The Study of International Regimes

Hundreds or even thousands of international legal instruments on "the environment" are in existence. What happens to international environmental agreements once they are signed, and how does the process of implementing such agreements influence their effectiveness? These are the questions that motivate the IIASA project "Implementation and Effectiveness of International Environmental Commitments (IEC)". Research teams are examining these questions from many angles and with different methods. In this paper, the authors survey the literature on international "regimes". Regimes are social institutions that influence the behavior of states and their subjects. They consist of informal and formalized principles and norms, as well as specific rules and procedures. The term is explicitly broad and captures the unwritten understandings and relationships, as well as the formal legal agreements, that influence how states and individuals behave in any given issue-area. Scholarship over the last decade has elaborated how regimes are formed; this paper surveys that work and focuses on more recent scholarship that has turned from the formation of regimes to the question of what makes regimes "effective". The paper is one foundation for IEC's effort to build a database about the characteristics of international regimes. The database will consist of key variables related to the formation and implementation of international agreements and will allow systematic use of historical evidence from a large number of cases. The goal is to make possible the testing of hypotheses and the drawing of general conclusions about which variables are causally linked to "effectiveness". Existing research has led to hypotheses and tests based on single case studies or small samples of cases, but conclusions have been difficult to generalize to other cases because variables are left uncontrolled and the social processes are complex. In contrast, the IEC effort will include all the major variables related to effectiveness. The team will employ experts in each case to perform the coding, thus allowing for assessments (including subjective evaluations) of a wide range of data. The team is now preparing and testing a data protocol, as well as a manual that describes the major questions in the data protocol and how they should be answered. The protocol and manual will refine the variables we are coding and their relationship to major hypotheses

Business models in times of disruption: the connected and autonomous vehicles (uncertain) domino effect

The ongoing digitalization of the economy is challenging the value creation process in traditional business. In the mobility-related industry, the disruptive potential of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) has the capacity to transform business models. However, great uncertainty exists regarding the technological evolution and social trends that will condition businesses in the near future. This paper intends to use contingency theory to shed light on this topic and better understand the enhancers and barriers that managers should deal with to create, deliver, and capture value associated to CAV. With this aim, the paper adopts a qualitative approach based on in-depth interviews with high-level managers from different industries. The findings suggest the importance of data management to better understand the needs of the customer and vehicle requirements so that differential value can be provided. Two potential solutions that have emerged are, first, the establishment of alliances between companies competing in different areas and, second, digital platforms in order to enhance customer experience and the evolution from B2C to B2B markets associated with growing servitization.Agencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. PID2020-116040RB-I00Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED431B 2022/10Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade de Vigo/CISU

R2H and the Prospects For Peace: An Essay on Sovereign Responsibilities

This essay examines novel threats to peace – social and political threats as well as military and technological. It worries that familiar conceptions of state sovereignty cannot sustain a legal order capable of meeting those threats, not even if we understand sovereignty as responsibility to protect human rights. The essay tentatively proposes that recent efforts to reformulate state sovereignty as responsibility to humanity – ‘R2H’ for short – offer a better hope. Under this reformulation, states must take into account the interests of those outside their sovereign territory as well as those of the of their own people – in particular, the shared interest in subduing dire threats to world peace. Responsibility to humanity raises practical as well as philosophical questions. Some may fear that R2H would become a Trojan horse for powerful interests wishing to impose their will on the less powerful. The essay argues that these fears misunderstand what R2H requires. Alternatively, R2H may sound preposterously utopian, in an era of waning trust in internationalism and an upsurge of reactionary nationalism. In response, I argue that reactionary nationalism is itself a dire mistake – a symptom of our current ills, not a cure

Economic Complexity and Human Development

This book combines the human development approach and innovation economics in order to explore the effects that structural economic change has on human development. The author discusses how innovation, social networks, economic dynamics and human development are interlinked, and provides several practical examples of social and micro-entrepreneurship in contexts as diverse as Peruvian rural villages and Brazil's urban area

Intelligent Assistants

Intelligent assistants are an increasingly commonplace class of information systems spanning a broad range of form and complexity. But what characterizes an intelligent assistant, and how do we design better assistants? In the paper, the authors contribute to scientific research in the domain of intelligent assistants in three steps, each building on the previous. First, they investigate the historical context of assistance as human work. By examining qualitative studies regarding the work of human assistants, the authors inductively derive concepts crucial to modeling the context of assistance. This analysis informs the second step, in which they develop a conceptual typology of intelligent assistants using 111 published articles. This typology explicates the characteristics (what or how) of intelligent assistants and their use context (who or which). In the third and final step, the authors utilize this typology to shed light on historical trends and patterns in design and evaluation of intelligent assistants, reflect on missed opportunities, and discuss avenues for further exploration

