Taking a stance: resistance, faking and Muddling Through

This article focuses on project-based learning in media practice education, identifying three themes of interest. The first questions the recontextualisation of practice from the professional to a pedagogic environment. The second theme questions how much we know about what goes on inside a project and contrasts the ways in which students ‘do’ projects with the ways in which educators idealise project work as a mirror of professional practice. The final theme questions whether processes and procedures external to a project environment may result in a decoupling between professional practice and the everyday formulations of practice enacted by students. While educators may seek to encourage students to simultaneously adopt academic, professional and creative identities, as part of an active and purposeful approach to doing projects, this article questions whether tensions between these identities may actually encourage students to engage in decoupling behaviour. The article aims to encourage media practice educators to reflect on their own use of projects and question the ways in which the identities students claim as learners align with educator's beliefs and values

Identifying robust response options to manage environmental change using an ecosystem approach:a stress-testing case study for the UK

A diverse range of response options was evaluated in terms of their utility for sustaining ecosystem services in the UK. Robustness of response options was investigated by applying a ‘stress-testing’ method which evaluated expected performance against combined scenarios of socioeconomic and climate change. Based upon stakeholder feedback, a reference scenario representing current trends in climate and socioeconomic drivers (‘business-as-usual’) was used as a dynamic baseline against which to compare results of other scenarios. The robustness of response options was evaluated by their utility in different environmental and social contexts as represented by the scenarios, and linked to their adaptability to adjust to changing conditions. Key findings demonstrate that adaptability becomes increasingly valuable as the magnitude and rate of future change diverges from current trends. Stress-testing also revealed that individual responses in isolation are unlikely to be robust meaning there are advantages from integrating cohesive combinations (bundles) of response options to maximise their individual strengths and compensate for weaknesses. This identifies a role for both top-down and bottom-up responses, including regulation, spatial targeting, incentives and partnership initiatives, and their use in combination through integrated assessment and planning consistent with the adoption of an Ecosystem Approach. Stress-testing approaches can have an important role in future-proofing policy appraisals but important knowledge gaps remain, especially for cultural and supporting ecosystem services. Finally, barriers and enablers to the implementation of more integrated long-term adaptive responses were identified drawing on the ‘4 Is’ (Institutions, Information, Incentives, Identity) conceptual framework. This highlighted the crucial but usually understated role of identity in promoting ownership and uptake of responses

WP3: participation in the multi-level governance of European water and biodiversity - a review of case studies

Participation is said to improve decisions on environmental conflicts. When investigating 16 case studies of participatory processes in European Water and Biodiversity Governance, which necessarily is multi-level, the picture becomes blurred: many different forms of participation can be observed, only few of them are well-defined and well organised; most of them are dominated by ad-hoc decisions on whom to include, how to close debates, and how to deal with uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. While nearly all of these processes could be improved by a more conscious and careful setting, the application blueprints will necessarily remain out of scope. Natural, cultural and institutional contingencies make each case special and often unique and the multi-level characteristic of European governance of natural resources adds an additional layer of complexity on how to organise participation. The empirical account of whether deliberation can deliver what it promises in theory is still incomplete. --

Outlook and appraisal [June 2012]

Growth in the Scottish economy appears to be weakening again after some survey evidence of a pickup in the first quarter of the year. GDP fell slightly in the final quarter of last year and could fall again in the first quarter, despite survey evidence, if the Scottish economy continues to track the UK. The recovery from the Great Recession of 2008 - 2009 remains weak with Scottish GDP still just under 4% below its pre- recession peak and employment 3% below. The UK figures are -4.3% and -1%. The recovery of Scottish GDP relative to the UK is also being overstated by the effect of falling oil and gas production. When oil and gas production is removed from the data the Scottish recovery is relatively weaker than previously thought with UK ex oil and gas GDP -3.5% below its pre-recession peak while the Scottish figure is -3.6%. It is now clear that the recovery in output stalled after mid-2010. We are strongly of the belief that the UK government fiscal austerity programme is the main culprit, with the added effects of the impact on business confidence of the developing problems in the Eurozone and the impact of rising commodity price driven inflation on real incomes and consumption

Still elegantly muddling through? NICE and uncertainty in decision making about the rationing of expensive medicines in England

This article examines the “technological appraisals” carried out by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence as it regulates the provision of expensive new drugs within the English National Health Service on cost-effectiveness grounds. Ostensibly this is a highly rational process by which the regulatory mechanisms absorb uncertainty, but in practice, decision making remains highly complex and uncertain. This article draws on ethnographic data—interviews with a range of stakeholders and decision makers (n = 41), observations of public and closed appraisal meetings, and documentary analysis—regarding the decision-making processes involving three pharmaceutical products. The study explores the various ways in which different forms of uncertainty are perceived and tackled within these Single Technology Appraisals. Difficulties of dealing with the various levels of uncertainty were manifest and often rendered straightforward decision making problematic. Uncertainties associated with epistemology, procedures, interpersonal relations, and technicality were particularly evident. The need to exercise discretion within a more formal institutional framework shaped a pragmatic combining of strategies tactics—explicit and informal, collective and individual—to navigate through the layers of complexity and uncertainty in making decisions

