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Competing Explanations (competing + explanation)
Selected AbstractsTHE NARROWING GENDER GAP IN ARRESTS: ASSESSING COMPETING EXPLANATIONS USING SELF-REPORT, TRAFFIC FATALITY, AND OFFICIAL DATA ON DRUNK DRIVING, 1980,2004,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 3 2008JENNIFER SCHWARTZ We evaluate two alternative explanations for the converging gender gap in arrest,changes in women's behavior versus changes in mechanisms of social control. Using the offense of drunk driving and three methodologically diverse data sets, we explore trends in the DUI gender gap. We probe for change across various age groups and across measures tapping DUI prevalence and chronicity. Augmented Dickey-Fuller time-series techniques are used to assess changes in the gender gap and levels of drunk driving from 1980 to 2004. Analyses show women of all ages making arrest gains on men,a converging gender gap. In contrast, self-report and traffic data indicate little or no systematic change in the DUI gender gap. Findings support the conclusion that mechanisms of social control have shifted to target female offending patterns disproportionately. Little support exists for the contention that increased strain and liberalized gender roles have altered the gender gap or female drunk-driving patterns. [source] Analytics and Beliefs: Competing Explanations for Defining Problems and Choosing Allies and Opponents in Collaborative Environmental ManagementPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 5 2010Christopher M. Weible The rationale for collaborative environmental management often hinges on two factors: first, specialized training creates biased analytics that require multidisciplinary approaches to solve policy problems; second, normative beliefs among competing actors must be included in policy making to give the process legitimacy and to decide trans-scientific problems. These two factors are tested as drivers of conflict in an analysis of 76 watershed partnerships. The authors find that analytical bias is a secondary factor to normative beliefs; that depicting the primary driver of conflict in collaborative environmental management as between experts and nonexperts is inaccurate; that compared to the "life" and "physical" sciences, the social sciences and liberal arts have a stronger impact on beliefs and choice of allies and opponents; and that multiple measures are needed to capture the effect of analytical biases. The essay offers lessons for public administrators and highlights the limitations and generalizations of other governing approaches. [source] The Influence of the Global Order on the Prospects for Genuine Democracy in the Developing CountriesRATIO JURIS, Issue 3 2001Thomas W. Pogge There is much rhetorical and even some tangible support by the developed states for democratisation processes in the poorer countries. Most people there nevertheless enjoy little genuine democratic participation or even government responsiveness to their needs. This fact is commonly explained by indigenous factors, often related to the history and culture of particular societies. My essay outlines a competing explanation by reference to global institutional factors, involving fixed features of our global economic system. It also explores possible global institutional reforms that, insofar as the offered explanation is correct, should greatly improve the prospects for democracy and responsive government in the developing world. [source] Increasing Returns, Labour Utilization and Externalities: Procyclical Productivity in the United States and JapanECONOMICA, Issue 266 2000Michela Vecchi This paper investigates procyclical productivity and attempts to discriminate among several competing explanations. The study focuses on the United States and Japan, since the different industrial relations in these two economies serve to cast a sharper light on the procyclical productivity debate. Labour hoarding, evaluated through the introduction of a labour utilization proxy, proves to be an important influence. The interpretation of the role of external economies remains an open issue. [source] Haphazard neural connections underlie the visual deficits of cats with strabismic or deprivation amblyopiaEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, Issue 1 2005Guy Gingras Abstract Identification of the neural basis of the visual deficits experienced by humans with amblyopia, particularly when associated with strabismus (strabismic amblyopia), has proved to be difficult in part because of the inability to observe directly the neural changes at various levels of the human visual pathway. Much of our knowledge has necessarily been obtained on the basis of sophisticated psychophysical studies as well as from electrophysiological explorations on the visual pathways in animal models of amblyopia. This study combines these two approaches to the problem by employing similar psychophysical probes of performance on animal models of two forms of amblyopia (deprivation and strabismic) to those employed earlier on human amblyopes (Hess & Field, 1994, Vis. Res., 34, 13397,13406). The tests explore two competing explanations for the visual deficits, namely an evenly distributed loss of neural connections (undersampling) with the amblyopic eye as opposed to disordered connections with this eye (neural disarray). Unexpectedly, the results in animal models of deprivation amblyopia were not in accord with expectations based upon an even distribution of lost connections with the amblyopic eye. However, the