Should Voters Decide? Exploring Successes, Failures and Effects of Electoral Reform

Are Citizens’ Assemblies useful tools for reforming democratic institutions and addressing the democratic deficit? Evaluating the utility of using mini-publics to deliberate issues like electoral reform based only on their record of success does not recommend this approach. But this sort of assessment is weakened by a lacuna in the study of Citizens’ Assemblies: we do not know whether such deliberative bodies, thanks to their inherent high levels of democratic participation, might have added democracy-enhancing value over and above traditional elite-centric reforms. This dissertation establishes a theoretical model for evaluating whether a particular path to electoral reform has independent effects on the quality of democracy and on the democratic deficit, regardless of whether the proposed change is implemented. Elite-centric and more deliberative processes are evaluated based on their input and output legitimacy (Scharpf 1997, 1999) to determine whether high-input-legitimacy processes, such as Citizens’ Assemblies or similar efforts, have a positive effect on the quality of democracy, even in the absence of changed electoral laws. Twelve case studies at the national and subnational levels within the last thirty years are evaluated using a detailed and deeply historical treatment to determine whether the enhanced input legitimacy of a deliberative process has independent effects that make the Citizens’ Assembly template worth using to tackle the democratic deficit. The overall conclusion of the study is that Citizens’ Assemblies can fail to have an independent effect on the quality of democracy if the process is abandoned or subverted by elites, and proposed reforms require elite support through to the end in order to have a positive effect. Therefore, Citizens’ Assemblies can be worthwhile as tools to reform democracy if they receive proper elite support from start to finish

Dynamical systems : mathematical and numerical approaches

Proceedings of the 13th Conference „Dynamical Systems - Theory and Applications" summarize 164 and the Springer Proceedings summarize 60 best papers of university teachers and students, researchers and engineers from whole the world. The papers were chosen by the International Scientific Committee from 315 papers submitted to the conference. The reader thus obtains an overview of the recent developments of dynamical systems and can study the most progressive tendencies in this field of science

Stuck in the middle: A case study of conflict experiences by a first-time community college president

Leadership models for community college presidents are in a major transformation from traditional hierarchical, positional authority to participatory models of decision making. As leadership becomes more participatory, and educators experiment with more team and collaborative approaches to leadership, increased conflict is a likely outcome. Inclusiveness often brings diverse voices into decision making, and empowerment of a variety of individuals brings a shift in traditional power dynamics. Different interests may create conflict, and leaders will need to find ways to negotiate these differences in order to enhance creative adaptation of a community college to its changing environment. This study explores the experiences and responses to conflict of a community college president using a field case study method and grounded theory approach. Interviews were conducted with the president over 10 months, triangulated with faculty and staff interviews, onsite observations, document analysis and the results of the Leadership Development Profile questionnaire which was developed by William Torbert to predict a leader\u27s stage of social cognitive development (ego maturity). The results of this study suggest that presidential responses to conflict negatively impacted the organization through habitual avoidance of conflict tensions including disengagement from important and clarifying discussions with the faculty and staff and retreat into bureaucratic routines that kept him separated from faculty interaction. In addition, the results of the Leadership Development Profile suggest a relationship between the president\u27s experiences of conflict and his suggested stage of ego maturity which in turn influenced his choice of conflict responses. The implications of this study are that conflict engagement choices of this president can best be understood (a) as part of the organizational and environmental context and the developmental capacity (ego maturity) of a leader, (b) problem solving and decision making through collaboration require leaders to continually learn on the job, (c) complex, ambiguous problems may require conflict as a catalyst to surface and challenge assumptions that hinder the search for novel solutions

EG-ICE 2021 Workshop on Intelligent Computing in Engineering

The 28th EG-ICE International Workshop 2021 brings together international experts working at the interface between advanced computing and modern engineering challenges. Many engineering tasks require open-world resolutions to support multi-actor collaboration, coping with approximate models, providing effective engineer-computer interaction, search in multi-dimensional solution spaces, accommodating uncertainty, including specialist domain knowledge, performing sensor-data interpretation and dealing with incomplete knowledge. While results from computer science provide much initial support for resolution, adaptation is unavoidable and most importantly, feedback from addressing engineering challenges drives fundamental computer-science research. Competence and knowledge transfer goes both ways

Synthetic radiation diagnostics as a pathway for studying plasma dynamics from advanced accelerators to astrophysical observations

In this thesis, two novel diagnostic techniques for the identi1cation of plasma dynamics and thequanti cation of essential parameters of the dynamics by means of electromagnetic plasmaradiation are presented. Based on particle-in-cell simulations, both the radiation signatures of micrometer-sized laser plasma accelerators and light-year-sized plasma jets are simulated with the same highly parallel radiation simulation framework, in-situ to the plasma simulation. The basics and limits of classical radiation calculation, as well as the theoretical and technical foundation of modern plasma simulation using the particle-in-cell method, are brie2y introduced. The combination of previously independent methods in an in-situ analysis code as well as its validation and extension with newly developed algorithms for the simultaneous quantitative prediction of both coherent and incoherent radiation and the prevention of numerical artifacts is outlined in the initial chapters. For laser wake1eld acceleration, a hitherto unknown off-axis beam signature is observed,which can be used to identify the so-called blowout regime during laser defocusing. Since signi cant radiation is emitted only after the minimum spot size is reached, this signature is ideally suited to determine the laser focus position itself in the plasma to below 100 _m and thus to quantify the in2uence of relativistic self-focusing. A simple semi-analytical scattering model was developed to explain the blowout radiation signature. The spectral signature predicted by the model is veri1ed using both a large-scale explorative simulation and a simulation parameter study, based on an experiment conducted at the HZDR. Identi1ed by the simulations, a temporal asymmetry in the scattered laser light, which cannot be described by state of the art quasi-static models of the blowout regime, makes it possible to determine the focus position precisely by using this radiation signature

EG-ICE 2021 Workshop on Intelligent Computing in Engineering

The 28th EG-ICE International Workshop 2021 brings together international experts working at the interface between advanced computing and modern engineering challenges. Many engineering tasks require open-world resolutions to support multi-actor collaboration, coping with approximate models, providing effective engineer-computer interaction, search in multi-dimensional solution spaces, accommodating uncertainty, including specialist domain knowledge, performing sensor-data interpretation and dealing with incomplete knowledge. While results from computer science provide much initial support for resolution, adaptation is unavoidable and most importantly, feedback from addressing engineering challenges drives fundamental computer-science research. Competence and knowledge transfer goes both ways

Japan as a global military power : new capabilities, alliance integration, bilateralism-plus

Japan is emerging as a more prominent global and regional military power, defying traditional categorisations of a minimalist contribution to the US-Japan alliance, maintaining anti-militarism, seeking an internationalist role, or carving out more strategic autonomy. Instead, this Element argues that Japan has fundamentally shifted its military posture over the last three decades and traversed into a new categorisation of a more capable military power and integrated US ally. This results from Japan's recognition of its fundamentally changing strategic environment that requires a new grand strategy and military doctrines. The shift is traced across the national security strategy components of Japan Self-Defence Forces' capabilities, US-Japan alliance integration, and international security cooperation. The Element argues that all these components are subordinated inevitably to the objectives of homeland security and re-strengthening the US-Japan alliance, and thus Japan's development as international security partner outside the ambit of the bilateral alliance remains stunted