Historicism

This chapter studies historicism. It is often said that philosophical views and, indeed, philosophy itself are historical phenomena. The historian, in considering the fact that somebody took a certain philosophical view as a historical fact, just treats this fact under one aspect; namely, that of how it fits into and can be explained out of history. But there is another aspect to the fact that he systematically disregards; namely, whether the view is true and whether it is warranted by the argument in its favour. This just reflects the fact that the historian does not himself take a stand on the philosophical issues. But it is a real aspect of the fact that somebody holds a certain view that the view is true or false, that one manages or fails to solve a problem, to answer a question, by advancing it. Ultimately, however, it is important to make sure that in one’s rejection of any kind of historicism one does not lose sight of the original insight which the historicist just pushed to an untenable extreme; namely, the insight that philosophical views, or philosophical judgements, are historical phenomena.

Questioning policy-making as problem-solving. A Bacchian examination of how paid parental leave was problematized in New Zealand and Norway

<p>This thesis adopts Carol Bacchi’s Foucault-influenced poststructuralist perspective to investigate how the concept of gender equality was conceptualized in the paid parental leave (PPL) policies in New Zealand and Norway. Poststructuralism is concerned with how we ‘know’ things, and with language, and the Foucauldian influence brings a focus on discourse as knowledge. Poststructuralism is also concerned with subjectification, how subject positions are created by the discourse, and the way in which some people are excluded from certain subject positions. The research investigates changes to the PPL policies in New Zealand and Norway and how gender equality was conceptualized in each country. This research is conducted using two closely-related poststructuralist methodologies for two different types of data. The first data consist of historical documents from prior to and including the time that the PPL policies were changed and Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be?’ or ‘WPR’ framework is used to analyse them. The second data consist of interviews with people involved in the PPL policies and Bacchi and Bonham’s Poststructural Interview Analysis or ‘PIA’ framework is used to analyse them. For both data sets, the analysis consists of thematic coding, followed by answering the series of WPR questions or the PIA processes. Three common themes of payment rate, eligibility, and rights were identified in the analysis of the historical data and they provided a focus for the interview data analysis. Different conceptions of gender equality were identified in each country. The research makes a number of contributions. It provides an original insight into the design of PPL policy from a critical perspective and brings a gender lens to policy analysis. It offers a unique comparison between New Zealand and Norway, and provides a further methodological example of the established WPR framework, as well as an early application of the new PIA approach. The research also challenges policy-makers to makers to adopt and maintain a critical perspective in their work, and to recognise that people are subjects, and that policies are problems constituted by the discourse.</p>

Questioning policy-making as problem-solving. A Bacchian examination of how paid parental leave was problematized in New Zealand and Norway

<p>This thesis adopts Carol Bacchi’s Foucault-influenced poststructuralist perspective to investigate how the concept of gender equality was conceptualized in the paid parental leave (PPL) policies in New Zealand and Norway. Poststructuralism is concerned with how we ‘know’ things, and with language, and the Foucauldian influence brings a focus on discourse as knowledge. Poststructuralism is also concerned with subjectification, how subject positions are created by the discourse, and the way in which some people are excluded from certain subject positions. The research investigates changes to the PPL policies in New Zealand and Norway and how gender equality was conceptualized in each country. This research is conducted using two closely-related poststructuralist methodologies for two different types of data. The first data consist of historical documents from prior to and including the time that the PPL policies were changed and Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be?’ or ‘WPR’ framework is used to analyse them. The second data consist of interviews with people involved in the PPL policies and Bacchi and Bonham’s Poststructural Interview Analysis or ‘PIA’ framework is used to analyse them. For both data sets, the analysis consists of thematic coding, followed by answering the series of WPR questions or the PIA processes. Three common themes of payment rate, eligibility, and rights were identified in the analysis of the historical data and they provided a focus for the interview data analysis. Different conceptions of gender equality were identified in each country. The research makes a number of contributions. It provides an original insight into the design of PPL policy from a critical perspective and brings a gender lens to policy analysis. It offers a unique comparison between New Zealand and Norway, and provides a further methodological example of the established WPR framework, as well as an early application of the new PIA approach. The research also challenges policy-makers to makers to adopt and maintain a critical perspective in their work, and to recognise that people are subjects, and that policies are problems constituted by the discourse.</p>

