The Limits of “Rational Design”

2003 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 411-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Duffield
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Rational Design ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Current Form ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Theoretical Literature

“The Rational Design of International Institutions” (special issue of IO, Autumn 2001) makes a significant contribution to the theoretical literature on international institutions. It is important, however, to recognize the limits of both the Rational Design project in its current form and the conclusions that can be drawn from the special issue about the project's usefulness and validity. This article evaluates the project on its own terms, as a rationalist attempt to explain variation in international institutions. I identify three significant sets of limitations: those of the scope of the project, those of the analytical framework, and those of the efforts that are made to evaluate the framework through empirical analysis. Although the first set of limitations is largely a matter of choice, the last two raise questions about how much of an advance the special issue in fact represents. Nevertheless, these shortcomings are not absolute—they can be remedied through further theoretical and empirical research.

The Rational Design of International Institutions

2001 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 761-799 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Koremenos ◽  
Charles Lipson ◽  
Duncan Snidal
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Design ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Independent Variables ◽  
Institutional Variation

Why do international institutions vary so widely in terms of such key institutional features as membership, scope, and flexibility? We argue that international actors are goal-seeking agents who make specific institutional design choices to solve the particular cooperation problems they face in different issue-areas. In this article we introduce the theoretical framework of the Rational Design project. We identify five important features of institutions—membership, scope, centralization, control, and flexibility—and explain their variation in terms of four independent variables that characterize different cooperation problems: distribution, number of actors, enforcement, and uncertainty. We draw on rational choice theory to develop a series of empirically falsifiable conjectures that explain this institutional variation. The authors of the articles in this special issue of International Organization evaluate the conjectures in specific issue-areas and the overall Rational Design approach.

Moving Forward, One Step at a Time

2003 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Koremenos ◽  
Duncan Snidal
Keyword(s):  
Research Design ◽  
Rational Design ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
Design Project ◽  
One Step ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Alternative Research ◽  
Future Work

We reply to John Duffield's critique of the Rational Design project, a special issue of International Organization that explains the features of international institutions from a game-theoretic perspective. The project was deliberately limited to the analysis of explicit and observable institutional arrangements, and focused on the specific institutional properties of centralization, membership, scope, control, and flexibility. Its empirical contribution relies on case studies, but it is significantly amplified by the tight connections provided by a common theoretical perspective that is oriented toward testing a set of specific conjectures about institutional design. The results raise further issues of measurement and cross-case comparisons that provide valuable lessons for future work on institutional design. Although all of these research design choices are worth revisiting and questioning, as Duffield does, the initial results of the Rational Design project show that it provides a good basis from which to explore alternative research design decisions.

Integration of refugees in rural areas and the role of the receiving society: conceptual review and analytical framework

Erdkunde ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-60
Author(s):  
Birgit Glorius ◽  
Miriam Bürer ◽  
Hanne Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Research Gaps ◽  
Migration Research ◽  
Local Integration ◽  
Research Gap

Research on integration processes of migrants has until recently remained on geographical levels of observation which are not apt to reveal and explain the variety of local integration trajectories. Furthermore, most research has focused on the role of migrants within these processes, while the attitudes and behaviours of the receiving society have been rarely addressed. This research gap concerns in particular rural areas since those areas have been widely left out of migration research. This article addresses those research gaps and develops a concept for the empirical research of local receptivity processes.

scholarly journals Afterword: Citizenship and the politics of (im)material stigma and infrastructure

Urban Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 004209802110553
Author(s):  
Charlotte Lemanski
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Urban Studies ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Infrastructure Health

This afterword to the Urban Vulnerabilities: Infrastructure, Health and Stigma special issue highlights two cross-cutting themes that are addressed by all the articles in the issue, and that have the potential to make a significant contribution to debates within urban studies. First, I reflect on how the articles reveal the inseparable connections between infrastructure and stigma, demonstrating both as political and material processes that are inter-dependent and mutually constitutive. Consequently, it is urgent to bridge disciplinary siloes in bringing these scholarly debates into deeper conversation in ways that recognise the materiality of stigma and the politicisation of infrastructure (and vice versa). Second, to a greater and lesser extent, the articles all reveal the centrality of citizenship to the capacity of both urban dwellers and the state to negotiate and/or restrict access to infrastructure, and to perpetuate and/or challenge the impacts of stigma. While the connections between infrastructure and citizenship are explored in my recent work on infrastructural citizenship, the articles in this collection demonstrate the importance of temporality and scale in understanding how citizens negotiate their material and political rights.

scholarly journals Spending Time in the Nineteenth Century

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rieke Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Access Point ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Free Time ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Nineteenth Century American Literature ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
American Literary History

This special issue of New American Studies Journal: A Forum looks at nineteenth-century American literature and culture through the analytical lens of free time and leisure. This analytical framework affords a novel access point to American literary history—free time, as this special issue will explore, is a highly contested and politicized concept and resource of the nineteenth century, one that restructures temporalities and spaces. Nineteenth-century American culture and literature can be understood as an archive to explore free time as a significant social and economic innovation into the texture of individual life. The contributions to this special issue explore the rise of free time in the nineteenth century with particular attention toward temporal and spatial reconfigurations that free time afforded. Furthermore they explore the societal and cultural aspects of free time that grew around the logics and logistics of nineteenth-century capitalism—a social formation that made leisure, time off work, not merely possible, but that created entire industries and spaces for leisure and repose.

Empirische Analyse komplexer kognitiver Strukturen / Empirical Analysis of Complex Cognitive Structures

1973 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ansgar Weymann
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Cognitive Structures ◽  
Cognitive Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Context ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Empirische Analyse

AbstractSeveral theoretical approaches emphasize the relevance of empirical research of cognitive structures to the analysis of social action. In this theoretical context two proper empirical techniques of cognitive analysis are discussed: ethnoscience and experimental psycholinguistics. Their integration would connect the validity of the first and the reliability of the second.

scholarly journals Cultural adaptations of CBT: a summary and discussion of the Special Issue on Cultural Adaptation of CBT

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farooq Naeem
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Adaptation ◽  
Behavioural Therapy ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Current Form ◽  
Cognitive Behavioural ◽  
Cognitive Behaviour

AbstractCognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in its current form might not be acceptable to service users from a variety of backgrounds. Therefore, it makes sense to adapt CBT when working with diverse populations. Contributors to this special issue of theCognitive Behaviour Therapisthave tackled the issues around the cultural adaptation of CBT from various perspectives, using a variety of methods, and have addressed topics ranging from cultural adaptation to improving access to CBT. Here, I briefly summarize and discuss the papers in this special issue. I start with a systematic review of CBT for social anxiety across cultures. Seven articles cover aspects of adaptation of therapies for people from different backgrounds. Three papers discuss the issues of gender and sexuality when using CBT, while another three papers focus on refugees, asylum seekers and the homeless, and two papers describe the application of CBT with religious populations. Finally, there are seven papers on issues related to service delivery, practice and training and supervision when working with a diverse population. Collectively, papers in this special issue provide us with sufficient evidence that cultural considerations play a vital role when using CBT, offer practical suggestions for improving cultural competence and most importantly, can catalyse future research. However, the full potential of culturally adapted interventions will not be realized until and unless access to CBT is improved. Therefore, there is a need to build robust evidence to convince funders, policy makers and service managers.

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