Academic literature on the topic 'Means-ends interdependence'

John Dewey's democratic theory is celebrated as a classic statement of the theory of deliberative democracy. This article challenges deliberative appropriations of Dewey's political thought by situating his democratic theory within the contentious history of American labor politics. In his writings on direct action, strikes, and class struggle, Dewey advocated coercive and nondeliberative modes of political action as democratic means for democratic ends. Examining Dewey's writings on democracy, action, and the use of force reveals how a means-oriented pragmatism circumvents the problematic dichotomy of ideal ends and non-ideal means framing contemporary debates about idealism and realism in democratic theory. Pragmatism's account of the interdependence of means and ends in political action, as a process of creative and collaborative experimentation, combines a robust defense of coercive tactics with a consequentialist critique of violence.

Speaker intention is conceptualized as a property of utterances in context, not speakers; it is based on communally shared knowledge of discursive means to ends. The article’s main theoretical claim is that utterances, in addition to being produced with an intention about their pragmatic meaning, are also produced with an intention to bring about some post-interactional end result. Both types of intention bear on the utterance’s pragmatic meaning. Empirical aspects of the theoretical difference between these two types of speaker intention are shown through analysis of naturally occurring interactions; here, the analytical focus is on the scope, interdependence, recognizability, and fulfillment of each type of intention, with special attention to the functionality of an utterance’s content, composition, and sequential placement as a means of getting a response from the interlocutor(s) that goes along with what the speaker intends as regards the end result of the interaction.

Constitutional reform has been an important means to push populist authoritarian agendas in Hungary, Poland, Turkey and Venezuela. The embrace of constitutional means and rhetoric in pursuit of these agendas has led to the growing recognition of ‘populist constitutionalism’ as a contemporary political phenomenon. In all four examples mentioned above, democracy, popular sovereignty and direct plebiscitary appeal to the people is the rhetorical and justificatory framework for constitutional reform. This, I worry, gives democracy a bad name and reinforces the widespread suspicion that citizens should not be directly involved in constitutional reform as popular participation can lead to dangerous majoritarianism and is easily manipulated by elite actors seeking to weaken constitutional checks and balances. But the problem, I argue, is not inherent in citizen’s participation in constitutional reform. In contrast to populist constitutionalism, I develop an idea of deliberative constitutionalism in which citizens can participate in constitution-making and reform without hijacking constitutionalism for majoritarian, nationalist or anti-pluralist ends. Deliberative constitutionalism as I understand it has four features: a Habermasian co-originality thesis that articulates the interdependence of democracy and liberalism mediated by a conception of discourse; a proceduralized idea of popular sovereignty that reduces the tension between appeal to the people and respect for pluralism; the centrality of the public sphere over the voting booth as the cradle of democracy; institutional innovations intended to include citizens in constitutional reform (including through referendums) but avoid majoritarian and populist pathologies.

ABSTRACTNetwork formation by cross-linking is a common method to incorporate functions like elastic deformability, shape-memory capability or hydrogel formation into polymer materials for medical applications. Since these materials are often intended to degrade, their design would benefit from a quantitative prediction of the interdependence between network architecture and degradation behavior. Here, we introduce a quantitative description of the degradation behavior of polymer networks. A simplified model was developed under the assumption of having an ideal network, where all network strands are terminated by network nodes and each node is connected to the same number of strands. To describe the degradation of real networks, the model was modified by allowing for a varying connectivity of network nodes, which also included free chain-ends. The models were validated by comparison with Langmuir monolayer degradation data from 2D networks formed by cross-linking oligo(ε-caprolactone)diols with dialdehydes. We found that both the ideal network hypothesis and the real network model were in excellent agreement with the experimental data, with the ideal network hypothesis requiring longer network strands than the real network to result in the same degradation behavior. The models were further used to calculate the degradation curves of the corresponding, non cross-linked molecules. By comparison, it was found that the network formation increases the time required to reach 50% degradation of oligo(ε-caprolactone)diols by only 20%. This difference mainly arises from attaching free chain ends to network points.

