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Actors
Kinds of Actors Terms modified by Actors Selected AbstractsA President for the European Union: A New Actor in Town?,JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 2 2007SPYROS BLAVOUKOS In the post-Constitution EU, the rotating Presidency would be replaced by a hybrid system combining a rotating component with the establishment of a permanent President for the European Council. Using a principal-agent framework, we look at the supply and demand for formal leadership in the new system, accounting for the substantial institutional change in the format of the Presidency. We then examine the President's effectiveness and efficiency and discuss whether the President, as a new institutional actor, has the potential to evolve into an autonomous political actor in the EU. Our analysis suggests a discernible though by no means unconditional strengthening of the President's potential for an autonomous political role in the new EU institutional architecture. [source] Keynote Article: 11 September and the Challenge of Global Terrorism to the EU as a Security ActorJCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 2002Monica Den Boer First page of article [source] Material Flows in a Social Context: A Vietnamese Case Study Combining the Materials Flow Analysis and Action-in-Context FrameworksJOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY, Issue 1 2007Marieke HOBBES Summary Materials flow analysis (MFA) is one of the central achievements of industrial ecology. One direction in which one can move MFA beyond mere accounting is by putting the material flows in their social context. This "socially extended MFA" may be carried out at various levels of aggregation. In this article, specific material flows will be linked to concrete actors and mechanisms that cause these flows,using the action-in-context (AiC) framework, which contains, inter alia, both proximate and indirect actors and factors. The case study site is of Tat hamlet in Vietnam, set in a landscape of paddy fields on valley floors surrounded by steep, previously forested slopes. Out of the aggregate MFA of Tat, the study focuses on material flows associated with basic needs and sustainability. The most important actors causing these material flows are farming households, politicians, traders, and agribusiness firms,of which local politicians turned out to be pivotal. The study shows the value of combining MFA with actor-based social analysis. MFA achieves the balanced quantification of the physical system, thus helping to pinpoint key processes. Actor-based analysis adds the causal understanding of what drives these key processes, leading to improved scenarios of the future and the effective identification of target groups and instruments for policy making. [source] Velvet Revolution: An Actor-based ModelPEACE & CHANGE, Issue 2 2006Patrick Van Inwegen Using a process-oriented theoretical model I explain why some revolutions are violent while others are velvet. Velvet revolutions (those with little or no violence) occur because of a peculiar interaction between dissidents and the state. A dynamic model illustrates how dissidents, the state, and the mass public interact in revolution, emphasizing each group's decisions and the impact this has on the other groups. Successful velvet revolutions occur when (1) dissidents committed to nonviolence are (2) sufficiently organized to successfully provoke the state into (3) ineffectively repressing dissidents or inadequately implementing reform. I utilize the 1986 Philippines revolution to test this model and hypothesis. [source] T1 N0 Triple Negative Breast Cancer: A Bad ActorTHE BREAST JOURNAL, Issue 5 2009Robert Livingston MD No abstract is available for this article. [source] The Quilty Effect: An Actor in Search of a PartAMERICAN JOURNAL OF TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 5 2007E. Di Carlo No abstract is available for this article. [source] Efficacy Beliefs in Coach,Athlete Dyads: Prospective Relationships Using Actor,Partner Interdependence ModelsAPPLIED PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2010Ben Jackson The overall purpose of the study was to investigate prospective actor and partner effects (cf. Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2006) of interpersonal efficacy beliefs in relation to relationship commitment, satisfaction, and effort within coach,athlete dyads. Fifty youth tennis players (mean age = 15.52 years, SD = 1.45) and their coaches (mean age = 40.17 years, SD = 13.71) provided data related to their self-efficacy, other-efficacy, and relation-inferred self-efficacy (RISE) beliefs mid-way through the competitive season. Three months later, participants provided data regarding personal effort, as well as relationship commitment and satisfaction. Actor,partner interdependence model analyses revealed positive actor effects for self-efficacy in relation to effort, and for other-efficacy in relation to commitment, effort, and satisfaction. Partner effects for other-efficacy were found in relation to relationship commitment and effort. Finally, actor and partner effects were also evident for RISE beliefs; however, these relationships were moderated by the individual's role (i.e. athlete or coach), such that the direction of actor and partner effects differed for athletes and coaches. Implications for fostering effective coach,athlete relationships are discussed. Cette recherche avait pour objectif général l'étude des retombées éventuelles sur l'acteur et son partenaire (Cf.: Kenny, Kashy & Cook, 2006) des croyances en l'efficience interpersonnelle en relation avec l'implication, la satisfaction et l'effort au sein de la dyade entraîneur-athlète. Cinquante jeunes joueurs de tennis (âge moyen = 15,52; ,= 1,45) et leurs entraîneurs (âge moyen = 40,17; ,= 13,71) ont fourni des données relatives à leurs représentations concernant l'auto-efficience, l'efficience d'autrui et l'auto-efficience