Music, Selves and Societies: Respondent Paper

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 205920432110189
Author(s):  
Craig Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Behavior ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Behavioral Change ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
Destructive Behavior ◽  
The World ◽  
Collective Belief ◽  
Trump Administration

Researchers working within the field of music and society often comment that they wish to use their research for the betterment of society and individuals, wherever possible. In many cases, this process of betterment requires some sort of behavioral change—whether this is changing poor habits to promote healthy living and thinking or changing destructive behavior in order to lead more productive and connected lives. It can increasingly be seen in the world today that social behavior has a complex array of influences and motivations and rarely is empirical evidence one of them. No amount of thoroughly researched evidence or logically developed arguments influences this behavior. Brexit and the Trump administration are two examples of this phenomenon. What seems to influence this seemingly bizarre social behavior is a collective belief in a narrative. The narrative needs to speak to common emotions, senses of identities and memories, but it does not need to necessarily be supported by empirical evidence to be effective. There is a need to understand this power of narrative in the public discourse if we are to truly influence how public policy engages with music.

scholarly journals Public cooperation statements

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann-Kathrin Koessler ◽  
Lionel Page ◽  
Uwe Dulleck
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Behavioral Change ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Controlled Environment ◽  
The Public ◽  
Interaction Partners ◽  
Good Setting ◽  
Pro Social Behavior ◽  
Voluntary Cooperation

AbstractCommunication is a well-known tool to promote cooperation and pro-social behavior. In this study, we examine whether minimal communication in form of public consent with a pre-defined cooperation statement is sufficient to strengthen cooperation in groups. Within the controlled environment of a laboratory experiment, we identify ways by which non-enforceable cooperation statements are associated with higher levels of cooperation in a public good setting. At first, the statement triggers selection; socially oriented individuals are more likely to make the cooperation statement. In addition, we can show that a behavioral change takes place once the statement is made. This change can be attributed to commitment arising from the pledge and to increased coordination between the interaction partners. Depending on the institutional context, these drivers can vary in strength. Comparing compulsory and voluntary cooperation statements, we find that both are effective in motivating higher contributions to the public good.

scholarly journals Coming up for Air: On Reading in a Global Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-21
Author(s):  
Aparna Tarc
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Teaching Of Reading ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
The World ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Public Sphere

The thought of breath grips the world as climate change, racial injustice and a global pandemic converge to suck oxygen, the lifeforce, out of the earth. The visibility of breath, its critical significance to existence, I argue, is made evident by poets. To speak of breath is to lodge ourselves between birth and death and requires sustained, meditative, attentive study to an everyday yet taken for granted practice. Like breathing, reading is also a practice that many took for granted until the pandemic. My paper will engage the affective and/or poetic dimensions of reading left out of theories of literacy that render it instrumental and divorced from the life of the reader (Freire, 1978). I will suggest that scholars of literacy, in every language, begin to engage a poetics of literacy as attending to the existential significance of language in carrying our personhood and lives. I will also argue that our diminishing capacities to read imaginatively and creatively have led to the rise of populist ideologies that infect public discourse and an increasingly anti-intellectual and depressed social sphere. Despite this decline in the practice and teaching of reading, it is reported that more than any other activity, reading sustained the lives of individuals and communities’ during a global pandemic. Teachers and scholars might take advantage of the renewed interested in reading to redeliver poetry and literary language to the public sphere to teach affective reading. Poetry harkens back to ancient practices of reading inherent in all traditions of reading. It enacts a pedagogy of breath, I argue, one that observes its significance in our capacity to exist through the exchange of air in words, an exchange of vital textual meanings we have taken for granted as we continue to infect our social and political world and earth with social hatred, toxins, and death. In this paper I engage fragments of poetry by poets of our time (last century onward) that teaches us to breathe and relearn the divine and primal stance that reading poetry attends to and demands. More than any other form, “poetry,” Ada Limon claims, “has breath built into it”. As such, reading poetry helps us to breathe when the world bears down and makes it hard for us to come up for air.

Passports for Sale: How (Un)Meritocratic Are Citizenship by Investment Programmes?

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-337
Author(s):  
Odile Ammann
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Immigration Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World

Abstract In recent years, citizenship by investment (CBI) and residency by investment (RBI) programmes have been burgeoning throughout the world, including in a range of European States. At first sight, such programmes are blatantly anti-meritocratic: they hinge on a person’s wealth, and not on her skills, potential, and intrinsic qualities. Yet upon a closer look, the public discourse that surrounds CBI and RBI is influenced by the same meritocratic conceptions as those that have been driving domestic citizenship and immigration law in the past decades. In this article, I take a step back from existing debates about CBI to argue that the concept of meritocracy is key to understanding, supporting, but also challenging contemporary immigration and citizenship law, including CBI. First, I analyse the merits—if I may say so—of the concept of meritocracy. I then show the limitations of using meritocratic arguments to justify the existence of CBI schemes.

