Types Of Actors Research Articles

RELATIONAL SEDIMENTS IN THE BACKWASH OF PROTEST WAVES: EXPLORING NETWORK CONSEQUENCES OF COLLECTIVE ACTION

This article addresses the puzzling relational void in the analysis of collective action consequences by exploring how protest waves affect local network structures in two German towns. We compare three periods of time: a preprotest wave latency period, a protest wave period, and a postwave latency period, as defined in relation to contentious collective action around the refugee reception crisis in 2015. Adopting a field perspective, our analysis uses digital communication data to capture the referencing practices between all actors involved in local migration-related protests irrespective of actor type or political orientation. This results in networks of both supportive and antagonistic interaction. Applying network analysis, especially multiple regression quadratic assignment procedures (MRQAP), we find significant and distinct patterns of change and stability for supportive and antagonistic ties. We argue that these findings provide stepping stones for the emergent literature on relational consequences of collective action.

“You are doomed!" Crisis-specific and Dynamic Use of Fear Speech in Protest and Extremist Radical Social Movements

Social media messages can elicit emotional reactions and mobilize users. Strategic utilization of emotionally charged messages, particularly those inducing fear, potentially nurtures a climate of threat and hostility online. Coined fear speech (FS), such communication deliberately portrays certain entities as imminently harmful and drives the perception of a threat, especially when the topic is already crisis-laden. Despite the notion that FS and the resulting climate of threat can serve as a justification for radical attitudes and behavior toward outgroups, research on the prevalence, nature, and context of FS is still scarce. The current paper aims to close this gap and provides a definition of FS, its theoretical foundations, and a starting point for (automatically) detecting FS on social media. The paper presents the results of a manual as well as an automated content analysis of three broadly categorized actor types within a larger radical German Telegram messaging sphere (2.9 million posts). With a rather conservative classification approach, we analyzed the prevalence and distribution of FS for more than five years in relation to six crisis-specific topics. A substantial proportion between 21% and 34% within the observed communication of radical/extremist actors was classified as FS. Additionally, the relative amount of FS was found to increase with the overall posting frequency. This underscores FS's potential as an indicator for radicalization dynamics and crisis escalation.

The importance of diversity in local food systems: a network analysis of food-related interactions in the Indigenous food system on St. Paul Island, Alaska

Arctic Indigenous food systems are typified by diverse social interactions that maintain food security. Given the numerous challenges Arctic Indigenous communities face, it is important to understand diversity in these systems and how they are impacted by change. This study adopts a mixed methods approach that combines participatory methods with network analysis to assess the diversity of food-related interactions between different actor types in the mixed food system on St. Paul Island, Alaska. We conducted 36 interviews with local food system actors to identify current food security challenges and food-related interactions in the local food system. We used network analysis to investigate the diversity of interactions in the food system quantitatively. We simulated the effects of two key food security challenges (out-migration and knowledge loss) on food system diversity and explored interventions to increase diversity. Qualitative data from the same interviews were used to embed our results in the lived realities of the St. Paul Island community. Our approach reveals diverse interactions in the local food system, reflecting both subsistence and market-based elements of the St. Paul Island mixed economy. While both challenges threaten the system's diversity, out-migration presents a more immediate risk to food system diversity than knowledge loss. We advocate for targeting a combination of food system interventions at the community level to enhance food system diversity effectively. Our research contributes to understanding the importance of diversity for Arctic Indigenous food security and emphasizes the need to recognize the complex interactions between food system interventions and their implications for Arctic Indigenous communities.

The Tyrants’ Cousins. Ruling Practices and Political Concepts between Anatolia and Early Greece

Summary This paper addresses the vexed question of the origins and nature of archaic Greek tyranny by focusing on the conceptual roots of the phenomenon, namely by investigating the political significance and implications of the Luwian notion of tarrawanni-, ‘just, justice,’ the term from which Greek tyrannos is believed to derive. Firstly, the paper shows how both Neo-Hittite and early Greek societies display a similar attitude towards justice as a key element for political legitimation. After concluding, however, that this commonality is not enough to explain why the Greeks borrowed the concept of tarrawanni- as tyrannos, the paper moves on to examining what specific way of doing politics is captured by the two concepts, arguing that they identify a type of political actor that exercises supreme powers independently of any kind of institutional arrangement. Finally, the paper discusses reasons, modalities, contexts, and timing of the transmission of Luwian tarrawanni- into Greek.

