Broader Implications

Author(s):  
David Vogel

This chapter explores some of the broader implications of studying the dynamics of policy convergence and divergence, the relationship between political institutions and policy styles, and the public perception of risks. The extensive literature on policy convergence addresses two issues: the extent of policy convergence and direction of policy convergence. A second body of literature addresses the impact of convergence on the direction of public policy. Much of this literature focuses on the impact of increased economic integration and global competition on the stringency of environmental regulation. The fact that both the United States and the EU have adopted a wide range of comprehensive consumer and environmental regulations suggests that powerful political and economic states enjoy substantial discretion in responding to domestic pressures for more stringent consumer and environmental regulations.

Author(s):  
Leonida Tedoldi

This article rethinks the political and institutional causes of the rapid debt growth and its exploitation in the italian “blocked” political system (so-called “First Republic”). Italian State has always lived above its means, with a constant imbalance between income and expenditure and at the same time expanding its distance with respect to society (but the debt was paid by social groups that took advantage of it). This process triggered off a perennial crisis of representation and strengthened the instability of relations between political institutions and society. Therefore, sovereign debt downturns are always crises of institutional legitimization and require a redefinition of the ways in which sovereignty and power are exercised. Thus, the article investigates the impact of the “political use” of the public debt by governments on the relationship between the State and society.


Genealogy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Jordan Liz

The “Hispanic Paradox” refers to the epidemiological finding that, despite a lower socioeconomic status, Hispanics tend to have health outcomes (especially regarding mortality rates and life expectancy) that are similar to, if not better than, US non-Hispanic Whites. Within the public health literature, a number of explanations have been proposed focusing on reproductive and fertility rates, biological differences, cultural and lifestyle advantages, the impact of selective migration to the US, among others. Despite the abundant literature on this topic since the late 1980s, little work has been done on the paradox from a philosophical perspective. In this paper, I seek to address this gap by offering a genealogy of the “Hispanic Paradox.” The bulk of this paper, then, focuses on exposing how the development of the Hispanic Paradox is epistemically tied to the prevailing anti-immigration discourse of the 1980s and 1990s. By highlighting the relationship between these two phenomena, this paper proposes a new direction for research into the biopolitics of immigration. More specifically, this paper suggests that the discourses of the “browning of America” and the Hispanic Paradox reveal a specifically biopolitical concern over the longevity of the United States as a White-majority country.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Tina Ronhovde Tiller

<p>Climate change has been a concern for well over thirty years, but there has been limited research within the field of tourism with respect to climate change. In the last few years, there have been changes in the public perception of climate change, and an increasing awareness of the importance of addressing the problems that the world may face as a result of climate change. At current, the GHG emissions attributable to tourism are in the range of 4-6% of total global emissions, and rising. People are travelling ever more frequent, and to destinations far away from their residence. The world cannot sustain these trends, and thus research is needed to identify means to change tourism behaviours and reduce the impact of tourism on the global natural environment. This study aimed to explore the relationship between concern for the environment and tourism by taking recent holiday behaviours of Wellington residents into account. 308 residents returned useable questionnaires from the household surveys which were distributed to Wellington dwellings in July and August 2009. The study took the following steps to reach its aim: Firstly, recent holiday behaviours among Wellington residents were accounted for, including participation in leisure travel, distances travelled, and transport modes and accommodation used. Minimum emissions of CO2-E emissions caused by transportation to and from the main destination on the two most recent holidays taken by the respondents were estimated. Also, factors influencing choice of destination, transportation and accommodation were explored in relation to concern for the environment. Secondly, residents' perception of the significance of impact that climate change will have on their lives was explored. It was established that most people in the sample think that climate change will affect their lives to some extent. Thirdly, frequency of participation in carbon offsetting schemes and purchase of ecolabeled tourism products was explored to contribute to the knowledge about consumer awareness and attitudes towards tourism ecolabels and carbon offsetting schemes. Awareness and consumption was found to be low among the respondents. Fourthly, the study explored people's level of concern for the global natural environment, by investigating opinions held by the respondents about tourism and climate change and the impact of their holiday behaviours. Concern was established among the respondents. Concern for the environment was then explored in relation to holiday behaviours to establish whether environmental concern had an influence on the behaviours displayed by the respondents. No such relationship was found, and it was concluded that concern for the environment does not have an influence on people's behaviours. Lastly, preferred policy options were investigated. The people in the sample preferred voluntary policy measures, however very few are currently making use of the voluntary initiatives that are available to the public. The study concludes by highlighting the fact that more strict measures are needed in order to change current behaviours, seeing as concern for the environment does not affect the tourism behaviours of the people included in the sample.</p>


