When users control the algorithms: Values expressed in practices on the twitter platform

Recent interest in ethical AI has brought a slew of values, including fairness, into conversations about technology design. Research in the area of algorithmic fairness tends to be rooted in questions of distribution that can be subject to precise formalism and technical implementation. We seek to expand this conversation to include the experiences of people subject to algorithmic classification and decision-making. By examining tweets about the “Twitter algorithm” we consider the wide range of concerns and desires Twitter users express. We find a concern with fairness (narrowly construed) is present, particularly in the ways users complain that the platform enacts a political bias against conservatives. However, we find another important category of concern, evident in attempts to exert control over the algorithm. Twitter users who seek control do so for a variety of reasons, many well justified. We argue for the need for better and clearer definitions of what constitutes legitimate and illegitimate control over algorithmic processes and to consider support for users who wish to enact their own collective choices

The Political Economy of Globalization – Revisiting Stephen Hymer 50 Years On

We discuss issues pertaining to the political economy of “globalization”, in the context of the seminal contribution by Stephen Hymer. While Hymer’s contribution to the theory of the multinational enterprise (MNE) and foreign direct investment (FDI) is widely recognized, his contribution to the political economy of what he called “multinational corporate capital” has received less attention. In this paper we revisit some of the issues he raised, notably uneven development, global governance and central planning in the context of post-Hymer scholarly thinking and the shifting global landscape. In so doing we also speculate on the challenges and future of globalization.Stephen Hymer, International Political Economy, Institutions, Globalization,Sustainability

Gendering the European Digital Agenda: The Challenge of Gender Mainstreaming TwentyYears after the Beijing World Conference on Women

open1The goals set out in the 1995 Platform for Action of the Beijing World Conference on Women—to achieve gender equality in and through the media—interrogate today’s digital policies: To what extent have internationally agreed-upon norms of gender equality and gender mainstreaming been recognized and implemented? To what extent has the knowledge produced by feminist scholarship informed media policy developments? What kind of new knowledge, and analytical frameworks, may contribute to unmask gender-unequal power relations in contemporary media environments? The article addresses these questions with a focus on European discourses and institutional practices for the Digital Agenda.Special issue edited by Padovani and Shade on 'Gendering Global Media Policy: Critical Perspectives On Digital Agendas’openClaudia PadovaniPadovani, Claudi

How is rape a weapon of war?: feminist international relations, modes of critical explanation and the study of wartime sexual violence

Rape is a weapon of war. Establishing this now common claim has been an achievement of feminist scholarship and activism and reveals wartime sexual violence as a social act marked by gendered power. But the consensus that rape is a weapon of war obscures important, and frequently unacknowledged, differences in ways of understanding and explaining it. This article opens these differences to analysis. Drawing on recent debates regarding the philosophy of social science in IR and social theory, it interprets feminist accounts of wartime sexual violence in terms of modes of critical explanation – expansive styles of reasoning that foreground particular actors, mechanisms, reasons and stories in the formulation of research. The idea of a mode of critical explanation is expanded upon through a discussion of the role of three elements (analytical wagers, narrative scripts and normative orientations) which accomplish the theoretical work of modes. Substantive feminist accounts of wartime sexual violence are then differentiated in terms of three modes – of instrumentality, unreason and mythology – which implicitly structure different understandings of how rape might be a weapon of war. These modes shape political and ethical projects and so impact not only on questions of scholarly content but also on the ways in which we attempt to mitigate and abolish war rape. Thinking in terms of feminist modes of critical explanation consequently encourages further work in an unfolding research agenda. It clarifes the ways in which an apparently commonality of position can conceal meaningful disagreements about human action. Exposing these disagreements opens up new possibilities for the analysis of war rape

