Vagueness as a political strategy: weasel words in security council resolutions relating to the second gulf war

Over the last few years the diplomatic language of UN resolutions has repeatedly been questioned for the excessive presence of vagueness. In an era of expanding international contacts between different legal systems, international institutions such as the UN are constantly faced with the need to overcome cultural divergences of their recipient countries. In order to meet these requirements, UN diplomatic texts may use vague words quite extensively. Such terms, whose meaning is very flexible, variable and strictly dependent on context and interpretation, have been defined by Mellinkoff (1963: 21) as “weasel words”. The use of vague terms could be connected to the genre of diplomatic texts, as resolutions should be applicable to every international contingency. However, excessive vagueness could also lead to biased or even strategically-motivated interpretations of resolutions, undermining their legal impact and triggering conflicts instead of diplomatic solutions. This doctoral thesis is based on two main research aims: A first section aims at investigating on whether the use of strategic vagueness in Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq has contributed to the breakout of the second Gulf war instead of a diplomatic solution of the controversy. Using the qualitative Discourse-Historical approach (Wodak 2000) and quantitative analysis tools (Antconc and Sketch Engine), special attention is given to the historical/political consequences of vagueness used in that framework, and to the study of vague ‘weasel words’ (Mellinkoff 1963), modals, and adjectives contained in the corpus. The hypothesis of intentional vagueness is further reinforced through an analysis of the American legislation related to the outbreak of the war, to reveal how the U.S. has interpreted UN legislation and to understand the purposes and consequences of vague language contained in it. A second section of the study was originated by the desire to understand whether the same patterns would be used in resolutions relating to the Iranian 2010 nuclear crises revealing a relationship between the choice of vague linguistic features and intent to use intentional vagueness as a political strategy. The findings indicate that: - Vagueness in resolutions has triggered the Iraqi conflict instead of diplomatic solutions. - Similar patterns can also be found in resolutions relating to the Iranian 2010 nuclear crises: although being less vague than the resolutions relating to Iraq in order to avoid the same historical consequences, the legislation related to the Iranian nuclear controversy still suggests the UN intentional use of some vague linguistic patterns as a political strategy

Bringing social reality to multiagent and service architectures : practical reductions for monitoring of deontic-logic and constitutive norms