Ownership Redirection in Franchised Channels

1992 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajiv P. Dant ◽  
Patrick J. Kaufmann ◽  
Audhesh K. Paswan
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
The Public ◽  
Dual Distribution ◽  
Do So

Since the typical franchise arrangements permit the more powerful franchisors to simultaneously act as suppliers as well as competitors to their franchisees, apprehensions about potential opportunistic behaviors and allegations of antitrust violations are not uncommon. In turn, this unique structuring of franchises with dual distribution has drawn considerable scrutiny from the public policy platform. In particular, the ownership redirection hypothesis—that the powerful franchisors will reacquire the best franchised outlets relegating only the marginal units to franchisees—has received special attention because it verbalizes the worst fears associated with franchising. This paper provides an evaluation of this hypothesis. To do so, we examine (1) the key premises of the hypothesis from the perspectives of a number of related literatures and (2) the available empirical evidence on the hypothesis. Both aspects of the appraisal point to a number of unresolved issues with important public policy implications.

scholarly journals "Who Only Cricket Know"

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Evans
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
First Century ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Social Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Dominant Ideologies ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
Literature And Film

Sport is considered to be apolitical. But nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, sport and discourses around sport support and sustain dominant hegemony in various ways. This is just as true for the public school origins of modern sport as it is for contemporary global sport. Whether it be the capitalist ethic of the American Dream, or the imperial, British, ethic of ‘fair play,’ sport does not exist independent from ideology. Instead, sport is used as a social disciplining tool that underhandedly justifies, disciplines, and “normalizes” social behavior, culture, and dominant ideologies. This thesis begins with an examination of the role of sport as a tool for social disciplining but, alongside, also delves into instances when sport has provided individuals the opportunity to reconstitute their identities and subjective autonomies against dominant cultural hegemonies. Through analyses of nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century cultural texts (literature and film), I argue that sport functions to both interpolate us as subjects and awaken us from docility in order lead us to critically engage with the world. The aim of this project is to identify these different functions of sport as social discourse and theorize a route by which sport can become more authentically emancipatory in the global present.

scholarly journals Harmonization of Arbitration Laws in some Asian and European Countries

Pro Futuro ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gauri Nirwal
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Dispute Resolution ◽  
European Countries ◽  
International Arbitration ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Recognition And Enforcement ◽  
Dispute Resolution Mechanism ◽  
The Relationship

The present paper studies the relationship between domestic and international arbitration laws and the harmonization factor amongst some Asian and European jurisdictions. During the last decades, there has been a significant change and globalization in the world and with the expansion of businesses and trade a better dispute resolution mechanism is required in order to maintain the harmony in international trade. It has become a necessity to balance the domestic arbitration laws with the international ones. This brief paper identifies and comments on some of the areas where differences remain including differences in recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards in various jurisdictions over the public policy defence, and where further examination and research to reach and solve disputes amicably might be useful.

scholarly journals Neuer Atheismus: New Atheism in Germany

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Zenk
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Natural Phenomenon ◽  
Daniel Dennett ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Two Phases ◽  
New Atheism

Matthias Knutzen (born 1646 – died after 1674) was the first author we know of who self-identified as an atheist (Schröder 2010: 8). Before this, the term had solely been used pejoratively to label others. While Knutzen is almost completely forgotten now, authors such as Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, or Sigmund Freud are better remembered and might even be considered classic writers in the history of the atheist criticism of religion. Whatever may be said about the influence of any one of these authors, there is no doubt that Germany looks back on a notable history in this field. About a decade ago, Germany’s capital Berlin was even dubbed ‘the world capital of atheism’ by the American sociologist Peter L. Berger (2001: 195).Given this situation, I am bewildered by the expression ‘New Atheism’. Yet, undoubtedly, the term has become a catchphrase that is commonly used in the public discourse of several countries. The most prominent authors to be labelled ‘New Atheists’ are Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion, 2006), Daniel Dennett (Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, 2006), Sam Harris (The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, 2004, and Letter to a Christian Nation, 2006), and Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Every­thing, 2007). These authors and their books – all of them international bestsellers – have been intensely discussed around the world, including in Germany. In this paper, I intend to illuminate some of the characteristics and remarkable traits of the German discourse on the ‘New Atheism’. Here we can distinguish between two phases. The German media initially characterised ‘New Atheism’ as a rather peculiarly American phenomenon. However, it soon came to be understood to be a part of German culture as well.

scholarly journals Understanding Race: The Case for Political Constructionism in Public Discourse

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 492-504
Author(s):  
David Ludwig
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Causal Reasoning ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Reasoning ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Philosophical Debates

AbstractThe aim of this article is to develop an understanding-based argument for an explicitly political specification of the concept of race. It is argued that a specification of race in terms of hierarchical social positions is best equipped to guide causal reasoning about racial inequality in the public sphere. Furthermore, the article provides evidence that biological and cultural specifications of race mislead public reasoning by encouraging confusions between correlates and causes of racial inequality. The article concludes with a more general case for incorporating empirical evidence about public reasoning into philosophical debates about competing specifications of the concept of race.

scholarly journals Have we oversold the Silicon Valley model of entrepreneurship?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David B. Audretsch
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Silicon Valley ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Policy Community

Abstract The Silicon Valley model of entrepreneurship has captured the imagination of the public, the attention of the public policy community throughout the world who want to emulate it, and the focus of scholars seeking to understand it. Entrepreneurship has enabled the Silicon Valley region to harness the opportunities afforded by globalization rather than succumbing as a victim. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that there are limits to the Silicon Valley model of entrepreneurship in addressing the most compelling contemporary economic and social problems and that a broader, more inclusive understanding of and approach to entrepreneurship might be more useful.

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