10.2196/26780 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. e26780
Author(s):  
Mohammad Al-Ramahi ◽  
Ahmed Elnoshokaty ◽  
Omar El-Gayar ◽  
Tareq Nasralah ◽  
Abdullah Wahbeh

Background Despite scientific evidence supporting the importance of wearing masks to curtail the spread of COVID-19, wearing masks has stirred up a significant debate particularly on social media. Objective This study aimed to investigate the topics associated with the public discourse against wearing masks in the United States. We also studied the relationship between the anti-mask discourse on social media and the number of new COVID-19 cases. Methods We collected a total of 51,170 English tweets between January 1, 2020, and October 27, 2020, by searching for hashtags against wearing masks. We used machine learning techniques to analyze the data collected. We investigated the relationship between the volume of tweets against mask-wearing and the daily volume of new COVID-19 cases using a Pearson correlation analysis between the two-time series. Results The results and analysis showed that social media could help identify important insights related to wearing masks. The results of topic mining identified 10 categories or themes of user concerns dominated by (1) constitutional rights and freedom of choice; (2) conspiracy theory, population control, and big pharma; and (3) fake news, fake numbers, and fake pandemic. Altogether, these three categories represent almost 65% of the volume of tweets against wearing masks. The relationship between the volume of tweets against wearing masks and newly reported COVID-19 cases depicted a strong correlation wherein the rise in the volume of negative tweets led the rise in the number of new cases by 9 days. Conclusions These findings demonstrated the potential of mining social media for understanding the public discourse about public health issues such as wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results emphasized the relationship between the discourse on social media and the potential impact on real events such as changing the course of the pandemic. Policy makers are advised to proactively address public perception and work on shaping this perception through raising awareness, debunking negative sentiments, and prioritizing early policy intervention toward the most prevalent topics.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Tina Ronhovde Tiller

<p>Climate change has been a concern for well over thirty years, but there has been limited research within the field of tourism with respect to climate change. In the last few years, there have been changes in the public perception of climate change, and an increasing awareness of the importance of addressing the problems that the world may face as a result of climate change. At current, the GHG emissions attributable to tourism are in the range of 4-6% of total global emissions, and rising. People are travelling ever more frequent, and to destinations far away from their residence. The world cannot sustain these trends, and thus research is needed to identify means to change tourism behaviours and reduce the impact of tourism on the global natural environment. This study aimed to explore the relationship between concern for the environment and tourism by taking recent holiday behaviours of Wellington residents into account. 308 residents returned useable questionnaires from the household surveys which were distributed to Wellington dwellings in July and August 2009. The study took the following steps to reach its aim: Firstly, recent holiday behaviours among Wellington residents were accounted for, including participation in leisure travel, distances travelled, and transport modes and accommodation used. Minimum emissions of CO2-E emissions caused by transportation to and from the main destination on the two most recent holidays taken by the respondents were estimated. Also, factors influencing choice of destination, transportation and accommodation were explored in relation to concern for the environment. Secondly, residents' perception of the significance of impact that climate change will have on their lives was explored. It was established that most people in the sample think that climate change will affect their lives to some extent. Thirdly, frequency of participation in carbon offsetting schemes and purchase of ecolabeled tourism products was explored to contribute to the knowledge about consumer awareness and attitudes towards tourism ecolabels and carbon offsetting schemes. Awareness and consumption was found to be low among the respondents. Fourthly, the study explored people's level of concern for the global natural environment, by investigating opinions held by the respondents about tourism and climate change and the impact of their holiday behaviours. Concern was established among the respondents. Concern for the environment was then explored in relation to holiday behaviours to establish whether environmental concern had an influence on the behaviours displayed by the respondents. No such relationship was found, and it was concluded that concern for the environment does not have an influence on people's behaviours. Lastly, preferred policy options were investigated. The people in the sample preferred voluntary policy measures, however very few are currently making use of the voluntary initiatives that are available to the public. The study concludes by highlighting the fact that more strict measures are needed in order to change current behaviours, seeing as concern for the environment does not affect the tourism behaviours of the people included in the sample.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Al-Ramahi ◽  
Ahmed Elnoshokaty ◽  
Omar El-Gayar ◽  
Tareq Nasralah ◽  
Abdullah Wahbeh

