scholarly journals Funding Panels as Declarative Bodies: Meritocracy and Paradoxes of Decision-Making in Modern Science

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 868-886
Author(s):  
Laura Stark
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
First Century ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Scientific Communities ◽  
The World ◽  
Democratic Ideals ◽  
Twenty First Century

In the middle of the twentieth century, bureaucratic organizations that aimed to appear democratic began using expert groups as a kind of decision-making technology. I call these groups ‘declarative bodies’ and funding panels are one example. Declarative bodies are distinctive types of groups because they have the power to make things in the world through declaration: their words bring new objects into being. Building on philosophy of language, this article theorizes and explains the unusual structural constraints that members of funding panels labour within by virtue of being part of a declarative body. The article argues that these constraints stem from three democratic ideals: impersonality, objectivity and truth. When put to work through declarative bodies, these democratic ideals create paradoxes that have fundamentally shaped how funding panellists labour together. Further, I argue that organizations use funding panels formally and intentionally to create the appearance that decisions were made by a disembodied actor to sanctify the legitimacy of the organizations’ choices. Declarative bodies, such as funding panels, have actively altered the processes of knowledge-making, the contours of scientific communities and the products of knowledge itself. By the twenty-first century, it can be hard to imagine other acceptable methods of making decision in science, despite growing worries about the unintended, undemocratic outcomes they produce. This article encourages a critical curiosity to imagine new ways of making decisions, to declare new futures and to bring other worlds into being.

Why is everything old new again? Revisiting debates about the form and function of research in educational administration

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-356
Author(s):  
Robert Donmoyer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Educational Research ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Educational Administration ◽  
First Century ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Historical Essay ◽  
Twenty First Century

PurposeThis paper has a twofold purpose: (1) to demonstrate, largely with historical evidence, that, contrary to what some have argued, thinking about educational research articulated at the start of the twenty-first century was not really “new wine in new bottles” but, rather, a continuation of the so-called paradigm wars about, ultimately, unresolvable methodological and epistemological issues that occurred during the twentieth century; (2) to suggest a way members of the educational administration field might transcend, or at least circumvent, time-consuming and distracting battles about unresolvable methodological and epistemological issues in the future while keeping their focus on issues of practice.Design/methodology/approachThis is a quasi-historical essay that uses influential literature during the historical periods focused on as evidence to support the essay's arguments.FindingsThe paper demonstrates that twentieth century philosophical disagreements about research methods and the role that educational research can play in policy and practice decision making were not resolved but, rather, were largely reenacted during the first decade of the twenty-first century, again without a resolution. The paper proposes a way that administrators, policymakers and researchers can manage this situation and still use research to make policy and practice decisions.Practical implicationsThe paper suggests a new role for both school administrators and policymakers to play. If administrators/policymakers play this role successfully, all types of research can inform decision making about policy and practice, and researchers can concentrate on doing their research rather than engaging in unresolvable philosophical disputes.Originality/valueAlthough a great deal has been written about the twentieth century's theory movement and paradigm wars and the twenty-first century's so-called science wars, the link between these phenomena has not been discussed in the literature. In addition, there have been few attempts to articulate an operational strategy for managing unresolvable philosophical disputes about research methods and the role that research can play in decision making. This paper tackles both matters.

Modern-World Archaeology

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles E. Orser
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Archaeology ◽  
First Century ◽  
Modern World ◽  
World Archaeology ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Historical Antecedents

Historical archaeology has grown exponentially since its inception. By the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century, practitioners of the field had conducted research throughout the world in locales only imagined in the mid-twentieth century. The spread of historical archaeology in Europe, Asia, and Africa—and other places with long, rich documentary histories—has meant that two senses of ‘historical archaeology’ now exist. The creation of modern-world archaeology seeks to define an archaeology of the post-Columbian world as an archaeology explicitly engaged in investigating the historical antecedents of our present age. This chapter explains the rationale behind the creation of modern-world archaeology, outlines some of its central tenets, and provides a brief example of one subject of relevance to the field.

Pentecostal and Charismatic

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Telford Work
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Ecumenical Movement ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Charismatic Christianity

Accounts of Pentecostal ecumenism tend to take two basic shapes. In one, the story of Pentecostal and charismatic ecumenism is subsumed into the wider course of twentieth-century ecumenism, whose centre has been the World Council of Churches. The other regards Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity as an ecumenical movement in its own right, expressed in innumerable informal relationships and recently embodied in the Global Christian Forum. These two popular visions often keep Pentecostals, charismatics, and mainstream ecumenists talking past one another. An inventory of the gifts offered, gifts received, and gifts withheld or rejected among these parties in twentieth- and twenty-first-century ecumenism leads to a different interpretation of their interrelationship. The ecumenical movement at large and Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity itself are both among the renewing tides in Christ’s ecclesial ecumene. The most significant Pentecostal/charismatic contribution to ecumenism may be its own spirit, and vice versa.

Pretense and Presupposition

Aboutness ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Yablo
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
First Century ◽  
What Is Said ◽  
Potential Infinity ◽  
Good Guide ◽  
Twenty First Century

A great puzzle of twentieth-century philosophy of language was, how are finite beings able to understand a potential infinity of sentences? The answer is supposed to be that understanding is recursive: infinitely many sentences can be constructed out of finitely many words combined according to finitely many rules; we understand a sentence by understanding the words in it and knowing the relevant rules. A great puzzle of twenty-first-century philosophy of language is shaping up to be this: how do we reconcile the solution to the previous puzzle with what sentences actually strike us as saying? It's a puzzle because S's compositionally determined meaning is not always a very good guide to what S intuitively says, or to its contribution to what is said by sentences in which S is embedded. This chapter focuses on the more radical case where a sentence says something its meaning positively disallows, such as the case where a sentence's real content is not a possible semantic content.

