Fairness and political obligation

Abstract

In this paper I offer a limited defence of “fairness” or “fair play” arguments for political obligation by focussing on one important critique of such arguments, that offered by A. John Simmons. I isolate Simmons’s concentration on the idea of “accepting” benefits and argue that, among other difficulties, his criteria for when we can be said to accept a benefit from our political communities are too restrictive. While the scope of the discussion is narrow, I try to sketch ways in which the failings of Simmons’s critique are symptomatic of deeper problems with his libertarian approach.     

Drowning in a Sea of Love

Jade McGleughlin’s textured paper frames writing enactments that help describe breaches in narrative consequent to trauma. I work from my own understanding of enactment as a particular reader of McGleughlin’s fieldwork: moving from ceramics to photography to Bionian Field Theory to ethnography to Betty Woodman to Gadamer’s player/played distinction to call attention to the anticipatory processes involved in reading and in reading enactments—by which I mean the enacted dimensions of the act of reading that pertain to the experience of reading about enactments.     

Cyborg Politics and Economic Realities: Reflections on Elaine Graham's Representations of the Post/Human

Abstract

This article seeks to examine the political and economic context of cyborg culture and technology in Elaine Graham's Representations of the Post/Human. It begins by drawing out the relationship between Graham's study and Foucault's genealogical method and seeks to establish the ‘silent machine’ operating in Graham's analysis. By following three critical strands —knowledge as technology, economic determinism and imaginative agency and the economics of transcendence—the article highlights and extends a critique of capitalism and technology in the text. It argues that economics is now shaped by the machine and concludes by opening up a ‘politics of refusal’. Graham's work is acknowledged for bringing to light uncomfortable questions surrounding the politics of the machine.     

The Geopolitics of Gulf Sport Sponsorship

ABSTRACT

The names of two major Gulf airlines, Qatar Airways and Emirates, have saturated the European football scene for many years, sponsoring some of the most prominent European teams and FIFA itself. These state-backed airlines are also active in motorsports, rugby, cycling, tennis, golf, cricket, and equestrian sport, while several prominent Gulf elites and royal family members have recently taken over major sports franchises in Europe and elsewhere. How should we understand these far-reaching sponsorship agendas in the Gulf? What can they tell us about the politics and ethics of international sport on the Arabian Peninsula? Moving beyond the general readings of Gulf sport sponsorship as an exercise in ‘soft power,’ this article shows how these deals are strategic nodes for diverse actors in the Gulf and in the international sporting community to advance various interests: personal, political, financial, and otherwise. Informed by a critical geopolitics lens that questions the coherence of the ‘state’ as an actor, I ask what it means to say that ‘the Gulf’ sponsors sport, and more specifically investigate the relevant actors behind these sponsorship deals. To do so, this article examines regional and global political economy through a focus on three Gulf airline sponsors, Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways, and three elite sports sponsors—the UAE’s Sheik Mansour, Qatar’s Nasser bin Ghanim Al-Khelaïfi, and Sheikh Nasser of Bahrain. By decentering ‘soft power’ approaches to sport that unduly emphasize the ‘state’ as an actor, this article suggests a more grounded approach to the geopolitics of sport in the Arabian Peninsula, which simultaneously acknowledges the complicity of Western actors and institutions in the rise of Gulf sports sponsorship deals in the past decade.     

Right, Equality, and the Fairness Obligation

The principle of fairness holds that individuals (beneficiaries) who benefit from a cooperative scheme of others (cooperators) have an obligation to do their share in return for their benefit. The original proponent of this principle, H. L. A. Hart suggests ‘mutuality of restrictions’ as a moral basis because it is fair to mutually restrict the freedom of both beneficiaries and cooperators; so called the fairness obligation. This paper explores ‘mutuality of restrictions’, which is interpreted as a right-based and an equality-based justification of the fairness obligation. It is not argued whether both ways of justifying the obligation makes a success, but that they are in need of presupposing that there is a duty for beneficiaries to do their share in return for their benefit. This suggests turning to a duty-based justification of the fairness obligation.     

绝对的公平和相对的公平

效率和公平是经济伦理的两大原则 ,也是制定和衡量经济政策的价值依据 ,但大部分经济学家都认为 ,效率和公平存在着不可调和的矛盾 ,使得人们在指导经济行为和制定经济政策时处于两难境地。本文通过对自由主义、平等主义和功利主义公平观的批判 ,试图说明 ,从历史唯物主义的立场出发 ,抛弃绝对的公平观 ,主张相对的公平观 ,便能够解决这个难题。     

Perceived Fairness of Promotion Procedures: Identification of Justice Rules and Consequences for Job Attitudes

Two studies were concerned with the perceived fairness of the promotion procedures adopted by a police organization. The first study used Leventhal's (1980) theory of procedural justice to analyse the reasons given by unsuccessful candidates for their appeals against the decision. A content analysis revealed that the rules of ‘consistency and accuracy’ accounted for 81.8% of all the reasons stated. The second study applied the social cognitive theory (Bandura 1989a; 1989b) to examining the effect of perceived procedural fairness on unsuccessful candidates' self-efficacy and job attitudes related to police work. Results show that ‘procedural fairness’ was predictive of ‘self-efficacy and procedural satisfaction’, both of which in turn predicted officers' organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Theoretical implications of the studies for procedural justice and social cognitive theory were discussed.     

