Public Endorsement Research Articles

Asymmetry in Empowering and Disempowering Private Intermediaries

This article analyzes the empowerment and disempowerment of credit rating agencies (CRAs) as private regulatory intermediaries. Until the recent financial crisis, regulators heavily relied on private credit ratings to impose risk-sensitive requirements on financial market actors (targets). Regulatory use of credit ratings was instrumental in empowering CRAs because regulatory authority was delegated to them and their own private power was bolstered by public endorsement. But regulators’ subsequent efforts to disempower the CRAs—more recently regarded as dysfunctional “runaway” intermediaries—have proven costly, complicated to do, and hardly consequential in limiting CRAs’ de facto power. This dynamic reveals a path-dependent power shift in favor of private intermediaries that is more pronounced (1) the larger the intermediary’s own sources of power when an RIT arrangement is established, (2) the larger the transfer of authority to the intermediary, and (3) the longer regulators rely on the intermediary.

Public challenge and endorsement of sex category ambiguity in online debate: 'The sooner people stop thinking that gender is a matter of choice the better'.

Despite academic feminist debate over several decades, the binary nature of sex as a (perhaps the) primary social classification is often taken for granted, as is the assumption that individuals can be unproblematically assigned a biological sex at birth. This article presents analysis of online debate on the BBC news website in November 2013, comprising 864 readers' responses to an article entitled ‘Germany allows ‘indeterminate’ gender at birth’. It explores how discourse reflecting Western essentialist beliefs about people having one sex or ‘the other’ is maintained in debates conducted in this online public space. Comments were coded thematically and are presented under five sub‐headings: overall evaluation of the German law; discussing and disputing statistics and ‘facts’; binary categorisations; religion and politics; and ‘conversations’ and threads. Although for many the mapping of binary sex onto gender was unquestionable, this view was strongly disputed by commentators who questioned the meanings of ‘natural’ and ‘normal’, raised the possibility of removing societal binary male‐female distinctions or saw maleness–femaleness as a continuum. While recognising that online commentators are anonymous and can control their self‐presentation, this animated discussion suggests that social classifications as male or female, even if questioned, remain fundamental in public debate in the early 21st century.

Rawls, self-respect, and assurance

This article adapts John Rawls’s writings, arguing that past injustice can change what we ought to publicly affirm as the standard of justice today. My approach differs from forward-looking approaches based on alleviating prospective disadvantage and backward-looking historical entitlement approaches. In different contexts, Rawls’s own concern for the ‘social bases of self-respect’ and equal citizenship may require public endorsement of different principles or specifications of the standard of justice. Rawls’s difference principle focuses on the least advantaged socioeconomic group. I argue that a historicized difference principle (i) considers the relative standing of racial, gender, and other historically stigmatized groups; (ii) provides their members assurance by weakening incentives to manipulate justice to another group’s advantage; and (iii) may result in policies resembling reparations, though justified by forward-looking considerations of self-respect and public assurance. I then examine how disrespectful justifications were historically used to forcibly include indigenous peoples as citizens. While Rawls thinks providing citizens one package of basic liberties signals respect, indigenous self-government could better support self-respect. I invoke Rawlsian international justice, which calls for mutual respect between peoples. Indigenous peoples’ status should reflect their past and persisting peoplehood, providing assurance by weakening incentives to unjustly transform international into domestic contexts.

Introduction: The 2030 Agenda

This introduction notes the contributions of authors to the second (final) issue of the Journal of Global Ethics 2015 Sustainable Development Goals Forum. It briefly explains the process through which the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have developed from their receipt in 2014 to their passage in September 2015 by the UN General Assembly, and it considers their development in prospect. The Millennium Development Goals, which spanned 1990–2015, present a case study that reveals the changeability of such long-term multilateral commitments. They were enmeshed in overlapping and inconsistent national and intergovernmental commitments reaching from 1995 to 2005, and the text of those goals also evolved, stabilizing for the last time in 2007. The SDGs and attendant commitments should be expected to evolve similarly over their 15-year run. This presents a concern, for among the three committees established by the UN to create the goals, the two committees charged with public consultation were retired as planned in 2014. The process evident thereafter has displayed a shift towards a strategy of enrolling broad public endorsement that leaves such consultation and specific responsibility to those consulted in doubt. This bodes ill for public deliberation on the goals and for public accountability as the agenda proceeds towards 2030.

