New Instruments for Popular Understandings of Democracy

This chapter reviews pertinent research on varying understandings of democracy to assess the empirical challenges in studying this elusive concept and to propose some new survey instruments (i.e., the PUD instruments) with theoretical justification. In particular, it emphasizes the embedded tensions and critical trade-offs as people view and assess democracy and brings such tensions and trade-offs to the center of instrument selection. The chapter further examines the validity and reliability of the PUD instruments using both survey experiments and different psychometric models to establish a solid methodological foundation for subsequent empirical analysis.

Spirituality through the Lens of Students in Higher Education

Spirituality is an elusive concept to articulate. Not only do people define it in different ways, but all definitions somehow seem to be incomplete. In this article, eighty-eight undergraduate and graduate students from George Mason University (GMU) participated in a study to define spirituality within the context of higher education. Results of the study suggest the following theme-categories. First, spirituality is an abstract reality, which is difficult to define. Second, spirituality is a moral compass, giving direction and meaning to people; and third, spirituality and religion are not the same, but they are interrelated. Since spirituality is a fluid concept that is unique from person to person, the article recommends that institutions of higher education need to incorporate into curricula mechanisms that provide students creative expressions of learning that are experiential, critical, and reflective, including opportunities that enable students to grow and develop holistically, which includes the spiritual aspect of growth, through open spaces of conversation and dialogue, and experiential learning such as community immersion and cross-cultural exchange programs as these will help cultivate and nurture their interests and aspirations, thereby, enabling them to develop meaning and purpose in life.

"A Robot Is Watching You”: Humanoid Robots And The Different Impacts On Privacy

Robots, particularly the ones that belong to a special type of robotic technologies designed and deployed for communicating and interacting with humans, slip into more and more domains of human life - from the research laboratories and operating rooms to our kitchens, bedrooms, and offices. They can interact with humans with facial expressions, gaze directions, and voices, mimicking the affective dynamics of human relationships. As a result, they create new opportunities, but also new challenges and risks to peoples’ privacy. The literature on privacy issues in the context of Social Companion Robots (SCRs) is poor and has a strong focus on information privacy and data protection. It has given, however, less attention to other dimensions of privacy, e.g. physical, emotional, or social privacy. This article argues for an “evolving” or “transformable” notion of privacy, as opposed to the “elusive” concept of privacy elaborated by leading privacy theorists such as Daniel J. Solove (2008) and Judith J. Thomson (1975). In other words, rather than assuming that privacy has a single core or definition (as defined, e.g., in Warren and Brandeis' 1890 paper), it maintains that it is important to conceptualize privacy as distinguishable into various aspects, including informational privacy, the privacy of thoughts and actions, and social privacy. This inductive approach makes it possible to identify new dimensions of privacy and therefore effectively respond to the rapid technological evolution in AI technologies which is constantly introducing new spheres of privacy intrusions.

Inclusive innovation editorial: The promise of inclusive innovation

Innovation is an elusive concept that is widely viewed as a panacea for economic renewal. Public-sector institutions invest heavily in innovation even as private-sector actors and interests dominate innovation policy and its rewards, especially at the local scale. But in a moment when planners and policy makers are under pressure to promote economic inclusion, we must also ponder the prospects for innovation to be inclusive and equitable. In this opening editorial to this special issue on “Inclusive Innovation,” we sketch out a tentative vision for “inclusive innovation” beginning with the problems that can lead innovation to instead be exclusive and unequal. We conclude by summarizing the contributions of the authors to this special issue, which underscore not only the diverse dimensions of inclusive innovation but also the critical importance of policy-led institutions to facilitate this goal.

