Decision-Making Under Social Pressure: The Political Economy of Debating Socially Sensitive Issues

Author(s):  
Felix Oberholzer-Gee ◽  
Howard C. Kunreuther
Author(s):  
Michiel van Oudheusden

This chapter sets out the meanings attached to the concept of ‘innovation’ and asks how it has recently come to occupy the political and economic position it now holds. Drawing from science and technology studies, which has long sought to better incorporate the public in technological decision-making, it explores the impetus towards connecting ‘responsibility’ with ‘innovation’ and the context from which this derives. Finally, it examines how this impetus has become incorporated into various frameworks for Responsible (Research and) Innovation, and what is missing from this approach in terms of understanding the place of ‘innovation’ in the present political economy, and the place of politics in innovation.


2010 ◽  
pp. 137-149
Author(s):  
Alan Matthews

- This note reviews a recent volume edited by Swinnen on the "political economy" of the 2003 reform of the Common agricultural policy in discussing the prospects for further reform in the post-2013 period. The 2003 reform was a product of elite decision- making, and its success was due in part to the deliberate attempt to limit its redistributive effects across member states. It is already clear that the post-2013 Cap will be accompanied by a redistribution towards the new member states, and this will increase the willingness of the older member states to countenance reform.


1971 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-39
Author(s):  
Robert C. Vowels

To detach oneself and treat others like so many objects is not to be value-free but to choose to devalue others. Charles Hampden-Turner Radical Man, The Process of Psycho-Social Development


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bin Chen

This paper first explores some key principles central to a well-functioning, central/local fiscal relationship from a political economy perspective of federalism. It then applies these principles to an examination of reforming intergovernmental fiscal relationships in China from 1980s to the early 1990s. It is argued that the economic principle central to fiscal federalism is the determination of the optimal structure of the public sector in terms of the assignment of decision-making responsibility for specified functions to representatives of the interests of the proper geographical subsets of society. Fiscal decentralization, as evidenced in China, provides local government with incentives to build a hospitable environment of competition for people and capital and, therefore, prospers local economies. However, China’s experience also suggests that fiscal decentralization without the relevant political institutional foundation will bring about negative effects. The political foundations of fiscal federalism are as essential as its economic principles in preserving and sustaining fiscal federalism.


Mapping Power ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 340-363
Author(s):  
Navroz K. Dubashsunila ◽  
Sunila S. Kale ◽  
Ranjit Bharvirkar

The concluding chapter uses the analytic framework of the volume to explain the political economy of electricity. First, social welfare concerns continue to play an important part in shaping Indian electricity; policy making in the sector will need to engage these concerns rather than wish them away. Second, successful states have managed to turn a vicious cycle or low level equilibrium between electoral and electricity outcomes into a virtuous cycle, by delivering on a combination of access, price, and service. Third, past reform efforts reform efforts have failed to seriously engage state-specific political contexts but instead sought to carve out zones of depoliticized decision making. We categorize the state cases based on their relative ability to do so. Finally, the conclusion reflects on how a political mapping of power can help understand the future of Indian electricity as it negotiates a growing turn to renewable electricity.


2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (4_suppl) ◽  
pp. 61S-77S ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Frank ◽  
Gordon E. Shockley

We offer a microfoundation of social entrepreneurship through the work of Vincent and Elinor Ostrom on polycentricity (Ostromian polycentricity) and that of Friedrich Hayek on the economics of knowledge (Hayekian knowledge) that reveals both the main strength and main weakness of social entrepreneurship. Problematizing social entrepreneurship in terms of the political economy of knowledge and based on Ostromian polycentricity and Hayekian knowledge, we first find the main strength of social entrepreneurship is that local, decentralized social entrepreneurs usually are the most appropriate and best-positioned—indeed, the most efficient—actors to solve their communities’ social problems. Also based on the work of the Ostroms and Hayek, we identify the main weakness of social entrepreneurship: the lack of institutional safeguards to social entrepreneurship. The localized decision-making process, however, might mitigate to some degree the potential for large-scale abuse.


2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 84-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue that there are structural and functional limits to corporate social responsibility (CSR) that determine the boundary conditions of corporate social initiatives. The current preoccupation with win-win situations in CSR may not serve societal interests. For CSR to produce social outcomes that are not necessarily constrained by corporate rationality there needs to be a change in the normative framework of public decision making at the institutional level. The author develops a global governance framework for CSR that provides more democratic forms of decision making in the political economy that will enable corporate social responsibility to overcome the constraints imposed by corporate rationality. Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual paper and critique. Findings – The author develops a global governance framework for CSR that provides more democratic forms of decision making in the political economy that will enable corporate social responsibility to overcome the constraints imposed by corporate rationality. Originality/value – The paper contributes to theoretical development of CSR.


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