scholarly journals Altruism in the time of COVID-19: We are all in this together, but who is we?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianluca Grimalda ◽  
Nancy Buchan ◽  
Orgul Ozturk ◽  
Adriana Pinate ◽  
Giulia Urso ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Environmental Exposure ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Personal Exposure ◽  
International Level ◽  
Online Experiment ◽  
Global Character ◽  
Relief Efforts ◽  
The U.S

Abstract Theory posits that in situations of existential threat, selfish motivations will be outweighed by altruistic ones, and cooperation will be parochial. Yet, the global character of the COVID-19 pandemic makes unclear which level of group inclusiveness individuals will privilege. In an online experiment, participants from the U.S. and Italy chose to allocate a monetary bonus to a charity active in COVID-19 relief efforts at the local, national, or international level, or to keep the bonus for themselves. We found that personal exposure to COVID-19 increased donations relative to those not exposed, even as levels of environmental exposure (numbers of cases locally) had no effect. Only one-third of individuals acted entirely selfishly. Donors predominantly benefitted the local level (state in the U.S., region in Italy); donations toward country and world levels were half as large. Social identity was a moderating factor in both countries. These results confirm and qualify existing theories.

scholarly journals Altruism in the time of COVID-19: We are all in this together, but who is we?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianluca Grimalda ◽  
Nancy Buchan ◽  
Orgul Ozturk ◽  
Adriana Pinate ◽  
Giulia Urso ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Environmental Exposure ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Personal Exposure ◽  
International Level ◽  
Online Experiment ◽  
Global Character ◽  
Relief Efforts ◽  
The U.S

Abstract Theory posits that in situations of existential threat, selfish motivations will be outweighed by altruistic ones, and cooperation will be parochial. Yet, the global character of the COVID-19 pandemic makes unclear which level of group inclusiveness individuals will privilege. In an online experiment, participants from the U.S. and Italy chose to allocate a monetary bonus to a charity active in COVID-19 relief efforts at the local, national, or international level, or to keep the bonus for themselves. We found that personal exposure to COVID-19 increased donations relative to those not exposed, even as levels of environmental exposure (numbers of cases locally) had no effect. Only one-third of individuals acted entirely selfishly. Donors predominantly benefitted the local level (state in the U.S., region in Italy); donations toward country and world levels were half as large. Social identity was a moderating factor in both countries. These results confirm and qualify existing theories.

scholarly journals Exposure to COVID-19 is associated with increased altruism, particularly at the local level

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianluca Grimalda ◽  
Nancy R. Buchan ◽  
Orgul D. Ozturk ◽  
Adriana C. Pinate ◽  
Giulia Urso ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Charitable Giving ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Personal Exposure ◽  
Experimental Manipulation ◽  
Identity Salience ◽  
Global Character ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relief Efforts ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
The U.S

AbstractTheory posits that situations of existential threat will enhance prosociality in general and particularly toward others perceived as belonging to the same group as the individual (parochial altruism). Yet, the global character of the COVID-19 pandemic may blur boundaries between ingroups and outgroups and engage altruism at a broader level. In an online experiment, participants from the U.S. and Italy chose whether to allocate a monetary bonus to a charity active in COVID-19 relief efforts at the local, national, or international level. The purpose was to address two important questions about charitable giving in this context: first, what influences the propensity to give, and second, how is charitable giving distributed across different levels of collective welfare? We found that personal exposure to COVID-19 increased donations relative to those not exposed, even as levels of environmental exposure (numbers of cases locally) had no effect. With respect to targets of giving, we found that donors predominantly benefitted the local level; donations toward country and world levels were half as large. Social identity was found to influence charity choice in both countries, although an experimental manipulation of identity salience did not have any direct effect.

scholarly journals Schools of Democracy? Giving Circles and the Civic and Political Participation of Collaborative Philanthropists

2021 ◽  
pp. 109-130
Author(s):  
Angela M. Eikenberry
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Voluntary Association ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Do It Yourself ◽  
Giving Circles ◽  
The U.S

AbstractSocial transformations around the world have increased the need for philanthropy and motivated people to become more active at the local level. Giving circles have emerged from this context, providing a hands-on, “do-it-yourself” approach to philanthropy. They involve individuals collaborating to support causes of mutual interest and frequently include social, educational, and engagement opportunities for members. In this research, I focus on understanding if participation in these new forms of philanthropic voluntary association lead to greater civic and political participation. That is, do giving circles serve as schools of democracy? I draw on survey data from current and past members of giving circles and donors outside these circles, as well as interviews with giving circle members, in the U.S. and U.K. The findings suggest that giving circles have a positive impact on giving, volunteering, and efforts to address problems in the community, but little effect on participation in changing government policy or other political activities.

