The social dynamics of group offending

Theoretical explanations of group offending have been hindered by a focus on rational actor models of social relationships. One consequence of this has been a neglect of the dynamics of social relations and their role in group offending and desistance. Drawing illustratively on two studies conducted in the West of Scotland, this article advances an integrated theoretical framework for the comparative study of group offending that moves beyond either individualizing or ‘gang’ frames dominating existing discourse, towards a thick understanding of situated social relations. By integrating Bourdieu’s concept of habitus with Donati’s relational realist framework, this article theoretically and empirically examines the dynamics of group offending relationships, what shapes them and the way they can, in turn, shape and affect offending and desistance trajectories.

Power decreases trust in social exchange

How does lacking vs. possessing power in a social exchange affect people’s trust in their exchange partner? An answer to this question has broad implications for a number of exchange settings in which dependence plays an important role. Here, we report on a series of experiments in which we manipulated participants’ power position in terms of structural dependence and observed their trust perceptions and behaviors. Over a variety of different experimental paradigms and measures, we find that more powerful actors place less trust in others than less powerful actors do. Our results contradict predictions by rational actor models, which assume that low-power individuals are able to anticipate that a more powerful exchange partner will place little value on the relationship with them, thus tends to behave opportunistically, and consequently cannot be trusted. Conversely, our results support predictions by motivated cognition theory, which posits that low-power individuals want their exchange partner to be trustworthy and then act according to that desire. Mediation analyses show that, consistent with the motivated cognition account, having low power increases individuals’ hope and, in turn, their perceptions of their exchange partners’ benevolence, which ultimately leads them to trust.

Rational Irrationality and Simulation in Environmental Politics: The Example of Climate Change

Do western publics make ‘demands’ for environmental policy that they have no desire to see enacted? The thesis that they do has been put forward recently by advocates of the ‘post-ecologist’ paradigm such as Ingolfur Blühdorn. Taking the example of climate change, this article assesses survey results that provide indicative evidence that such ‘simulative’ demands may exist. I suggest that such demands are, however, best explained through conceptual tools available from game-theoretic and rational-actor models of political behaviour, in particular rational ignorance and rational irrationality, rather than with the societal-level accounts preferred by Blühdorn and others.

Limited Rationality and the Limits of Supply Reduction

Drug markets have been targeted for increasingly tough enforcement, yet retail prices for cocaine and heroin have fallen by 70–80%. No research has explained adequately why prices have fallen. This paper explores the possibility that part of the explanation may lie in the failure of drug dealers to respond to risks the way the simplest rational actor models might predict.

Toward a Foucauldian analysis of international regimes

The liberal approach to international regimes is attractive in the development of that concept because it deploys a well-developed and rigorous set of analytic devices in the form of rational actor models. However, it also assumes that regimes are benevolent, voluntary, cooperative, and legitimate associations of actors, which unnecessarily limits theregime concept and encourages an ideological and apologetic position with respect to regimes. Following a critique of the liberal approach, this article suggests an alternative based on a fundamental assumption of contestability in regimes. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault which culminates in the concept of “power/knowledge,” it regards international regimes as attempts to define, order, and act within international public spaces. It also regards international regimes as loci and foci of struggle. Some aspects of this conceptualization are sketched in preliminary form, and a brief illustration in the area of nuclear nonproliferation is provided.