In recent years, several remarkable results have shown that certain theorems of finite combinatorics are unprovable in certain logical systems. These developments have been instrumental in stimulating research in both areas, with the interface between logic and combinatorics being especially important because of its relation to crucial issues in the foundations of mathematics which were raised by the work of Kurt Godel. Because of the diversity of the lines of research that have begun to shed light on these issues, there (...) was a need for a comprehensive overview which would tie the lines together. This volume fills that need by presenting a balanced mixture of high quality expository and research articles that were presented at the August 1985 AMS-IMS-SIAM Joint Summer Research Conference, held at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California.With an introductory survey to put the works into an appropriate context, the collection consists of papers dealing with various aspects of 'unprovable theorems and fast-growing functions'. Among the topics addressed are: ordinal notations, the dynamical systems approach to Ramsey theory, Hindman's finite sums theorem and related ultrafilters, well quasiordering theory, uncountable combinatorics, nonstandard models of set theory, and a length-of-proof analysis of Godel's incompleteness theorem. Many of the articles bring the reader to the frontiers of research in this area, and most assume familiarity with combinatorics and/or mathematical logic only at the senior undergraduate or first-year graduate level. (shrink)

In recent decades, research in the square of opposition has increased. New interpretations, extensions, and generalizations have been suggested, both Aristotelian and non-Aristotelian ones. The paper attempts to compare different versions of the square of opposition. For this reason, we appeal to the wider categorical model-theoretic framework of the theory of institutions.

This study examined the direct influence of national economic condition, as well as the indirect effects through the strength of noneconomic institutions on supervisors’ ethical reasoning using the institutional anomie theory developed by Messner and Rosenfeld :1393–1416, 2001). Utilizing data of 20,025 supervisors across 52 countries, the analyses showed that high disparity in the economic distribution directly and indirectly leads to unethical values. High economic inequality in a country resulted in high tendency of supervisors to justify unethical acts. (...) In addition, some of this influence went through the institutional strength of family, education, polity, and religion, thereby indicating partial mediation. As a result, the study presented the important roles of social institutions in explaining supervisors’ attitude and behavior. The findings of this research contribute to the institutional anomie theory by clarifying the multilevel path of the macrostructures’ conditions in explaining supervisors’ ethicality. Moreover, since some of the relationships between variables resulted in the direction opposite to the propositions of the theory, this study suggested other theoretical models that may be integrated with IAT. Along with these theoretical contributions, practical implications to businesses and society are discussed to strengthen supervisors’ ethics. (shrink)

Saturated models constitute one of the powerful methods of conventional model theory, with many applications. Here we develop a categorical abstract model theoretic approach to saturated models within the theory of institutions. The most important consequence is that the method of saturated models becomes thus available to a multitude of logical systems from logic or from computing science. In this paper we define the concept of saturated model at an abstract institution-independent level and develop the (...) fundamental existence and uniqueness theorems. As an application we prove a general institution-independent version of the Keisler–Shelah isomorphism theorem “any two elementarily equivalent models have isomorphic ultrapowers” (assuming Generalized Continuum Hypothesis). (shrink)

This book presents an academic introduction, presentation and argument of stakeholder theory as as a model for strategic management of business firms and corporations and public organizations and institutions. The concept of stakeholder is generally used for the parties that affect or are affected by the activities of private or public organizations. Stakeholders are those interested parties who, other than shareholders, have a connection with the activities of a corporation, a firm or an organization. The reference to the (...) stakeholders refers to a conception of a business firm as founded on negotiated governance, where the maximization of the value for the shareholder is not the ultimate criterion. In this model the stakes and the interests that are not those of shareholders or investors, and which go beyond capital and include civil society, are important. This book presents this theory and makes it known as an ethical model for strategic management that is both concrete and useful for developing democracy in the firm, and making it possible to present elements of a social contract in the context of global capitalism. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to provide an alternative antitrust model to the mainstream model that is used in competition policy. I call it the InstitutionalEvolutionary Antitrust Model. In order to construct an antitrust model one needs both empirical knowledge and considerations of how to adequately deal with norms. The analysis of competition as an evolutionary process that unfolds within legal rules provides the empirical foundation for the model. The development of the normative dimension (...) involves the elaboration of a comparative approach. Building on those foundations the main features of the Institutional-Evolutionary Model are sketched out and it is shown that its use leads to systematically different outcomes and conclusions than the dominant antitrust ideals. (shrink)