As distributed systems grow in complexity, the interactions among individuals (agents, services) of such systems become increasingly more complex and therefore more difficult to constrain and monitor. We propose to view such systems as socio-technical systems, in which organisational and institutional concepts, such as norms, can be applied to improve not only control on the components but also their autonomy by the definition of soft rather than hard constraints. Norms can be described as rules that guide the behavior of individual agents pertaining to groups that abide to them, either by explicit or implicit support. The study of norms, and regulatory systems in general, in their many forms -e.g. social norms, conventions, laws, regulations- has been of interest since the beginning of philosophy, but has seen a lot of evolution during the 20th century due to the progress in the philosophy of language, especially concerning speech acts and deontic logic. Although there is a myriad of definitions and related terminologies about the concept of norm, and as such there are many perspectives on how to analyse their impact, a common denominator is that norms constrain the behaviour of groups of agents in a way that each individual agent can build, with a fair degree of confidence, expectations on how each of their counterparts will behave in the situations that the norms are meant to cover. For example, on a road each driver expects everybody else to drive on only one side of the road (right or left, depending on the country). Therefore, normative contexts, usually wrapped in the form of institutions, are effective mechanisms to ensure the stability of a complex system such as an organisation, a society, or even of electronic systems. The latter has been an object of interest in the field of Artificial Intelligence, and it has been seen as a paradigm of coordination among electronic agents either in multi-agent systems or in service-oriented architectures. In order to apply norms to electronic systems, research has come up with abstractions of normative systems. In some cases these abstractions are based on regimented systems with flexible definitions of the notion of norm, in order to include meanings of the concept with a coarse-grained level of logic formality such as conventions. Other approaches, on the other hand, propose the use of deontic logic for describing, from a more theoretical perspective, norm-governed interaction environments. In both cases, the purpose is to enable the monitoring and enforcement of norms on systems that include -although not limited to- electronic agents. In the present dissertation we will focus on the latter type, focusing on preserving the deontic aspect of norms. Monitoring in norm-governed systems requires making agents aware of: 1) what their normative context is, i.e. which obligations, permissions and prohibitions are applicable to each of them and how they are updated and triggered; and 2) what their current normative status is, i.e. which norms are active, and in what instances they are being fullfilled or violated, in order words, what their social -institutional- reality is. The current challenge is on designing systems that allow computational components to infer both the normative context and social reality in real-time, based on a theoretical formalism that makes such inferences sound and correct from a philosophical perspective. In the scope of multi-agent systems, many are the approaches proposed and implemented that full these requirements up to this date. However, the literature is still lacking a proposal that is suited to the current state-of-the-art in service-oriented architectures, more focused nowadays on automatically scalable, polyglot amalgams of lightweight services with extremely simple communication and coordination mechanisms- a trend that is being called “microservices”. This dissertation tackles this issue, by 1) studying what properties we can infer from distributed systems that allow us to treat them as part of a socio-technical system, and 2) analysing which mechanisms we can provide to distributed systems so that they can properly act as socio-technical systems. The main product of the thesis is therefore a collection of computational elements required for formally grounded and real-time e¬fficient understanding and monitoring of normative contexts, more specially: 1. An ontology of events to properly model the inputs from the external world and convert them into brute facts or institutional events; 2. A lightweight language for norms, suitable for its use in distributed systems; 3. An especially tailored formalism for the detection of social reality, based on and reducible to deontic logic with support for constitutive norms; 4. A reduction of such formalism to production rule systems; and 5. One or more implementations of this reduction, proven to e¬fficiently work on several scenarios. This document presents the related work, the rationale and the design/implementation of each one of these elements. By combining them, we are able to present novel, relevant work that enables the application of normative reasoning mechanisms in realworld systems in the form of a practical reasoner. Of special relevance is the fact that the work presented in this dissertation simplifies, while preserving formal soundness, theoretically complex forms of reasoning. Nonetheless, the use of production systems as the implementation-level materialisation of normative monitoring allows our work to be applied in any language and/or platform available, either in the form of rule engines, ECA rules or even if-then-else patterns. The work presented has been tested and successfully used in a wide range of domains and actual applications. The thesis also describes how our mechanisms have been applied to practical use cases based on their integration into distributed eldercare management and to commercial games.Con el incremento en la complejidad de los sistemas distribuidos, las interacciones entre los individuos (agentes, servicios) de dichos sistemas se vuelven más y más complejas y, por ello, más difíciles de restringir y monitorizar. Proponemos ver a estos sistemas como sistemas socio-técnicos, en los que conceptos organizacionales e institucionales (como las normas) pueden aplicarse para mejorar no solo el control sobre los componentes sino también su autonomía mediante la definición de restricciones débiles (en vez de fuertes). Las Normas se pueden describir como reglas que guían el comportamiento de agentes individuales que pertenecen a grupos que las siguen, ya sea con un apoyo explícito o implícito. El estudio de las normas y de los sistemas regulatorios en general y en sus formas diversas -normas sociales, convenciones, leyes, reglamentos- ha sido de interés para los eruditos desde los inicios de la filosofía, pero ha sufrido una evolución mayor durante el siglo 20 debido a los avances en filosofía del lenguaje, en especial los relacionados con los actos del habla -speech acts en inglés- y formas deónticas de la lógica modal. Aunque hay una gran variedad de definiciones y terminología asociadas al concepto de norma, y por ello existen varios puntos de vista sobre como analizar su impacto, el denominador común es que las normas restringen el comportamiento de grupos de agentes de forma que cada agente individual puede construir, con un buen nivel de confianza, expectativas sobre cómo cada uno de los otros actores se comportará en las situaciones que las normas han de cubrir. Por ejemplo, en una carretera cada conductor espera que los demás conduzcan solo en un lado de la carretera (derecha o izquierda, dependiendo del país). Por lo tanto, los contextos normativos, normalmente envueltos en la forma de instituciones, constituyen mecanismos efectivos para asegurar la estabilidad de un sistema complejo como una organización, una sociedad o incluso un sistema electrónico. Lo último ha sido objeto de estudio en el campo de la Inteligencia Artificial, y se ha visto como paradigma de coordinación entre agentes electrónicos, tanto en sistemas multiagentes como en arquitecturas orientadas a servicios. Para aplicar normas en sistemas electrónicos, los investigadores han creado abstracciones de sistemas normativos. En algunos casos estas abstracciones se basan en sistemas regimentados con definiciones flexibles del concepto de norma para poder influir algunos significados del concepto con un menor nivel de granularidad formal como es el caso de las convenciones. Otras aproximaciones proponen el uso de lógica deóntica para describir, desde un punto de vista más teórico, entornos de interacción gobernados por normas. En ambos casos el propósito es el permitir la monitorización y la aplicación de las normas en sistemas que incluyen -aunque no están limitados a- agentes electrónicos. En el presente documento nos centraremos en el segundo tipo, teniendo cuidado en mantener el aspecto deóntico de las normas. La monitorización en sistemas gobernados por normas requiere el hacer a los agentes conscientes de: 1) cual es su contexto normativo, es decir, que obligaciones permisos y prohibiciones se aplican a cada uno de ellos y cómo se actualizan y activan; y 2) cual es su estado normativo actual, esto es, que normas están activas, y que instancias están siendo cumplidas o violadas, en definitiva, cual es su realidad social -o institucional-. En la actualidad el reto consiste en diseñar sistemas que permiten inferir a componentes computacionales tanto el contexto normativo como la realidad social en tiempo real, basándose en un formalismo teórico que haga que dichas inferencias sean correctas y bien fundamentadas desde el punto de vista filosófico. En el ámbito de los sistemas multiagente existen muchas aproximaciones propuestas e implementadas que cubren estos requisitos. Sin embargo, esta literatura aun carece de una propuesta que sea adecuada para la tecnología de las arquitecturas orientadas a servicios, que están más centradas en amalgamas políglotas y escalables de servicios ligeros con mecanismos de coordinación y comunicación extremadamente simples, una tendencia moderna que lleva el nombre de microservicios. Esta tesis aborda esta problemática 1) estudiando que propiedades podemos inferir de los sistemas distribuidos que nos permitan tratarlos como parte de un sistema sociotécnico, y 2) analizando que mecanismos podemos proporcionar a los sistemas distribuidos de forma que puedan actuar de forma correcta como sistemas socio-técnicos. El producto principal de la tesis es, por tanto, una colección de elementos computacionales requeridos para la monitorización e interpretación e_cientes en tiempo real y con clara base formal. En concreto: 1. Una ontología de eventos para modelar adecuadamente las entradas del mundo exterior y convertirlas en hechos básicos o en eventos institucionales; 2. Un lenguaje de normas ligero y sencillo, adecuado para su uso en arquitecturas orientadas a servicios; 3. Un formalismo especialmente adaptado para la detección de la realidad social, basado en y reducible a lógica deóntica con soporte para normas constitutivas; 4. Una reducción de ese formalismo a sistemas de reglas de producción; y 5. Una o más implementaciones de esta reducción, de las que se ha probado que funcionan eficientemente en distintos escenarios. Este documento presenta el estado del arte relacionado, la justificación y el diseño/implementación para cada uno de esos elementos. Al combinarlos, somos capaces de presentar trabajo novedoso y relevante que permite la aplicación de mecanismos de razonamiento normativo en sistemas del mundo real bajo la forma de un razonador práctico. De especial relevancia es el hecho de que el trabajo presentado en este documento simplifica formas complejas y teóricas de razonamiento preservando la correctitud formal. El uso de sistemas de reglas de producción como la materialización a nivel de implementación del monitoreo normativo permite que nuestro trabajo se pueda aplicar a cualquier lenguaje o plataforma disponible, ya sea en la forma de motores de reglas, reglas ECA o incluso patrones si-entonces. El trabajo presentado ha sido probado y usado con éxito en un amplio rango de dominios y aplicaciones prácticas. La tesis describe como nuestros mecanismos se han aplicado a casos prácticos de uso basados en su integración en la gestión distribuida de pacientes de edad avanzada o en el sector de los videojuegos comerciales.Postprint (published version