SCIENCE WARS AS CULTURE WARS: FRACKING AND THE BATTLE FOR THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF WOMEN

In this thesis, I examine how claims regarding the environmental and health impacts of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” are constructed by industry advocates who promote the practice and environmental and social justice groups who reject it. More specifically, I examine the cultural underpinnings of the debate over fracking, and the prominence of gender as a central framing device in that debate. While the controversy over fracking is often presented as scientific or technical in nature, I maintain that it is as much a culture war as it is a science war. I demonstrate this by showing how both pro-fracking and anti-fracking groups mobilize cultural symbols and identities—motherhood, environmentalism, family farming, family values, individualism, and patriotism among them—in order to persuade the public and advocate for their positions. I contend that engagement with the cultural and ideological dimensions of those debates, including their gendered dimensions, is as important as engagement with its scientific and technical dimensions. Ultimately, I argue that a greater focus on gender contributes to our understanding of environmental risk more broadly, and to the field of environmental sociology as a whole. As such, gender deserves more scholarly attention within the field than it is currently receiving

Changing perspectives on the internationalization of R&D and innovation by multinational enterprises: a review of the literature

Internationalization of R&D and innovation by Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) has undergone a gradual and comprehensive change in perspective over the past 50 years. From sporadic works in the late 1950s and in the 1960s, it became a systematically analysed topic in the 1970s, starting with pioneering reports and “foundation texts”. Our review unfolds the theoretical and empirical evolution of the literature from dyadic interpretations of centralization versus decentralization of R&D by MNEs to more comprehensive frameworks, wherein established MNEs from Advanced Economies still play a pivotal role, but new players and places also emerge in the global generation and diffusion of knowledge. Hence views of R&D internationalization increasingly rely on concepts, ideas and methods from IB and other related disciplines such as industrial organization, international economics and economic geography. Two main findings are highlighted. First, scholarly research pays an increasing attention to the network-like characteristics of international R&D activities. Second, different streams of literature have emphasized the role of location- specific factors in R&D internationalization. The increasing emphasis on these aspects has created new research opportunities in some key areas, including inter alia: cross-border knowledge sourcing strategies, changes in the geography of R&D and innovation, and the international fragmentation of production and R&D activities

Me, not you: the trouble with mainstream feminism

Phipps argues that the mainstream movement against sexual violence embodies a political whiteness which both reflects its demographics and limits its revolutionary potential

French compounds

International audienceThis article focuses on compounding as a process of word formation within the theoretical framework of lexeme-based morphology. It provides a systematic analysis of the two types of compounding in French: native compounding, the main type, and neoclassical compounding, which is quite marginal. It presents the various rules: native compounds are prototypically constructed of two lex-emes and form a third one; they are predominantly endocentric; the governing constituent and the compound head, if any, is on the left and controls the semantic relations between the two constituents, whether coordinated, attribu-tive or subordinating. Neoclassical compounds are prototypically constructed of bound neoclassical elements and form adjectives; they are often exocentric; the governing constituent is on the right. Inflection in native compounds is complex. Several areas of the analysis remain unresolved, particularly regarding the boundaries between morphological/syntactic compounds

Is There Any Room for the Doctrine of Fundamental Rights of States in Today\u27s International Law Introduction

This article serves as a general substantive introduction to the special issue on the fundamental rights of states in international law. It introduces the concept in theoretical and doctrinal terms, and lays out the questions that will be addressed by the contributions to the special issue. These questions include: 1) What do attributes like \u27inherent, \u27inalienable\u27 and \u27permanent\u27 mean with regard to state rights?; 2) Do they lead to identifying a unitary distinct category of fundamental rights of states?; 3) If so, what is their source and legal character?; 4) What are their legal implications, eg, when they come into conflict with other obligations of the right holder or with the actions of other states and international organisations?; and ultimately, 5) Is there still room in today\u27s international law for a doctrine of \u27fundamental\u27 rights of states? The article reviews the fundamental rights of states in positive law sources and in international legal scholarship, and identifies the reasons for a renaissance of attention for this doctrine