Procedural Fairness,the Economy,and Support for Political Authorities

A vast literature in social and organizational psychology suggests that support for authorities is driven both by the outcomes they deliver to people and by the extent to which they employ fair decision making processes. Furthermore, some of that literature describes a process‐outcome interaction, through which the effect of outcome favorability is reduced as process fairness increases. However, very few studies have been conducted to determine whether such interaction is also present in the explanation of support for political authorities. Here, we start by analyzing whether individual perceptions of the political system’s procedural fairness moderate the well‐known individual‐level relationship between perceived economic performance and government approval. Then, we explore the implications of such process‐outcome interaction to the phenomenon of “economic voting,” testing whether impartiality in governance moderates the effect of objective economic performance on aggregate incumbent parties’ support. In both cases, we show that the interaction between processes and outcomes seems to extend beyond the organizational contexts where it has been previously observed, with important implications for the study of political support.     

The savings problem in the original position: assessing and revising a model

Abstract

The common conception of justice as reciprocity seemingly is inapplicable to relations between non-overlapping generations. This is a challenge also to John Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness. This text responds to this by way of reinterpreting and developing Rawls’s theory. First, by examining the original position as a model, some revisions of it are shown to be wanting. Second, by drawing on the methodology of constructivism, an alternative solution is proposed: an amendment to the primary goods named ‘sustainability of values’. This revised original position lends support to intergenerational justice as fairness.     

领导执行公正准则的理论基础及影响因素

领导执行公正准则指领导展现与组织公正各维度的准则相一致的管理行为。解释该行为的主要理论为社会交换理论和公正道义模型。领导的道德特质、公正经历、地位以及领导与员工互动中知觉到的员工的交流风格、可信性、归属需要是影响领导执行公正准则的主要因素。未来研究应进一步探讨组织因素对领导执行公正准则的影响, 从模型互补的角度完善理论解释, 明确间接交换对领导执行公正准则的影响, 并开展领导执行公正准则的本土化研究。     

Pentecosmopolis: on the pentecostal cosmopolitanism of Lagos

ABSTRACT

Based on ethnography conducted in Lagos, one of the foremost pentecostal cities in the world, this article coins the interconnected concepts of ‘Pentecosmopolis’ and ‘pentecosmopolitanism’ to account for forms of cosmopolitanism that are shaped at the intersection of Pentecostalisms and urbanisms. These concepts highlight the dialectical role of Pentecostalisms in the cosmopolitization of urban sociospatialities, and of urbanisms in the cosmopolitization of Pentecostalisms. This article disbands the ideas of Pentecosmopolis and pentecosmopolitanism into two interconnected sub-concepts of ‘pentecosmopolitan spatiality’ and ‘pentecosmopolitan sociality’––of ‘pentecosmopolitan sociospatiality’. Against the background of marginality in scholarship, I examine the cosmopolitization—the diversification and contrastification—of sociospatial symbolisms, practices and relationalities taking shape in the city at the behest of Pentecostalisms, and in Pentecostalisms at the behest of the city.     

The Dialogical Nature of our Inner Lives

Abstract

Classically, we have treated talk of such things as meaning, understanding, and thinking, etc., as raising problems about mental states assumed to exist inside people's heads. And in our philosophical inquiries, we have sought determinate in-principle solutions to these problems. In the dialogical, relational-responsive view of language use presented here — influenced by Wittgenstein, Bakhtin, and Voloshinov — a very different view of such talk is presented. Our ‘inner lives’ are not hidden ‘inside’ us, but are ‘displayed’ out ‘in’ the unfolding, living encounters spontaneously occurring between us and the others around us as we live out our lives     

Islamophobic and anti-Muslim resistance to postsecularism: South Asian Americans and the disciplining of American racial and religious subjectivities*

ABSTRACT

Assaults on Sikhs and other South Asian Americans represent not merely cases of ‘mistaken Muslims.’ Their victimization is different—yet not distinct—from anti-Muslim sentiment. They are the casualties of an American racial and secular nationalist project to discipline citizens into a ‘safe’ religious subjectivity. Although a variety of Hollywood films demonstrate a slowly growing sophistication in portrayals of Muslims, Islamic traditions, and South Asian Americans, too many continue to promote America’s sometimes fatal conflation of race and religion that becomes particularly acute in periods of strident nativism.     