Electronic Democracy at the American Grassroots

2011 ◽  
pp. 185-199
Author(s):  
Donald F. Norris
Keyword(s):  
Focus Groups ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Level ◽  
County Governments ◽  
Electronic Democracy ◽  
The U.S

In this paper, I examine the delivery of electronic democracy (e-democracy) by U.S. local governments through their e-government activities. In particular, I examine three issues related to local e-democracy through data from focus groups with officials from 37 municipal and county governments across the U.S. The issues are: (1) why local governments decided to adopt e-government, and whether e-democracy was among the reasons for its adoption; (2) whether e-government has produced or affected local e-democracy; and (3) what plans, if any, local governments have with respect to e-democracy in coming years. My principal findings are that e-government at the local level was adopted principally to deliver governmental information and services and to provide citizen access to governmental officials; that e-government does not operate in a manner that either produces or impacts local e-democracy (at least as the term is broadly defined herein); and that e-democracy is not on the radar screens of most American local governments for future deployment.

Epilogue

2019 ◽  
pp. 201-214
Author(s):  
Cynthia A. Kierner
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Disaster Relief ◽  
First Century ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
American Red Cross ◽  
Disaster Reporting ◽  
Civil War Era ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Relief Efforts ◽  
The U.S

The epilogue skips ahead to the Johnstown flood of 1889, the deadliest disaster to date in U.S. history, and argues that the response to this debacle—due to because of advancements in communication and photography, and the advent of the American Red Cross—was in most respects comparable to that in twenty-first-century America. The main difference was the absence of federal involvement in disaster relief at Johnstown, though the U.S. government began providing disaster relief on an ad hoc basis in the post-Civil War era. The epilogue then examines the normalization of federal involvement in disaster relief and prevention in the twentieth century and the impact of social media on contemporary disaster reporting and relief efforts.

Electronic Democracy at the American Grassroots

2007 ◽  
pp. 163-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald F. Norris
Keyword(s):  
Focus Groups ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Level ◽  
County Governments ◽  
Electronic Democracy ◽  
The U.S

In this chapter, I examine the delivery of electronic democracy (e-democracy) by U.S. local governments through their e-government activities. In particular, I examine three issues related to local e-democracy through data from focus groups with officials from 37 municipal and county governments across the U.S. The issues are: (1) why local governments decided to adopt e-government, and whether e-democracy was among the reasons for its adoption; (2) whether e-government has produced or affected local e-democracy; and (3) what plans, if any, local governments have with respect to e-democracy in coming years. My principal findings are that e-government at the local level was adopted principally to deliver governmental information and services and to provide citizen access to governmental officials; that e-government does not operate in a manner that either produces or impacts local e-democracy (at least as the term is broadly defined herein); and that e-democracy is not on the radar screens of most American local governments for future deployment.

4. Local and global, North and South

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Dobson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
Environmental Implications ◽  
Multilateral Environmental Agreements ◽  
Global Character ◽  
Global North ◽  
North And South

Environmental problems have an international—even a global—character. Environmental politics is therefore, at least in part, an international politics. ‘Local and global, North and South’ considers how the national and international dimensions work—or not—together highlighting an apparently insurmountable faultline between the global North and the global South. Despite numerous obstacles, multilateral environmental agreements are possible. By comparing and contrasting two cases—the ozone layer and climate change—the factors and conditions that make for successful agreements are analysed. The local level, which is also crucial to environmental politics, is then considered because this is where environmental implications are felt most viscerally and its battles are fought most keenly.