émanant de la relation (RISE), cela au milieu de la période des compétitions. Trois mois plus tard, les sujets ont donné des informations se rapportant à leur effort personnel, leur implication relationnelle et leur satisfaction. Les analyses relevant du modèle de l'interdépendance acteur-partenaire ont révélé des conséquences positives pour l'acteur en ce qui concerne l'auto-efficience en relation avec l'effort et l'efficience d'autrui en relation avec l'implication, l'effort et la satisfaction. Les effets du partenaire pour l'efficacité d'autrui étaient en relation avec l'effort et l'implication relationnelle. Finalement, les effets du partenaire et de l'acteur apparaissaient également pour les croyances RISE; ces relations étaient toutefois modulées par les rôles individuels (athlète ou entraîneur), de telle sorte que le sens des effets acteur-partenaire différait pour les athlètes et les entraîneurs. On réfléchit aux applications permettant d'améliorer l'efficacité des relations athlète-entraîneur. [source] The UN System and Religious Actors in the Context of Global ChangeCROSSCURRENTS, Issue 3 2010Josef Boehle First page of article [source] Managing the Transnational Law Firm: A Relational Analysis of Professional Systems, Embedded Actors, and Time,Space-Sensitive GovernanceECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 2 2008James R. Faulconbridge Abstract This article argues that the relational approach can be particularly effective for addressing debates about the varieties of capitalism and the dynamics of institutional contexts. Using the case study of transnational law firms and data gathered through interviews with partners in London and New York, it makes two arguments. First, it suggests that the relational approach's focus on the behavior of key agents when new or different work practices are encountered helps explain the management of institutional heterogeneity by transnational corporations (TNCs). Such an approach reveals the peculiarities of professionals and professional service managers and how they affect the response of globalizing law firms when home- and host-country business practices diverge. Second, the article shows how relational approaches can help disaggregate descriptions of national institutional systems to reveal the importance of studying their constitutive practices. Understanding these microlevel variations, which is missed by macrolevel categories like Anglo-American, is essential for explaining how firms cope with institutional heterogeneity. The author therefore argues that a better understanding of the effects of TNCs on national business systems can be facilitated by further developing the actor- and practice-focused analyses promoted by relational approaches. [source] Subnational Foreign Policy Actors: How and Why Governors Participate in U.S. Foreign PolicyFOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Issue 3 2008Samuel Lucas McMillan U.S. governors lead overseas missions seeking investment and promoting trade, establish international offices, meet with heads of government, receive ambassadors, and take positions on foreign policy. This paper describes how governors are involved in participating in U.S. foreign policy, explains why governors seek to voice their views and play an active role in working with leaders and issues beyond their state's borders, and argues that U.S. states and governors need to be better conceptualized and considered in both international relations theory and foreign policy analysis. This study reveals that governors with greater institutional powers,such as appointment and budgetary control,as well as personal powers,derived from their electoral mandate, ambition, and public approval,are more likely to have higher degrees of foreign policy activity. These actions are more likely to take place during wartime and also from governors representing U.S. states bordering Canada or Mexico. [source] Private Actors and the State: Internationalization and Changing Patterns of GovernanceGOVERNANCE, Issue 1 2002Christoph Knill This article investigates the implications of political and economic internationalization on patterns of governance from a statecentric perspective. The actual patterns of governance in internationalized environments can be related to the respective governance capacity of public and private actors, which hinges in turn on the strategic constellation underlying the provision of a public good. The specific strategic constellation varies in three dimensions: the congruence between the scope of the underlying problem and the organizational structures of the related actors, the type of problem, and the institutional context, all of which involve a number of factors. With this concept in mind, we identify four ideal-typed patterns of governance, enabled by different configurations of public and private capacities to formally or factually influence in various ways the social, economic, and political processes by which certain goods are provided. [source] The Logic of Action: Indeterminacy, Emotion, and Historical NarrativeHISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 4 2001William M. Reddy Modern social theory, by and large, has aimed at reducing the complexity of action situations to a set of manageable abstractions. But these abstractions, whether functionalist or linguistic, fail to grasp the indeterminacy of action situations. Action proceeds by discovery and combination. The logic of action is serendipitous and combinative. From these characteristics, a number of consequences flow: The whole field of our intentions is engaged in each action situation, and cannot really be understood apart from the situation itself. In action situations we remain aware of the problems of categorization, including the dangers of infinite regress and the difficulties of specifying borders and ranges of categories. In action situations, attention is in permanent danger of being overwhelmed. We must deal with many