‘Relics of the Amorites’ or ‘Things Indifferent'? Peter Martyr Vermigli's authority and the Threat of Schism in the Elizabethan Vestiarian Controversy

Abstract

In the years following the enactment of the Elizabethan Settlement, the threat of schism loomed over the Church of England with respect to provisions governing uniformity of ecclesiastical dress. Were the traditional vestments and ornaments of worship ‘relics of the Amorites’ whose use was inconsistent with a truly Reformed ecclesiastical order? Or were they rather ‘adiaphora’ and therefore to be tolerated? Numerous appeals by both parties to the dispute were made to Peter Martyr Vermigli, now settled in Zurich, for his judgement of the matter. Although Vermigli's authority was cited by both sides, he emerges a staunch defender of the Settlement. Consistent with his intervention of 1550 in John Hooper's brief period of resistance to the Edwardine vestments rubric, Vermigli counselled conformity with careful nuance. Vermigli's stance in the vestiarian controversy in turn raises important questions about the ‘Reformed’ identity of the Elizabethan Church.     

Primary school teacher outcomes from online professional development for physical literacy: A randomised controlled trial

IntroductionPrimary (or elementary) school teachers are often relied upon to provide children with opportunities for physical literacy development; however, many of these teachers feel they lack the skills to effectively promote or ‘teach’ physical literacy. We examined the effects of an online physical literacy professional development program—relative to receiving widely-available online resources or continuing with ‘normal’ practice—on primary school teachers’ physical literacy knowledge and application.MethodsA parallel three-arm randomised controlled trial in which 92 primary school teachers were assigned to (a) an online professional development program designed to support teachers’ physical literacy instructional skills (‘intervention’), (b) receive widely-available online physical literacy resources (‘comparison’), or (c) a typical practice ‘control’ condition. Data were collected at baseline and following the four-week intervention period. The primary outcome was teachers’ physical literacy knowledge and application; secondary outcomes included teachers’ self-reported perceptions of confidence, values, and barriers. Between-group differences were assessed using the intention-to-treat principle with analysis of covariance accounting for demographic factors and baseline differences in the focal outcome.ResultsTeachers in the intervention arm scored significantly higher on post-intervention physical literacy knowledge and application than their counterparts in both the control (d = .47, p = .044) and comparison (d = 0.87, p = .007) arms. This pattern of differences was also observed for teachers’ value of physical literacy, autonomy support, and perceived personal barriers.ConclusionTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first adequately powered randomised controlled trial to demonstrate improvements in physical literacy instructional outcomes as a result of primary school teacher participation in targeted online professional development.     

Governing Islam in French cities: defining ‘acceptable’ public religiosity through municipal consultative bodies

ABSTRACT

In recent years, European states have institutionalised relations with Islamic groups in the form of national Islam councils. Similarly, municipalities have set up more or less comparable bodies to address issues related to urban religious diversity. However, rather than being restricted to Muslim representatives, municipal consultative bodies usually incorporate a variety of religious actors. This contribution analyses three such bodies in the French cities of Rennes, Bordeaux, and Toulouse. Adopting a governance perspective and drawing on qualitative fieldwork, I argue that by providing concrete advice on how to address religious issues, these bodies define what are considered ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ public religious expressions, ultimately influencing normative ideas about laïcité. Moreover, I argue that the history of relationships between religious and municipal authorities and the political culture of the cities, among other factors, shape these local processes, thereby emphasising the distinct role of cities and urban actors in governing religion.     

Educating career guidance practitioners in the twenty-first century

ABSTRACT

Rapidly changing policy contexts in England have dramatically affected the provision of career guidance, and the training and development of its practitioners. This paper takes an autoethnographic and self-reflexive approach to exploring the experience of a Senior Lecturer in Career Guidance who manages a centre that offers the Qualification in Career Guidance (QCG), and the Level 6 Diploma in Career Guidance and Development. Key questions are considered, such as: the effects of policy context on the type of qualification and curriculum offered, and their differences; the challenges of engaging learners in theoretical concepts and reflective approaches; and the tensions between ‘training’ practitioners and ‘educating’ them to develop a strong core of professionalism. The paper also considers the extent to which the learners develop as ‘knowledgeable social actors’.     

Fairness and preference

Two equity models were evaluated by fitting them to subjects' judgments of the fairness of payment distributions to “self” and “other” under hypothetical work situations. Neither the E. Walster, G. W. Walster, and E. Berscheid (Equity: Theory and Research, Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1978) equity formulation nor Harris' (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1976, 12, 194–209) linear model adequately accounted for the fairness judgments regardless of whether self worked more or less than other. Subjects also were asked to indicate their most preferred payment distributions and these preferences were significantly different from the fairness judgments. Results suggested that fairness judgments were influenced by a bias in the direction of overpayment to self.