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Listening in times of crisis: the value and limits of radio phone-in shows
No full textThe article explores the democratic value of listening by examining what listening to radio phone-in programmes and listening more broadly mean to people in times of crisis. Drawing on focus groups with London residents severely affected by the cost-of-living, health and social care crises, the article discusses how participants engaged in listening and discussed its significance. Against what we call a ‘crisis of listening’, namely, a rapid shrinking of the spaces and possibilities for listening and a profound sense among people of not being listened to by the political system, the health system and other authorities, participants appreciated listening to phone-in shows and to fellow focus group participants. Listening unifies listeners around common experiences, facilitates building commonalities and enables the public expression of vulnerability in a period of increased isolation and intensifying individualism. At the same time, commercial and exploitative logics shaping phone-in shows foster polarised debate and delegitimise differing opinions, thus reinforcing a deepening crisis of listening. The article concludes by calling for a reorientation of public life around listening and a reorganisation of our commitment as researchers to contribute to listening as an ethical project
Granular DeGroot dynamics – a model for robust naive learning in social networks
No full textWe study a model of opinion exchange in social networks where a state of the world is realized and every agent receives a zero-mean noisy signal of the realized state. Golub and Jackson (2010) have shown that under DeGroot (1974) dynamics agents reach a consensus that is close to the state of the world when the network is large. The DeGroot dynamics, however, is highly non-robust and the presence of a single “adversarial agent” that does not adhere to the updating rule can sway the public consensus to any other value. We introduce a variant of DeGroot dynamics that we call 1/ -DeGroot. 1/ -DeGroot dynamics approximates standard DeGroot dynamics to the nearest rational number with as its denominator and like the DeGroot dynamics it is Markovian and stationary. We show that in contrast to standard DeGroot dynamics, 1/ -DeGroot dynamics is highly robust both to the presence of adversarial agents and to certain types of misspecifications
When rentier patronage breaks down: the politics of citizen outsiders on Gulf oil states’ labour markets
No full textIn oil-rich Gulf monarchies, fiscal constraints and demographic growth are leading to the exclusion of young citizens from the established social contract as government jobs—the dominant channel of patronage in the region—are becoming unavailable to them. We show that such outsider citizens constitute a new, politically consequential social class that is exposed to a much less attractive private labour market where they compete with low-cost migrant workers. The dualization of labour markets for citizens provides a new lens for understanding regional political unrest since the late 2000s and new group interests emerging around labour and migration policy, in which labour organizations representing outsiders have started to display solidarity with migrant workers. The new insider–outsider cleavages require a revision of rentier state theory’s claims about (the absence of) class formation and the role of inequality in rentier politics. They help us expand and refine Eurocentric theories of labour market dualism
An adoption model of cryptocurrencies
No full textThe network effect, measured by users’ adoption, is considered an important driver of cryptocurrency market dynamics. This study examines the role of adoption timing in cryptocurrency markets by decomposing total adoption into two components: innovators (early adopters) and imitators (late adopters). We find that the innovators’ component is the primary driver of the association between user adoption and cryptocurrency returns, both in-sample and out-of-sample. Next, we show that innovators’ adoption improves price efficiency, while imitators’ adoption contributes to noisier prices. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the adoption model captures significant cryptocurrency market phenomena, such as herding behaviour, more effectively, making it better suited for forecasting models in cryptocurrency pricing. These results suggest that our methodology for linking early and late adopters to market dynamics can be applied to various domains, offering a framework for future research at the intersection of operational research and financial markets
Imperialism
No full textImperialism and empire have been central to the constitution of modern world order, and provide the backdrop to the intellectual development of the discipline of International Relations (IR). Despite this, imperialism and empire have often only featured on the margins of scholarly enquiry in IR. This has begun to change in recent years, in part due to the re-historicization of the field. Imperialism and empire have been understood from multiple perspectives: as an essentially political relationship of effective control of sovereignty; as a form of order in itself; and as a hierarchical pattern of economic, intellectual, symbolic and cultural dominance. This multivalent conception of imperialism reveals the ongoing imperial characteristics of contemporary world politics and forces a return to some of the foundational concerns of an IR discipline that was born into a world of empires, not states
Global distributions of capital and labor incomes: capitalization of the global middle class
No full textThis article studies the global distributions of capital and labor incomes among individuals in 2000 and 2016. By constructing a novel database covering approximately 80% of the global output and 60% of the world population, two major findings stand out. First, the world underwent an important process of capitalization. The share of world individuals with positive capital income rose from 20% to 32%. Second, the global middle class benefited the most, in relative terms, from such a capitalization process, with China being the main driver of this global trend. The findings of this paper are robust to changes in the income definition, top-income and functional income distribution adjustments. The global composition of capital and labor incomes is more equal today than it was twenty years ago
Efficient inefficiency: organisational challenges of realising economic gains from AI
No full textOrganisations are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI). Where AI performs productive tasks more efficiently than humans, organisations will benefit economically through increases in productivity. However, if AI is deployed to undertake unproductive, superfluous tasks, the efficiency benefits will be reduced, even if these tasks are performed more efficiently than a human could, because the said tasks are inefficient to begin with. We call this eventuality ‘efficient inefficiency.’ We outline several reasons why superfluous tasks are created by managers and why they persist in organisations, drawing on an array of behavioural, managerial, and sociological literature. We argue bounded rationality accounts for why managers often fail to identify superfluous tasks, coupled with organisational conflicts which often incentivise their creation. These factors impede the ability of organisations to avoid efficient inefficiency. Restructuring organisations to promote knowledge sharing and align stakeholder incentives may reduce, though not eliminate, the risk of efficient inefficiency
The effect of daily leader secure-base support on employees' daily performance: an attachment theory perspective
No full textDrawing on attachment theory, the present study develops a theoretical model to explore whether, how, and when daily leader secure-base support impacts employees' daily in-role and extra-role performance. To test this model, we employed an experience-sampling method and collected daily diary data over 3 weeks. Results of multilevel path analysis indicated that daily leader secure-base support was positively related to both employees' daily in-role and extra-role performance. Moreover, we found that daily leader secure-base support indirectly influenced employees' in-role performance via their self-esteem, whereas it indirectly influenced employees' extra-role performance via their gratitude. Finally, attachment anxiety moderated the within-person relationship between daily leader secure-base support and employees' self-esteem as well as the indirect effect of daily leader secure-base support on employees' subsequent in-role performance via their self-esteem. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings, as well as future research directions
The reproduction of structural inequalities in online job search strategies and outcomes
Get PDFDoes digital stratification foster inequalities in access to work and employment? We address this question by examining inequalities related to online job search skills and the outcomes of the online search process. Results from a representative survey of 1103 Spanish jobseekers show that online job search skills positively affect the chances of getting an interview through employment platforms but that they are unevenly distributed. Online job search skills are more important than other digital resources, including basic digital skills, in determining positive outcomes of online job searches though there are still inequalities in getting an interview independent of either. This calls for considering domain-specific digital skills both in research and in practice alongside tackling traditional inequalities