Different shades of green: how transnational actors frame nature as a solution to sustainability challenges in African cities

ABSTRACT Nature – based solutions (NBS) are increasingly being positioned within global discourses concerning how urban sustainability challenges can be addressed. To better understand to what extent, how, by whom and with what potential implications NBS are promoted in urban Africa, this paper focuses on transnational actors and presents a dataset covering 40 NBS initiatives in 57 cities across 19 African countries. A framing analysis is undertaken to understand to what degree NBS are mobilised in accordance with global discourses. To that end, the paper builds on existing work by Tozer et al. (2022, “Transnational Governance and the Urban Politics of Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Change.” Global Environmental Politics, 1–23) on globally circulating frames of urban nature. In further contributing to their framework, we delve into the underlying values or shades of green that are being signified through the frames by applying the IPBES Nature Futures Framework. Results indicate that urban nature comes to be seen as a solution within a climate resilience – integrated benefits nexus through which various types of transnational actors are bringing nature into the city. Two important findings can be highlighted: First, the deployed frames offer opportunities to address major African urban sustainability challenges, but initiatives may not yet be configured to adequately address their scope and magnitude. Second, the configurations of frames are predominantly informed by instrumental values that put "Nature for Society” perspectives in focus, missing opportunities for NBS to build on relational values, or “Nature as Culture” perspectives and for accommodating a plurality of worldviews on desirable futures for urban nature.

Determining the climate adaptive capacity of urban actors: a case study of Mongla port-townin Bangladesh

PurposeIn an urban environment, different types of actors (individuals, households, community groups, institutions, governmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGO), community-based organizations (CBO) and public and private organizations, etc.) play critical roles in enhancing urban resilience to adapt to the impacts of climate change. To identify and prioritize aspects of climate resilience planning, this study aims to examine the potential impacts of climate change on diverse urban systems and evaluate the capacities of various actors to adapt to climatic stress.Design/methodology/approachThis research selects Mongla, a coastal as well as port town in south-western Bangladesh that faces climate risks including frequent cyclones, storm surges and salinity intrusion due to sea-level and temperature rise, as reported in the National Climate Vulnerability Index 2018. This research uses the methodology proposed by ICLEI South Asia’s Climate Resilient Cities Action Plan and accesses different urban actors’ adaptive capacity for contributing to enhancing climate resilience based on three broad characteristics: the capacity to organize and respond, availability of resources and access to information. The cumulative scores of these characteristics aid in determining the climate adaptive capacity of each urban actor.FindingsThe identified 53 actors are grouped into four categories: government (local and national); international/local NGOs, CBOs and associations; community representatives and private sectors and groups and individuals. The group of NGOs, CBOs and associations has a higher overall adaptive potential than all other actor groups, according to the study. When it comes to practicing adaptive capacity, government institutions are in the second-highest position. But, the Khulna development authority, the government agency that is in charge of overseeing all forms of urban development, scored poorly on all fragile urban systems. However, the performance of the fourth group of urban actors is very subpar when it comes to adapting to climatic stress, which emphasizes the need for focused interventions.Research limitations/implicationsVariations in adaptive capacities to climate change across different actors are particularly useful for targeting actors with lower levels of climate adaptive capacities in Mongla town.Originality/valueThis paper particularly addresses the research gap in assessing the adapting capacity of urban actors in Mongla port-town. Policymakers and practitioners can create and carry out targeted interventions that address the particular needs and concerns of vulnerable actors by making use of the insights obtained from this kind of study, thereby assisting in the development of climate resilience in any urban area.