This study examines the use of a modified form of the theory of planned behavior in understanding the decisions of undergraduate students in engineering and humanities to engage in cheating. We surveyed 527 randomly selected students from three academic institutions. Results supported the use of the model in predicting ethical decision-making regarding cheating. In particular, the model demonstrated how certain variables (gender, discipline, high school cheating, education level, international student status, participation in Greek organizations or other clubs) (...) and moral constructs related to intention to cheat, attitudes toward cheating, perceptions of norms with respect to cheating, and ultimately cheating behaviors. Further the relative importance of the theory of planned behavior constructs was consistent regardless of context, whereas the contributions of variables included in the study that were outside the theory varied by context. Of particular note were findings suggesting that the extent of cheating in high school was a strong predictor of cheating in college and that engineering students reported cheating more frequently than students in the humanities, even when controlling for the number of opportunities to do so. (shrink)

In this paper, we try to shed light on the ontological puzzle pertaining to models and to contribute to a better understanding of what models are. Our suggestion is that models should be regarded as a specific kind of signs according to the sign theory put forward by Charles S. Peirce, and, more precisely, as icons, i.e. as signs which are characterized by a similarity relation between sign (model) and object (original). We argue for this (1) by analyzing (...) from a semiotic point of view the representational relation which is characteristic of models. We then corroborate our hypothesis (2) by discussing the conceptual differences between icons, i.e. models, and indexical and symbolic signs and (3) by putting forward a general classification of all icons into three functional subclasses (images, diagrams, and metaphors). Subsequently, we (4) integratively refine our results by resorting to two influential and, as can be shown, complementary philosophy of science approaches to models. This yields the following result: models are determined by a semiotic structure in which a subject intentionally uses an object, i.e. the model, as a sign for another object, i.e. the original, in the context of a chosen theory or language in order to attain a specific end by instituting a representational relation in which the syntactic structure of the model, i.e. its attributes and relations, represents by way of a mapping the properties of the original, which hence are regarded as similar in a relevant manner. (shrink)

An important part of the theory of algebraizable sentential logics consists of studying the algebraic semantics of these logics. As developed by Czelakowski, Blok, and Pigozzi and Font and Jansana, among others, it includes studying the properties of logical matrices serving as models of deductive systems and the properties of abstract logics serving as models of sentential logics. The present paper contributes to the development of the categorical theory by abstracting some of these model theoretic aspects and (...) results from the level of sentential logics to the level of π-institutions. (shrink)

Aristotle is oftentimes viewed through a strictly philosophical lens as heir to Plato and has having introduced logical rigor where an emphasis on the theory of Forms formerly prevailed. It must be appreciated that Aristotle was the son of a physician, and that his inculcation of the thought of other Greek philosophers addressing health and the natural elements led to an extremely broad set of biologically- and medically-related writings. As this article proposes, Aristotle deepened the fourfold theory of (...) the elements with anatomic and physiologic observations. In books like History of Animals, Parts of Animals, and the lost Anatomai, he actively dissected organisms and recorded his findings. The corpus of medically-related literature Aristotle developed had a direct influence on subsequent Greek thinkers, including Galen, and on Medieval Islamic and modern Western practitioners such as William Harvey. Aristotle's ideas continue to influence modern medical thinkers in Europe and America through both his interpretation by European philosophers gaining the attention of medical humanists, and his writings' enduring impact on medical researchers balancing scientific with more personalistic approaches to medicine. (shrink)

