Emotional governance

This paper takes some recent ideas developed in academic studies of politics and the media, and combines them with a psychological approach to understanding the relationship between leaders and the public. The result is a new language for describing political leadership, and a contribution to the development of a new style of leadership

Protocols for distributive scheduling

The increasing complexity of space operations and the inclusion of interorganizational and international groups in the planning and control of space missions lead to requirements for greater communication, coordination, and cooperation among mission schedulers. These schedulers must jointly allocate scarce shared resources among the various operational and mission oriented activities while adhering to all constraints. This scheduling environment is complicated by such factors as the presence of varying perspectives and conflicting objectives among the schedulers, the need for different schedulers to work in parallel, and limited communication among schedulers. Smooth interaction among schedulers requires the use of protocols that govern such issues as resource sharing, authority to update the schedule, and communication of updates. This paper addresses the development and characteristics of such protocols and their use in a distributed scheduling environment that incorporates computer-aided scheduling tools. An example problem is drawn from the domain of space shuttle mission planning

The Emotional Public Sphere and Its Importance: Freedom of Speech as a Case Study — Commentary

The concept of the emotional public sphere is outlined and illustrated by contrasting phantasies of the state in the public mind. The dilemma frequently encountered around the principle of freedom of speech—when to prohibit speech that threatens the freedom or security of others—is explored as a problem of managing toxicity in the emotional public sphere. It is proposed that the aim of such management should be the containment of toxic feelings, both those expressed by the speaker and those evoked in the audience/targets of the speech. To that end, moral intolerance is distinguished from existential intolerance, the latter being a form of response to hate speech that does not allow the emotions it expresses to be engaged with and thereby contained. The work of containment is seen to go beyond the decision to permit or proscribe, and to involve the news media and framing practices. Analogous to psychotherapeutic work with individuals, a default orientation toward permitting speech is suggested, although this requires contextual provision of measures to contain its effects

Britain and the US in a world on fire

This is an analysis of the results of a UK national poll designed by Prof. Barry Richards and conducted by the research company Opinium in September 2015. The aim of this survey was to assess the strength in the UK of both pro- and anti-American feelings, at a time of globally increasing insecurity and flux. While a substantial reserve of positive feeling towards the US may still be available, the survey data suggests that a long-term decline of public affinity with the US may be in progress, ambivalently interwoven with continuing support for the US role in countering global terrorism