This paper evaluates the prospects for application of the “grid/group” cultural theory (CT), as advanced by Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky, to the Advocacy Coalition Theory (ACF). CT would seem to ...be relevant to several key aspects of the ACF: the content of the core beliefs that provide the “glue” that binds coalitions; the resilience of core beliefs and associated implications for belief change and learning; and the structure of coalitions and the mechanisms for coordination and control within them. The paper considers the compatibility of the ACF's account of deep core beliefs and coalition structure with that of CT; surveys an array of empirical studies based on variations of CT; and extends accounts of change in cultural identities from CT to the ACF. In addition, we highlight some of the ways in which the ACF may offer important theoretical insights for scholars of CT, potentially clarifying hypotheses concerning the relationships among basic worldviews, more specific beliefs, and behaviors.
Misperceiving political opponents as more influential and evil than they are has been described as the devil shift. More recently, the opposite phenomenon known as the angel shift has been recognised ...where political allies are misperceived as more influential and virtuous than they are. However, research on the devil and angel shifts has been hampered by the lack of measures that separate these mechanisms analytically. We analyse the misperception of influence and differentiate between the devil and angel shifts. Furthermore, previous research has failed to take notice of how social network positions contribute to these phenomena. We argue that conceptualising the different roles that brokers play between advocacy coalitions helps explain the occurrence of the devil and angel shifts. Our findings demonstrate that the devil and angel shifts are not dyadic but triadic phenomena between advocacy coalitions and that network factors accentuate both 'shifts'.
This paper examines the proliferation of soft spaces of governance, focusing on planning. We move beyond more functional explanations to explore the politics of soft spaces, more specifically how ...soft space forms of governance operate as integral to processes of neoliberalisation, highlighting how such state forms facilitate neoliberalisation through their flexibility and variability. Recent state restructuring of the planning sector and emerging trends for soft spaces in England under the Coalition government proposals are discussed.
Robust coalitional implementation Guo, Huiyi; Yannelis, Nicholas C.
Games and economic behavior,
March 2022, 2022-03-00, Letnik:
132
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The paper introduces coalition structures to study belief-free full implementation. When the mechanism designer does not know which coalitions are admissible, we provide necessary and almost ...sufficient conditions on when a social choice function is robustly coalitionally implementable, i.e., implementable regardless of the coalition pattern and the belief structure. Robust coalitional implementation is a strong requirement that imposes stringent conditions on implementable social choice functions. However, when the mechanism designer has additional information on which coalitions are admissible, we show that coalitional manipulations may help a mechanism designer to implement social choice functions that are not robustly implementable in the sense of Bergemann and Morris (2009, 2011). As different social choice functions are implementable under different coalition patterns, the paper provides insights on when agents should be allowed to play cooperatively.
In this paper we relax two common assumptions that are made when studying coalition formation. The first is that any number of coalitions can be formed; the second is that any possible coalition can ...be formed. We study a model of coalition formation where the value depends on a social network and exactly k coalitions must be formed. Additionally, in this context we present a new problem for an organizer that would like to introduce members of the social network to each other in order to increase the social welfare or to stabilize a coalition structure.
We show that, when the number of coalitions, k, is fixed and there are not many negative edges, it is possible to find the coalition structure that maximizes the social welfare in polynomial time. Furthermore, an organizer can efficiently find the optimal set of edges to add to the network, and we experimentally demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach. In addition, we show that in our setting even when k is fixed and there are not many negative edges, finding a member of the core is intractable. However, we provide a heuristic for efficiently finding a member of the core that also guarantees a social welfare within a factor of 1/2 of the optimal social welfare. We also show that checking whether a given coalition structure is a member of the core can be done in polynomial time. Finally, we consider the problem faced by an organizer who would like to add edges to the network in order to stabilize a specific coalition structure core: we show that this problem is intractable.
Self-enforcing voluntary provision of public goods.•Asymmetry may not be an obstacle but an asset for successful cooperation.•The paradox of cooperation may break down with asymmetry.•The coalition ...folk theorem may break down with asymmetry.
This paper considers the stability and success of a public good agreement. We allow for any type and degree of asymmetry regarding benefits and costs. We ask the question whether asymmetry and which type and degree of asymmetry is conducive to cooperation? We employ a simple non-cooperative game-theoretic model of coalition formation and derive analytical solutions for two scenarios: an agreement without and with optimal transfers. A central message of the paper is that asymmetry does not have to be an obstacle for successful cooperation but can be an asset. We qualify two central results in the literature. Firstly, the paradox of cooperation, known since Barrett (1994) and reiterated by many others afterwards, stating that under those conditions when cooperation would matter most, stable agreements achieve only little. Secondly, a kind of “coalition folk theorem”, known (without proof) in the literature for a long time, stating that without transfers, stable coalitions will be smaller with asymmetric than symmetric players. We show that even without transfers the grand coalition can be stable if there is a negative covariance between benefit and cost parameters with massive gains from cooperation. Moreover, with transfers, many distributions of benefit and cost parameters lead to a stable grand coalition, again, some of them implying huge gains from cooperation. Stability and success greatly benefit from a very skewed asymmetric distribution of benefit and costs, i.e., diversity may pay!