features of action situations outside of attention; in doing so, we must entertain simultaneously numerous possibilities of action. Emotional expression is a way of talking about the kinds of possibilities we entertain. Expression and action have a rebound effect on attention. "Effort" is required to find appropriate expressions and actions, and rebound effects play a role in such effort, making it either easier or more difficult. Recent theoretical trends have failed to capture these irreducible characteristics of action situations, and have slipped into a number of errors. Language is not rich in meanings or multivocal, except as put to use in action situations. The role of "convention" in action situations is problematic, and therefore one ought not to talk of "culture." Contrary to the assertions of certain theorists, actors do not follow strategies, except when they decide to do so. Actors do not "communicate," in the sense of exchanging information, except in specially arranged situations. More frequently, they intervene in the effortful management of attention of their interlocutors. Dialogue, that is, very commonly becomes a form of cooperative emotional effort. From these considerations, it follows that the proper method for gaining social knowledge is to examine the history of action and of emotional effort, and to report findings in the form of narrative. [source] Making Sense of Citizen Diplomats: The People of Duluth, Minnesota, as International ActorsINTERNATIONAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVES, Issue 2 2001Paul Sharp What is citizen diplomacy and how do we assess its significance? These are important questions because of the recent upsurge in international activity of this kind, and because how we answer them says a great deal about how we "do IR." By examining citizen diplomacy in Duluth, Minnesota, this paper offers a typology of citizen diplomats organized around the ideas of who or what they are representing and to whom. Assessing the significance of citizen diplomacy is a more difficult problem since individuals tend to generate a priori answers to it based on our respective theoretical orientations to IR as a whole. As a solution to this problem, the paper proposes a "diplomatic" approach which focuses on both the representation of differences to one another and the professional commitment which diplomats have to maintaining the practices and institutions which make such relations possible. [source] Nonstate Actors, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass DestructionINTERNATIONAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 1 2005Andrew Blum First page of article [source] International Actors, Democratization and the Rule of Law.JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 3 2009Anchoring Democracy? No abstract is available for this article. [source] Governance ,to Go': Domestic Actors, Institutions and the Boundaries of the PossibleJCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 4 2001Laura Cram How to ,bring Europe closer to the people' has long been a preoccupation of the policy-maker at the EU level and has recently been restated as a goal of the member governments in the Treaty of Nice. Currently, the Commission is addressing this issue through the White Paper on European Governance. Here, it is argued that the focus on ,governance' as a strategy for inclusion was ill founded and underestimated the likely conflict with existing ,governance' regimes at the domestic level. Moreover, the pursuit of ,heroic' Europeanism with a concomitant emergence of a sense of ,Europeanness' or a European ,identity' as advocated in the Commission's work programme for the White Paper on European Governance was misguided. Drawing on empirical research into the activities of women's organizations in Greece, Ireland and the UK, it is argued that the extent to which EU level action may [source] Differentiating Good Soldiers from Good Actors*JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 6 2007Robin S. Snell abstract In a qualitative interview study, 20 Hong Kong Chinese informants were asked to report stories about colleagues who were either ,good soldiers' or ,good actors'. In stories about good soldiers, informants attributed their colleagues' organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) primarily to prosocial or pro-organizational motives. Informants' stories about good actors broke down into three major subcategories of citizenship-related impression management: OCB attributed primarily to impression management motives; alleged pseudo-OCB concomitant with minimal compliance; and alleged pseudo-OCB concomitant with counterproductive behaviour. When distinguishing good soldiers from good actors, informants adopted two criteria for attribution: wilful behavioural inconsistency, i.e. low generality of behaviour across contexts; and alleged false pretence, i.e. discrepancy between claims or allusions and actual deeds. Our findings partially supported a prior hypothesis from attribution theory, that consistency was a criterion for attribution, but indicated that consensus, i.e. correspondence between the focal colleague's behaviour and other employees' behaviour, failed to differentiate good soldiers from good actors. Informants generally regarded OCB as socially desirable only when it was attributed primarily to prosocial/pro-organizational motives. [source] Rational Actors and Institutional Choices in KoreaPACIFIC FOCUS, Issue 1 2000HeeMin Kim First page of article [source] Exploring Explanations of State Agency Budgets: Institutional Budget Actors or Exogenous Environment?PUBLIC BUDGETING AND FINANCE, Issue 3 2008JAY EUNGHA RYU Budgetary incrementalism argues that three institutional actors,agencies, executive budget offices, and legislative committees,dominate budget outcomes. The complexity and interdependency of public programs expands this expectation to include the influence of exogenous budget factors. Findings