157,553 research outputs found

    The BFOQ Defense: Title VII’s Concession to Gender Discrimination

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    Should the BFOQ exception still exist? Because permitting discrimination under Title VII seems fundamentally contrary to the anti-discrimination purpose of the statute, this article questions whether the BFOQ defense is consistent with the aims of Title VII or whether, in actuality, the defense undermines the Act\u27s effectiveness by providing a loophole for employers to participate in the discriminatory practices Title VII seeks to forbid

    The BFOQ Defense: Title VII’s Concession to Gender Discrimination

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    Should the BFOQ exception still exist? Because permitting discrimination under Title VII seems fundamentally contrary to the anti-discrimination purpose of the statute, this article questions whether the BFOQ defense is consistent with the aims of Title VII or whether, in actuality, the defense undermines the Act\u27s effectiveness by providing a loophole for employers to participate in the discriminatory practices Title VII seeks to forbid

    Expressive political behaviour : foundations, scope and implications

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    A growing literature has focused attention on ‘expressive’ rather than ‘instrumental’ behaviour in political settings, particularly voting. A common criticism of the expressive idea is that it is ad hoc and lacks both predictive and normative bite. No clear definition of expressive behaviour has gained wide acceptance yet, and no detailed understanding of the range of foundations of specific expressive motivations has emerged. This article provides a foundational discussion and definition of expressive behaviour accounting for a range of factors. The content of expressive choice – distinguishing between identity-based, moral and social cases – is discussed and related to the specific theories of expressive choice in the literature. There is also a discussion of the normative and institutional implications of expressive behaviour

    The CFSP in synergetic theorising: Explaining the CFSP via a multi-causal and muilti-level analytical model. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 8, No. 7, May 2008.

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    Usually, theoretical approaches and/or analytical models used in the study of the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) are build on 'unicausal influences' and on just one 'level of analysis'. No doubt, such perspectives are parsimonious and elegant in their character. However, they exclude important elements in the CFSP's existence and development. By doing so, they are narrow in their analytical scope. The conclusion is that the CFSP is a complex object of analysis, requiring complex analytical models. This paper offers a new, multi-causal and multi-level framework based on three integration theories each for one relevant level of analysis. The model, so goes the argument, can account for significant factors that influence the institutional development of the CFSP. By this example, complex analytical frameworks, as the paper argues, are necessary both in order to better manage the examinations of complex subject matters and in order to fully explain their institutional developments

    Collective Intentionality and Individual Behavior

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    The Open Method of Coordination and integration theory: are there lessons to be learned?

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    This paper seeks to contextualize the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) and enrich our understanding of it by submitting constructivist insights to its policy assessment with a focus on the Employment Strategy (EES). The most developed and longest-standing OMC policy area, employment provides fertile ground for the assessment of a rapidly expanding theoretical perspective in IR and European integration applied to a growing policy process. Normative considerations as to the essence of the EU and its future trajectory were highly influential in the process of launching the OMC. The paper provides a framework of integration theory and highlights the particular contribution that the ‘thin’ variant of constructivism has made in understanding different aspects of EU policy and politics. In the next section, the OMC is discussed and its core characteristics identified. I claim that most of the OMC’s core elements are directly linked to constructivist assumptions about policy change. The paper identifies three of those, namely policy discourse, learning and participation in policy-making. I subject those to an empirical and theoretical assessment by use of the relevant literature. Concluding that the record shows such mechanisms to be hardly present in the Employment Policy OMC, I argue that an institutionalist reading of OMC provides a credible alternative by focusing on power resources, preferences and strategies available to core OMC actors, namely member states and the Commission. The paper concludes with a twofold argument: firstly, constructivist hopes on OMC are, at least in the current context, ill-founded. Secondly, while the OMC retains a number of advantages, practical policy suggestions that will enhance its appeal to policy-makers and the public alike are due before it becomes a credible policy option