results were similar to those observed in a strabismic amblyopic animal and to strabismic amblyopic humans. We suggest that deprivation amblyopia may be accompanied by an uneven loss of connections that results in effective neural disarray. By contrast, amblyopia associated with strabismus might arise from neural disarray of a different origin such as an alteration of intrinsic cortical connections. [source] Re-engineering Legal Opportunity Structures in the European Union?JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 2 2010The Starting Line Group, the Politics of the Racial Equality Directive Using the Racial Equality Directive to test competing explanations concerning the types of actors who seek to liberalize legal opportunity structures, we find that it was pursued by a coalition of societal interests working through European Union institutions that sought reforms intended to facilitate strategic litigation. [source] GAAP versus The Street: An Empirical Assessment of Two Alternative Definitions of EarningsJOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 1 2002Mark T. Bradshaw Managers, security analysts, investors, and the press rely increasingly on modified definitions of GAAP net income, known by such names as "operating" and "pro forma" earnings. We document this phenomenon and discuss competing explanations for the recent rise in the use of such modified earnings numbers and implications for the interpretation of related accounting research. Our results show that over the past 20 years there has been a dramatic increase in the frequency and magnitude of cases where "GAAP" and "Street" earnings differ. Further, there is a very strong bias toward the reporting of a Street earnings number that exceeds the GAAP earnings number. We also show that the market response to the Street earnings number has displaced GAAP earnings as a primary determinant of stock prices. Finally, through an analysis of earnings releases, we show that management has taken a proactive role in defining and emphasizing the Street number when communicating to analysts and investors. [source] Opportunists, Predators and Rogues: The Role of Local State Relations in Shaping Chinese Rural DevelopmentJOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 2 2005MICHELLE S. MOOD Chinese rural enterprises have developed in various ways in different parts of the country, giving rise to competing explanations of the variation in terms of the role of structure, historical legacies, norms, bureaucratic controls and agency. A new analysis seeks to resolve these contradictions by placing development in the context of township and village cadres' relationships. Townships can either enforce village compliance with county policy or not, and can promote economic development or not, resulting in bureaucratic controls working where compliance is enforced, and norms and agency guiding development where they are not. Perverse incentives allow compliance without achieving larger goals of economic development, and can trap villages in opportunistic or predatory townships. While structure and historical legacies do constrain development in general, inter-level relationships are key to understanding micro-variations. Village wealth and village elections further empower the village level and give agency greater salience. [source] Media Exposure, Perceived Similarity, and Counterfactual Thinking: Why Did the Public Grieve When Princess Diana Died?,JOURNAL OF APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 10 2001David R. Pillow Judgments of perceived similarity to Princess Diana and counterfactual thinking, in conjunction with media exposure, were examined as competing explanations that might account for the public's affective responses to the fatal accident of Princess Diana. Shortly after the accident, 222 introductory psychology students were surveyed. Results indicate that each of these constructs contributed uniquely to predict negative affective responding. An interaction was found such that persons high in perceived similarity had high levels of counterfactual ruminations and negative responding, regardless of their media exposure, whereas media exposure largely predicted the responses of those low in perceived similarity. Possible causal sequences involving these constructs, social comparison theory, and work on media-related stress are discussed. [source] Commuting, Migration, and Rural-Urban Population DynamicsJOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 2 2000Mitch Renkow Over the past 25 years social scientists attempting to explain the dramatic changes in the relative distribution of urban and rural population growth have gravitated toward two competing explanations. The regional restructuring hypothesis holds that changes in the spatial distribution of employment opportunities have been dominant whereas the deconcentration hypothesis attributes these changes to changes in residential preferences of workers and consumers. We develop an empirical test of these two explanations based on whether commuting and migration are positively or negatively related after controlling for other economic factors. Our econometric results support the deconcentration hypothesis. [source] Prospective comparison of subjective arousal during the pre-sleep period in primary sleep-onset insomnia and normal sleepersJOURNAL OF SLEEP RESEARCH, Issue 2 2007JENNIFER A. ROBERTSON Summary Psychophysiological insomnia (PI) is the most common insomnia subtype, representing 12,15% of all sleep centre referrals. Diagnostic guidelines describe PI as an intrinsic