The Leftmost City Gendron, Richard; Domhoff, G. William
2009, 20180417, 2008, 2018-04-17
eBook
“The Leftmost City is a wonderful contribution to urban political theory as well as a concrete guide for how to exploit new opportunities for moving urban America forward. Without cynicism or ...romantic illusion, the authors use Santa Cruz to show the possibilities for community groups to exert effective local action against entrenched business interests. Thanks to their keen ethnographic eye and fast-paced narrative style, Santa Cruz becomes a laboratory for understanding how to take and hold power, and for seeing what local power can and cannot do.”
—Harvey Molotch, professor of Sociology and Metropolitan Studies, New York University; coauthor of Urban Fortunes
“The Leftmost City gives the reader lively prose, provocative arguments, and a fresh stream of ideas. Advocates of progressive politics will find this book a rich resource to draw on. Across the political spectrum, all will learn from the extraordinary politics of Santa Cruz, thanks to the lucid and down-to-earth instruction by authors Gendron and Domhoff.”
—Clarence N. Stone, research professor, George Washington University; author of Regime Politics
“This is a terrific book that shows how cities can chart a course between self-destruction at the hands of the ‘growth at any cost’ advocates while maintaining the tax base to provide social services and preserve neighborhoods. It’s a lively case study of two decades of progressive government, carefully documented, reads like a novel. And along the way, Gendron and Domhoff provide a theoretical underpinning that suggests how this experience can be repeated elsewhere.”
—Pierre Clavel, professor of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University; author of The Progressive City
“The Leftmost City provides cogent insights on the opportunities for and persisting barriers to progressive politics at the local level. From a rigorous case study of Santa Cruz and critical analysis of urban political theory, this book offers essential reading to anyone who wants to understand and change the quality of life along with the opportunity structure in the nation’s metropolitan areas.”
—Gregory D. Squires, professor of Sociology and Public Policy and Public Administration, George Washington University; coauthor of Privileged Places: Race, Residence, and the Structure of Opportunity
“A well-researched and richly detailed empirical case analysis, which adds an important and compelling theoretic contribution to the ongoing debate about the nature of power and governance in American cities.”
—David Imbroscio, University of Louisville; coeditor of Theories of Urban Politics
Policy agendas are often cast in semantic constructions that portray them as universally desirable outcomes. These semantic constructions protect and reinforce the power of dominant coalitions and ...make it hard to pursue alternatives. The semantic space is entirely occupied by the dominant concepts. At the same time, within the dominant coalition, ideational conflict is muted by decontesting concepts. Drawing on political theory, I show the presence of this double act of reducing the semantic space and decontesting concepts with the case of 'better regulation'. Then I briefly extend the argument to other terms such as policy coherence, agile governance, smart cities and social value judgements. The critical discussion of the implications of dominant language brings in transparency, allows other coalitions to articulate their vision in a discursive level-playing-field, and offers citizens the possibility to discuss what is really 'better' and 'for whom'.
After the parliamentary elections in Germany in September 2017, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Christian Social Union (CSU), The Greens (Bündnis90/Die Grünen) and the Free Democratic Party ...(FDP) started to negotiate about forming a coalition government. But, surprising to many, the FDP decided to let these coalition talks collapse, and many commentators in Germany found it highly problematic for a political party to refuse to take responsibility in government. Interestingly, the question whether (or: when) democratic parties may legitimately refuse to govern has so far been neglected in political theory and political philosophy. The article develops a general answer by discussing several possible reasons for thinking that it is sometimes wrong to refuse to govern and thereby engages both democratic theory and the recent literature on compromise. The resulting view is that parties have an 'integrity prerogative' that allows them to refuse to govern, except when there is no reasonable and stable alternative government coalition available.
With the announced end of Angela Merkel's tenure as Chancellor, the 2021 German federal election was particularly charged. In stark contrast to the Social Democratic Party, which became more united ...as the election approached, the Christian Democrats were not able to consolidate the fissures unveiled by Merkel's departure. The Greens, emboldened by the polls, for the first time joined the traditional major parties in nominating a chancellor candidate. The result was a campaign period that centred heavily on the three-way race between Olaf Scholz (SPD), Armin Laschet (CDU/CSU) and Annalena Baerbock (Greens). The electoral outcome reduced the large number of coalitions discussed against the backdrop of a fragmenting party system and eventually led to a novel partnership on the federal level, a so-called traffic light coalition between the Social Democrats, Greens, and the Liberals. The formation of this coalition was facilitated by the refusal of Social and Christian Democrats to even consider renewing their 'grand' coalition, a newfound self-confidence on behalf of Greens and Liberals as well as the symbolic benefit that this novel alliance brought together the election winners. In many ways, the electoral result and the coalition it engendered represent new beginnings in German politics but significant hurdles to the consolidation of these patterns remain.