As debate continues around the nature and values of education, it is important to ask the question of what factors motivate a student to engage with the ends of an educational institution. In this paper, a broad, holistic view of learner motivation, derived from Aristotelian ethics, is used to provide a model to drive institutional change. Focussing on the approach of one Higher Education institution to the particular accommodations required for students with disabilities, the paper identifies three factors (...) which motivate students, a failure to engage with the aims and ends of the educational project, a failure to see that a particular learning aim is worth attaining, and a simple lack of will‐power to attain it. To each of these failures a social cause is identified, and a change in both the institutional culture and the individual learner's approach to their education is suggested. (shrink)

In this essay we analyse and elucidate the method to establish and clarify the scope of logic theorems offered within the theory of institutions. The method presented pervades a lot of abstract model theoretic developments carried out within institution theory. The power of the proposed general method is illustrated with the examples of interpolation and definability, as they appear in the literature of institutional model theory. Both case studies illustrate a considerable extension of the (...) original scopes of the two classical theorems. Our presentation is rather narrative with the relevant logic and institution theory concepts introduced and explained gradually to the non-expert reader. (shrink)

During the COVID‐19 pandemic, national triage guidelines were developed to address the anticipated shortage of life‐saving resources, should ICU capacities be overloaded. Rationing and triage imply that in addition to individual patient interests, interests of population health have to be integrated. The transfer of theoretical and empirical knowledge into feasible and useful practice models and their implementation in clinical settings need to be improved. This paper analyzes how triage protocols could translate abstract theories of distributive justice into concrete material and (...) procedural criteria for rationing intensive care resources during a pandemic. We reconstruct the development and implementation of a rationing protocol at a German university hospital: describing the ethical challenge of triage, clarifying the aspirational norms, and summarizing specific norms of fair triage and allocation for developing an institutional policy and practice model and implementing it. We reflect on how critical topics are seen by clinicians and what helped manage the perceived burdens of the triage dilemma. We analyze what can be learned from this debate regarding the difficult issues around triage protocols and their potential implementation into clinical settings. Analyzing the ought‐to‐is gap of triage, integrating abstract ethical principles into practical concepts, and evaluating those should clarify the benefits and risks of different allocation options. We seek to inform debates on triage concepts and policies to ensure the best possible treatment and fair allocation of resources as well as to help protect patients and professionals in worst‐case scenarios. (shrink)

The estrangement between genetic scientists and theologians originating in the 1960s is reflected in novel combinations of human thought (subject) and genes (investigational object), paralleling each other through the universal process known in chaos theory as self-similarity. The clash and recombination of genes and knowledge captures what Philip Hefner refers to as irony, one of four voices he suggests transmit the knowledge and arguments of the religion-and-science debate. When viewed along a tangent connecting irony to leadership, journal dissemination, and (...) the activities of the "public intellectual" and the public at large, the sequence of voices is shown to resemble the passage of genetic information from DNA to mRNA, tRNA, and protein, and from cell nucleus to surrounding environment. In this light, Hefner's inquiry into the voices of Zygon is bound up with the very subject matter Zygon covers. (shrink)

There is the world of ideas and the world of practice; the French are often for sup pressing the one and the English the other; but neither is to be suppressed. -Matthew Arnold The Function of Criticism at the Present Time From its inception, bioethics has confronted the need to reconcile theory and practice. At first the confrontation was purely intellectual, as writers on ethical theory (within phi losophy, theology, or other humanistic disciplines) turned their attention to topics (...) from the world of medical practice. Recently the confrontation has grown more intense. The ap pointment of clinical ethicists in hospitals and other health care settings is an accelerating trend in North America. Concomitantly, those institutions involved in training peo ple in clinical ethics have added organized exposure to the world of practice, in the form of placement requirements, to the normal academic course load. In common with other dis ciplines, bioethics has begun to see clinical training as a con dition of didactic theory and apprenticeship. (shrink)

In the previous issue of Analyse & Kritik (2020, vol. 42, issue 1) Alexander Vostroknutov (3-39) aims at a ‘synthesis’ of economics with ‘psychology, sociology, and evolutionary human biology.’ This paper argues that his approach needs to be complemented at least by work from sociologists and social psychologists. Starting with problems of defining and measuring norms it is then claimed that a theory of norms should address the origin, change and effects of norms and model micromacro processes. This (...) should also be the goal of a theory of institutions (which are defined here as sets of norms-norms in the sense of accepting oughtness statements). We show how the social psychological value expectancy theory can be applied to model the variety of incentives that could play a role in explaining the effects of norms. Regarding the origin Coleman’s theory of norms is applied to show how Vostroknutov’s dissatisfaction-norms hypothesis can be improved. (shrink)