Gender Sensitizing Parliaments: Reflections on Becoming a Feminist Academic Critical Actor

Informed by my secondment to the UK Parliament in 2015–2016, and the production and reception of The Good Parliament report—which offered a blueprint for a diversity-sensitive House of Commons—this article reflects on my experiences becoming a feminist academic critical actor. This new type of critical actor extends the conceptualization first developed by Childs and Krook (2006, 2008). A distinctiveness vis. Chappell and Mackay’s (2021) concept of the “feminist critical friend” is also drawn: In addition to researching institutional change and supporting others in their reform work, the feminist academic critical actor is essential to instigate and institute institutional change. In this, the feminist academic critical actor is engaged in quotidian persuasion work and is both the agent as well as the analyst of research, critically reflecting on the dynamics and actors of institutional status, change, and resistance, including their own acts, in situ and after. In making the case for the feminist academic critical actor, the academic is recognized as doing something different, begging important questions of responsibility and accountability, and the opportunities and costs of engaging in such acts, particularly for minoritized and/or precarious academics. In the latter part of the article, I sketch out some of the dilemmas located in the questioning of my authority and legitimacy, and concerning the harm that I faced as a relatively privileged aspirant feminist academic critical actor, acting to rework the highly masculinized institution that is the UK House of Commons.

I’m from the Government, and I’m Here to Help: Public Perceptions of Coercive State Power

Under what conditions does the US public support the domestic use of different institutions of coercive state power? We theorize how the type of situation, the type of actor, the mission, and the type of intervention influence public support for such missions. We use a preregistered conjoint survey experiment to test our hypotheses and find that participants (i) are less supportive of interventions in response to protests than to natural disasters or terrorism, (ii) generally prefer the police or the National Guard to the military, (iii) mistrust order maintenance interventions, and (iv) prefer intervening actors be unarmed. Preferences (ii)–(iv) are strongly conditioned on the type of event. We also find that Republicans are more accepting of military actors, order maintenance interventions, armed interventions, and policing responses to protests. We note implications for public trust in the military, the militarization of policing, and the domestic use of federal forces.

An innovative GPT-based open-source intelligence using historical cyber incident reports

In contemporary discourse, the pervasive influences of Generative Pre-Trained (GPT) and Large Language Models (LLM) are evident, showcasing diverse applications. GPT-based technologies, transcending mere summarization, exhibit adeptness in discerning critical information from extensive textual corpuses. Through prudent extraction of semantically meaningful content from textual representations, GPT technologies engender automated feature extraction, a departure from the fallible manual extraction methodologies. This study posits an innovative paradigm for extracting multidimensional cyber threat-related features from textual depictions of cyber events, leveraging the prowess of GPT. These extracted features serve as inputs for artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning algorithms, including Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), Decomposition analysis, and Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based modalities tailored for non-technical cyber strategists. The proposed framework empowers cyber strategists or analysts to articulate inquiries regarding historical cyber incidents in plain English, with the NLP-based interaction facet of the system proffering cogent AI-driven insights in natural language. Furthermore, salient insights, often elusive in dynamic visualizations, are succinctly presented in plain language. Empirical validation of the entire system ensued through autonomous acquisition of semantically enriched contextual information concerning 214 major cyber incidents spanning from 2016 to 2023. GPT-based responses on Actor Type, Target, Attack Source (i.e., Country Originating Attack), Attack Destination (i.e., Targeted Country), Attack Level, Attack Type, and Attack Timeline, underwent critical AI-driven analysis. This comprehensive 7-dimensional information gleaned from the corpus of 214 incidents yielded a corpus of 1498 informative outputs, attaining a commendable precision of 96%, a recall rate of 98%, and an F1-Score of 97%.

Playing the political game of innovation: An integrative framework and future research directions

AbstractInnovation politics impact the development and introduction of innovations, yet knowledge about the influence of specific political behavior or behavioral patterns remains blurred. Based on a literature review and the articles in this Special Issue, we propose a three‐part framework that identifies the building blocks of political behavior in innovation: what motivates actors to be political, the different types of political actors, and the effect of various political behaviors on innovation outcomes. Emphasizing the evolving landscape of innovation politics, the framework aims to highlight research gaps and guide future studies toward improving our understanding of the functional and dysfunctional aspects of innovation politics.

Acceptability and feasibility of policy implementation strategies for taxes earmarked for behavioral health services.