Modeling Through

Theorists of justice have long imagined a decision-maker capable of acting wisely in every circumstance. Policymakers seldom live up to this ideal. They face well-understood limits, including an inability to anticipate the societal impacts of state intervention along a range of dimensions and values. Policymakers see around corners or address societal problems at their roots. When it comes to regulation and policy-setting, policymakers are often forced, in the memorable words of political economist Charles Lindblom, to “muddle through” as best they can. Powerful new affordances, from supercomputing to artificial intelligence, have arisen in the decades since Lindblom’s 1959 article that stand to enhance policymaking. Computer-aided modeling holds promise in delivering on the broader goals of forecasting and systems analysis developed in the 1970s, arming policymakers with the means to anticipate the impacts of state intervention along several lines—to model, instead of muddle. A few policymakers have already dipped a toe into these waters, others are being told that the water is warm. The prospect that economic, physical, and even social forces could be modeled by machines confronts policymakers with a paradox. Society may expect policymakers to avail themselves of techniques already usefully deployed in other sectors, especially where statutes or executive orders require the agency to anticipate the impact of new rules on particular values. At the same time, “modeling through” holds novel perils that policymakers may be ill equipped to address. Concerns include privacy, brittleness, and automation bias, all of which law and technology scholars are keenly aware. They also include the extension and deepening of the quantifying turn in governance, a process that obscures normative judgments and recognizes only that which the machines can see. The water may be warm, but there are sharks in it. These tensions are not new. And there is danger in hewing to the status quo. As modeling through gains traction, however, policymakers, constituents, and academic critics must remain vigilant. This being early days, American society is uniquely positioned to shape the transition from muddling to modeling

Modeling Through

Theorists of justice have long imagined a decision-maker capable of acting wisely in every circumstance. Policymakers seldom live up to this ideal. They face well-understood limits, including an inability to anticipate the societal impacts of state intervention along a range of dimensions and values. Policymakers cannot see around corners or address societal problems at their roots. When it comes to regulation and policy-setting, policymakers are often forced, in the memorable words of political economist Charles Lindblom, to “muddle through” as best they can. Powerful new affordances, from supercomputing to artificial intelligence, have arisen in the decades since Lindblom’s 1959 article that stand to enhance policymaking. Computer-aided modeling holds promise in delivering on the broader goals of forecasting and system analysis developed in the 1970s, arming policymakers with the means to anticipate the impacts of state intervention along several lines—to model, instead of muddle. A few policymakers have already dipped a toe into these waters, others are being told that the water is warm. The prospect that economic, physical, and even social forces could be modeled by machines confronts policymakers with a paradox. Society may expect policymakers to avail themselves of techniques already usefully deployed in other sectors, especially where statutes or executive orders require the agency to anticipate the impact of new rules on particular values. At the same time, “modeling through” holds novel perils that policymakers may be ill-equipped to address. Concerns include privacy, brittleness, and automation bias of which law and technology scholars are keenly aware. They also include the extension and deepening of the quantifying turn in governance, a process that obscures normative judgments and recognizes only that which the machines can see. The water may be warm but there are sharks in it. These tensions are not new. And there is danger in hewing to the status quo. (We should still pursue renewable energy even though wind turbines as presently configured waste energy and kill wildlife.) As modeling through gains traction, however, policymakers, constituents, and academic critics must remain vigilant. This being early days, American society is uniquely positioned to shape the transition from muddling to modeling

Regional Currency Arrangements: Insights from Europe

This paper focuses on the requirements and features of a successful monetary union on the basis of the optimum currency area theory, the “logical roadmap” for integration as proposed by Balassa as well as the economic and institutional framework of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The analysis suggests that monetary union is contingent upon high economic integration and strong political commitment. However, political union is not an ex-ante requirement. Outside factors such as systemic shocks and globalization seem to speed up the pooling of sovereignty in the economic domain. A firm commitment to stability-oriented monetary and fiscal policies is a precondition for gaining credibility and trust within and outside a monetary union. Last, but not least, convergence criteria, fiscal rules and strong institutions are necessary to help ensure and monitor the participants’ compliance. However, the European experience is not a blueprint for regional integration that can be directly and entirely applied to other regions.Economic and Monetary Integration; International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions; Monetary Policy and Central Banking; Macroeconomic Policy Formation