BACKGROUND Despite scientific evidence supporting the importance of wearing masks to curtail the spread of COVID-19, wearing masks has stirred up a significant debate particularly on social media. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate the topics associated with the public discourse against wearing masks in the United States. We also studied the relationship between the anti-mask discourse on social media and the number of new COVID-19 cases. METHODS We collected a total of 51,170 English tweets between January 1, 2020, and October 27, 2020, by searching for hashtags against wearing masks. We used machine learning techniques to analyze the data collected. We investigated the relationship between the volume of tweets against mask-wearing and the daily volume of new COVID-19 cases using a Pearson correlation analysis between the two-time series. RESULTS The results and analysis showed that social media could help identify important insights related to wearing masks. The results of topic mining identified 10 categories or themes of user concerns dominated by (1) constitutional rights and freedom of choice; (2) conspiracy theory, population control, and big pharma; and (3) fake news, fake numbers, and fake pandemic. Altogether, these three categories represent almost 65% of the volume of tweets against wearing masks. The relationship between the volume of tweets against wearing masks and newly reported COVID-19 cases depicted a strong correlation wherein the rise in the volume of negative tweets led the rise in the number of new cases by 9 days. CONCLUSIONS These findings demonstrated the potential of mining social media for understanding the public discourse about public health issues such as wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results emphasized the relationship between the discourse on social media and the potential impact on real events such as changing the course of the pandemic. Policy makers are advised to proactively address public perception and work on shaping this perception through raising awareness, debunking negative sentiments, and prioritizing early policy intervention toward the most prevalent topics.


Author(s):  
Leonida Tedoldi

This article rethinks the political and institutional causes of the rapid debt growth and its exploitation in the italian “blocked” political system (so-called “First Republic”). Italian State has always lived above its means, with a constant imbalance between income and expenditure and at the same time expanding its distance with respect to society (but the debt was paid by social groups that took advantage of it). This process triggered off a perennial crisis of representation and strengthened the instability of relations between political institutions and society. Therefore, sovereign debt downturns are always crises of institutional legitimization and require a redefinition of the ways in which sovereignty and power are exercised. Thus, the article investigates the impact of the “political use” of the public debt by governments on the relationship between the State and society.


2022 ◽  
pp. 016555152110681
Author(s):  
Truong (Jack) P Luu ◽  
Rosangela Follmann

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues to have devastating effects across the globe. No nation has been free from the uncertainty brought by this pandemic. The health, social and economic tolls associated with it are causing strong emotions and spreading fear in people of all ages, genders and races. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many have expressed their feelings and opinions related to a wide range of aspects of their lives via Twitter. In this study, we consider a framework for extracting sentiment scores and opinions from COVID-19–related tweets. We connect users’ sentiment with COVID-19 cases across the United States and investigate the effect of specific COVID-19 milestones on public sentiment. The results of this work may help with the development of pandemic-related legislation, serve as a guide for scientific work, as well as inform and educate the public on core issues related to the pandemic.


1994 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 255-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Onker N. Basu

In accounting research, the role of organizational leaders has been underrepresented. The limited research dealing with leadership issues has focused on the impact of leadership on micro activities such as performance evaluation, budget satisfaction, and audit team performance. The impact of leadership on the structure of accounting and audit systems and organizations has been ignored. This paper focuses on the impact that past Comptrollers General have had on the working and structure of one federal audit agency, the United States General Accounting Office (GAO). In addition, it also focuses on the influence of the two most recent Comptrollers General on one important audit related activity, i.e., the audit report review process. Using qualitative field research methods, this paper documents how the organizational leadership impacts its long-term audit practices and thereby influences auditing, especially in the public sector.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Matias López ◽  
Juan Pablo Luna

ABSTRACT By replying to Kurt Weyland’s (2020) comparative study of populism, we revisit optimistic perspectives on the health of American democracy in light of existing evidence. Relying on a set-theoretical approach, Weyland concludes that populists succeed in subverting democracy only when institutional weakness and conjunctural misfortune are observed jointly in a polity, thereby conferring on the United States immunity to democratic reversal. We challenge this conclusion on two grounds. First, we argue that the focus on institutional dynamics neglects the impact of the structural conditions in which institutions are embedded, such as inequality, racial cleavages, and changing political attitudes among the public. Second, we claim that endogeneity, coding errors, and the (mis)use of Boolean algebra raise questions about the accuracy of the analysis and its conclusions. Although we are skeptical of crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis as an adequate modeling choice, we replicate the original analysis and find that the paths toward democratic backsliding and continuity are both potentially compatible with the United States.


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