Discussing modes of political and/or economic decoupling in an era of economic globalization seems almost contradictory as the dominating keywords in the latter are increasing integration, interdependency and harmonization. For example, when looking towards the political realm it seems problematic to suggest that a nation-state can opt for a withdrawal from the global community in order to nurture its domestic potential. Likewise, when looking towards the economic realm, it seems even more problematic to suggest the possibility of a national economy withdrawing from the global economy, taking an increasing internationalization of domestic markets into account. Nonetheless, there is a discourse devoted to just that, namely whether or not to decouple economically and politically from the global community. The present article explores this discourse by first taking a critical look at the concept of decoupling. It then proceeds by presenting a different approach towards the study of the relationship between the global and national level by introducing the notion of triangulation. It is argued that the relationship between economic globalization, national economics and a given societal context in which the two former are embedded, is governed by various layers of interdependency. This means that one cannot solely focus on one point in the triangle and thus decouple, so to speak, the other two in order to understand, for example, the political or economic forces at play there. According to the argument forwarded in this article, one has to take all three points in the triangle into account in order to disentangle and thus understand the complex web of interdependency among the three. To illustrate the workings of this approach, a case study of the ramifications of a newly initiated national economic development plan in Malaysia is introduced. The article ends by returning to the decoupling discourse to re-examine it in the light of the findings from the case study.

ABSTRACTKeen to show the fluidity of border areas, and the limits of state control, much anthropological scholarship on borders highlights arrangements, activities and opportunities that pass beneath the official radar. But while such a clandestine focus casts border dwellers as preoccupied with resisting state regulation, this article shows how Zimbabwean–South African border dwellers make the most of their location by being visible to state officials, as waged farm workers. They seek agricultural jobs as a foothold in building lucrative businesses. Moreover, waged farm workforces are hubs of border trade, as workers remit goods for resale as a response to the crisis at home in Zimbabwe. The article therefore questions the wider theoretical opposition between the creative entrepreneurship of the informal economy and the drudgery of formal employment. Formal and informal modes of livelihood constitute one another, intersect and are interdependent. This article unpacks the spatial and temporal articulations between waged work and other means of making ends meet. In so doing, it suggests fixating less on the border itself as a distinctive feature, replete with smugglers and murky goings-on, and appreciating the various meanings of work in borderland economies.

Socially responsible investing (SRI) is gaining traction in the financial sector, but it is unclear whether the dominant financial logic complements or competes with the social logic in the founding of SRI funds. Based on insights we gained from observation at an Asian SRI industry association, interviews with SRI professionals in the U.S. and Europe, and other fieldwork, we questioned explanations for SRI’s conflicted relationship with the financial logic. Our observations prompted us to build a panel database of SRI fund foundings from 1970 to 2014 in 19 countries so that we could examine how a dominant logic interacts with alternative logics to promote or stifle institutional change. We decomposed the financial logic into interdependent dimensions as the provider of means (resources, practices, and knowledge) for novel financial ventures to be founded and the enforcer of profit-maximizing ends that constrain such foundings. Our theory suggests a paradoxical role for the financial logic, which explains an intriguing empirical finding: the founding of SRI funds has a curvilinear, inverted-U-shaped relationship with the prevalence of the financial logic. We propose and find that the relationship between the dominant financial logic and the social logic of SRI shifts from complementary to competing as the financial logic becomes more prevalent in society and its profit-maximizing end becomes taken for granted. We examined how certain alternative logics—those of unions, religion, and green political parties—moderate these effects. Our results shed light on how and to what extent institutional change can occur in fields in which one institutional logic is dominant. They also reveal country-level institutional factors that drive SRI.