Campaigning in Quebec Municipal Elections: When the Party Defines Door to Door Canvassing as “The Right Way” to Campaign

Electoral campaigns are one of the key moments in political life. Yet, there is little Canadian work on this subject when it comes to municipal elections. However, the international literature on campaigning provides an opportunity for useful questions on the transformations of this aspect of local political life by bringing together political sociology and electoral sociology. That being said in this context, we present the results of an exploratory case study of campaigning in a municipal political party in a Canadian city, more specifically situated in the Province of Quebec. Municipal political parties are usually considered as electoral machines. It is therefore important to study in detail the way these organizations conduct election campaigns. More specifically, we are looking to explore how municipal political parties influence the campaign by providing electoral techniques. To achieve this, we closely examine the door to door canvassing strategy, which hints at what the party considers a “good campaigning” standard and helps us observe the behaviours of candidates and the different ways they fulfill the party’s requirements. It is therefore not a question of measuring the effectiveness of partisan electoral devices but of understanding how the party produces campaigning norms and puts them to work. The results presented here offer an original insight into the internal workings of a municipal political party—something that has never before been documented in the Canadian context. First, they help to open the black box that is municipal political parties and to better understand their internal modus operandi. Second, the results illustrate that election campaigning is still fundamentally based on one-on-one encounters.

All grown up? Market maturity and investment in London's purpose-built student accommodation sector

PurposeThe UK's purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) sector has seen significant institutional investment in recent decades. This paper unpacks contemporary trends and perspectives on the sector. It questions whether PBSA has moved from being an “alternative” to “mainstream” residential asset class, framing the analysis through the lens of market maturity.Design/methodology/approachThe methods triangulate perspectives drawn from literature on the evolution of PBSA as an asset class with illustrations of investment trends across the UK between 2005 and 2020 using data from Real Capital Analytics (RCA), combined with findings from 40 semi-structured interviews with investors and stakeholders in PBSA in the UK London is the focus of the work, whilst other regional cities are integrated for comparison.FindingsThe results demonstrate that London's PBSA market is ahead of trends currently being replicated in regional cities. However, the regions currently offer greater return potential and opportunities for risk taking compared to London, where yields are compressed, and the market is considered lower risk. The concept of maturity remains useful as a framework for evaluating markets, however a more granular analysis of sectors is necessary to further understand asset classes within sectors. PBSA continues to trade at a premium across the UK; it is considered the most mature residential asset class.Practical implicationsThe emergence of PBSA as an asset class continues to play a developing role within the residential sector and UK investment market. Risk, value and local context remain key when integrating PBSA into institutional portfolios, and as the first to consider the UK market from a qualitative research approach, this research provides a snapshot of these influences in 2021.Originality/valueOur approach offers original insight into investment trends across the UK and is the first to focus reflections on the London market specifically. The research highlights the role of PBSA as a vanguard asset class for investors into residential, situating its growth within the framework of market maturity and drawing out market nuances from interviews.

P2P lending platforms in Malaysia: What do we know?

Background - With the recent evolution of Financial Technology (FinTech), 11 peers to peer (P2P) lending platforms have been regulated by the Securities Commission in Malaysia since 2016. P2P lending platforms offer new investment opportunities to individual investors to earn higher rates on return than what traditional lenders usually provide. However, individual investors may face higher potential risks of default from their borrowers. Therefore, individual investors need to understand the potential exposure to such P2P lending platforms to make an effective investment decision. This study aims to explore the potential risk exposures that individual investors may experience at Malaysia's licensed P2P lending platforms. Methods - Based on data collected manually from nine P2P lending platforms over five months, relationships between interest rates and various risk classifying factors such as credit rating, industry, business stage, loan purpose, and loan duration are examined. Results- This study shows that loans with a similar credit rating and with or without similar loan purpose; and a business stage may offer investors significantly different interest rates. In addition, loans with shorter durations may provide investors with higher interest rates than those with longer durations. Finally, loans issued by companies from the same industry appeared to be charged with similar interest. These findings are valuable to investors to prepare themselves before making their investments at the P2P lending platforms. Conclusion- With first hand-collected data, this study provides an original insight into Malaysia's current P2P lending platforms. Findings obtained for relationships between interest rates and risk classifying factors such as credit rating, industry, business stage, loan purpose and loan duration are valuable to investors of Malaysian P2P lending platforms.