The conspiracy-effect: Exposure to conspiracy theories (about global warming) decreases pro-social behavior and science acceptance

Although public endorsement of conspiracy theories is growing, the potentially negative societal consequences of widespread conspiracy ideation remain unclear. While past studies have mainly examined the personality correlates of conspiracy ideation, this study examines the conspiracy-effect; the extent to which exposure to an actual conspiracy theory influences pro-social and environmental decision-making. Participants (N=316) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions; (a) a brief conspiracy video about global warming, (b) an inspirational pro-climate video or (c) a control group. Results indicate that those participants who were exposed to the conspiracy video were significantly less likely to think that there is widespread scientific agreement on human-caused climate change, less likely to sign a petition to help reduce global warming and less likely to donate or volunteer for a charity in the next six months. These results strongly point to the socio-cognitive potency of conspiracies and highlight that exposure to popular conspiracy theories can have negative and undesirable societal consequences.

The Right to Self-determination as a Claim to Independence in International Practice

This paper examines responses of states and intergovernmental organizations to the claims of independent statehood grounded in the right to self-determination. Virtually all assertions of independence invoke this right and it is highly probable that this long-standing global trend will continue. At the same time, only a relatively limited number of them are supported externally, either in the form of widespread public endorsement or outright recognition of a new state. This paper argues that there has been a clear prevailing international practice for more than five decades. On the one hand, international society has accepted self-determination claims to independence put forward by colonies and by non-colonial entities that obtained assent of their parent states. On the other hand, it has opposed claims set forth by non-colonial entities against the will of their parent states unilaterally. However, countries have been unable to maintain complete consistency and, in recent years, great powers found themselves at profound odds over a number of cases. These differences have led, and have a future potential to lead, to various forms of international conflict.

Is it all about awareness? The normalization of coastal risk

Coastal risk is already high in several parts of the world and is expected to be amplified by climate change, which makes it necessary to outline effective risk management strategies. Risk managers assume that increasing awareness of coastal risk is the key to public support and endorsement of risk management strategies – an assumption that underlies a common worldview on the public understanding of science, which has been named the deficit model. We argue that the effects of awareness are not as straightforward. In particular, awareness of coastal hazards might not lead to more technically accurate risk perceptions. Based on research on risk perception normalization, we explored the hypothesis that coastal risk awareness reduces coastal risk perception – in particular the perceived likelihood of occurrence of coastal hazards – through its effect on reliance on protective measures to prevent risk. Individuals can rely on protective measures, even when those are not effective, as a positive illusion to reduce risk perception. This effect might be stronger for higher probability hazards and for permanent residents of costal zones. Data from 410 individuals living in coastal zones corroborated most of our expectations. Global results demonstrated a risk normalization effect mediated by reliance on current measures. Additional analyses made clear that this effect occurred in 2 of the 5 high-probability hazards (flood and storm), and not in the low-probability hazard (tsunami). Normalization might be more likely among high-probability hazards which entail catastrophic and immediate impacts. This effect was also found among permanent residents, but not among temporary residents. Results imply that coastal risk management might benefit from (a) taking risk perception normalization effects into account, (b) tailoring strategies for permanent and temporary residents and (c) promoting a higher public engagement, which would facilitate a more adaptive and effective coping with coastal risk than the use of positive illusions.

Hand in hand: public endorsement of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

This research investigated how an individual’s endorsements of mitigation and adaptation relate to each other, and how well each of these can be accounted for by relevant social psychological factors. Based on survey data from two European convenience samples (N = 616 / 309) we found that public endorsements of mitigation and adaptation are strongly associated: Someone who is willing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation) is also willing to prepare for climate change impacts (adaptation). Moreover, people endorsed the two response strategies for similar reasons: People who believe that climate change is real and dangerous, who have positive attitudes about protecting the environment and the climate, and who perceive climate change as a risk, are willing to respond to climate change. Furthermore, distinguishing between (spatially) proximal and distant risk perceptions suggested that the idea of portraying climate change as a proximal (i.e., local) threat might indeed be effective in promoting personal actions. However, to gain endorsement of broader societal initiatives such as policy support, it seems advisable to turn to the distant risks of climate change. The notion that “localising” climate change might not be the panacea for engaging people in this domain is discussed in regard to previous theory and research.