According to republican theory, we are free persons to the extent that we are protected and secured in the same fundamental choices, on the same public basis, as one another. But there is no public protection or security without a coercive state. Does this mean that any freedom we enjoy is a superficial good that presupposes a deeper, political form of subjection? Philip Pettit addresses this crucial question in On the People's Terms. He argues that state coercion will not (...) involve individual subjection or domination insofar as we enjoy an equally shared form of control over those in power. This claim may seem utopian but it is supported by a realistic model of the institutions that might establish such democratic control. Beginning with a fresh articulation of republican ideas, Pettit develops a highly original account of the rationale of democracy, breathing new life into democratic theory. (shrink)

Many of those teaching at the intersection of medicine and the humanities are siloed within institutional spaces. This essay recounts the teaching of Sarah Manguso’s The Two Kinds of Decay to students across different academic contexts and considers what we can learn when we put classrooms in conversation with each other. This essay argues for the value of texts like Manguso’s, which explicitly hold the narrating subject and form of illness narrative up for critical examination. The authors call for (...) more collaborative teaching, which has special resonance in the health humanities, where conversations already depend on bridging disciplines and listening to the stories others can tell. (shrink)

Ever since the early decades of this century, there have emerged a number of competing schools of ecology that have attempted to weave the concepts underlying natural resource management and natural-historical traditions into a formal theoretical framework. It was widely believed that the discovery of the fundamental mechanisms underlying ecological phenomena would allow ecologists to articulate mathematically rigorous statements whose validity was not predicated on contingent factors. The formulation of such statements would elevate ecology to the standing of a rigorous (...) scientific discipline on a par with physics. However, there was no agreement as to the fundamental units of ecology. Systems ecologists sought to identify the fundamental organization that tied the physical and biological components of ecosystems into an irreducible unit: the ecosystem was their fundamental unit. Population ecologists sought, instead, to identify the biological mechanisms regulating the abundance and distribution of plant and animal species: to these ecologists, the individual organism was the fundamental unit of ecology, and the physical environment was nothing more than a stage upon which the play of individuals in perennial competition took place. As Joel Hagen has pointed out, the two schools were thus dividied by fundamentally different and irreconcilable assumptions about the nature of ecosystems.Notwithstanding these divisive efforts to elevate the image of ecology, the discipline remained in the shadows of American academia until the mid-1960s, when systems ecologists succeeded in projecting ecology onto the national scene. They did so by seeking closer involvement with practical problems: they argued before Congress that their approach to the theoretical problems of ecology was uniquely suited to the solution of the impending “environmental crisis.” With the establishment of the International Biological Program, they succeeded in attracting unprecedented levels of funding for systems ecology research. Theoretical population ecologists, on the other hand, found themselves consigned to the outer regions of this new institutional landscape. The systems ecologists' successful capture of the limelight and the purse brought the divisions between them and population ecologists into sharper relief — hence the hardening of the division of ecology observed by Hagen.45I have argued that the population biologist Richard Levins, prompted by these institutional developments, sought to challenge the social position of systems ecology, and to assert the intellectual priority of theoretical population ecology. He attempted to do so by articulating a nontrivial and rather carefully thought out classification of ecological models that led to the disqualification of systems analysis as a legitimate approach to the study of ecological phenomena. I have suggested that — ultimately —Levins's case against systems analysis in ecology rested on the view that an aspiration to realism and prediction was incompatible with an interest in theoretical issues, a concern that he equated with the search for generality. He sought to reinforce this argument by exploiting the fact that systems ecologists had staked their future on the provision of technical solutions to the problems of the “environmental crisis”: he associated systems ecologists' aspiration to realism and precision with a concern for practical issues, trading on the widely accepted view that practical imperatives are incompatible with the aims of scientific inquiry.46 These are plausible, but nonetheless questionable, claims which have now become an integral part of ecological knowledge. And finally, I hope to have shown how even the most abstract levels of scientific argument are shaped by political considerations, and how discussions of the conceptual development of modern ecology might benefit from a greater consideration of its historical and social dimensions.47. (shrink)

