NUI Maynooth Eprint Archive
Not a member yet
18159 research outputs found
Sort by
Clientelism from the Client’s Perspective: A Meta-Analysis of Ethnographic Literature
No full textMainstream political science literature on clientelism tends to focus on its supply side and on vote-buying, whereas ethnographic work often emphasizes client agency and incentives and paints a more diverse image of clientelism. We bridge the gap between these literatures by conducting a meta-analysis of ethnographic literature on clientelism from the client perspective. We code characteristics of clientelistic exchanges described in this work. We use cluster analysis and principal component analysis to systematize these data. Cluster analysis groups exchanges into three core subtypes of clientelism (“vote-buying”, “relational”, and “collective”); principal component analysis delivers two fundamental dimensions of clientelism: equal-unequal and individual-universal. We show that the two dimensions are associated with different aspects of client welfare and trade-offs from the client perspective. Our results reaffirm and reconcile existing deductive typologies of clientelism and can serve as a basis for a structured study of the demand side of clientelism
Regulating for decent work: Reflections on classification of employees
No full textThe International Labour Organisation hosted the Sixth Regulating for Decent Work Conference in its centenary year of 2019. As part of these three days, I had the pleasure to chair a panel posing the prescient question: ‘Are the Categories of “Employee” and “Self-Employed” Still a Valid Tool to Allocate Labour Rights?’ In this brief introduction, I outline the product of that panel by situating classification as part of an interplay between labour and commercial law
Participatory mechanisms for reviewing and redesigning curricula with students
No full textResearch from a range of sectors indicates
the benefits of enabling user participation
in service design. In universities, however,
questions remain about the usual mechanisms
used to obtain student feedback in relation
to the quality and utility of the data obtained,
the extent to which students participate in
feedback processes or experience these as
meaningful, and whether academics are willing
to revise their teaching based on feedback.
This project piloted participatory mechanisms
of involving students in the review and
redesign of a module. It used processes from
the fields of restorative practice and design
thinking to enable dialogue and partnership
between students and the lecturer on an
undergraduate module, LW380 Victimology,
after its initial delivery. It was found that
restorative and design processes were
attractive to students as methods of providing
feedback.
It enabled them to articulate the strengths
and weaknesses of the module and teaching
approach in a sophisticated manner, and
to participate in co-creating practical and
transferrable ways to meet future students’
needs. The benefits for the lecturer were vast,
supporting their efforts to design educational
and supportive materials and activities, to
empathise with students, and to reflect on
their teaching practices, as well as opening
new avenues for pedagogical learning
Nearest Neighbor and Contact Distance Distribution for Binomial Point Process on Spherical Surfaces
No full textThis letter characterizes the statistics of the contact distance and the nearest neighbor (NN) distance for binomial point processes (BPP) spatially-distributed on spherical surfaces. We consider a setup of n concentric spheres, with each sphere S k has a radius r k and N k points that are uniformly distributed on its surface. For that setup, we obtain the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the distance to the nearest point from two types of observation points: (i) the observation point is not a part of the point process and located on a concentric sphere with a radius r e <; r k ∀k, which corresponds to the contact distance distribution, and (ii) the observation point belongs to the point process, which corresponds to the nearest-neighbor (NN) distance distribution
Commodification, Control and the Contractualisation of the Human Body
No full textThis chapter puts the philosophical debate on commodification in the context of the legal
concept of commodities. In law, commodification is intrinsically connected with
contractualisation, through which contract acquires a central role in structuring social relations.