Unpopular Policies and the Imperative of Justification: Putting the Monti Government’s Reform Communication in a Comparative Perspective

Governments’ policy organization and communication, treated as an independent variable, has been shown to increase the public endorsement of unpopular reforms and to help to avoid blame. This study aims to shed further light on such strategic action from a largely neglected angle. It considers reform communication as a dependent variable and makes the case that the content of this communication does not so much depend upon blame avoidance motives but is primarily a function of contextual factors conditioning the limits and resources for a convincing communication. Using the Italian Monti government as a case where blame avoidance can be expected to be least likely, the analysis nonetheless shows clear features that resemble blame avoidance strategies for this case, namely a pronounced risk framing and justifications based on political cooperation. This communication can however, it is argued, be made plausible in light of political-institutional, political-cultural and economic circumstances.

Oxytocin Receptor (OXTR) Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Indirectly Predict Prosocial Behavior Through Perspective Taking and Empathic Concern.

Engaging in prosocial behavior can provide positive outcomes for self and others. Prosocial tendencies contribute to the propensity to engage in prosocial behavior. The oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) has also been associated with prosocial tendencies and behaviors. There has been little research, however, investigating whether the relationship between OXTR and prosocial behaviors is mediated by prosocial tendencies. This relationship may also vary among different types of prosocial behavior. The current study examines the relationship between OXTR, gender, prosocial tendencies, and both altruistic and public prosocial behavior endorsement. Students at a midwestern university (N = 398; 89.2% Caucasian; Mage = 20.76; 26.6% male) provided self-report measures of prosocial tendencies and behaviors and buccal cells for genotyping OXTR polymorphisms. Results indicated that OXTR single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs2268498 genotype significantly predicted empathic concern, whereas gender moderated the association between several other OXTR SNPs and prosocial tendencies. Increased prosocial tendencies predicted increased altruistic prosocial behavior endorsement and decreased public prosocial behavior endorsement. Our findings suggest an association between genetic variation in OXTR and endorsement of prosocial behavior indirectly through prosocial tendencies, and that the pathway is dependent on the type of prosocial behavior and gender.

After ‘Security First’: An Analysis of Security Transition and ‘Statebuilding’ in the West Bank 2007-11

The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) imposition of order after the end of the al-Aqsa Intifada has been generally interpreted as a success. Not only did the PA consolidate its power in the West Bank and restore good relations with Israel and the West, it also appeared to obtain popular legitimacy by cracking down on its political opponents. This paper discusses the impact of the PA’s imposition of order in Nablus, a town which had endured lawlessness and disorder under an Israeli siege (2001-7) and had been the focus of the PA’s security agenda. It argues that, though the PA’s security agenda initially enjoyed popular consent, this does not demonstrate public endorsement of the PA’s legitimacy. Rather the consent that such measures produced was superficial and, in the long term, the acceleration of the PA’s shift towards authoritarianism is likely to be profoundly debilitating for Palestinian society in general.

Reducing overreliance on credit ratings: failing strategies and the need to start from scratch

In 2010 the Financial Stability Board (FSB) issued a set of principles to deal with such a problem. The proposed strategy is based on two levels of action: (i) encouraging market participants to perform their own due diligence and internal risk management; and (ii) revisiting in the regulatory framework those references to ratings which may negatively influence investors due to their potentiality to be regarded as a public endorsement of creditworthiness. So far, the translation of the two pronged approach has made very little progress at national, regional and international levels. In this short article, Francesco De Pascalis (research degree student at IALS) illustrates the reasons why the proposed approach is failing to achieve its objectives. In doing so, it will discuss overreliance on credit ratings and the strategy advanced to address this problem, including its drawbacks and how it is perceived by CRAs and users of ratings. Significantly, the approach is considered as ill-advised and as an overreaction by the users of ratings. Consequently, this article suggests that the debate on excessive reliance should re-start on new bases.

Harnessing Private Regulation

In private regulation, private actors make, implement, and enforce rules that serve traditional public goals. While private safety standards have a long history, private social and environmental regulation in the forms of self-regulation, sup-ply chain contracting, and voluntary certification and labeling programs have proliferated in the past couple decades. This expansion of private regulation raises the question of how it might be harnessed by public actors to build better regula-tory regimes. This Article tackles this question first by identifying three forms of strong harnessing: public incorporation of private standards, public endorsement of self-regulation, and third-party verification. It then analyzes eight third-party verification programs established by six federal regulatory agencies to derive les-sons about what makes a program successful and to develop recommendations to federal agencies about when and how they should use third-party verification.

