Three Models of Democratic Expertise

How can expertise best be integrated within democratic systems? And how can such systems best enable lay judgment of expert claims? These questions are obscured by the common framing of democratic politics against an imagined system of pure and unmixed expert rule or ‘epistocracy’. Drawing on emerging research that attempts to think critically and institutionally about expertise, this reflections essay distinguishes three ways of democratically organising relations between experts and non-experts: representative expertise, in which experts are taken to exercise limited and delegated power under the supervision of political representatives; participatory expertise, in which expertise is integrated with publics by means of directly participatory processes; and associative expertise, in which civil society groups, advocacy organisations, and social movements organise expert knowledge around the objectives of a self-organised association. Comparing these models according to the cognitive demands they make on lay citizens, the epistemic value of citizen contributions, and the ways in which they enable public scrutiny and contestation, the essay goes on to explore how they can support and undermine one another, and how they can open up new questions about democracy, trust and expertise in political science and political theory

Development of an observational instrument for measuring role behavior in social work groups.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit

Policymaking During Crises : How Diversity and Disagreement Can Help Manage the Politics of Expert Advice

Political leaders drawing on expertise in a crisis face two temptations: one is to dismiss unwelcome expert claims as politically motivated; another is to mask expert disagreement altogether. We show that protecting and promoting open disagreement among diverse sets of expert advisers can both improve the quality of expert advice and make it harder for political leaders to blur the lines between expert advice and political judgments. We highlight the importance of institutional design in managing the politics of expert advice

Post-Truth Politics and the Competition of Ideas

“Post-truth” politics is often framed as a failure of the competition of idea­s. Yet there are different ways of thinking about the competition of ideas, with different implications for the way we understand its benefits and risks. The dominant way of framing the competition of ideas is in terms of a marketplace, which, however, obscures the different ways ideas can compete. Several theorists can help us think through the competition of ideas. J. S. Mill, for example, avoided the metaphor of the market by focusing, instead, on competition as the testing of arguments in adversarial encounters before a critical audience. Georg Simmel, alternatively, conceived of competition as a form of indirect conflict, where two individuals strive in parallel to gain audience approval. This view emphasizes innovation and creativity in the competition of “all for all.” More recently, theorists have developed the market logic of competition by thinking of a marketplace not for ideas but for rationalizations. This articulates some of the features of Simmel’s view of competition, but underestimates the degrees of constraint required to secure the goods of competition. Ultimately, recognizing these different modes of competition in the public sphere can enrich our theories of deliberative democracy and sharpen our view of the problem of “post-truth” politics

Neonatal Safety Information Reported to the FDA During Drug Development Studies.

BACKGROUND: Relatively few neonatal drug development studies have been conducted, but an increase is expected with the enactment of the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA). Understanding the safety of drugs studied in neonates is complicated by the unique nature of the population and the level of illness. The objective of this study was to examine neonatal safety data submitted to the FDA in studies pursuant to the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act (BPCA) and the Pediatric Research Equity Act (PREA) between 1998 and 2015. METHODS: FDA databases were searched for BPCA and/or PREA studies that enrolled neonates. Studies that enrolled a minimum of 3 neonates were analyzed for the presence and content of neonatal safety data. RESULTS: The analysis identified 40 drugs that were studied in 3 or more neonates. Of the 40 drugs, 36 drugs received a pediatric labeling change as a result of studies between 1998 and 2015, that included information from studies including neonates. Fourteen drugs were approved for use in neonates. Clinical trials for 20 of the drugs reported serious adverse events (SAEs) in neonates. The SAEs primarily involved cardiovascular events such as bradycardia and/or hypotension or laboratory abnormalities such as anemia, neutropenia, and electrolyte disturbances. Deaths were reported during studies of 9 drugs. CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis revealed that SAEs were reported in studies involving 20 of the 40 drugs evaluated in neonates, with deaths identified in 9 of those studies. Patients enrolled in studies were often critically ill, which complicated determination of whether an adverse event was drug-related. We conclude that the traditional means for collecting safety information in drug development trials needs to be adjusted for neonates and will require the collaboration of regulators, industry, and the clinical and research communities to establish appropriate definitions and reporting strategies for the neonatal population