from a survey of state agency heads reveal that budget environments do influence state agency budget outcomes. However, the institutional budgetary participants, especially governors and legislatures, envisioned in classical incrementalism retain their principal and primary influence on state agency budgets. A significant departure from classical incrementalism is that agencies are not as influential as previously depicted. [source] Self-Organizing Policy Networks: Risk, Partner Selection, and Cooperation in EstuariesAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2010Ramiro Berardo Policy actors seek network contacts to improve individual payoffs in the institutional collective action dilemmas endemic to fragmented policy arenas. The risk hypothesis argues that actors seek bridging relationships (well-connected, popular partners that maximize their access to information) when cooperation involves low risks, but seek bonding relationships (transitive, reciprocal relationships that maximize credibility) when risks of defection increase. We test this hypothesis in newly developing policy arenas expected to favor relationships that resolve low-risk dilemmas. A stochastic actor-based model for network evolution estimated with survey data from 1999 and 2001 in 10 U.S. estuaries finds that actors do tend to select popular actors as partners, which presumably creates a centralized bridging structure capable of efficient information transmission for coordinating policies even without any government mandate. Actors also seek reciprocal bonding relationships supportive of small joint projects and quickly learn whether or not to trust their partners. [source] The Anonymous Matrix: Human Rights Violations by ,Private' Transnational ActorsTHE MODERN LAW REVIEW, Issue 3 2006Article first published online: 27 APR 200, Gunther Teubner Do fundamental rights obligate not only States, but also private transnational actors? Since violations of fundamental rights stem from the totalising tendencies of partial rationalities, there is no longer any point in seeing the horizontal effect as if rights of private actors have to be weighed up against each other. On one side of the human rights relation is no longer a private actor as the fundamental-rights violator, but the anonymous matrix of an autonomised communicative medium. On the other side, the fundamental rights are divided into three dimensions: first, institutional rights protecting the autonomy of social discourses , art, science, religion - against their subjugation by the totalising tendencies of the communicative matrix; secondly, personal rights protecting the autonomy of communication, attributed not to institutions, but to the social artefacts called ,persons'; and thirdly, human rights as negative bounds on societal communication, where the integrity of individuals' body and mind is endangered. [source] Affect of Regime Changes on Nonstate Actors in Taiwan,Hong Kong Relations (1997,2010): Publicly and Privately Affiliated Think Tanks As Case StudiesASIAN POLITICS AND POLICY, Issue 4 2010Simon Xuhui Shen The article reviews the roles of nonstate actors (NSAs) in general in Taiwan,Hong Kong relations during the administration of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's first Chief Executive, Tung Chee-hwa (1997,2003), in order to explore the contributions and limitations of these agencies in constructing political spaces between Hong Kong and Taiwan. The first part of the article explains the reasons behind the short appearance of NSAs in Taiwan,Hong Kong relations after 1997. The second part, the case studies, looks at two selected NSAs: the Hong Kong Policy Research Institute in Hong Kong and the Friends of Hong Kong and Macau Association based in Taipei. The reasons for the setbacks they faced after 2003 and their possible roles following leadership changes in Hong Kong and Taiwan in the run-up to 2010 will be analyzed in the last section. [source] An Evaluation of the Economic Approaches Used by Policy Actors towards Investment in Place-Based Partnerships in VictoriaAUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 1 2010Chris McDonald Place-based partnerships are supported by the state and include various organisations and interests within particular geographic areas. The Victorian government has established place-based partnerships to plan and coordinate resource allocation decisions to meet objectives such as economic development and social inclusion. In the literature there are positive and negative views of these partnerships. One view is that they allow regions to build competitive advantage, while another is that they are a means of pursuing a neoliberal policy agenda that seeks to reduce government protection and investment. We help clarify the tensions between positive and negative views of partnerships by examining the economic approaches used by policy actors toward place-based partnerships in Victoria. We find that policy actors combine neoclassical and institutionalist approaches to argue that partnerships generate networks that enable more efficient and equitable resource allocation within places. [source] Simulation in a Disaster Drill: Comparison of High-fidelity Simulators versus Trained ActorsACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 11 2008Brian Gillett MD Abstract Objectives:, High-fidelity patient simulation provides lifelike medical scenarios with real-time stressors. Mass casualty drills must construct a realistic incident in which providers care for multiple injured patients while simultaneously coping with numerous stressors designed to tax an institution's resources. This study compared the value of high-fidelity simulated patients with live actor-patients. Methods:, A prospective cohort study was conducted during two mass casualty drills in December 2006 and March 2007. The providers' completion of critical actions was tested in live actor-patients and simulators. A posttest survey compared the