This link between contractualisation and commodification has two consequences. Firstly, it
gives its objects a legal value, turning them into objects capable of being traded through market
transactions and placing the focus on their commodity-value rather than social perceptions of
their intrinsic worth. Secondly, in a commodified conception of contracts, the standing of
people in their relations with each other is understood in terms of the characteristics of the
contractual transactions linking them—their conformity with the parties’ agreement, their
fitness for the purposes to which they are applied, etc. This excludes values and evaluative
positions other than the contractual values of autonomy and self-ordering. Through an analysis
of the impact of patent law on areas ranging from the patenting of isolated genes to access to
medicines, we show that commodification affects more domains and has deeper effects than
generally assumed. Commodification directs the legal system’s focus towards facilitating the
creation of contractual frameworks of self-ordering, and towards insulating law from the
broader dimensions of the value of human life, well-being, and different forms of human
striving. We argue that the study of commodification must evolve beyond focusing on the limits
of markets, and must also focus on the limits of contracts—which are generally modelled on
an exchange framework as a way of conceiving relations and on private frameworks of
regulation—their aetiology, and on devising ways of ameliorating such limitations
The ethical-political potentiality of the educational present: aristocratic principle versus democratic principle
No full textThis paper will explore a Sophist tradition of educational thought, which is concerned with the world and not a sphere of ideas as distinct from the world, and to suggest some central distinctions and concepts following from such tradition today. The distinctions which are discussed are between; upbringing, schooling and education; aristocratic versus democratic principle of education; aristocratic versus democratic conception of nature; and, culture as static versus culture as praxis. Equality is highlighted in the paper as a central concept for democracy as well as education and are discussed through Jacques Rancière. The distinctions established will also make clear what is at stake if we consider educational thought as conditional for democracy and a liveable life for anyone. The contrast between the aristocratic
and the democratic principle for education will centre on conceptions of violence and nonviolence, in accordance with Judith Butler and Franco «Bifo» Berardi’s analyses. In a final paragraph the paper discusses how equality play out in relation to teaching, and the discussion is extended by exploring Judith Butler’s conception of ‘grievability’. The paper concludes by suggesting that education is the ethical-political potentiality of a new beginning within the present order of things, and therefore the very praxis of change of this order, and therefore what makes paideia possible in the first plac
Cultural land use and vegetation dynamics in the uplands of northern Portugal from the Middle Ages to the Modern period
No full textIn Europe, mountain landscapes have evolved in a long‐term relationship with human communities and present‐day landscapes reflect that ancient interaction. The present study aims to reconstruct human activity in two mountain areas in northern Portugal using palynological analysis integrated with the available regional historical,archaeological and palaeoenvironmental archives. Pollen records from two sedimentary sequences span the Medieval and Modern periods and show that mixed agriculture and livestock grazing were consistently present in both regions throughout these times. Variations in cultural indicators show that the extent of farming fluctuated throughout time, with a general increase in cultivation during the Medieval period but with contractions likely coinciding with times of social disturbance. Historical sources suggest that socio political factors and population pressure were fundamental in the utilisation of upland spaces. This study did not find any convincing evidence to suggest that fire was a fundamental factor in heathland spread. We conclude that long‐term occupation of the uplands was sustained by low‐intensity land use throughout the Medieval to post‐Medieval periods, and that the present landscape has assumed a very different character following depopulation of the mountain areas and a shift towards commercial forestry
Temporal Expectation Hastens Decision Onset But Does Not Affect Evidence Quality
No full textThe ability to predict the timing of forthcoming events, known as temporal expectation, has a strong impact on human information processing. Although there is growing consensus that temporal expectations enhance the speed and accuracy of perceptual decisions, it remains unclear whether they affect the decision process itself, or non-decisional (sensory/motor) processes. Here, healthy human participants (N = 21; 18 female) used predictive auditory cues to anticipate the timing of low-contrast visual stimuli they were required to detect. Modeling of the behavioral data using a prominent sequential sampling model indicated that temporal expectations speeded up non-decisional processes but had no effect on decision formation. Electrophysiological recordings confirmed and extended this result: temporal expectations hastened the onset of a neural signature of decision formation but had no effect on its build-up rate. Anticipatory α band power was modulated by temporal expectation and co-varied with intrinsic trial-by-trial variability in behavioral and neural signatures of the onset latency of the decision process. These findings highlight how temporal predictions optimize our interaction with unfolding sensory events. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Temporal expectation enhances performance, but the locus of this effect remains debated. Here, we contrasted the two dominant accounts: enhancement through (1) expedited decision onset, or (2) an increase in the quality of sensory evidence. We manipulated expectations about the onset of a dim visual target using a temporal cueing paradigm, and probed the locus of the expectation effect with two complementary approaches: drift diffusion modeling (DDM) of behavior, and estimation of the onset and progression of the decision process from a supra modal accumulation-to-bound signal in simultaneously measured EEG signals. Behavioral modeling and neural data provided strong, converging evidence for an account in which temporal expectations enhance perception by speeding up decision onset, without affecting evidence quality
Prospective Customers’ Behavioural Intention towards Islamic Microfinance Services in Bangladesh
No full textThe present study investigates the behavioural intention of prospective
customers towards Islamic microfinance services in Bangladesh based on demographic
factors such as gender, age, education, and family size. This study uses a self-administered survey questionnaire to determine the intention of prospective customers
towards Islamic microfinance services based on five variables, namely subjective norms,
attitude towards behaviour, behavioural intention, normative belief, and behavioural
belief. A total of 450 questionnaires were distributed, out of which 326 responses were
received (72.44%). The findings of this study indicate that male respondents have
a higher behavioural intention towards Islamic microfinance services than female
respondents. On the other hand, female respondents have a higher behavioural belief
towards Islamic microfinance services compared to their male counterparts. The
findings also indicate that those respondents who studied up to secondary school level
would like to receive opinions from family members and friends about the use of Islamic
microfinance services. The present research findings have important implications for
Islamic microfinance institutions, practitioners and policy makers. The findings of this
study are expected to reflect suggestive steps to increase the behavioural attitude in the
use of Islamic microfinance services