We\u27ll Buy An Airplane Bye and Bye

Man wearing suit tipping his top hat and flying plane toward sun; Sun smiling with man holding umbrella and driving automobile in rainhttps://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cht-sheet-music/11337/thumbnail.jp

Thorn in the Side of Segregation: The Short Life, Long Odds, and Legacy of the Law School at South Carolina State College

The Law School at South Carolina State College, or more commonly known as “State College,” opened on September 17, 1947 with nine African American students. It closed on May 15, 1966 when the Law School graduated its final class. The Law School was conceived when John Wrighten, an African American veteran of World War II and graduate of State College, applied for admission to the University of South Carolina (USC) School of Law on June 30, 1946. Wrighten, who was denied admission due to his race, sued the University on grounds that the rejection violated his constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The case of Wrighten v. Board of Trustees of University of South Carolina was argued in the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of South Carolina between June 15, 1947 and July 12, 1947. J.Waites Waring, the presiding judge, ruled on July 12, 1947 that the University could either close the School of Law for refusing to admit black students, admit Wrighten to the School of Law, or create a new law school for black students at State College. If Wrighten’s suit succeeded in gaining admission to USC, 1947 would have marked the year South Carolina desegregated its first public school since Reconstruction. However, due to the implicit racism in the post-war South and state laws against the comingling of races, USC agreed to the third option. The opening of the Law School at State College was widely criticized. State leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), James Hinton and Modjeska Simkins, believed the new law school would be an inferior program that expanded segregation in the state. Thurgood Marshall, Wrighten’s attorney during the case, believed the developing law program would become a “monument to the perpetuation of segregation.” Despite these and other objections, the Law School at State College opened in 1947. The Law School occupied a single building that contained a library that could accommodate 50,000 volumes, offices for faculty and staff, a moot court, and a meeting place for a student-led organization that held membership with the American Law Student Association, a national club approved by the American Bar Association (ABA). The faculty of the law school graduated from historic law programs at Harvard and Howard Universities. Despite never being fully accredited, the Law School’s provisional accreditation allowed it to graduate fifty-one students between 1947 and 1966. Though the Law School was plagued by low enrollment throughout its nineteen-year existence, a factor that played a major role in its closing, the students nevertheless experienced greater interaction with their professors than their counterparts in larger, more established law programs. The alumni of the Law School at State College handled numerous major civil rights cases that enhanced civil rights liberties in South Carolina. The Law School alumni represented clients involved in sit-ins, boycotts, and civil rights demonstrations. Additionally, the alumni provided legal counsel in cases such as Gantt v. Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina (1963), Henrie Monteith’s lawsuit against the University of South Carolina (1963), and Brown v. School District No.20, Charleston, South Carolina (1963), which desegregated Clemson University, the University of South Carolina, and Charleston County grade schools respectively. These institutions were the first public schools in South Carolina to admit black students in the Jim Crow era. Furthermore, seven students who attended the Law School became judges, including Ernest A. Finney, Jr., the first black chief justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court, and Matthew J. Perry, Jr., who became the first black federal judge in South Carolina history

TB174: Maine Wild Blueberries Field Winnowing Systems

The objective of this study was to determine if there were differences in berry quality between the two winnowing systems currently used in the Maine wild blueberry industry. The following experiment was performed three times during the 1997 field season.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/aes_techbulletin/1034/thumbnail.jp

Democratic Non-Participation

The idea that there might be democratic forms of non-participation has been largely overlooked in the theoretical and empirical literature on democracy. Non-participation has variously been seen as a threat to the proper functioning of democracy, a rational choice, or (more rarely) as potentially beneficial at the systems level. We argue that there are forms of non-participation that may be justified on democratic grounds. Our main theoretical move is to distinguish between reflectivity (or thoughtfulness) and participation. We argue that the normative value of both participation and non-participation is conditioned by reflectivity, such that there may be democratically desirable forms of reflective non-participation. To support our claims, we provide examples of how non-participation can help support democratic goods — such as inclusion, influence, and legitimacy — that are normally associated only with democratic participation