Articulating Reform and the Hegemony Game

Within the field of education there has been much discussion focused on the definition and nature of progress. This discussion is always tied to articulation of objectives and goals that should be achieved when endeavoring to educate young people for success in society. Of course, all of these concepts are debated and interpreted eternally with little consensus reached on exact objectives and roles. Out of this discussion does come action, albeit action met with resistance, compliance, or ambivalence; but action does come. For the purpose of this paper and accompanying analysis, I will refer to this action as reform. The aim of this inquiry is to theorize how contemporary notions of reform appear to be driven by discourses emanating from the corporate-media-state with the result being a public endorsement of overt (but misleading) tenets stated in “fast-capitalist” texts.

A word of justice: Islam and state repression in the North-West Caucasus

How does state repression of non-militant Muslims contribute to violent Islamism in the North Caucasus? This article considers the case of the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, where young residents' embrace of normative Islam post-perestroika roiled the Sovietized Muslim and secular establishments. Greatly aggravated by the brutal and indiscriminate response from law enforcement agencies, this confrontation culminated in the 2005 Nalchik uprising, the North Caucasus' largest insurgent offensive of the past decade. In the culturally comparable nearby republic of Adygeya, by contrast, analogous state repression in the wake of the uprising did not produce a violent outcome. Salient features of the mosque–state relationship in both republics are examined here, particularly the rationale of Kabardino-Balkaria's Muslim opposition leaders before and after their public endorsement of militant jihadism. The author then posits ways of marginalizing such leaders and thereby limiting the scope for conflict.

The effectiveness of the promotion of newborn hearing screening in Taiwan

ObjectiveHearing is a critical ability for the development of a child's speech and language. Many studies in different countries have shown the universal newborn hearing screening and early intervention has greatly reduced the negative impact caused by congenital hearing loss. The first universal newborn hearing screening program in Taiwan took place in MacKay Memorial Hospital in 1998 and was subsequently endorsed by the government. The incidence of bilateral congenital hearing impairment in Taiwan is approximately 2.6 per 1000 live birth. The aim of this paper is to analyze the age of diagnosis, hearing aid fitting, and intervention of congenitally hearing impaired children with and without hearing screening after public awareness and government endorsement of newborn hearing screening. Materials and methodsThere were 263 hearing impaired children participated in this study, receiving their auditory habilitation therapy at Children's Hearing Foundation from 2006 to 2010. 114 of those children went through newborn hearing screening and 149 without it. The age of diagnosis, hearing aid fitting, and auditory intervention were compared between these two groups. The age of diagnosis and intervention of congenitally hearing impaired children among different years were analyzed too. ResultsThe average age of diagnosis was 8.7 months, the age of hearing aid fitting was 12.4 months and age of auditory intervention was 18.8 months for the group of hearing impaired children with newborn hearing screening. For hearing impaired children without newborn screening, their average age of diagnosis was 27.5 months; age of hearing aid fitting was 31.3 months and age of auditory intervention was 40.5 months. There were significant differences in the age of diagnosis, hearing aid fitting and auditory intervention between congenitally hearing impaired children with and without hearing screening. ConclusionsThis research indicates that newborn hearing screening facilitates early identification, diagnosis and intervention of congenitally hearing impaired children in Taiwan. The age of identification, diagnosis and intervention of congenital hearing impaired children has also been reduced gradually over the years after government endorsement of newborn hearing screening in Taiwan.

What Can Public Endorsement for a Smoking Ban Policy Really Mean? Preliminary Findings from a Qualitative Study