The effective delivery of support services for international students has been the subject of professional discourse for nearly a century (Wheeler, King & Davidson, 1925). While scholars have long examined the problem of student attrition, early retention models (Spady, 1970; Tinto, 1988) applied anthropological, psychological and sociological theories in ways that mostly ignored the intuitional responsibility and capacity to serve culturally diverse individuals. Furthermore, an analysis of fifty years of student affairs research found that international students were mostly excluded (Pope, Mueller and Reynolds, 2009). It was not until the establishment of the Journal of International Students that international students began to receive regular attention within the academic literature.
 International student advisors have an important role to play in helping international students adjust to their host communities and institutions. However, changes to student immigration regulations has resulted in an increased emphasis on immigration compliance (Boyd, 2008; Rosser, Hermsen, Mamiseishvili, & Wood, 2007) and lowered the capacity of some international student offices to provide non-immigration services. 
 The quality of international student services, whether immigration or not, is generally dependent on formal and informal processes of which multiple stakeholders are a part. Thus, a small change to one element has the potential to affect the whole. In order to maximize efficiency and effectiveness of services offered, international student advisors may benefit from applying a systems perspective as summarized by the following formula:
 ISS = [PM + (LM + I + V)] + CI
 International Student Services = [Process Mapping + (Lean Mindset + Intentionality + Value)] + Continuous Improvement
 Process Mapping
 Process mapping is a useful tool for understanding the interrelationships of all the specific elements that allow for a specific service. For instance, a process map may be used to visualize the series of steps, decisions and delays that begin when someone applies for admission as an international student and ends when that person receives the necessary documents to apply for a student visa. The elements are each mapped individually and their relationships to each other visually mapped to create a workflow diagram. This dynamic flowcharting activity makes it possible to understand how each part contributes to the whole and the downstream consequences of interventions.
 Lean Mindset
 International student advisors should strive to develop a lean mindset. This includes commitment to identifying and eliminating wastes from programs and services offered to international students. Such wastes may include requiring international students to complete actions that are unnecessaryor overly burdensome. For instance, requiring a student to obtain signatures on a paper form in order to request authorization for curricular practical training when free cloud-based solutions exist that would expedite and simply the process for all involved. As the workload of international student advisors increase due to additional immigration compliance requirements, it is critical to be able to maximize capacity by eliminating waste.
 Intentionality
 International student services should be considered an important part of the co-curriculum. While an orientation program for new international students may include a shopping trip to the local, an intentional approach to this service would be to leverage the activity as a means for teaching students how to use the local bus system. This would not only accomplish the basic goal of helping students obtain access to needed goods, but it would also help them acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to travel confidently around their host community.
 Value
 When analyzing components of international student services, it is important to assess parts of the process using the following criteria:
 1. Adds value from the student’s perspective
 2. Does not add value from the student’s perspective, but is required
 3. Does not add value from the student’s perspective nor is it required
 The goal of assessing value is to ensure most, if not all, of the components that make up the process are viewed as valuable from the perspective of the student. This helps to ensure a higher level of satisfaction with the services offered and it keeps advisors from engaging in activities that detract from the overall mission of supporting international students.
 Continuous Improvement
 The work of enhancing international student services is never complete. Rather, the international student office staff should commit to regularly reviewing and refining the services they offer using the method summarized by the formula.
 Conclusion
 A systems perspective is helpful for understanding and ensuring the effectiveness of international student services. While international student advisors may be exceptional as individual contributors to a given process, failure to see the interdependencies between their work and the work of others who touch the process can result in misalignment in expectations and experiences on the part of the student.

The apparent eroding in the hegemonic power of the United States and the sustained growth of China has triggered debate as to whether the rise of China will be peaceful or conflictual. Structural realism posits that the world is characterised by the anarchic ordering principle in which there is no central authority sitting above the states. Therefore, the absence of a “leviathan” on the international system automatically makes every state equal on the system which created an atmosphere of competition for the maximisation of power for survival. On a similar line of reasoning, the Power Transition theory as a variant theory within realism postulates that when the international system is structured based on the principle of hierarchy, peace will reign. It means that when international relations are regulated and influenced by a dominant power, the international system becomes stable. But the emergence of a dissatisfied powerful nation to challenge the hegemon usually ends up in war. Based on this assumption, Power Transition theorists argued that the rise of China to rival the dominance of the United States could not be peaceful. The Power Transition theory has influenced many academics to have the belief that the two nations will end up in “Thucydides’ Trap”. This belief has aggravated the matter beyond the reasonable level and has instilled panic in the mind of foreign policymakers which could jeopardise world peace and international cooperation. Hence, this paper aims to critically evaluate the deficiency of the Power Transition theory in the 21st century in explaining the current United States-China relations and the prospect of peace or war between the two nations using process tracing. Accordingly, in this paper, it is argued that in the 21st century, an armed confrontation between the United States and China is highly unlikely. Because in today’s world, nations (including the United States and China) are intertwined by the forces of globalisation which created inexorable economic interdependence. Additionally, there is rapid advancement in military technology and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction which came with the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Consequently, there is a need to revisit the Power Transition theory to accommodate contemporary factors. The inclusion of the current variables into the Theory will make it applicable and adequately fit in the discourse of international relations and global politics of the 21st-century international system.