I aim to analyze in this dissertation what a desirable basic institutional structure looks like from the perspective of rationality. While the main topic is thus normative in nature, I start by clarifying in the first part what the notion of rationality exactly entails. I do so by focusing explicitly on the economic conception of rationality, according to which a rational individual is motivated to serve his self-interest on the basis of cost-benefit calculations. Such a Homo Economicus is characterized (...) by his intentional and instrumental actions, his perfectly informed beliefs and his exogenously given and egoistic preferences. In my view, however, this model is inadequate if one aims to understand what it means to be rational. The requirements that actions should be instrumental, beliefs should be based on perfect information and preferences should be exogenously given and egoistic in nature turn out to be overly demanding in this respect. That is why I propose to drop these assumptions in what I label the minimal conception of rationality. Since the latter turns out to be very formal indeed, I propose two further alternatives, which focus not so much on the choice of means to achieve certain goals, as they focus on the choice of these goals themselves. According to the first, broad conception, actions are rational if they are based on good reasons, which are further qualified as well-informed beliefs and autonomous preferences. According to the second, expressive conception, actions, beliefs and preferences are rational if they express the things the individual at hand cares about. The latter requires that individuals can reflect upon and identify with their reasons, which implies a capacity to reflect upon and distance themselves from their own bundle of preferences. In the second part of this dissertation, I try to show the value and limitations of these conceptions by applying them to the context of large-scaled elections. In this respect, it becomes immediately clear that the economic conception fails to explain why quite a lot of people go out and vote. After all, since a single vote has only an infinitesimal impact on the electoral result, it does not enable people to serve their interests or realize their goals. This leads to the so-called voting paradox, according to which no rational individual will decide to vote. The standard solution is to assume that individuals vote because they derive satisfaction from the very act itself. However, this strategy is rather ‘ad hoc’ and does not explain how people vote once they find themselves inside the voting booth. The expressive conception of rationality does better in this respect. It suggests that people vote because they care about democracy in general or about a specific political candidate or ideology. Since they conceive of themselves as being a good citizen, they express this aspect of their identity by going out to vote. In the third part of this dissertation, I analyze more fully the normative implications of the different conceptions of rationality. More specifically, I try to answer the question which basic institutional structure is desirable if one assumes that people are by and large rational. This immediately shows that both the normative issue and the explanatory issue are closely connected. In my view, proposals regarding institutional design and reform should be based on empirically adequate models of individual actions and motivations. This search for a realistic utopia goes against the conventional strategy of most economists. They rely on the Homo Economicus model, even if this fails to explain individual behavior. To explain more fully what the normative implications are of the counterfactual assumption that all people are economically rational, I focus on the work of James Buchanan. In his theory of constitutional choice, he argues in favor of a minimal state whose only task is to make sure that the market functions properly. Buchanan thus favors strict constitutional limitations for governments, which tend to expand beyond legitimate borders as soon as politicians and public servants are allowed to serve their own interests. In my view, however, the abovementioned criticisms of the Homo Economicus model have theoretical as well as normative implications. After all, the empirically supported fact that a majority of individuals does not act in economically rational ways creates more room for legitimate government intervention. Expressively rational citizens will, for example, more easily agree on the necessity and desirability of a collective provision of certain public goods. In addition, expressively rational politicians and public servants can be more easily trusted to serve the public interest rather than their narrowly defined self-interest. As an alternative to Buchanan’s one-sided focus on economic rationality and the market, I focus on the work of Samuel Bowles en Herbert Gintis. More specifically, I explore their work on the phenomenon of strong reciprocity, which refers to the widespread tendency of people to reward prosocial behavior and punish antisocial behavior, even if this is costly for themselves. Since this is clearly economically irrational, Bowles and Gintis propose to complement the Homo Economicus model with the Homo Reciprocans model. This model, which comes close to the expressive conception of rationality, is able to incorporate the insight that social norms surrounding reciprocity, cooperation and fairness are crucial in regulating interactions. At the normative level, Bowles and Gintis stress that such norms often lead to socially desirable outcomes, since they enable people to live in harmony without relying on coercive and costly government interventions. This suggests that the debate between proponents of the market on the one hand and the state on the other hand neglects the importance of communities where people spontaneously interact on the basis of generally prosocial norms. As such, the insights of Bowles and Gintis lead to a defense of a basic institutional structure in which markets, states and communities mutually complement and reinforce each other. They also justify a general optimism as regards to the capacity and motivation of people to try and improve the rules and institutions that govern their everyday lives. (shrink)

