Conversational Pragmatics: Memory Reporting Strategies in Different Social Contexts

Conversational pragmatics studies, among others, factors that affect the information we share with others. Previous research showed that when participants are unsure about the correctness of an answer, they report fewer answers. This behavior strongly depends on the incentive structure of the social context where the question-response exchange takes place. In this research we studied how the different incentive structure of several types of social contexts affects conversational pragmatics and the amount of information we are willing to share. In addition, we also studied how different levels of knowledge may affect memory reporting in different social contexts. Participants answered easy, intermediate, and difficult general knowledge questions and decided whether they would report or withhold their selected answer in different social contexts: formal vs. informal, and constrained (a context that promotes providing only responses we are certain about) vs. loose (with an incentive structure that maximizes providing any type of answer). Overall, our results confirmed that social contexts are associated with a different incentive structure which affect memory reporting strategies, and that the effect of social contexts depended on the difficulty of the questions. Our results highlight the relevance of studying the different incentive structures of social contexts to understand the underlying processes of conversational pragmatics, and stress the importance of considering metamemory theories of memory reporting.

Perspectives on Reducing the National Milk Deficit and Accelerating the Transition to a Sustainable Dairy Value Chain in Zimbabwe

The Zimbabwean dairy industry is massively underperforming, as evidenced by a reduction in milk yield from 262 million liters in 1990 to <37 million liters in 2009 and a steady but slow increase to 82 million liters in 2021. The current demand for milk in Zimbabwe stands at 130 million liters, and there is a national capacity for processing 400 million liters per annum. This study used literature, stakeholder inputs and expert knowledge to provide a perspective on practical options to reduce the national milk deficit and, simultaneously, accelerate the transition to a sustainable dairy value chain in Zimbabwe. Following a discussion on the key barriers and constraints to developing the milk value chain, we explored opportunities to improve the performance of the underperforming smallholder and medium-scale dairy farmers. Specifically, we discussed innovative management, creative policy instruments and alternative technological options to maximize milk production in Zimbabwe. We also highlight the need for an inclusive and creatively organized dairy value chain to optimize stakeholder linkages and improve information flow and equity. Examples of crucial investments and incentive structures for upgrading the existing value chain and monitoring greenhouse gas emissions and carbon uptake are discussed. Furthermore, the socio-economic effects (i.e., profitability, women empowerment and employment creation), milk quality, safety and traceability issues linked to a better organized and performing dairy value chain are highlighted.

Centralization vs. Decentralization in COVID-19 Responses: Lessons from China

Researchers have begun to examine whether centralized or decentralized (or federal) political systems have better handled the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we probe beneath the surface of China’s political system to examine the balance between centralized and decentralized authority in China’s handling of the pandemic. We show that after the SARS epidemic of 2003, China adjusted the central–local balance of authority over systems to handle both the detection and early response phases of health emergencies. In an attempt to overcome problems revealed by SARS, it sought both to centralize early infectious disease reporting and to decentralize authority to respond to local health emergencies. But these adjustments in the central–local balance of authority after SARS did not change “normal times” authority relations and incentive structures in the political system. As a result, local leaders had both the authority and the incentive to prioritize tasks that determine their political advancement at the cost of containing the spread of COVID-19. China’s efforts to balance central and local authority shows just how difficult it is to get it right, especially in the early phase of a pandemic.

Street Markets in La Paz and São Paulo

Chapter 4 tells the history and structure of street vending in two municipalities in the La Paz department of Bolivia and two districts in the São Paulo state in of Brazil. This chapter demonstrates how officials actively intervene in informal markets and workers’ organizations, and suggests how those interventions vary over time, creating highly structured organizations around La Paz and fleeting organizations around São Paulo. The chapter then develops the specific incentive structures that officials and workers face. Chapter 4 grounds the game theoretic model’s assumptions in observations from street markets in La Paz: It shows that unorganized street vendors create negative externalities, that street vendors approach collective action decisions with a cost–benefit analysis, that officials offer private benefits to organized street vendors, especially leaders, and that once organized, street vendors self-regulate and bargain with officials.

Roleplay, realpolitik and ‘great powerness’: the logical distinction between survival and social performance in grand strategy

States exist in an anarchic international system in which survival is the necessary precursor to fulfilling all of their citizens’ other interests. Yet states’ inhabitants – and the policymakers they empower – also hold social ideas about other ends that the state should value and how it should pursue them: the ‘role’ they expect their state to ‘play’ in international politics. Furthermore, such role-performative impulses can motivate external behaviours inimical to security-maximization – and thus to the state survival necessary for future interest-fulfilment. This article therefore investigates the tensions between roleplay and realpolitik in grand strategy. It does so through interrogation of four mutual incompatibilities in role-performative and realpolitikal understandings of ‘Great Powerness’, a core – but conceptually contested – international-systemic ordering unit, thereby demonstrating their necessary logical distinctiveness. The argument is illustrated with brief case studies on the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. Identification of such security-imperilling role motives thus buttresses neoclassical realist theory; specifically, as an account of strategic deviation from the security-maximizing realist baseline. Such conclusions carry important implications for both scholarship and statecraft, meanwhile. For once we recognize that roleplay and realpolitik are necessarily distinct incentive structures, role motives’ advocates can no longer claim that discharging such performative social preferences necessarily bolsters survival prospects too.