6. Parliament: The Best of Times, the Worst of Times?

2019 ◽  
pp. 157-187
Author(s):  
Philip Norton
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Over Time

Parliament fulfils functions that are long-standing, but its relationship to government has changed over time. It has been criticized for weakness in scrutinizing legislation, holding government to account, and voicing the concerns of the people. Despite changes in both Houses in the twentieth century, the criticisms have persisted and in some areas Parliament has seen a constriction in its scope for decision-making. The twenty-first century has seen significant steps that have strengthened both Houses in carrying out their functions, the House of Commons in particular acquiring new powers. Members of both Houses have proved willing to challenge government. It remains a policy-influencing legislature, but a stronger one than in the preceding century. While strengthening its position in relation to the executive, it has faced major challenges in its relationship to the public. It has seen a greater openness in contact with citizens, but has had to contend with popular dissatisfaction and declining levels of trust.

Bobs and the “Character of Our Citizenship”

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-63
Author(s):  
Leah Payne
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Public Life ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Public ◽  
White Middle Class ◽  
The World ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Twenty First Century

Many view the twenty-first-century white Pentecostal-charismatic rejection of feminism, and enthusiasm for self-professed harasser of women, Donald J. Trump, as a departure from the movement’s late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century origins wherein many Pentecostal-charismatic women were welcomed into the public office of the ministry. Early Pentecostal writings, however, demonstrate that twenty-first-century white Pentecostal orientations toward women in public life are based in the movement’s early theological notions that women must uphold the American home, “rightly” ordered according to traditionally conservative, white, middle-class norms. An America wherein women work and minister primarily in the domicile, according to early white Pentecostals, would be a powerful instrument of God in the world. Thus, no matter how transgressive they may have appeared when it came to women speaking from the pulpit, for the most part, white Pentecostals sought to conserve the traditional social order of the home.

AALS Annual Convention Plenary Panel: Impact of Globalization on Human Rights – Introduction of the Panel

2003 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 373-374
Author(s):  
Dean Claudio Grossman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Gabriel Garcia Marquez ◽  
First Century ◽  
Annual Convention ◽  
Development Bank ◽  
Heart Transplants ◽  
Ninth Symphony ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century

Addressing Human Rights requires that we consider both reality and imagination. What forces are shaping the world in which we live? What space is available for change? What role is played, and can be played by individuals? At a meeting of relatively young leaders of this hemisphere, organized by the Inter-American Development Bank at the end of the Twentieth Century, Gabriel Garcia Marquez was asked what we might expect from the Twenty-First Century as we emerge from the Twentieth Century, which distinguished itself with two world wars and with genocide. Gabriel Garcia Marquez responded by saying that we should not expect anything from the Twenty-First Century. He explained that everything relevant was the result of imagination, from the Ninth Symphony to heart transplants; they were in the heads of their inventors before taking place in reality.

The Inward Turn and the Future of Tort Theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth S. Abraham ◽  
George E. White
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Cutting Edge ◽  
First Century ◽  
Gender And Race ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Data Theft ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
American Society

Abstract The future of tort theory cannot be sensibly imagined without understanding its past. Our aim is to understand where tort theory has been in order to predict where it may go. We contend that tort theory has experienced two different eras, and that it may well be about to enter a third. In the first era, spanning roughly the first three-quarters of the twentieth century, tort theory faced outward to the world, focusing on issues affecting redress for civil injuries that were being decided in the courts and emerging in American society at large. In the second era, roughly the last 30 to 40 years, tort theory turned inward and focused mostly on itself. The tort theory that has been done during this second era, valuable though it has been, may well have borne most of its scholarly fruit. We may therefore be ready to move into a third era, in which tort theory turns outward again and becomes occupied with the cutting-edge issues of tort law policy and principle that will be generated as the twenty-first century progresses. This Essay chronicles the first era, in which tort theory faced outward, the second era, in which tort theory turned inward, and identifies three issues that we believe may be on the tort theory agenda, when and if tort theory turns outward again. These involve the coordination and systematization of tort with other sources of regulation and compensation; redressing data theft and digital invasions of privacy; and heightened sensitivity to harm associated with sex, gender, and race-related misconduct.

Fantasiecle

2018 ◽  
pp. 174-196
Author(s):  
Peter Marks
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World Wide Web ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
World Wide ◽  
First Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Sexual Desires ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The Way

An English computer whizz invented the twenty-first century. This, of course, is a fantastic claim, but Tim Berners-Lee rightly gets credited for inventing the World Wide Web, which became operational in the 1990s, and which quickly began to shape the way people around the globe learn, communicate, trade, debate, are manipulated, scrutinised and entertained, fall in and out of love, reinvent their identities, engage in politics, and indulge their fantasies and sexual desires. Such a state of affairs might have seemed impossible, or indeed unthinkable, for much of the twentieth century, the stuff of science fiction, although another Englishman had proposed something similar in the late 1930s.

scholarly journals The California Code

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-11
Author(s):  
Keith Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Operating Systems ◽  
First Century ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Slow Collision ◽  
The Way

Underlying so much of the economic and ecological turmoil unfolding in California and the rest of the world now is a slow collision between the operating systems of the resource-wasting, vertically managed twentieth century and the much more volatile ecological and economic conditions of the twenty-first century. This essay argues that California is leading the way in defining a new code to deal responsibly-and profitably-with climate change and its effects.

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