Few outstanding questions in the human behavioral sciences are timelier or more urgently debated than the evolutionary source of religious behaviors and beliefs. Byproduct theorists locate the origins of religion in evolved cognitive defaults and transmission biases. Others have argued that cultural evolutionary processes integrated non-adaptive cognitive byproducts into coherent networks of supernatural beliefs and ritual that encouraged in-group cooperativeness, while adaptationist models assert that the cognitive and behavioral foundations of religion have been selected for at more basic levels. Here, (...) we survey these differing approaches, noting their respective strengths and weaknesses. We then advance a novel model that centers on the ability of language to generate alternative worlds independent of immediate empirical facts, and thus highlight the similarities between religious belief and the modes of cognition that underlie institutions in general. The institutional cognition model of religion accounts for some of the shortcomings of extant approaches and draws attention to the human ability to create non-empirical worlds; that is, worlds that are imaginary. Both religious beliefs and institutional facts—such as jurisdictional borders—are non-empirical assertions, yet they are socially accepted as truths and reified through ritual and behavior. One type of non-empirical, linguistically generated belief—supernatural agent belief—is particularly effective for stabilizing systems of arbitrary norms by rooting them in deontic rather than utilitarian reasoning. The evolutionary roots and continued persistence of religion are thus functions of the capacity for humans to generate cognitive alternatives to empirical reality, and the need to stably coordinate those alternative conceptions. (shrink)

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

Institutional and individual stigmatization represent major barriers that prevent children with disabilities from accessing education. It can be presumed that children with disabilities are labeled as such even in inclusive educational settings and that teachers’ attitudes toward inclusive education and children with disabilities play a crucial role in this context. Against this background, the present study aims to apply and conceptualize the mixed-blessings model in the context of stigma-related reactions to children’s disability labels in inclusive education and shed (...) light on the causal attributions of teachers that underlie stigma-related attitudes toward children with various disabilities. A 3 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 online experiment examined the ways in which disability-specific causes and symptoms, the type of disability in question, the children’s sex, and efficacy cues regarding educational efforts affect future teachers’ attitudes toward and expectations of inclusive education as well as their social distance toward children with disabilities. The participants in this experiment were N = 605 German student and trainee teachers representing different types of teaching professions. A multivariate analysis of variance revealed that, in particular, the cause attributed to the disability, the depicted type of disability and the probability of learning success led to changes in attitudes. Respondents’ teaching self-efficacy and their status as students or trainees emerged as moderators of the effect of pupils’ type of disability. As a result, teacher education and training as well as communication regarding pupils with disabilities require a high degree of sensitivity to disability-specific and efficacy-related cues to prevent professional or institutional stigmatization. (shrink)