An International Rule of Law

The “international rule of law” is an elusive concept. Under this heading, mainly two variations are being discussed: The international rule of law “proper” and an “internationalized” or even “globalized” rule of law. The first usage relates to the rule of law as applied to the international legal system, that is the application of the rule of law to those legal relations and contexts that are governed by international law. In this context, the term international rule of law is often mentioned as a catchphrase which merely embellishes a discussion of international law tout court. The international rule of law is here mainly or exclusively used as shorthand for compliance with international law, a synonym for a “rule based international order,” or a signifier for the question whether international law is “real” law. This extremely loose usage of the term testifies its normative and symbolic appeal although it does not convey any additional analytic value. The second usage of the rule of law in international contexts covers all other aspects of the rule of law in a globalizing world, notably rule of law promotion in its widest sense. The increasing interaction between national and international law and between the diverse domestic legal orders (through law diffusion and reception, often again mediated by international law) is a manifestation of the second form of the rule of law. The structure of this bibliography roughly follows this bifurcation of the Rule of Law Applied to the International Legal System and the Rule of Law in a Globalizing World. Next to these two main parts, three further, separate sections discuss questions that arise at the intersection of the two variants or are of crosscutting importance to the rule of law as a whole. This includes sections on the Rule of Law as a UN Project: A Selection of UN Documents on the Rule of Law, the Interaction between the International and Domestic Rule(s) of Law, and the (International) Rule of Law: A Tool of Hegemony?.

Familiarity as a practical sense of place

Familiarity is an elusive concept, capturing what we know intimately and what we only recognize from having seen before. This article aims to disambiguate these interpretations by proposing a sociological conceptualization of familiarity as a dynamic relationship to the world that develops over time and through experience, and that allows one to progressively disattend from what appears as “usual.” Focusing on how urban environments and their human entities become familiar and stop being familiar, I propose that familiarity be thought of as an ongoing relational and interactional achievement, allowing us to focus on our daily activities while relying on a practical knowledge of our surroundings. The conceptualization process unfolds via five questions: What is familiarity? Where does it come from? What threatens it? What does it produce? How can it be operationalized and studied empirically?

Familiarity as a Practical Sense of Place

Familiarity is an elusive concept, capturing what we know intimately and what we only recognize from having seen before. This article aims to disambiguate these interpretations by proposing a sociological conceptualization of familiarity as a dynamic relationship to the world that develops over time and through experience and that allows one to progressively disattend from what appears as “usual.” Focusing on how urban environments and their human entities become familiar and stop being familiar, I propose that familiarity be thought of as an ongoing relational and interactional achievement, allowing us to focus on our daily activities while relying on a practical knowledge of our surroundings. The conceptualization process unfolds via five questions: What is familiarity? Where does it come from? What threatens it? What does it produce? How can it be operationalized and studied empirically?

Raising Cultural Awareness in EFL Classes

Teaching culture is essential in a language class, as language is an inseparable part of culture. Yet incorporating culture into an EFL class can give rise to challenges, such as indefinable target cultures, the creation of possible stereotypes, unforeseeable results, difficulties in assessment, and the elusive concept of culture itself. Accepting those challenges, culture can be incorporated into a language classroom not by explicitly introducing a specific culture, but by attempting to raise the students’ cultural awareness. In this study we presented students with real-life stories of intercultural experiences in university English classes. The students’ responses to reading prompts, class reflections, and interviews demonstrated the effectiveness of the teaching activity in raising cultural awareness. We also found that raising cultural awareness leads to a wider awareness of “unknowns.” Our results suggest that teaching culture implicitly may be effective in raising the cultural awareness of students in a language class. 言語の授業において文化を教えることは必要不可欠である。言語は文化の一部であり切り離すことはできないからである。しかし、EFL（外国語としての英語）の授業において文化を組み入れることは難しい。ターゲットとする文化が決められないこと、ステレオタイプを生む可能性があること、結果が見えづらいこと、評価が困難であること、そして、文化の定義そのものの問題である。これらの課題を受け入れ、特定の文化を明示的に指導するのではなく、学習者の文化的意識を高めることを目指して文化を指導することが有効である。本研究では、大学の英語の授業で、教員の異文化体験の実話を教材とした。その結果、教材への問いや、リフレクション及びインタビューから、異文化意識の向上が見られた。異文化意識はまた、「知らないことへの意識」というさらに深い意識へとつながった。本研究は学習者の異文化意識向上のために文化を非明示的に指導する可能性を示唆する。

Living Labs for Public Sector Innovation: An Integrative Literature Review

The public administration literature and adjacent fields have devoted increasing attention to living labs as environments and structures enabling the co-creation of public sector innovation. However, living labs remain a somewhat elusive concept and phenomenon, and there is a lack of understanding of its versatile nature. To gain a deeper understanding of the multiple dimensions of living labs, this article provides a review assessing how the environments, methods and outcomes of living labs are addressed in the extant research literature. The findings are drawn together in a model synthesizing how living labs link to public sector innovation, followed by an outline of knowledge gaps and future research avenues.