NO MAN IS AN ISLAND: SELF-INTEREST, THE PUBLIC INTEREST, AND SOCIOTROPIC VOTING

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Roderick Kiewiet ◽  
Michael S. Lewis-Beck
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Interest

Top-up

2019 ◽  
pp. 261-313
Author(s):  
Jean Drèze
Keyword(s):  
Social Development ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Urban Poverty ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Caste System ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Bullet Train ◽  
Disastrous Experience

This chapter covers a range of issues that do not fit in earlier chapters. These include urban poverty, universal basic income, the Gujarat model, electoral politics, India's bullet train, the economics of corruption, the aberrations of the caste system, and India's disastrous experience with demonetisation in late 2016. The book concludes with an extended essay on “Development and Public‐spiritedness”. This essay takes issue with the notion, common in economics, that people generally act out of self‐interest. This assumption has no theoretical or empirical basis. Public‐spiritedness, in the sense of a reasoned habit of consideration for the public interest, is a common feature of social life. Expanding the scope of public‐spiritedness is an important aspect of social development.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 214-234
Author(s):  
Jon Elster
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Economic Variables ◽  
The Public ◽  
Group Interest ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Ancien Régime

This chapter emphasizes the incompleteness of knowledge on key economic variables, which is in part due to the reluctance of individuals, from all social classes, to comply with requests for information. It notes how individuals and institutions had an incentive to misreport, exaggerate, or understate their income and property. At a different level, statements by royal officials, venal magistrates, and elected deputies can rarely be taken at face value. The chapter analyzes the universal tendency of speakers or writers to disguise self-interest or group interest as the public interest. It also argues that by the end of the ancien régime, public opinion was considered a poor substitute for publicity as it is often based on rumors rather than on facts in the public domain.

Public-Regardingness as a Value Premise in Voting Behavior

1964 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 876-887 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Q. Wilson ◽  
Edward C. Banfield
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Public ◽  
A Value ◽  
Self Interest

Our concern here is with the nature of the individual's attachment to the body politic and, more particularly, with the value premises underlying the choices made by certain classes of voters. Our hypothesis is that some classes of voters (provisionally defined as “subcultures” constituted on ethnic and income lines) are more disposed than others to rest their choices on some conception of “the public interest” or the “welfare of the community.” To say the same thing in another way, the voting behavior of some classes tends to be more public-regarding and less private- (self- or family-) regarding than that of others. To test this hypothesis it is necessary to examine voting behavior in situations where one can say that a certain vote could not have been private-regarding. Local bond and other expenditure referenda present such situations: it is sometimes possible to say that a vote in favor of a particular expenditure proposal is incompatible with a certain voter's self-interest narrowly conceived. If the voter nevertheless casts such a vote and if there is evidence that his vote was not in some sense irrational or accidental, then it must be presumed that his action was based on some conception of “the public interest.”

Legitimacy, autonomy and trust: a recipe for organizations to operate in the public interest

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Wilson ◽  
Devin Knighton
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Institutional Legitimacy ◽  
The Public ◽  
Community Norms ◽  
Societal Norms ◽  
Organizational Autonomy ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
Actional Legitimacy

PurposeThis study aims to examine the effect of publics' legitimacy evaluations on Arthur W. Page's conceptualization of “reasonable freedom of action” by breaking it into two parts: (1) perceived organizational autonomy and (2) trust in the organization.Design/methodology/approachThis study conducted an online experiment using a 2 (legitimacy: low, high) × 2 (legitimacy type: institutional, actional) between-subjects design. Measured variables included perceived organizational autonomy and trust.FindingsOrganizations acting in their own self-interest while ignoring community norms and expectations were perceived to be exercising higher levels of organizational autonomy and have lower levels of trust. The interaction between legitimacy type and level had an effect on perceived organizational autonomy and trust.Research limitations/implicationsPublic's view their relationships with organizations from a perspective that prioritizes responsibility and conformity to community norms and expectations. Also, organizations have more to lose by acting in their own self-interest to resolve institutional legitimacy concerns and more to gain by handling them in a way that includes the public interest than when they are managing an actional legitimacy situation.Practical implicationsSocietal norms, values and beliefs, which may have accommodated, or even supported, an organization's approach to doing business in the past, can change over time, calling into question an organization's legitimacy and its ability to operate in the public interest. As a result, organizational leaders need the Chief Communication Officer to help them understand current societal norms, values and beliefs.Originality/valueThis study addresses a core assumption of the organization–public relationship paradigm that has not yet been studied empirically. It also expands the understanding of organizational autonomy from a public perspective and examines the effect of legitimacy on organizational autonomy and trust.

Balancing the public interest and self-interest: The face of peer review in Australia

2020 ◽  
pp. 103237322097219
Author(s):  
Wendy Shelton ◽  
Kerry Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Face ◽  
Individual Self

The implementation of peer review by Australia’s two largest accountancy professional bodies during the 1990s provides a case study in which the interaction of the public interest and self-interest is examined. It is argued that on occasions where individual self-interest of members conflicts with self-interest of the collective, the public interest motivates a way forward.

scholarly journals Social Closure and Veterinary Professionalization in Britain: A Self-Interested or Public Interested Endeavour?

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Whiting ◽  
Stephen A May ◽  
Mike Saks
Keyword(s):  
Veterinary Medicine ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Dynamic Equilibrium ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Closure ◽  
State Action ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Professional Self ◽  
Zero Sum

The professionalization of veterinary medicine in Britain has been little studied by social scientists, although as a classic instance of an occupation that has achieved exclusionary social closure it merits examination from a neo-Weberian perspective. Therefore, this paper explores how it has attained this position through state action in an historical and contemporary context using neo-Weberianism as a theoretical lens. In charting the different stages and forms of professional regulation in veterinary medicine, group self-interest is identified as a central driver, following the neo-Weberian idiom. However, contrary to the position adopted by some neo-Weberians, the professionalization process is seen as being more complex than simply being interest-based, with the public interest being upheld. As such, through the case of veterinary medicine, it is claimed professional self-interests and the public interest can be co-terminous and mutually achieve a dynamic equilibrium.  They do not have to form part of a zero-sum game. 

Liberalism, Self-interest and Precommitment: Critical Notice: Passions and Constraint: On the Theory of Liberal Democracy by Stephen Holmes

1996 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 383-395
Author(s):  
Neil Duxbury
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Rational Action ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Critical Notice

Human reason is frequently frustrated. Efforts to act rationally—leave aside the fact that human beings are sometimes deliberately irrational—can be thwarted by a variety of obstacles and limitations. The fact that rationality often proves elusive ensures, among other things, that rationally-motivated courses of action sometimes have counter-productive consequences. Attempts to make certain goods and activities seem unattractive may lead people to be attracted to them. Endeavours to legislate in the public interest can sometimes make things worse for intended beneficiaries. Efforts at rational action, in short, can backfire.

scholarly journals Lack of foreign aid effectiveness in developing countries between a hammer and an anvil

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moosa Elayah
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Public Choice ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Aid Effectiveness ◽  
Vicious Circle ◽  
Institutional Environments ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Public Choice Perspective

This article examines reasons for the ineffectiveness of foreign aid interventions in developing countries, using the examples of Yemen, Egypt and Jordan. It starts with a review of two contradictory theories used to explain foreign aid ineffectiveness: the public interest perspective (PIP) and the public choice perspective (PCP). On the basis of the PCP, this article shows that deficiencies are locked within a vicious circle of a poor policy and institutional environments in developing countries and donors' self-interest. The article ends by proposing a third explanation of foreign aid ineffectiveness that goes beyond the scope of the PCP.

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