The grammar of money:an analytical account of money as a discursive institution in light of the practice of complementary currencies

Since the global financial crisis in 2008, complementary currencies - from local initiatives like the Brixton Pound to timebanks, business-to-business currencies and, of course, Bitcoin - have received unprecedented attention by academics, policy makers, the media and the general public. However, at close theoretic inspection money itself remains as elusive a phenomenon as water must be to fish. Economic and business disciplines commonly only describe the use and functionality of money rather than its nature. Sociology and philosophy have a more fundamental set of approaches, but remain largely unintegrated in financial policy and common perception. At the same time, new forms of currency challenge predominant definitions of money and their implementation in the law and financial regulation. Unless our understanding of money and currencies is questioned and extended to consistently reflect theory and practice, its current misalignment threatens to impede much needed reform and innovation of the financial systems towards equity, democratic participation and sustainability. After reviewing current monetary theories and their epistemological underpinning, this thesis proposes a new theoretic framework of money as a ‘discursive institution’ that can be applied coherently to all monetary phenomena, conventional and unconventional. It also allows for the empirical analysis of currencies with the methodologies of neo-institutionalism, practice theory and critical discourse analysis. This will here be demonstrated in a transdisciplinary triangulation concerning three sets of data from the diverse field of complementary currencies, the publications of the Bank of England and monetary laws from the United States. The findings do not only demonstrate the heuristic value of the theory of discursive institutionalism in regard to money and complementary currencies, but highlight how regulatory and legal definitions even of conventional money lack the coherence and clarity required to appropriately explicate monetary innovation. Accordingly, this study concludes with recommendations for monetary theory, policy and research that can address the current inconsistencies