Guiding core enterprises to participate in supply chain work safety governance is an innovative mode of work safety control, which has an important impact on improving the work safety level of small and medium-sized enterprises in the supply chain. Through in-depth interviews, the grounded theory is adopted to explore the driving factors of work safety management behaviors of core enterprise. It is found that the work safety management behavior of the core enterprise is driven by both internal and external (...) factors. External driving factors are the main category of institutional pressure composed of regulatory pressure, normative pressure, and cognitive pressure. Internal driving factors are divided into the main category of behavioral awareness and the behavioral capability of the core enterprises. The behavioral awareness is composed of responsibility sense, problem cognition and behavioral effect perception. The behavioral capability is composed of safety management strength and safety coordination capability. Institutional pressure, behavioral awareness, and behavioral capability all influence the work safety management behavior of core enterprise in supply chain significantly, but with different ways and paths. On this basis, the driving mechanism model of the above three main categories on the work safety management behavior in core enterprise supply chain is explored. The research can provide targeted policy ideas and implementation paths for the government to formulate effective guiding policies to promote the work safety management behavior of core enterprise. (shrink)

I investigate contemporary Russia's real, but shallow success in implementing two borrowed capitalist institutions—a monetary system and the joint-stock company. Even though money and shares of stock in Russia are exchanged in voluntary transactions, they fail to play the legal roles ordinarily expected of them, resulting in weak corporate governance and nonmonetary exchange. Via a criticism of game-theoretic approaches to institutions in the New Institutional Economics, I argue that the roots of this shallow marketization lie in the distinct social (...) foundations of the transactional and legal roles of money and corporate stock. Arguments drawn from sociological institutionalism then illuminate why Russia displays this limited isomorphism to authoritative international models of market institutions. The article concludes by discussing implications for a third body of institutional theory, historical institutionalism, and the possible broader relevance of the pattern of shallow marketization in contemporary relatively backward countries. (shrink)

What is a right? What, if anything, makes rights different from other features of the normative world, such as duties, standards, rules, or principles? Do all rights serve some ultimate purpose? In addition to raising these questions, philosophers and jurists have long been aware that different senses of ‘a right’ abound. To help make sense of this diversity, and to address the above questions, they developed two types of accounts of rights: models and theories. This book explicates rights modelling and (...) theorising and scrutinises their methodological underpinnings. It then challenges this framework by showing why the theories ought to be abandoned. In addition to exploring structural concerns, the book also addresses the various ways that rights can be used. It clarifies important differences between rights exercise, enforcement, remedying, and vindication, and identifies forms of legal rights-claiming and rights-invoking outside of institutional contexts. (shrink)

Individuals, Institutions, and Markets offers a theory of how the institutional framework of a society emerges and how markets within institutions work. The book shows that both social institutions, defined as the rules of the game, and exchange processes can be analyzed along a common theoretical structure. Mantzavinos' proposal is that a problem solving model of individual behavior inspired by the cognitive sciences provides such a unifying theoretical structure. Integrating the latest scholarship in economics, sociology, political science, (...) law, and anthropology, Mantzavinos offers a genuine political economy showing how social institutions affect economic outcomes. (shrink)

Philologus, founded in 1846, is one of the oldest and most respected periodicals in the field of Classics. It publishes articles on Greek and Latin literature, historiography, philosophy, history of religion, linguistics, reception, and the history of scholarship. The journal aims to contribute to our understanding of Greco-Roman culture and its lasting influence on European civilization. The journal Philologus, conceived as a forum for discussion among different methodological approaches to the study of ancient texts and their reception, publishes original scholarly (...) contributions with a strong international focus. Publications languages are: German, English, Italian, French. As of 2014 the publication of supplementary volumes will be resumed. The series Philologus. Supplemente / Philologus. Supplementary Volumes will publish monographs and edited volumes pertaining to all aspects of the study of ancient literature and its reception, with a special focus on topics concerning literary theory, philosophy and the history of scholarship from an interdisciplinary perspective. (shrink)