    Political and Constitutional Obligation

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    In his provocative, courageous, and original new book, Against Obligation: The Multiple Sources of Authority in a Liberal Democracy, Abner Greene argues that there is “no successful general case for a presumptive (or ‘prima facie’) moral duty to obey the law.” In my own book, On Constitutional Disobedience, I argue that there is no moral duty to obey our foundational law–the Constitution of the United States. This brief article, prepared for a symposium on the two books to be published by the Boston University Law Review, I address three issues related to these claims. First, I discuss what seem to me to be important ambiguities in and problems with Professor Greene’s argument. Second, I defend my own stance against criticisms advanced by Greene and others. Third, I explore the relationship between his claims and mine

    Stratification Economics and Identity Economics

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    Stratification economics represents an important new approach devoted to explaining economic inequality in terms of how social groups are separated or stratified along economic lines. This paper combines stratification economics with identity economics to address complications that the phenomenon of intersectionality – people having multiple social group identities – creates for stratification economics. It distinguishes two types of social identities recognized by social psychologists, categorical and relational social identities, and uses this distinction to explain how individuals’ personal identities, understood as ordered sets of social identities, can be seen to be both socially and self-constructed. Individuals order and rank their categorical social identities according to weights they assign to them in interactive social settings in which their role-based relational social identities combine different categorical social identities. Recent research in social psychology in the stigma identity threat literature is then reviewed to distinguish two different ways in which individuals respond to others’ stigmatization of their social groups in interactive settings. The paper argues that individuals respond to stigma by assigning weights to their categorical social group identities in ways that reflect both functional power relationships and stigmatization in a way that on balance tend to reinforce social stratification

    In Defense of Deference

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    Uppsatsens syfte Àr att undersöka hur skapande mÀnniskor beskriver inspiration i sina skapandeprocesser genom att analysera texter skrivna utav fem olika skapande mÀnniskor sjÀlva. Birger Gerhardsson (2014) har skrivit i Nationalencyklopedin att inspiration Àr ett andligt fenomen som övergÄr mÀnniskans förmÄga. Vidare i uppsatsen beskrivs den tidigare forskning och teori som funnits inom inspiration och kreativitet. Metoden som anvÀnts Àr textanalys och det för att kunna analysera vad det Àr författarna verkligen menar. Uppsatsen tar Àven upp kreativitet i relation till inspiration dÄ de Àr tvÄ begrepp som relaterar till varandra. I resultatanalysen har Helene Billgren (2011) skrivit om hur hon kan titta pÄ klippdockor för att hitta inspiration medan flera av de andra författarna inte har skrivit om inspiration med just det begreppet utan har skrivit mer om sina skapandeprocesser pÄ ett sÀtt som gÄr att tolka som inspiration. I summeringen av resultatanalysen beskrivs kortfattat vad uppsatsens resultat Àr, bland annat att det finns mÄnga olika sÀtt att beskriva inspiration och att alla beskrivningar kommer ifrÄn olika utgÄngspunkter. Diskussionsdelen diskuterar och argumenterar kring varför valet av metod var bra, hur frÄgestÀllningen blev besvarad och hur en vidare forskning pÄ Àmnet inspiration skulle kunna se ut

    Semantic indeterminacy in object relative clauses

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    This article examined whether semantic indeterminacy plays a role in comprehension of complex structures such as object relative clauses. Study 1 used a gated sentence completion task to assess which alternative interpretations are dominant as the relative clause unfolds; Study 2 compared reading times in object relative clauses containing different animacy configurations to unambiguous passive controls; and Study 3 related completion data and reading data. The results showed that comprehension difficulty was modulated by animacy configuration and voice (active vs. passive). These differences were well correlated with the availability of alternative interpretations as the relative clause unfolds, as revealed by the completion data. In contrast to approaches arguing that comprehension difficulty stems from syntactic complexity, these results suggest that semantic indeterminacy is a major source of comprehension difficulty in object relative clauses. Results are consistent with constraint-based approaches to ambiguity resolution and bring new insights into previously identified sources of difficulty. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved
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