Multiscale Characterization of An Oxide Scale Formed on the Creep-Resistant ATI 718Plus Superalloy during High-Temperature Oxidation

The ATI 718Plus® is a creep-resistant nickel-based superalloy exhibiting high strength and excellent oxidation resistance in high temperatures. The present study is focused on multiscale 2D and 3D characterization (morphological and chemical) of the scale and the layer beneath formed on the ATI 718Plus superalloy during oxidation at 850 °C up to 4000 h in dry and wet air. The oxidized samples were characterized using various microscopic methods (SEM, TEM and STEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and electron diffraction. The 3D visualization of the microstructural features was achieved by means of FIB-SEM tomography. When oxidized in dry air, the ATI 718Plus develops a protective, dense Cr2O3 scale with a dual-layered structure. The outer Cr2O3 layer is composed of coarser grains with a columnar shape, while the inner one features fine, equiaxed grains. The Cr2O3 scale formed in wet air is single-layered and features very fine grains. The article discusses the difference between the structure, chemistry and three-dimensional phase distribution of the oxide scales and near-surface areas developed in the two environments. Electron microscopy/spectroscopy findings combined with the three-dimensional reconstruction of the microstructure provide original insight into the role of the oxidation environment on the structure of the ATI 718Plus at the nanoscale.

Robotized interior finishing operations with visual feedback

Purpose This paper aims to address the problem of integrating sensor feedback in robotized interior finishing operations. Its motivation is to finally realize automatic operations necessitating no human intervention. A vision-based approach is proposed for monitoring the execution status and changing the action accordingly. Design/methodology/approach First, a robotic system is proposed which can realize two typical interior finishing operations, namely, putty applying and wall sanding. Second, a new method based on a deep neural network is proposed to process the visual information capturing the execution status of the interior finishing operations. It helps to determine essential parameters on where should be processed and how to execute the corresponding operation. With the proposed method, vision information is embedded into the execution of interior finishing in a closed loop style. Findings The experiments demonstrate the feasibility of the proposal and reveal problems for further improvement of the autonomous interior finishing robot. Originality/value This provides an original insight into robotized interior finishing by addressing an attempt on integrating visual feedback into the manual process.

Getting Cozy, or How the European Commission Produces Legitimacy in the EU

International organizations increasingly resort to strategies of legitimation in order to justify their authority and policies. This article explores one such strategy of the European Commission that targets organized interest groups with the aim to build a legitimating constituency. The members of this constituency not only contribute expertise to a policy, but also benefit from that policy and, therefore, participate in the development and confirmation of a claim to the policy's legitimacy that is put forward by EU officials. As a consequence, the agents seeking legitimacy and the addressees granting it become closely associated and “get cozy” with each other. EU officials address their claim to legitimacy to a community of co-opted elites who are likely to confirm this claim and in whose own interests it is to do so. The result is legitimation as a collaborative activity with preordained outcomes. Taking the case of the European Commission's research and innovation policy, and building in part on an ethnographic practitioner's account, the article provides an original insight into how this legitimation strategy works in everyday EU policymaking.

Development Of A Template To Benchmark Municipal Climate Change Action

The goal of this thesis is to produce a benchmarking template that can be applied by municipalities across Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their operations. This template will provide a common set of indicators for benchmarking municipal emissions. It will attempt to link the academic literature to existing conditions and practices within municipalities. It also provides original insight through interviews with municipal officials and municipal policy experts. Research has shown that municipalities can mitigate climate change. Municipalities have authority to enact policies which reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While many municipalities have taken action, benchmarking initiatives still do not exist to allow for direct comparison of municipalities. Following a review of academic literature interviews were held with a panel of nine municipal policy experts to assess existing programs and a proposed benchmarking template. An indicator set with nine categories and 18 individual indicators measuring corporate and community GHG emissions was developed through consultations with the panel. A questionnaire was sent to 32 municipalities with a response rate of 25%. Based on the results participating municipalities were compared against one another to determine best practices and areas for improvement. Indicators for residential densities, municipal building heating, solid waste, and municipal buildings and operations had the highest tCO An examination of indicator set development, improved methods for modelling community emissions, assessment of the benefits of climate action and municipal networking for small municipalities would build upon this research.