participants' perception of "reality" between the simulators and live actor victims. Results:, The victims (n = 130) of the mass casualty drill all had burn-, blast-, or inhalation-related injuries. The participants consisted of physicians, residents, medical students, clerks, and paramedics. The authors compared the team's execution of the 136 critical actions (17 critical actions × 8 scenarios) between the simulators and the live actor-patients. Only one critical action was missed in the simulator group and one in the live actor group, resulting in a miss rate of 0.74% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.01% to 4.5%). All questionnaires were returned and analyzed. The vast majority of participants disagreed or strongly disagreed that the simulators were a distraction from the disaster drill. More than 96% agreed or strongly agreed that they would recommend the simulator as a training tool. The mean survey scores for all participants demonstrated agreement that the simulators closely mimicked real-life scenarios, accurately represented disease states, and heightened the realism of patient assessment and treatment options during the drill with the exception of nurse participants, who agreed slightly less strongly. Conclusions:, This study demonstrated that simulators compared to live actor-patients have equivalent results in prompting critical actions in mass casualty drills and increase the perceived reality of such exercises. [source] New Actors in Industrial RelationsBRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 4 2006Edmund Heery First page of article [source] End Users: Actors in the Industrial Relations System?BRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2000Guy Bellemare The paradigm elaborated by John T. Dunlop in his landmark 1958 volume, Industrial Relations Systems, described this system as consisting of three actors: unions, employers and the State. Over the past few years, the call to expand upon the notion of actors in the industrial relations environment has become more and more widespread, but no one has yet suggested how this integration might be implemented. The main objective of this paper is to propose an analytical model of the actor and to explore how the latter could be applied in the case of public urban transit users. [source] Armed Actors, Violence and Democracy in Latin America in the 1990s: Introductory NotesBULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH, Issue 4 2001Kees Koonings [source] Approximating character biomechanics with real-time weighted inverse kinematicsCOMPUTER ANIMATION AND VIRTUAL WORLDS (PREV: JNL OF VISUALISATION & COMPUTER ANIMATION), Issue 4-5 2007Michael Meredith Abstract In this paper we show how the expensive, offline dynamic simulations of character motions can be approximated using the cheaper weighted inverse kinematics (WIK)-based approach. We first show how a dynamics-based approach can be used to produce a motion that is representative of a real target actor using the motion of a different source actor and the biomechanics of the target actor. This is compared against a process that uses WIK to achieve the same motion mapping goal without direct biomechanical input. The parallels between the results of the two approaches are described and further reasoned from a mathematical perspective. Thus we demonstrate how character biomechanics can be approximated with real-time WIK. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Analysis of co-articulation regions for performance-driven facial animationCOMPUTER ANIMATION AND VIRTUAL WORLDS (PREV: JNL OF VISUALISATION & COMPUTER ANIMATION), Issue 1 2004Douglas Fidaleo Abstract A facial gesture analysis procedure is presented for the control of animated faces. Facial images are partitioned into a set of local, independently actuated regions of appearance change termed co-articulation regions (CRs). Each CR is parameterized by the activation level of a set of face gestures that affect the region. The activation of a CR is analyzed using independent component analysis (ICA) on a set of training images acquired from an actor. Gesture intensity classification is performed in ICA space by correlation to training samples. Correlation in ICA space proves to be an efficient and stable method for gesture intensity classification with limited training data. A discrete sample-based synthesis method is also presented. An artist creates an actor-independent reconstruction sample database that is indexed with CR state information analyzed in real time from video. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Corporate socially responsible (CSR) practices in the context of Greek industryCORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2003Dr Constantina Bichta This paper sets out to describe the level of corporate environmental responsibility of the Greek industrial sector. While the level of corporate socially responsible behaviour has been widely explored in the context of Northern European industry, the theoretical work surrounding the level of CSR practices of Greek industry is underdeveloped. A qualitative study was designed to increase awareness about the level of environmental responsibility of two Greek firms, which represented the chemical/fertilizer and metal sectors. The empirical findings suggest that a number of factors, both internal and external, determine the level of environmental policy and performance of the two companies. The environmental policy of the companies appears also to relate to the sector of operation. The paper concludes that the Greek business actor should look at his workforce in order to accelerate the environmental activities of the organization. With regard to the theory of CSR, it is argued that the development of a model of CSR is aided by the study and identification of factors that support and/or undermine the socially responsible behaviour of the European corporate sector. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||