An examination of the ways in which power arises, and is managed, between systemic psychotherapists and parents working together in a social care context

This study aims to understand and describe some of the ways in which power arises, and is managed, between clinicians who are systemic psychotherapists and the parents they are working with in a social care context. Examining their interactions in detail, particularly their talk, aims to do this. Interest in the questions arose from my own practice as a systemic psychotherapist working in children's social care, with a focus on complex neglect, where I identified challenges to ef[ective practice that were related to that context. My initial ideas were about power being a particularly salient issue in each of these challenges in one way or another, and I wanted to examine and extend this area of interest using qualitative research methods. Conversation Analysis (CA) is used here to examine the power dynamics at the heart of therapeutic work in this social care context. The primary overall objective of the study is to understand how power dynamics are managed to enable interventions aimed at reducing risk in families to be effective, by answering the following questions: L What is happening in moment-by-moment interactions between parents and systemic psychotherapists talking together, when the talk is taking place because of issues regarding risk to children? How are power dynamics being spoken about, negotiated, or managed in this high-risk context? 2. What is happening in moment-by-moment interactions between parents and systemic psychotherapists when talk that may lead to change, and reduce the risk to children, can be identified and seems to be being mutually created, understood and agreed between them? How are power dynamics being spoken about, negotiated, or managed in this particular high risk context? I examine 3 sessions, with 3 different sets of parents and systemic psychotherapists, in detail. I argue that power can be made useful when it is arising as authority that is jointly created between parents and therapists. I contend that the findings show how systemic approaches and practice can uniquely conffibute to safeguarding work in contexts where issues of power prevail. I consider how the systemic practitioners in the study show their ability to deal with the power differentials arising, and develop relationships, that lead to effective and ethical working. I show how combining systemic and CA frameworks allow these abilities to be seen, and identified. These abilities are reflective of the systemic theoretical base, and systemic techniques enable these theories to be put to use. I show how these elements of practice enable complex processes between people to be negotiated. I argue how systemic approaches could contribute to mentalization-based approaches more than they do presently, and specifically when working with 'hard to reach' families. I argue that other therapeutic approaches such as these would benefit from dealing with the concept of power more explicitly, and benefit from understanding and utilising systemic approaches and practices in more depth to do so. I also use this understanding of what is happening in the relational systemic approach to examine the often-used concept of 'disguised compliance'. I make an argument for a more relational use of the term than is sometimes suggested. All of the above areas have implications for practice, and for the training and supervision of systemic psychotherapists, and other practitioners working in a social care context

An examination of the ways in which power arises, and is managed, between systemic psychotherapists and parents working together in a social care context

This study aims to understand and describe some of the ways in which power arises, and is managed, between clinicians who are systemic psychotherapists and the parents they are working with in a social care context. Examining their interactions in detail, particularly their talk, aims to do this. Interest in the questions arose from my own practice as a systemic psychotherapist working in children's social care, with a focus on complex neglect, where I identified challenges to ef[ective practice that were related to that context. My initial ideas were about power being a particularly salient issue in each of these challenges in one way or another, and I wanted to examine and extend this area of interest using qualitative research methods. Conversation Analysis (CA) is used here to examine the power dynamics at the heart of therapeutic work in this social care context. The primary overall objective of the study is to understand how power dynamics are managed to enable interventions aimed at reducing risk in families to be effective, by answering the following questions: L What is happening in moment-by-moment interactions between parents and systemic psychotherapists talking together, when the talk is taking place because of issues regarding risk to children? How are power dynamics being spoken about, negotiated, or managed in this high-risk context? 2. What is happening in moment-by-moment interactions between parents and systemic psychotherapists when talk that may lead to change, and reduce the risk to children, can be identified and seems to be being mutually created, understood and agreed between them? How are power dynamics being spoken about, negotiated, or managed in this particular high risk context? I examine 3 sessions, with 3 different sets of parents and systemic psychotherapists, in detail. I argue that power can be made useful when it is arising as authority that is jointly created between parents and therapists. I contend that the findings show how systemic approaches and practice can uniquely contribute to safeguarding work in contexts where issues of power prevail. I consider how the systemic practitioners in the study show their ability to deal with the power differentials arising, and develop relationships, that lead to effective and ethical working. I show how combining systemic and CA frameworks allow these abilities to be seen, and identified. These abilities are reflective of the systemic theoretical base, and systemic techniques enable these theories to be put to use. I show how these elements of practice enable complex processes between people to be negotiated. I argue how systemic approaches could contribute to mentalization-based approaches more than they do presently, and specifically when working with 'hard to reach' families. I argue that other therapeutic approaches such as these would benefit from dealing with the concept of power more explicitly, and benefit from understanding and utilising systemic approaches and practices in more depth to do so. I also use this understanding of what is happening in the relational systemic approach to examine the often-used concept of 'disguised compliance'. I make an argument for a more relational use of the term than is sometimes suggested. All of the above areas have implications for practice, and for the training and supervision of systemic psychotherapists, and other practitioners working in a social care context