The Issue of Proxies, And why EU law matters for recommender systems

Recommendations are meant to increase sales or ad revenue, as these are the first priority of those who pay for them. As recommender systems match their recommendations with inferred preferences, we should not be surprised if the algorithm optimises for lucrative preferences and thus co-produces the preferences they mine. This relates to the well-known problem of feedback loops, filter bubbles and echo chambers. In this article I will discuss the implications of the fact that computing systems necessarily work with proxies when inferring recommendations and raise a number of questions about whether recommender systems actually do what they are claimed to do, while also analysing the often perverse economic incentive structures that have a major impact on relevant design decisions. Finally, I will explain how the GDPR and the proposed AI Act will help to break through various vicious circles, by constraining how people may be targeted (GDPR) and by requiring documented evidence of the robustness, resilience, reliability and the responsible design and use of high risk recommender systems (AI Act).

When Does She Rebel? How Gender Affects Deviating Legislative Behaviour

It is common wisdom that the increase in the number of women in parliament brought along a new diversity of perspectives presented in legislatures. So far, however, we know little about the implications of women's presence on party cohesion. Moving towards a more complete understanding of how women affect political processes, this article addresses the question, does gender affect vote defection from party lines, and if so, under what circumstances? We argue that the actual and perceived risk associated with vote defection in roll-call votes is gendered and that this is constraining the leeway of women to rebel. Analysing roll-call vote data of the German Bundestag (1953–2013) provided by Bergmann et al. (2018), we show that gender exerts a consistent effect only if electoral safety and policy content are considered: it is in feminine policy areas and at high levels of electoral security that women are more likely than men to rebel. This finding implies that taking different incentive structures into account is key if we want to understand gendered legislative behaviour.

Do German University Medical Centres promote robust and transparent research? – A cross-sectional study of institutional policies.

Background In light of replication and translational failures, biomedical research practices have recently come under scrutiny. Experts have pointed out that the current incentive structures at research institutions insufficiently incentivise researchers to invest in robustness and transparency and instead incentivise them to optimise their fitness in the struggle for publications and grants. This cross-sectional study aimed to describe whether and how relevant policies of university medical centres in Germany support the robust and transparent conduct of research and how prevalent traditional metrics are. Methods For 38 German university medical centres, we searched for institutional policies for academic degrees and academic appointments, as well as websites for their core facilities and research in general. We screened the documents for mentions of indicators of robust and transparent research and for mentions of more traditional metrics of career progression. Results While Open Access was mentioned in 16% of PhD regulations, other indicators of robust and transparent research (study registration; reporting of results; sharing of data, code, and protocols; and robustness) were mentioned in less than 10% of institutional policies for academic degrees and academic appointments. These indicators were more frequently mentioned on the core facility and general research websites. Regarding the traditional metrics, the institutional policies for academic degrees and academic appointments had frequent mentions of the number of publications, grant money, impact factors, and authorship order. Conclusions References to robust and transparent research practices are, with a few exceptions, generally uncommon in institutional policies at German university medical centres, while traditional criteria for academic promotion and tenure still prevail.

Public-Sector Honesty and Corruption: Field Evidence from 40 Countries

This study presents a theoretical model of honest behavior in the public sector (public-sector honesty) and its relationship with corruption. We test this model empirically by utilizing and extending a unique data set of honest behavior of public- and private-sector workers across 40 countries, gathered in a field experiment conducted by Cohn et al. (N = 17,303). We find that public-sector honesty is determined by country-level societal culture and public-sector culture; public-sector honesty predicts corruption levels, independently from the effect of incentive structures—in line with the Becker–Stigler model. We find no support for a global mean difference in honest behavior between public- and private-sector workers, alongside substantive cross-country variation in sector differences in honest behavior. The emphasis assigned to honesty of public-sector workers within each country appears to be locally determined by the prevailing public-sector culture. These results imply that beyond cross-national variation in the scope of publicness, it is very content may vary across countries. Lastly, the results of this study consistently fail to support the selection thesis, and we discuss the practical implications of this result for anticorruption policy.

Plan Meets Reality

Chapter 2 evaluates the implementation of the reforms offered by international financial institutions and shows the propensity of these plans to foster corruption and extreme wealth inequality and, in many cases, an economic collapse that was far greater than what had been foreseen. Those connected to the old regimes or with significant outside financial backing were able to capitalize on misguided and poorly implemented privatization plans. The chapter also explores how corrupt incentive structures created the oligarch class that is the primary driver of economic inequality in the postsocialist world. Finally, it considers the depth and length of transitional recessions, analyzing economic data to show that, in many cases, recovery took decades, and for the worst hit countries, productive capacity has yet to reach pre-1989 levels. Highlighting the dramatic rise of poverty during transition, this chapter points to the failure of the international organizations’ “targeted” poverty-prevention strategy.