Environmental and biological controls on the diversity and ecology of Late Cretaceous through early Paleogene marine ecosystems in the U.S. Gulf Coastal Plain

Paleobiology ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jocelyn A. Sessa ◽  
Timothy J. Bralower ◽  
Mark E. Patzkowsky ◽  
John C. Handley ◽  
Linda C. Ivany
Keyword(s):  
Coastal Plain ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Published Data ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Gulf Coastal Plain ◽  
Suspension Feeders ◽  
Late Mesozoic ◽  
Ecological Patterns ◽  
Shallow Subtidal ◽  
The U.S

The late Mesozoic through early Cenozoic is an interval of significant biologic turnover and ecologic reorganization within marine assemblages, but the timing and causes of these changes remain poorly understood. Here, we quantify the pattern and timing of shifts in the diversity (richness and evenness) and ecology of local (i.e., sample level) mollusk-dominated assemblages during this critical interval using field-collected and published data sets from the U.S. Gulf Coastal Plain. We test whether the biologic and ecologic patterns observed primarily at the global level during this time are also expressed at the local level, and whether the end-Cretaceous (K/Pg) mass extinction and recovery moderated these trends. To explore whether environment had any effect on these patterns, we examine data from shallow subtidal and offshore settings.Assemblages from both settings recovered to pre-extinction diversity levels rapidly, in less than 7 million years. Following initial recovery, diversity remained unchanged in both settings. The trajectory of ecological restructuring was distinct for each setting in the wake of the K/Pg extinction. In offshore assemblages, the abundance and number of predatory carnivorous taxa dramatically increased, and surficial sessile suspension feeders were replaced by more active suspension feeders. In contrast, shallow subtidal assemblages did not experience ecological reorganization following the K/Pg extinction. The distinct ecological patterns displayed in each environment follow onshore-offshore patterns of innovation, whereby evolutionary novelties first appear in onshore settings relative to offshore habitats. Increased predation pressure may explain the significant ecological restructuring of offshore assemblages, whereby the explosive radiation of predators drove changes in their prey. Habitat-specific ecological restructuring, and its occurrence solely during the recovery interval, implies that disturbance and incumbency were also key in mediating these ecological changes.

scholarly journals The Spread of Anti-Union Business Coordination: Evidence from the Open-Shop Movement in the U.S. Interwar Period

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Kuo
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Open Shop ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
American Business ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Labor Literature ◽  
The U.S

What explains the development of repressive employer coordination? Classic historical American business and labor literature focuses on institutions of labor repression and employer associations, but little systematic examination of such associations exists, particularly during the interwar period. Similarly, recent political science literature on the origins of industrial institutions underemphasizes the importance of repressive employer associations. I use new quantitative subnational evidence from the U.S. interwar period, with data from the open-shop movement in the United States at the local level after World War I. I test a variety of families of hypotheses regarding variation in repressive employer coordination, with specific data measuring the threat posed by organized labor. I find that such threats posed by unions are correlated to repressive employer associations. The results have implications for understanding local-level variation in the business repression of labor movements in the early twentieth century and contribute to our understanding of labor repressive institutions and the incentives of firms to collectively act.

scholarly journals Effect of wildlife damage on the life of people living around Kaziranga National Park

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (1&2) ◽  
pp. 77-82
Author(s):  
Daisy Das
Keyword(s):  
Protected Area ◽  
National Park ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Crop Protection ◽  
International Level ◽  
Cost Of Living ◽  
Protection Measures ◽  
Alternative Livelihood ◽  
Kaziranga National Park ◽  
Wildlife Damage

The benefit from protected area is enjoyed at international level where as benefit is negligible at local level and often people have to bear losses for living around protected area. Wildlife damage is one such cost of living around protected area. Wild animals often destroys crop, assets, kill livestock and destroy property. Such wildlife damage many times becomes a bone of contention between people living around protected area and the park authority. In developing countries it becomes difficult to control such damage for park authority and giving compensation is not a feasible way. Therefore, the present study tries to assess the extent of wildlife damage in Kaziranga National Park (KNP) which is conflict ridden. It has been found from the survey that damage is enormous and people are dissatisfied with the park authority. This paper suggests that to obtain support of local people emphasis should be given crop protection measures and alternative livelihood opportunities.

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