Non-domination and Egalitarian Welfare Politics

In this article I will do three things: I will argue that solidarity is not necessary for political legitimacy, that non-domination is a strong candidate for legitimacy criterion, and, finally, that non-domination can legitimate the egalitarian welfare state.     

Legitimate lies: The relationship between omission,commission, and cheating

Across four experiments, we show that when people can serve their self‐interest, they are more likely to refrain from reporting the truth (lie of omission) than actively lie (lie of commission). We developed a novel online “Heads or Tails” task in which participants can lie to win a monetary prize. During the task, they are informed that the software is not always accurate, and it might provide incorrect feedback about their outcome. In Experiment 1, those in the omission condition received incorrect feedback informing them that they had won the game. Participants in commission condition were correctly informed that they had lost. Results indicated that when asked to report any errors in the detection of their payoff, participants in the omission condition cheated significantly more than those in the commission condition. Experiment 2 showed that this pattern of results is robust even when controlling for the perceived probability of the software error. Experiments 3 and 4 suggest that receiving incorrect feedback makes individuals feel more legitimate in withholding the truth, which, in turn, increases cheating.     

Identity,legitimacy, and chaste widows

I will sketch an evolutionary map of the four versions of Chineseness and explore the corresponding changes in the ideologies of the Chinese culture. A focal point is to diagram the shifting currents of moral realism vs. nihilism, cultural universalism vs. particularism and to explain how political legitimacy becomes entangled with personal identity and, as an example, how chaste widows can constitute a potent political rhetoric.     

‘Humane intervention’: the international protection of animal rights

This paper explores the international implications of liberal theories which extend justice to sentient animals. In particular, it asks whether they imply that coercive military intervention in a state by external agents to prevent, halt or minimise violations of basic animal rights (‘humane intervention’) can be justified. In so doing, it employs Simon Caney's theory of humanitarian intervention and applies it to non-human animals. It argues that while humane intervention can be justified in principle using Caney's assumptions, justifying any particular intervention on behalf of animals is much more difficult – and in present circumstances impossible. If these claims are correct, a number of important conclusions follow. First, all states lack legitimacy because of the horrors that they inflict upon animals. As a result of this, all states are prima facie liable to intervention by external agents. To remedy this situation, all states have the responsibility to massively transform their relationship with non-human animals, and to build international institutions to oversee the proper protection of their most basic rights.     

Of Power and Compassion

Abstract: While military and economic power are obviously central instruments of policy in international relations, there are a number of reasons why power alone is insufficient to succeed in fighting terrorism. Three central reasons are discussed in this essay: the limitations and the dilemma of power; the proposition that the most threatening form of terrorism, such as al‐Qaeda's, is conducted by nonstate actors, conventional deterrence against whom is less effective; and the role of motivation in conflicts where the distribution of power is asymmetrical. In addition to these objective reasons, it is argued that the foreign‐policy strategies pursued ultimately affect the actors' own values.     

Rethinking Affective Experience and Popular Emotion: World War I and the Construction of Group Emotion in International Relations

Research in International Relations (IR) frequently confronts claims about the emotions shared by members of a group. While much attention has been devoted to the potential for affective and emotional experience beyond the individual level, IR scholars have said less about the politics of invoking popular emotion. This article addresses that gap. Specifically, we argue that between individual—and even shared—affective experience on the one hand and group‐based “popular emotion” on the other exists not mechanisms of aggregation but rather processes of framing, projection, and propagation that are deeply political. We distinguish between two tropes that commonly structure references to popular emotion: communal emotion, the idealized attribution of an authentic, unifying emotional response of “the people,” and mass emotion, a volatile and potentially dangerous mob‐like reaction, but one also susceptible to manipulation. Using the outbreak of World War I as a showcase, we demonstrate the political significance of popular emotion, including its enduring relevance for understanding contemporary populism.     

Ethical Criteria for Health-Promoting Nudges: A Case-by-Case Analysis

Health-promoting nudges have been put into practice by different agents, in different contexts and with different aims. This article formulates a set of criteria that enables a thorough ethical evaluation of such nudges. As such, it bridges the gap between the abstract, theoretical debates among academics and the actual behavioral interventions being implemented in practice. The criteria are derived from arguments against nudges, which allegedly disrespect nudgees, as these would impose values on nudgees and/or violate their rationality and autonomy. Instead of interpreting these objections as knock-down arguments, I take them as expressing legitimate worries that can often be addressed. I analyze six prototypical nudge cases, such as Google’s rearrangement of fridges and the use of defaults in organ donation registration. I show how the ethical criteria listed are satisfied by most—but not all—nudges in most—but not all—circumstances.     

权力对认知的影响：启发式还是分析式？

摘要：权力对信息加工方式的影响成为权力领域研究的新焦点。一般认为,权力使得个体减少对他人和环境的依赖,进而引发简单化的信息加工取向,高权力者常因认知懒惰而采用启发式信息加工策略,然而这与现实情境中高权力者面对复杂的决策环境、做出较好的决策结果的情况不符。事实上,权力既可能产生启发式认知也可能产生分析式认知,但都更受情境的影响。文章从双系统模型的视角对信息加工过程中权力效应的研究进行梳理,并探讨了权力引发不同信息加工方式的调节变量。最后,文章从权力对认知影响的内在机制、角色分配、权力动态变化对认知影响等方面,讨论了现有现有研究的不足,并分析探讨了该领域今后的研究趋势。