While political economic perspectives of urban globalization tend to generalize the economic pressures upon socio-political transformations of cities, recent European research has stressed the institutional context of urban collective action. However, the structural bias of the European city model merely complements the criticized economization by a culturalist essentialization of urbanity, and thus fails to conceptualize political agency. In order to elaborate the theoretical foundations of a political counterhypothesis to urban globalization, this article clarifies the different historical and normative (...) conceptions of institutional structure and agency in the urban context. Most research of cities implies — more or less implicitly — a common urban ideal which associates centrality with a local integration potential of plural societies. However, distinguishing between a historically embedded empirical category, a normative model of public space, and an analytical ideal-type of political agency helps to overcome the static structural conception of an essentially European urban culture and problematizes the role of knowledge models in reflectively constructing urban realities. Therefore, a dynamic and contextual relation between political economic functions, historic heritage, and normative frames might contribute to an open-ended comparative framework of urban collective action that can be applied to any ordinary city across and beyond Europe. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:We examine the practice of nepotism in the Arab World and analyze how a rational-legal model of bureaucracy was never able to take hold. We draw upon ideas from institutional theory and related notions of legitimacy to provide an explanation of nepotism’s extraordinary persistence. Then we use arguments to speculate how the appearance of institutional entrepreneurs who are advocates for a new hybrid form of nepotism might begin to colonize a social space created by larger political (...) and economic changes that are sweeping the Arab World. Those entrepreneurs must persuade other members of an extended family that the current practice of nepotism is typically destructive of a firm’s competitive performance. In addition, they will argue that nepotism as currently practiced violates teachings of Islam. This second argument is likely to be particularly effective with an audience that sees Islam as a source of universal notions of justice and fairness. (shrink)

Sustainable development is often framed as a social issue to which corporations should pay attention because it offers both opportunities and challenges. Through the use of institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm, we shed some light on why, more than 20 years after sustainable development was first introduced, we see neither the adoption of this business model as dominant nor its converse, that is the total abandonment of the model as unworkable and unprofitable. (...) We focus on multinational corporations (MNCs) because they were among the organizations first called to take action. In order to illustrate the institutional pressures MNCs face and their strategic response to these pressures, we analysed four major oil and gas multinationals subject to similar sustainable development pressures – climate change, biodiversity, renewable energy development and social investment. We argue that normative and coercive isomorphism does not occur at the global level because sustainable development is largely a stakeholder-driven rather than a broad social pressure. That is, host country interpretation of sustainable development pressures varies across an MNC’s subsidiary network. Based on the analysis of the four major MNCs’ annual reports from 2000 to 2005, we argue that mimetic isomorphism may occur, but since it implies the use of complex and intangible resources, mimetic processes are slow, rare and discretionary. (shrink)

Understanding Institutions proposes a new unified theory of social institutions that combines the best insights of philosophers and social scientists who have written on this topic. Francesco Guala presents a theory that combines the features of three influential views of institutions: as equilibria of strategic games, as regulative rules, and as constitutive rules. -/- Guala explains key institutions like money, private property, and marriage, and develops a much-needed unification of equilibrium- and rules-based approaches. Although he uses game (...) class='Hi'>theory concepts, the theory is presented in a simple, clear style that is accessible to a wide audience of scholars working in different fields. Outlining and discussing various implications of the unified theory, Guala addresses venerable issues such as reflexivity, realism, Verstehen, and fallibilism in the social sciences. He also critically analyses the theory of “looping effects” and “interactive kinds” defended by Ian Hacking, and asks whether it is possible to draw a demarcation between social and natural science using the criteria of causal and ontological dependence. Focusing on current debates about the definition of marriage, Guala shows how these abstract philosophical issues have important practical and political consequences. -/- Moving beyond specific cases to general models and principles, Understanding Institutions offers new perspectives on what institutions are, how they work, and what they can do for us. (shrink)

Coherence and correspondence are classical contenders as theories of truth. In this paper we examine them instead as interacting factors in the dynamics of belief across epistemic networks. We construct an agent-based model of network contact in which agents are characterized not in terms of single beliefs but in terms of internal belief suites. Individuals update elements of their belief suites on input from other agents in order both to maximize internal belief coherence and to incorporate ‘trickled in’ elements (...) of truth as correspondence. Results, though often intuitive, prove more complex than in simpler models (Hegselmann & Krause 2002, 2006; Grim, Singer, Reade & Fisher 2015). The optimistic finding is that pressures toward internal coherence can exploit and expand on small elements of truth as correspondence is introduced into epistemic networks. Less optimistic results show that pressures for coherence can also work directly against the incorporation of truth, particularly when coherence is established first and new data is introduced later. (shrink)