Quantum Cosmological Models

We contrast the initial condition requirements of various contemporary cosmological models, including inflationary and bouncing cosmologies. Various proposals such as Hartle-Hawking's no boundary, or Tunnelling boundary conditions are assessed on grounds of naturalness and fine tuning. Alternatively a quiescent or ``time machine'' state is considered. Extensions to brane models are also addressed. Further ideas about universe creation from a meta-universe are outlined. We compare the recent loop quantum cosmology of Bojowald and coworkers with these earlier proposals. A number of possible difficulties and limitations are outlined.Comment: revised: now includes time asymmetry, black hole final state etc, 71 page

Towards a typology of critical nonprofit studies: A literature review

This review examines scholarship in key nonprofit journals over four decades. Its purpose is to: 1) analyze the extent, nature, and contribution of critical nonprofit scholarship and its trajectory over time, and 2) call on scholars, research institutions, and journals in the field to engage the kinds of insights these increasingly marginalized approaches bring, providing space for them to join, challenge and shape the research conversation. Findings show only 4% of articles published within the period examined adopt critical approaches, with great variability in the ways articles exemplify core tenets of critical scholarship, and a general dampening of critical work over time. This conservatism may result from the rejection of less understood philosophies and methodologies of critical inquiry in favor of more mainstream (positivistic) models of social science. Our primary contribution is to advance a typology explicating the pluralism inherent in critical approaches to nonprofit studies, their strengths and limitations

Group Methods

This chapter provides a typology for thinking critically about group methods and their use(s) within business and management research. Disciplinary based literature has concerned itself primarily with the practice of the method, affording little attention to the diverse knowledge-constituting assumptions that can underpin its use. I argue that group methods can serve the interests of researchers from a variety of philosophical traditions, but understanding the practical implications of this variability is crucial to appropriate and effective use of group work from any given philosophical stance. It is hoped that this chapter can go some way towards developing the practice of group methods within the business and management domain through enhancing researchers’ awareness of the relationship of philosophical issues to the design and application of the method itself. The chapter thus aims to provide students and researchers with new ways of conceiving group methods by locating discussions of group design, conduct and analysis in prevailing philosophical traditions within business and management research

State-voluntary relations in contemporary welfare systems: New politics or voluntary action as usual?

In this paper, we analyze two landmark reviews of British voluntary action to cast a critical gaze on the recurrent claim that voluntarism is facing a new era of ever more turbulent welfare systems and dramatic changes in state-voluntary relations. Rather than representing a new era, we find the current climate may be more accurately considered a collage of past relations. By this we mean a composition of reality that assembles different aspects of past realities to create a seemingly new era. This suggests that conventional discursive institutional accounts of policy change, which downplay the interrelated dynamics of stability and change, are inadequate for explaining the evolution of state-voluntary relations specifically and policy reform more broadly. Debates about public policy and the role to be played by voluntary action among scholarly and practitioner communities would be better served by greater understanding of the historical experience which has formed today’s institutions