sleep disorder involving both hyperarousal and learned sleep-preventing associations. Whilst evidence for the first component is reasonably compelling, evidence for learned (conditioned) sleep effects is markedly lacking. Indeed, to date no study has attempted to capture directly the conditioned arousal effect assumed to characterize the disorder. Accordingly, the present study explored variations in subjective arousal over time in 15 PI participants (sleep onset type) and 15 normal sleepers (NS). Self-report measures of cognitive arousal, somatic arousal and sleepiness were taken at three time points: 3 h before bedtime (early to mid-evening); 1 h before bedtime (late evening); and in the bedroom at lights out (bedtime) across four, 24-h cycles. Fluctuations in mean arousal and sleepiness values, and in day-to-day variation were examined using analyses of variance. Participants with PI were significantly more cognitive aroused and significantly less sleepy relative to NS, within the bedroom environment. These results support the tenet of conditioned mental arousal to the bedroom, although competing explanations cannot be ruled out. Results are discussed with reference to extant insomnia models. [source] Relationship between health services outcomes and social and economic outcomes in workplace injury and disease: Data sources and methods,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE, Issue 3 2001Cam Mustard ScD Abstract Background Understanding the mediating role of health care in mitigating social, economic and occupational role disability is a complex task. Methods No single method of research will be successful in addressing all elements of this NORA research priority area. In this paper, we argue that research methods are needed which have the following components: (1) the detailed measurement of therapeutic intervention and the impacts of this intervention on clinical and functional health status using study designs which rule out competing explanations, (2) a longitudinal follow-up component which measures social, economic, and occupational role function following the conclusion of therapy, and (3) a commitment to execute studies across multiple settings to observe the variations in health care and in social and occupational role function that arise as a result of differences in labor market factors and employer and government policies. Conclusions More comprehensive portraits of the longitudinal trajectory of individual workers, social, economic and occupational role function following an occupational injury or illness will have significance for a large number of policy sectors. Am. J. Ind. Med. 40:335,343, 2001. © 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Obama on the Stump: Features and Determinants of a Rhetorical ApproachPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2010KEVIN COE From the moment Barack Obama entered the national political scene in 2004, his formidable rhetorical skills were a central component of his public persona and his political success. Not surprisingly, a growing body of research has examined Obama's rhetorical techniques. Thus far, however, these studies have consisted almost entirely of qualitative analyses of single speeches, making it difficult to generalize about the broader features of Obama's rhetorical approach and impossible to understand the determinants of his rhetorical choices. This study fills these gaps in the literature by systematically tracking Obama's rhetoric over the course of campaign 2008 and testing competing explanations for the variation that occurs during this period. Using a unique computer-assisted content analysis procedure that draws coding categories directly from the more than 11,500 distinct words that Obama used during his campaign, the authors analyze 183 speeches and debates from his announcement of candidacy in February 2007 to his victory speech in November 2008. Obama's campaign rhetoric varied by speaking context, geography, and poll position, indicating a twofold rhetorical approach of emphasizing policy and thematic appeals while downplaying more contentious issues. [source] Using Space: Agency and Identity in a Public,Housing DevelopmentCITY & COMMUNITY, Issue 3 2002Kevin Fox Gotham Recent critiques of conventional poverty research have highlighted the need to move beyond the conceptual limitations of "neighborhood effects" models and the use of the tropes of "adaptation" or "resistance" to explain the behaviors and actions of the urban poor. We use ethnographic field observations and interviews with public,housing residents to address these limitations in the poverty literature, assess competing explanations of poor people's agency, and provide insight into the importance of space as a mediating link between macrostructural constraints and locally situated behaviors. We theorize agency and identity as spatial phenomena,with spatial attributes and spatial influences,and examine how different spatial meanings and locations enable or constrain particular forms of social action and behavior. Our ethnographic and interview data depict several strategies by which residents "use space" to provide a measure of security and protection, to designate and avoid areas of criminality and drug activity, and to challenge or support the redevelopment of public housing. From these data we show that urban space is not a residual phenomenon in which social action occurs, but a constitutive dimension of social life that shapes life experiences, social conflict, and action. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||