Never Being Able to Say You’re Sorry: Barriers to Apology By Leaders in Group Conflicts

Conner and Jordan discuss three implications of the foregoing analysis for leaders, peacemakers, and scholars interested in apology as an instrument to advance justice, prevent destructive conflict, and promote cooperation. First, an effective apology is likely to occur only after other changes have softened up negative attitudes between the groups--referred to here as ripeness. Second, even with a degree of ripeness, apology is unlikely without a window of opportunity, a confluence of circumstances that permits the leader to limit the scope of the apology so as not to concede too much. Third, even if these conditions are satisfied, words alone are not enough for an apology to be effective

Engagement in a Public Forum: Knowledge, Action, and Cosmopolitanism

Facing challenges to the civic purpose of higher education, some scholars and administrators turn to the rhetoric of engagement. Simultaneously, the political philosophy of cosmopolitanism has gained intellectual favor, advocating openness to the lived experiences of distant others. We articulate linkages between these two discourses in an extended case study, finding that a cosmopolitan ethos of engagement in a rural context can improve (1) understanding among people ordinarily separated by spatialized social-ecological differences, (2) prospects for longer term environmental sustainability, and (3) the visionary potential of collaborative inquiry. Despite globalization of food systems and neoliberal shifts in fishery management, an annual fisheries forum facilitates coalitions that overcome dichotomies between technocratic and local knowledge, extending benefits to fishing communities, academia, and public policy. Iterative and loosely structured capacity building expands informally through affective processes of recognition and care, as decentralized leadership supports collective mobilization toward alternate futures

The Triumph of Tokenism: The Voting Rights Act and the Theory of Black Electoral Success

In this article, my goal is to organize the divergent themes of black electoral success strategy within one conceptual framework in order to give the themes more cogency and attention. Having exposed the existence of a coherent theory, I then argue that the theory posits many of the correct goals but fails to provide a realistic mechanism for achieving them. The article proceeds in three Parts. In Part I, I develop the ideological and statutory roots of black electoral success theory. In Part II, I analyze the inadequacies of current voting rights litigation and its failure to realize the statute\u27s original goals. I conclude in Part II by arguing that contemporary preoccupation with black electoral success stifles rather than empowers black political participation for three reasons. In Part III, based on my critique of the black electoral success theory, I put forth suggestions for a different approach to voting rights reform. Relying on what I tentatively call proportionate interest representation for self-identified communities of interest, I propose to reconsider the ways in which representatives are elected and the rules under which legislative decisions are made

The management of multilateral negotiations: lessons from UN climate negotiations

Headline issue: The 2009 Conference of Parties (COP 15) in Copenhagen, which aimed to deliver a first-ever comprehensive global climate deal, ended without agreement in part because of poor management of the negotiations by the Danish host and the UNFCCC Secretariat. Significantly altered management practices a year later at COP16 in Cancun, Mexico, were a major factor in an agreement being reached. This policy paper looks at how negotiations management can contribute to successful negotiation outcomes by analysing evidence from 55 confidential interviews with senior negotiators from all coalitions involved in the UNFCCC process, high-level UN officials, lead host organisers and summit observers. Key findings: The evidence suggests that the COP Presidency and UNFCCC Secretariat can make an important contribution to achieving a successful negotiation outcome by: Creating a transparent and inclusive process. Transparency and inclusivity are crucial to ensure that all parties understand the negotiation process and its content. This enhances their ability to contribute and to compromise. It also reduces the possibility that parties attempt to obstruct negotiations because of procedural issues. Ensuring the capabilities of the organising institutions and individuals. Organisational cohesion within and between the Presidency and the UNFCCC Secretariat plays a key role in successful COPs. Individuals with key organisational roles, for example the President, the Head of the UNFCCC Secretariat and their advisors, must have expert understanding of the negotiation process, as well as being skilled networkers and communicators. Securing broad acceptance for the COP President. Building acceptance and trust in the authority of the COP President engenders a sense of goodwill among parties and empowers the President with sufficient leeway to take crucial decisions. It also reduces the potential for parties to block decisions. Enabling constructive arguing. Organisers from host nations and the UNFCCC Secretariat can facilitate constructive arguing that lets negotiators from different parties mutually reveal information about the interests that underlie their positions and provide a rationale for possible solutions. By doing so, constructive arguing allows those involved in negotiations to consider interests more comprehensively and to craft a deal that is acceptable to all. It can also make parties more amenable to new solutions and compromises

Contentious Coalitions, Movement Divisions, and Strategic Action Fields. Factors Motivating and Unlikely Alliance of Environmental Organizations and Gas Companies.

