Authority, politicization, and alternative justifications: endogenous legitimation dynamics in global economic governance

Recent mobilization against core tenets of the liberal international order suggests that international institutions lack sufficient societal legitimacy. We argue that these contestations are part of a legitimation dynamic that is endogenous to the political authority of international institutions. We specify a mechanism in which international authority increases the likelihood for the public politicization of international institutions. This undermines legitimacy in the short run, but also allows broadening the justificatory basis of global governance: Politicization allows civil society organizations (CSOs) to transmit alternative legitimation standards to global elite discourses. We trace this sequence for four key institutions of global economic governance – the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, and the NAFTA – combining data on authority and protest counts with markers for CSOs and legitimation narratives in more than 120,000 articles in international elite newspapers during 1992–2012. The uncovered patterns are consistent with a perspective that understands legitimation dynamics as an endogenous feature of international authority, but they also show that alternative legitimation narratives did not lastingly resonate in the global discourse thus far. This may explain current backlashes and calls for active re-legitimation efforts on part of international institutions themselves

New Renaissance (The)

Les sages de ce comité ont procédé à l\u27étude du projet de numérisation de l\u27ensemble du patrimoine culturel européen et proposent dans ce rapport une série de recommandations visant à encadrer cet ambitieux programme afin de : -partager notre patrimoine commun, dans toute sa richesse et sa diversité ; - relier notre passé à notre présent ; - préserver cet héritage pour les générations futures ; - protéger les intérêts des créateurs européens ; - favoriser la créativité, celles des professionnels comme celles des amateur

Fine-tuning Tasini: privileges of electronic distribution and reproduction

This article was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in New York Times Company v. Tasini, 533 U.S. 483 at 497 (2001)

Study of Fundamental Rights Limitations for Online Enforcement through Self-Regulation

The use of self-regulatory or privatized enforcement measures in the online environment can give rise to various legal issues that affect the fundamental rights of internet users. First, privatized enforcement by internet services, without state involvement, can interfere with the effective exercise of fundamental rights by internet users. Such interference may, on occasion, be disproportionate, but there are legal complexities involved in determining the precise circumstances in which this is the case. This is because, for instance, the private entities can themselves claim protection under the fundamental rights framework (e.g. the protection of property and the freedom to conduct business). Second, the role of public authorities in the development of self-regulation in view of certain public policy objectives can become problematic, but has to be carefully assessed. The fundamental rights framework puts limitations on government regulation that interferes with fundamental rights. Essentially, such limitations involve the (negative) obligation for States not to interfere with fundamental rights. Interferences have to be prescribed by law, pursue a legitimate aim and be necessary in a democratic society. At the same time, however, States are also under the (positive) obligation to take active measures in order to ensure the effective exercise of fundamental rights. In other words, States must do more than simply refrain from interference. These positive obligations are of specific interest in the context of private ordering impact on fundamental rights, but tend to be abstract and hard to operationalize in specific legal constellations. This study’s central research question is: What legal limitations follow from the fundamental rights framework for self-regulation and privatized enforcement online? It examines the circumstances in which State responsibility can be engaged as a result of selfregulation or privatized enforcement online. Part I of the study provides an overview and analysis of the relevant elements in the European and international fundamental rights framework that place limitations on privatized enforcement. Part II gives an assessment of specific instances of self-regulation or other instances of privatized enforcement in light of these elements

News media portrayal of attributed stakeholder attitudes to shark management in Australia

Shark attacks have increased globally and are one of the most widely reported human-wildlife conflicts. Reflecting global trends, the number of recorded attacks has increased in Australian waters. Whether positively or negatively affected, stakeholders potentially often pressure authorities to mitigate economic and human risks when developing shark management policies. This article used discourse analysis to review how attitudes toward management approaches were attributed in Australian newspapers to a range of stakeholders. The most frequently attributed stakeholders were journalists and public office holders; victims, commercial operators, and scientists were least attributed. Although most measures were portrayed as supported by a majority of stakeholders, there was apparent misalignment between reported public and policymaker attitudes, especially regarding lethal control. Despite the ramifications (e.g., social, biological) of shark management and policymaking, reporting of science-informed facts and use of scientists to inform debate were low. Opportunities exist for increased engagement among scientists, journalists, and policymakers

Aspect Based Sentiment Analysis for Large Documents with Applications to US Presidential Elections 2016

Aspect based sentiment analysis (ABSA) deals with the fine grained analysis of text to extract entities and aspects and analyze sentiments expressed towards them. Previous work in this area has mostly focused on data of short reviews for products, restaurants and services. We explore ABSA for human entities in the context of large documents like news articles. We create the first-of-its-kind corpus containing multiple entities and aspects from US news articles consisting of approximately 1000 annotated sentences in 300 articles. We develop a novel algorithm to mine entity-aspect pairs from large documents and perform sentiment analysis on them. We demonstrate the application of our algorithm to social and political factors by analyzing the campaign for US presidential elections of 2016. We analyze the frequency and intensity of newspaper coverage in a cross-sectional data from various newspapers and find interesting evidence of catering to a partisan audience and consumer preferences by focusing on selective aspects of presidential candidates in different demographics

Intellectual Property in Experience

In today’s economy, consumers demand experiences. From Star Wars to Harry Potter, fans do not just want to watch or read about their favorite characters— they want to be them. They don the robes of Gryffindor, flick their wands, and drink the butterbeer. The owners of fantasy properties understand this, expanding their offerings from light sabers to the Galaxy’s Edge®, the new Disney Star Wars immersive theme park opening in 2019. Since Star Wars, Congress and the courts have abetted what is now a $262 billion-a-year industry in merchandising, fashioning “merchandising rights” appurtenant to copyrights and trademarks that give fantasy owners exclusive rights to supply our fantasy worlds with everything from goods to a good time. But are there any limits? Do merchandising rights extend to fan activity, from fantasy-themed birthday parties and summer camps to real world Quidditch leagues? This Article challenges the conventional account, arguing that as the economic value of fantasy merchandising increases in the emergent “experience economy,” intellectual property owners may prove less keen on tolerating uncompensated uses of their creations. In fact, from Amazon’s Kindle Worlds granting licenses for fan fiction, to crackdowns on sales of fan art sold on internet sites like Etsy, to algorithms taking down fan videos from YouTube, the holders of intellectual property in popular fantasies are seeking to create a world requiring licenses to make, do, and play. This Article turns to social and cultural theories of art as experience, learning by doing, tacit knowledge, and performance to demonstrate that fan activity, from discussion sites to live-action role-playing fosters learning, creativity, and sociability. Law must be attentive to the profound effects these laws have on human imagination and knowledge creation. I apply the insights of these theories to limit merchandising rights in imaginative play through fair use, the force in the legal galaxy intended to bring balance to intellectual property law