The aim of the study is to describe attitudes which underlie Pole's declarations of support for a smoking ban in public places. The qualitative study using semi-structured individual in-depth interviews was conducted. The 30 IDI-s (in depth interviews) being a part of a larger research project entitled 'Lay meanings of health and life orientation of Polish society versus prevention and health promotion attitudes' were realized between 2007-2009. People belonging to all key socio-demographic categories identified by variables such as sex, age, education, and place of domicile were interviewed. The resulting material was subjected to content analysis. In the study the structural concept of 'attitude' was adopted. In order to identify the attitudes towards smoking bans in public places statements related to all three components of attitudes were analysed, but the typology of attitudes was constructed mainly on the basis of the emotional-evaluative component. The study identified as many as four attitudes behind the declared support for a smoking ban in public places. Those attitudes were labelled 'supportive', 'accepting', 'conditionally accepting', and 'ambivalent'. They differ as regards degree of acceptance for the ban, conviction about harmfulness of passive smoking, setting great store by other regulators of smoking like cultural norms or healthy consciousness, and propensity to observe and execute the smoking ban. The 'supportive' attitude can be characterized not only by total support for the smoking ban in public places but also by insistence on the need for its extension. The 'accepting' attitude means approval for the smoking ban, and the 'conditionally accepting' attitude is distinguished from the others by the stress put on the right of smokers to have an access to places where smoking is permitted. The 'ambivalent' attitude can be typified by underlining other than legal ways of influencing smoking in public places. The study suggests that the attitudes underlying the Pole's declarations of support for a smoking ban in public places can be differentiated. However, because of the low number of participants in the study the results should be verified thus the further research is needed. Therefore, there is a need not only to study people's declaration of support or objection for the smoking ban in public places but also to examine their attitudes including cognitive and behavioural components using both qualitative and quantitative methods of social research.

Harnessing Private Regulation

In private regulation, private actors make, implement, and enforce rules that serve traditional public goals. While private safety standards have a long history, private social and environmental regulation in the forms of self-regulation, supply chain contracting, and voluntary certification and labeling programs have proliferated in the past couple decades. This expansion of private regulation raises the question of how it might be harnessed by public actors to build better regulatory regimes. This Article tackles this question first by identifying three forms of strong harnessing: public incorporation of private standards, public endorsement of self-regulation, and third-party verification. It then analyzes eight third-party verification programs established by six federal regulatory agencies to derive lessons about what makes a program successful and to develop recommendations to federal agencies about when and how they should use third-party verification.

CAM practitioners in the Australian health workforce: an underutilized resource.

BackgroundCAM practitioners are a valuable but underutilizes resource in Australian health care. Despite increasing public support for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) little is known about the CAM workforce. Apart from the registered professions of chiropractic, osteopathy and Chinese medicine, accurate information about the number of CAM practitioners in the workforce has been difficult to obtain. It appears that many non-registered CAM practitioners, although highly qualified, are not working to their full capacity.DiscussionIncreasing public endorsement of CAM stands in contrast to the negative attitude toward the CAM workforce by some members of the medical and other health professions and by government policy makers. The marginalisation of the CAM workforce is evident in prejudicial attitudes held by some members of the medical and other health professions and its exclusion from government policy making. Inconsistent educational standards has meant that non-registered CAM practitioners, including highly qualified and competent ones, are frequently overlooked. Legitimising their contribution to the health workforce could alleviate workforce shortages and provide opportunities for redesigned job roles and new multidisciplinary teams. Priorities for better utilisation of the CAM workforce include establishing a guaranteed minimum education standard for more CAM occupation groups through national registration, providing interprofessional education that includes CAM practitioners, developing courses to upgrade CAM practitioners' professional skills in areas of indentified need, and increasing support for CAM research.SummaryMarginalisation of the CAM workforce has disadvantaged those qualified and competent CAM practitioners who practise evidence-informed medicine on the basis of many years of university training. Legitimising and expanding the important contribution of CAM practitioners could alleviate projected health workforce shortages, particularly for the prevention and management of chronic health conditions and for health promotion.

The etiology of mental disorders: Public endorsement of traditional Chinese beliefs in Macau

Public beliefs concerning the causes of mental disorders are important in their effective treatment. The relative importance of public beliefs related to the etiology of mental disorders among Chinese populations and their relationship to other attitudes to mental disorders are poorly understood. To investigate the endorsement of beliefs related to the etiology of mental disorders in Macau, in particular, traditional Chinese beliefs, and to explore their relationship to general attitudes towards mental disorders. A survey of 361 members of the public measured attitudes towards 32 possible causes of mental disorders as well as contact with and social distance from individuals with a mental disorder. The results indicated that traditional Chinese beliefs were ranked with relatively low importance compared with psychosocial causes. Traditional beliefs related to two underlying factors and were significantly higher in participants with lower education levels. There was a significant negative correlation between endorsement of traditional beliefs and contact with individuals with a mental disorder and a significant positive correlation between endorsement of traditional beliefs and desired social distance from individuals with a mental disorder. Factors underlying traditional Chinese beliefs concerning the causes of mental disorders are associated with more negative attitudes towards individuals with a mental disorder, with such beliefs more strongly endorsed by those with relatively lower education levels.