Denis O'Keeffe 1882-1952

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Interpreting the Signs of the Times : Fostering Social Goods and Historical Transitions

Signs of the times are best understood as significant historical transitions, motivated by social goods, which the church must discern and respond to in the light of the Gospel. The argument proceeds in three steps. First, Charles Taylor’s interpretive understanding of historical transitions is expounded. Second, Chenu’s and Vatican II’s understandings of the signs of the times are examined, and Taylor’s approach to historical transitions is applied to Chenu’s and Vatican II’s central insights about signs of the times. The third section considers the movement for gender equality as an example of a sign of the times

Living in an age of authenticity: Charles Taylor on identity today

Studies of contemporary Western culture, and of the conceptions of human agency which inform it, almost invariably identify an increasing emphasis on the individual as a principal theme. For some this individualising tendency is a matter of loss or decline: they believe that ours is a decadent age, a narcissistic culture, built upon corrupted views of the human. Others offer a decidedly more up-beat evaluation of the individualising shift, prizing such fruits as the development of human rights and the capacity to mobilise sentiment in response to tragedies like the South East Asian Tsunami of 2004. For Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, neither the outright knockers of contemporary culture nor the straight boosters have plumbed the depths of our age; and nor will a simple trade-off between advantages and costs do justice to the transition taking place. In his view, a new understanding of human identity, that of authenticity, has permeated Western culture since the 1960s, with its own insight into the human good as well as its own debased forms

Theodore Crowley ofm 1910-1990

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Arthur Ryan 1897-1982

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Police Violence and Its Public Support

The paper analyzes two models of social support for totalitarian social movements, the mass society model, and the class conflict or interest group model. Using national sur vey data, the authors formulate and test the implications of each of these models in terms of generating support for police vio lence among the mass public. With the exception of a positive relationship between education and rejection of police violence, the mass society model is not well supported by the data exam ined by the authors. Generally strong support is present for the class conflict model.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67253/2/10.1177_000271627039100109.pd

The Problem of Maintaining Compliance within Stable Coalitions: Experimental Evidence

This study examines the performance of stable cooperative coalitions that form to provide a public good when coalition members have the opportunity to not comply with their commitments. A stable coalition is one in which no member wishes to leave and no non-member wishes to join. To counteract the incentive to violate their commitments, coalition members fund a third-party enforcer. This leads to the theoretical conclusion that stable coalitions are larger (and provide more of a public good) when their members must finance enforcement relative to when compliance is ensured without the need for costly enforcement. However, our experiments reveal that giving coalition members the opportunity to violate their commitments while requiring them to finance enforcement to maintain compliance reduces the overall provision of the public good. The decrease in the provision of the public good is attributed to an increase in the participation threshold for a theoretically stable coalition to form and to significant levels of noncompliance. When we abandon the strict stability conditions and require all subjects to join a coalition for it to form, the average provision of the public good increases significantly. Key Words: stable coalitions, self-enforcing agreements, compliance, enforcement, public goods

The problem of maintaining compliance within stable coalitions: experimental evidence

This study examines the performance of stable cooperative coalitions that form to provide a public good when coalition members have the opportunity to violate their commitments. A stable coalition is one in which no member wishes to leave and no non-member wishes to join. To counteract the incentive to violate their commitments, coalition members fund a third-party enforcer. This leads to the theoretical conclusion that stable coalitions are larger, and provide more of a public good, when their members are responsible for financing enforcement. However, our experiments reveal that member-financed enforcement of compliance reduces the provision of the public good. The decrease is attributed to an increase in the participation threshold for a stable coalition to form and to significant levels of noncompliance. Provision of the public good increases significantly when we abandon the strict stability conditions and require all subjects to join a coalition for it to form.lab experiments