Bibliometric mapping of the trends and contributions of scientific publications to risk and crisis communication regarding South America

Risk and crisis communication (R&CC) are crucial elements of managing vulnerability to big threats. This paper aims to explore the trends and contributions of scientific publications to R&CC about South America. Through the examination of 330 papers listed in the Web of Science database, the current study conducted a thorough overview between 1998 (oldest study) and 2021 (cut-off date) of bibliometric networks (keyword co-occurrence map, co-authorship maps, and author co-citation map) and multivariate statistical models (principal component analysis, compositional linear model). We address main communication factors, links between communication factors and countries, main academic cooperation networks, determinants of publication trends, and most cited authors. 28 R&CC factors were mapped and their relative importance to various hazards was examined. Most of these factors were intended to strengthen the communication system and increase risk knowledge of vulnerable people. Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador were mostly focused on strengthening R&CC. Brazil and Argentina were best represented with health and exposure to pollutants communication. Publications on R&CC are determined by the level of wealth, tourist arrivals, and the number of people affected by disasters. The compositional analysis revealed that the behavior of publications determinants could have opposite tendencies depending on the threats’ multidimensionality. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first R&CC study on South America to use CoDA in a bibliometric analysisPostprint (published version

Opportunities in the Lived Experiences of Successful High-Ability International Doctoral Students at a Selective U.S. Higher Education Institution

Supporting the continuous successful talent development of high-ability individuals from various backgrounds has been one of the main goals and issues in gifted education. However, the lack of resources, enrichment supports, and opportunities for talent development often inhibit realization of potential of precocious students. Exploration of successful academic talent development experiences of high-ability international young adults from developing countries offers a unique perspective and highlights universal supports necessary for continuous development of expertise. Internationalization of education, brain circulation, and talent development have been studied in the fields of education, psychology, and sociology. However, no empirical study to date explored the successful talent development path and opportunities in the lives of high-ability doctoral students from developing countries. The present phenomenological study focused on experiences and perceptions of high-ability international doctoral students who are successfully developing expertise in various academic fields at a selective U.S. university. Semi-structured individual and focus group interviews, demographic data and constructed academic talent development trajectories ensured thorough exploration of the participants’ successful academic talent development experiences. Analysis also provided a clearer conceptualization of the construct of opportunity as perceived by the participants. The results of this study will inform research, internationalization of higher education institutions, and academic talent development of high-ability students from various backgrounds

Factors That Enhance Consumer Trust in Human-Computer Interaction: An Examination of Interface Factors and Moderating Influences

The Internet coupled with agent technology presents a unique setting to examine consumer trust. Since the Internet is a relatively new, technically complex environment where human-computer interaction (HCI) is the basic communication modality, there is greater perception of risk facing consumers and hence a greater need for trust. In this dissertation, the notion of consumer trust was revisited and conceptually redefined adopting an integrative perspective. A critical test of trust theory revealed its cognitive (i.e., competence, information credibility), affective (i.e., benevolence), and intentional (i.e., trusting intention) constructs. The theoretical relationships among these trust constructs were confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The primary purpose of this dissertation was to investigate antecedent and moderating factors affecting consumer trust in HCI. This dissertation focused on interface-based antecedents of trust in the agent-assisted shopping context aiming at discovering potential interface strategies as a means to enhance consumer trust in the computer agent. The effects of certain interface design factors including face human-likeliness, script social presence, information richness, and price increase associated with upgrade recommendation by the computer agent were examined for their usefulness in enhancing the affective and cognitive bases for consumer trust. In addition, the role of individual difference factors and situational factors in moderating the relationship between specific types of computer interfaces and consumer trust perceptions was examined. Two experiments were conducted employing a computer agent, Agent John, which was created using MacroMedia Authorware. The results of the two experiments showed that certain interface factors including face and script could affect the affective trust perception. Information richness did not enhance consumers’ cognitive trust perceptions; instead, the percentage of price increase associated with Agent John’s upgrade recommendation affected individuals’ cognitive trust perceptions. Interestingly, the moderating influence of consumer personality (especially feminine orientation) on trust perceptions was significant. The consequences of enhanced consumer trust included increased conversion behavior, satisfaction and retention, and to a lesser extent, self-disclosure behavior. Finally, theoretical and managerial implications as well as future research directions were discussed

The Problem of Doping

In this Essay, we examine Professor Michael J. Sandel and Judge Richard A. Posner\u27s thoughts on how to draw the line between substances and techniques that are fair game and those that constitute doping; whether there is a difference between sport and spectacle; and the nature of the public’s interest in sport as an institution and in doping as a practice that risks its integrity. Although we do not agree with all of their conclusions, they have made serious contributions to the ongoing discussion of these issues. Their linedrawing work in particular deserves considered attention from WADA and other stakeholders as they continue to work toward a useful and defensible definition of the spirit of sport