towards the priority of human-centred principles in order to restore public consensus, trust in the government and its policies; (2) aggregation of public choice, taking into account, first of all, the preferences and values of households (ordinary citizens), which will minimize its distortion in the future; (3) raising the state's expert functions on the example of adequate institutionalization of conditions for eliminating the negative consequences of the societal crisis. The author stresses the importance of rethinking the phenomenon of partnership between the state and private business as a means of improving the quality of the state's aggregation of public choice, assessing the effectiveness of alternative options for the institutional structure of the new reality, adjusting the functions of the state in relation to a society with universal values at its core, taking into account the realities of the post-coronavirus world. To test the obtained results, the author offers a model of an “institutional matrix” that can be used to institutionalize a mutually-beneficial partnership between the state and private business in order to minimize the uncertainty of post-coronavirus reality (“new normal”).

Політична легітимність в умовах трансформації цифрових комунікацій

The article reviews the trends in the development of network communications and converged media during the Covid-19 pandemic aiming at determining their impact on the legitimization of political institutions and the formation of a new world order. The conclusions are based on the analysis of the new forms and channels of communication in networks, including messengers and Tik Tok. The author assumes that the further digitalization of communication networks is accompanied by a simultaneous decrease in public confidence in the communicative action due to infodemic and intentional exclusion of certain groups of people. The article reviews the swipe culture of information consumption and its influence on the formation of discourses. There is a trend of restricting freedom of communication through artificial intelligence and social network algorithms. As a result, users seek more privacy and switch to secure channels of communication, which does not promote search for public consensus and legitimization of political institutions. The concept of digital anomie is proposed, which is a prerequisite for the intensification of protest movements around the world. The peculiarities of the use of networks during such protests in 2020-2021 and the attempts of national governments to control communication are analyzed. The author concludes that no subject, including national governments, technology giants, individual actors or audiences are able to control relations of power in networks. This reduces the strategic potential of political institutions as major players in the world order, further weakening their influence on key issues of world politics to the point of losing the subjectivity of politics as such. The search for the legitimization ways of political institutions within the above trends is the subject of the further scientific research of the author.