The transformations of political economy since its formative period in the late 16th-early 17th century (Bodin, Botero, Serra, Monthchrestien) defines its object as a field of possibilities. A dynamic (that is, historical) view of political economy is therefore a condition for identifying the relationship between different theoretical frameworks addressing the economic domain. The relationship between ends and means is central to the conceptual structuring of that domain and is at the root of the cleavages and overlaps that characterize the dynamics of economic theory. This essay highlights the central role of interdependencies in the construction of economic theory and highlights their importance both for identifying the internal structure of constraints in the economy and for assessing the relative weights of partial interests that are at the origin of collective actions. The essay also highlights the intertwining of material and social interdependencies in the dynamics of economic theory, and discusses the relationship between partial interests and forms of systemic interest. The latter relationship highlights the possible coexistence of coalitions and conflicts within the same system of interdependencies and makes such coexistence to depend on the internal, multi-level structure of interdependencies in the polity. This analytical framework is then applied to the assessment of multiple possible visualizations of systemic interest in the Eurozone.

O presente trabalho examina o chamado problema da indeterminação jurídica, de maneira a procurar explicitar o tipo de questões teóricas que suscita e apreciar o alcance ou fecundidade das respostas que tais questões possibilitam, sobretudo sob o ângulo da discussão dos pressupostos institucionais subjacentes à organização das atividades de aplicação do direito. Nesse contexto, a tese central do trabalho é a de que a ideia de indeterminação do direito, restrita ao contexto jurisdicional e entendida como um fenômeno linguístico, esgotou seu potencial teórico, e que a percepção desse esgotamento deveria conduzir à exploração de formas pelas quais questões de indeterminação do direito podem ser mais produtivamente tratadas como questões sobre configuração institucional do que como questões sobre a natureza, ou defeitos, da linguagem. São analisadas abordagens paradigmáticas do problema - no pensamento de Hans Kelsen, H.L.A. Hart e Ronald Dworkin - e os pressupostos institucionais que as informam, assim como identificados pontos de partida, nos estudos de Lon L. Fuller voltados à avaliação de formas alternativas de organização social, para exercícios de inovação institucional. A possibilidade de tais exercícios é exemplificada, ao final do trabalho, com propostas específicas de inovação, elaboradas por autores contemporâneos, concentradas na função jurisdicional, dirigidas a enfrentar o reconhecido impasse entre propostas de expansão e contenção da atuação judicial no contexto de efetivação de direitos sociais de caráter distributivo.<br>This work analyses the so-called legal indeterminacy problem, in order to make explicit the kind of theoretical issues it engenders and to assess the scope or fecundity of the answers such issues make possible, especially in terms of the discussion of institutional assumptions underlying the organization of the adjudicative function. In this setting, the central claim of this work is that the theoretical potential of the idea of legal indeterminacy, limited to the adjudicative realm and understood mainly as a linguistic phenomenon, has been worn out, and that the acknowledgment of this result should lead to the investigation of ways in which ?legal indeterminacy? issues might be more productively treated as issues about institutional innovation than issues about the nature, or defects, of language. The exemplary works of Hans Kelsen, H.L.A. Hart, and Ronald Dworkin and the institutional assumptions underlying their thought, in connection with the indeterminacy problem, are reviewed, along with the writings of Lon L. Fuller dedicated to the assessment of alternative processes of social ordering, which are taken as a point of departure for exercises in institutional innovation. The possibility of such exercises is illustrated, at the end of this work, with specific innovation proposals by contemporary authors focused on the adjudicative job, dedicated to facing the theoretical deadlock between proposals for expanding and restricting the judicial role in the context of making welfare rights, of a distributive character, concrete