This study's aims are to: (1) Compare the acceptability and feasibility of five types of implementation strategies that could be deployed to increase the reach of evidence-based practices (EBPs) with revenue from policies that earmark taxes for behavioral health services, and (2) Illustrate how definitions of implementation strategies and measures of acceptability and feasibility can be used in policy-focused implementation science research. Web-based surveys of public agency and community organization professionals involved with earmarked tax policy implementation were completed in 2022-2023 (N = 211, response rate = 24.9%). Respondents rated the acceptability and feasibility of five types of implementation strategies (dissemination, implementation process, integration, capacity-building, and scale-up). Aggregate acceptability and feasibility scores were calculated for each type of strategy (scoring range 4-20). Analyses of variance compared scores across strategies and between organizational actor types. For acceptability, capacity-building strategies had the highest rating (M = 16.3, SD = 3.0), significantly higher than each of the four other strategies, p ≤ . 004), and scale-up strategies had the lowest rating (M = 15.6). For feasibility, dissemination strategies had the highest rating (M = 15.3, significantly higher than three of the other strategies, p ≤ .002) and scale-up strategies had the lowest rating (M = 14.4). Capacity-building and dissemination strategies may be well-received and readily deployed by policy implementers to support EBPs implementation with revenue from taxes earmarked for behavioral health services. Adapting definitions of implementation strategies for policy-focused topics, and applying established measures of acceptability and feasibility to these strategies, demonstrates utility as an approach to advance research on policy-focused implementation strategies.

Countering the “Climate Cult” – Framing Cascades in Far-Right Digital Networks

ABSTRACT In many contemporary democracies, digital networks on the far-right have established themselves as “alternatives” to liberal institutions. Within this nexus of parties, hyper-partisan news, and social media channels, opposition to climate change mitigation has emerged as a central cross-cutting issue. Despite the prominence of these trends, we still know relatively little about the hierarchies that govern these communicative ties. This study draws on the concept of cascading frame activation to trace communication flows between four distinct actor types within the German far right. We apply a mixed-methods approach across social media and websites over a period of 19 months. First, we conduct a time series analysis via a vector autoregression model, to assess potential causal relationships between the issue agendas of far-right actor types. Automated text analysis then inductively generates a lexicon exclusive to far-right posts about climate change, which we qualitatively assess and manually cluster into distinct frame categories. We conclude by tracing framing cascade sequences across the various actor types. Our results reveal significant associations between the issue agenda of far-right actors, especially among right-wing news sites (RNS) and hyperactive accounts. Within this network, the most dominant frames demarcate out-groups, such as the Green Party or climate activists. Notably, RNS play a central role in shaping this discourse, initiating 42% of the identified frames before they find wider dissemination. These findings expand our understanding of hierarchies and new communication pathways among partisan media, political parties, and their extended digital networks on the far right.

Actors and sectors in technological innovation systems: patterns of knowledge development in the field of second generation biorefineries

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the relationships between a focal technological innovation system (TIS), its surrounding sectors, and other TISs, through a value chain perspective. We examine how firm actors from sectors with different value chain positioning contribute to the function of the knowledge development in an emerging TIS. By assigning patents to value chain steps in the context of second generation biorefinery technologies, our findings indicate that sectors differ in their knowledge generation patterns in the focal TIS, and that multiple sectors can contribute to knowledge development along the whole TIS value chain. We also differentiate four types of TIS actors based on the way they develop new knowledge to approach the focal TIS: (1) actors from existing sectors that directly enter the focal TIS; (2) diversifying actors that enter the focal TIS but also its adjacent TISs; (3) actors dedicated to the innovation niche; and (4) actors that emerge and operate solely in the focal TIS.