My dissertation explores the factors motivating the formation of a contentious alliance of environmental movement organizations and major gas corporations. Utilizing Fligstein and McAdam’s (2012) theoretical framework of strategic action fields, I argue that a field-level analysis helps to contextualize the strategic decision-making environmental organizations engaged in as they surveyed broader societal and political conditions for deciding whether to support or oppose the coalition for advancing their goals. Additionally, I engage aspects of Whittier’s (2018) typology of frenemy relationship structures to link the interaction of environmental actors with the dynamics of contention that occurred within the field as a result of the collaboration. By situating organizational factors, such as resource mobilization and the framing processes of individual groups, in a wider network of potential alliance and conflict systems (Klandermans 1997) and proximate fields (Fligstein and McAdam 2012), my analysis shows that, as new collective action frames, identities, and practices emerged within the environmental field, uncertainty seeped into the shared understanding of the cultural processes and mission upon which the environmental field had been built. Additionally, my analysis also reveals that participating organizations valued the coalition as an important addition to their tactical repertoire and a necessary strategy to advance the movement’s goals in a politically constrained environment and globalizing world. Through this project, I seek to contribute to the emerging body of work focused on the intersection of social movement, organizational theory and field level analyses. My research also contributes to the literature on social movement coalitions. Despite the scholarly attention to the formation of coalitions among social movement organizations (Van Dyke and McCammon 2010), little work examines factors that influence organizations to pursue extra-movement, and in some cases, contentious, alliances (Whittier 2018). Finally, my study corroborates key aspects of Whittier’s (2018) frenemy typology. Understanding the coalition as an adversarial collaborative relationship among ideologically opposed actors helps to contextualize the alliance structure as a phenomenon distinct from social movement coalitions

National Security Interest Convergence

Over a decade after the attacks of September 11, 2001, lawmakers, scholars, activists, and policy makers continue to confront the questions of whether and to what extent robust counterterrorism laws and policies should be reined in to protect against the abuse of civil rights and the marginalization of outsider groups. This Article uses political and critical race theory to identify areas of national security interest convergence in which political will can be marshaled to limit some national security policies.Legislators act in their political self-interest — both in terms of responding to party forces and constituents — in casting votes that often give primacy to national security interests at the expense of civil liberties. Actions taken by legislators which are rights-protective in the national security context are largely predictable when understood as effects of both political realities and interest convergence theory. Lawmakers often will not act on the basis of civil liberties concerns, but will implement rights-protective measures only because those measures serve another interest more palatable to mainstream constituencies.Although unmooring from deontological grounding creates numerous limitations as to how many rights-protective measures can be implemented on a long-term basis, interest convergence offers a limited opportunity for lawmakers and policy experts to leverage self-interest and create single-issue coalitions that can protect the rights of outsider groups abused by current national security policies

STRATEGIC CHOICE PERSPECTIVE TO TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE

In today‘s work organizations, managing technology – and its role in organizational processes – attracts great attention due to its core significance for the success of the organization life as a whole. In attempting to understand technology-related organizational change, involving complex interactions between management, technology and organization structure, one should not interpret it as solely the adaptation process of organizations to the impact of the technology itself instead organizational actors‘ intervention in shaping the direction of technological change.There has been a long debate between economists and organizational sociologist about the analysis of technological change. When the literature is reviewed, the most crucial result that emerges is the interdependence of technological change on many subjects and thus its complexity. It is not only that change is solely driven by technological and competitive pressures, but also it is influenced by social and political factors. Additionally, organizations are inherently in a constant state of change behind their stable appearance. Technological change is the product of this chronic unpredictability and uncertainty of organizational life; therefore, it is as well a very complex and uncertain process. This volatile and multifaceted nature of the change process is the challenge that demands a greater emphasis on non-technical aspects of it. In this paper, people in organizations are the starting point to discuss inherently complex and uncertain nature of technological change process with reference to case studies in the context of the political nature of the organizations. Instead of assuming that technology-related organizational change is mainly an adaptation to ‗the inherent and unavoidable requirements of technology‘ as in the case in technological determinism, it is suggested that strategic choices within adopting organizations and negotiation processes between dominant coalitions and other organizational actors affect the organizational outcome of technological change. This further indicates the importance of the idea that there is no best way for all organizations rather there are organizationspecific ways for each due to the variance in their cultures, structures and power relations. The stress will be on the argument that technological change, far from being an ‗event‘, is a social and political process and divergent stakeholder interests within organizations shape the outcomes by their strategic choices, decisions and negotiations