The grammar of money: an analytical account of money as a discursive institution in light of the practice of complementary currencies

Since the global financial crisis in 2008, complementary currencies - from local initiatives like the Brixton Pound to timebanks, business-to-business currencies and, of course, Bitcoin - have received unprecedented attention by academics, policy makers, the media and the general public. However, at close theoretic inspection money itself remains as elusive a phenomenon as water must be to fish. Economic and business disciplines commonly only describe the use and functionality of money rather than its nature. Sociology and philosophy have a more fundamental set of approaches, but remain largely unintegrated in financial policy and common perception. At the same time, new forms of currency challenge predominant definitions of money and their implementation in the law and financial regulation. Unless our understanding of money and currencies is questioned and extended to consistently reflect theory and practice, its current misalignment threatens to impede much needed reform and innovation of the financial systems towards equity, democratic participation and sustainability. After reviewing current monetary theories and their epistemological underpinning, this thesis proposes a new theoretic framework of money as a ‘discursive institution’ that can be applied coherently to all monetary phenomena, conventional and unconventional. It also allows for the empirical analysis of currencies with the methodologies of neo-institutionalism, practice theory and critical discourse analysis. This will here be demonstrated in a transdisciplinary triangulation concerning three sets of data from the diverse field of complementary currencies, the publications of the Bank of England and monetary laws from the United States. The findings do not only demonstrate the heuristic value of the theory of discursive institutionalism in regard to money and complementary currencies, but highlight how regulatory and legal definitions even of conventional money lack the coherence and clarity required to appropriately explicate monetary innovation. Accordingly, this study concludes with recommendations for monetary theory, policy and research that can address the current inconsistencies

Interorganizational innovation and collaboration in the UK medical device sector

Interorganizational team research is a growing body of literature and research has started toexamine team related factors such as interorganizational trust (i.e. Stock, 2006) in theinterorganizational setting. This research applies insights from the intraorganizational teamfield into the interorganizational team setting in order to determine the team related factorspertaining to effective collaboration in medical device innovation projects.Interorganizational collaboration has been a persistent feature within the interorganizationalrelations literature, due to the added benefits that can come with working collaborativelytowards a common goal (Berg-Weger & Schnieder, 1998). While much research has exploredthe structures and performance outcomes of engaging in this cross-boundary working, theliterature is sparse with respect to interpersonal relationships, practices and processes leadingto effective collaboration (Bergenholtz & Waldstrom, 2011; Majchrzak, Jarvenpaa & Bargherz,2015). An interpretivist perspective has informed an exploratory mixed methods approach to datacollection, with contextual insights informing each phase of data collection. Three exploratoryphases of data collection have provided (1) qualitative ethnography data, (1i) qualitativeinterview data and (2) quantitative survey data. The NHS has recently set out agendas to increase innovative procurement (Department ofHealth, 2008), work more closely with industry and SMEs (Innovation and Procurement Plan:Department of Health, 2009) and to increase innovative practice (IHW: NHS, 2011). SMEsdeveloping novel medical devices require input from the NHS to ensure that their devices areclinically applicable and therefore will be adopted by the NHS. These contextual insightsprovide the backdrop for Studies 1i and 2. The findings suggest that the intraorganizational team literature can be extended into theinterorganizational collaboration literature, whilst also explaining the factors relating toeffectiveness and success of interorganizational team innovation