Комунікаційні стратегії місцевого самоврядування для забезпечення реалізації стратегії розвитку територій

The article analyzes the theoretical approach to determining the essence and features of communication strategies as planning communication documents used by local self-government bodies to involve the target audience and the local population in management at the local and national levels. The author defines the standard and distinctive features of communication and communication strategies and outlines the areas of their use. A communication strategy is a document defined as a strategic communication guideline for the planned implementation of informational influence to raise awareness of the planned changes and form appropriate behavior patterns of potential and existing target audiences and target groups of the local community. The expediency of using the complex system approach COMBI (Communication for Behavioral Impact) in developing and implementing communication strategies is substantiated. Careful development and successful implementation of a communication strategy can increase the effectiveness of decision-making by local self-government bodies and contribute to forming the community as a full-fledged subject of local self-government. Emphasis is placed on informativeness, credibility, the accuracy of messages, and the level of their perception by target audiences to evaluate communication strategies. It was established that the structure of the communication strategy should include such elements as compliance with strategic goals, determination of expected behavior, situation analysis, development of messages and their preliminary testing, development of an action plan, explanation of means of control over implementation, monitoring and assessment of impact, development of schedule and implementation plan, as well as determination of resources and budget. The types of communication strategies that can be developed and implemented at the regional level are summarized, and their strategic goals and hierarchical structures are supplemented. The author’s classification of communication strategies according to the following characteristics is presented: type of actor, goal, region, sector, and influence. Keywords: communicative interaction, public administration bodies, communication strategies, development of local self-government, local community, development strategies and programs, components of communication strategies, types of communication strategies.

Convergent and Divergent Corporate Social Responsibility in South Korea: Collaborative and Adversarial NGO-Corporate Networks

Background: The differences between NGO networks for two distinct types of CSR practices are underexplored: convergent CSR, which pertains to the global standards embraced by both the local and global institutions, and divergent CSR, which is framed primarily by local economic, political and social conditions. Purpose: Grounded in institutional and network theory, the study explores the significance of three forms of network centrality in different types of CSR (convergent/divergent) and varying modes of interaction (collaborative/adversarial) across global versus local NGOs in South Korea, a state-led market economy. Research Design: The study conducts network analyses and descriptive analysis of NGOs’ collaborative and adversarial networks with corporations, in relation to their engagement in convergent and divergent CSR. Study Sample: The NGO/corporate network dataset consisted of 2073 nodes and 4158 edges (ties). The sample of CSR practices consisted of a total of 8715 instances of convergent CSR practices and 396 instances of divergent CSR practices. Data Collection and/or Analysis: A total of 260 reports from 52 South Korean corporations and a total of 430 reports from 78 NGOs in South Korea were used to develop a corpus of corporate/NGO network dataset (collaborative and adversarial) and the dataset of the type of CSR practices they engaged in (convergent/divergent). Then degree, eigenvector and betweenness centralities of the 78 NGOs were computed within the NGO-corporate network. The relationships between the three centralities and CSR types (convergent/divergent) were found through standard regression analyses and descriptive analyses. Results: The findings suggest that when engaging in convergent CSR, as opposed to divergent CSR, NGOs would benefit the most from developing collaborative ties to central others in their NGO-corporate network (eigenvector centrality). A descriptive analysis of the findings suggests that adversarial divergent CSR practices are primarily reported by a potentially isolated group of local NGOs. Conclusions: CSR practices develop in multiple forms within a national institution, rather than simply converging with the universal norms. They form under the communicative pressures of different types of global and local institutional actors, through different network positions (centralities) and nature of relationships (collaborative and adversarial).

Mapping of Digital Platforms and e-Commerce Emergence in Africa: Evidence from Senegal

A global trend regarding the “platformization” of the internet has been, for years, emerging roughly across all traditional industries. It is reflected in the proliferation of digital platforms (DPs) based on the creation of new activities or the online expansion of offers traditionally available only physically (e.g., boutiques, supermarkets). Thus, digital platforms are a new springboard of development opportunities for all businesses, and Africa, with demographic (more than 1.2 billion customers), economic (middle-class boom), and technological (internet and smartphone penetration) dynamism, represents a huge potential market for the DP industry. This exploratory research is based on a qualitative approach applied to the case of Senegalese DPs. From its finding, we have a mapping of DPs and a classifying typology of the types of actors involved, according to their specialization and their paradigmatic orientation. New insights into how DP organizations and the firms within them operate and create value are proposed as well as a new conceptual framework for the articulation of DPs, specifically those particularly adapted to the African context. This work opens avenues for future research linked to the scale of the new challenges related to marketing and managerial issues and the new business models that have recently been developed by innovative local actors (TukkiJamm, ShopMeWay, etc.).

TV cooking shows—Consumer entertainment or education?

AbstractThe current observational study aims to determine the extent to which main food safety principles are addressed in Slovenian cooking shows and whether the type of main actor or television channel significantly impacts adherence to good hygiene practices. In general, our results show that food handling presented to the audience in Slovenian TV cooking shows often deviates from the main food safety recommendations. A comparison between amateur and professional chefs has shown notable but statistically insignificant differences. While in the area of personal hygiene, more deviations were found among amateur than among professional chefs (p = 0.011), we can observe the opposite in the area of preparation practices, albeit with insignificant difference (p = 0.884). The current study provides further evidence that there is a large gap between what viewers see and what they should have seen in television cooking shows from a food safety perspective.

The European Union's governance of teachers and the evolution of a bridging issue field since the mid-2000s.

Concerned with European Union (EU) governance of teachers since the mid-2000s, this paper makes an empirical as well as theoretical contribution to education policy studies in the context of EU governance. Drawing on neo-institutional field theory and an empirical material of policy documents and interviews, the paper analyses the consolidation and evolution of a field at the EU level that is focused on the governance of the teaching profession. We argue that this field constitutes a bridging issue field, spanning several policy domains, including education, employment and economy, and characterised by non-linear and relatively slow change. We demonstrate how the field since the mid-2000s has become elaborated via the strategic framing of teacher skills and careers as policy issues, the mobilisation of actors and networks, and an expanding institutional infrastructure of mechanisms and policy instruments. Theoretically, the paper advances the debate on EU governance by highlighting the epistemic gains of neo-institutional field theory in making sense of soft governance contexts and their trajectories as an outcome of the interplay between issue framings, different types of actors, and institutional infrastructure.

Gender-expansive listeners invite us to reconsider voice categorization as a simple matter of pitch and timbre

Past literature has focused on pitch and timbre cues as the main determinants of the voice of an actor (a speaker or a singer). But in real life, judges rely on non-auditory cues such as the actor’s facial features, height, body size and shape. Resisting these visual biases could provide more accurate assessment of a voice but requires a stronger dissociation between auditory attributes and physical appearance, an ability hypothetically acquired by gender-expansive participants. In three online studies, we examine Faching (allocating voices into traditional categories). In study 1, 166 participants (85 cis, 81 gender-expansive) rated 144 audio (A) samples from 18 different actors (3 from each major Fach category, excluding countertenor) along a slider labeled low/dark to high/bright. Participants then guessed the voice types of the same actors in silent videos (V), before rating them in AV combinations. The cis group exhibited 30% more visual bias than the gender-expansive group. To further understand how gender-expansive participants obtain this benefit, we manipulated the fundamental frequency (in study 2) or the vocal tract length (in study 3) by ± 3 semitones from the original stimuli. Preliminary findings suggest that the two groups differ in the face of timbre but not pitch manipulations.

The Perceived Role of Non-Elected Actors in Community Power Structure in Poland: Results of a Survey Experiment

Administrative decisions can be influenced not only by policies formulated by elected representatives but also by various external actors. From classic elitist and pluralist theories of community power to urban regime and network governance concepts, academic studies tell us that several institutional and individual actors with no electoral democratic legitimacy may have a significant impact on local government decision-making. In our paper, we ask the question who they are in contemporary Polish cities. Are there any systematic regularities in this respect concerning e.g. how they differ depending on the size of the local community? In this paper we look at the phenomenon through the lens of citizens’ perception of the influence on important administrative decisions made in local governments. In this research, we also check whether the style of local political leadership perceived by citizens is reflected in their expectations toward the propensity of local authorities to consider the opinions. Data is collected through a survey conducted on a representative sample of 2,000 Polish citizens who were asked about their perception of the impact of various business and societal actors. The study uses the survey experiment method in which various formulations of the question are randomly assigned to individual respondents, which allows us to measure the perceived influence of individual types of actors. Referring to the recent debate on the limitation of the applicability of regime theory to large cities only, we place a special attention to the impact of city size on the role of big and small businesses as well as various societal organizations.