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Normative Aspects (normative + aspect)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Law and Criminology40%
Humanities and Social Sciences40%

Selected Abstracts

Corporate social responsibility and the identification of stakeholders

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2003
Janita F. J. Vos
As a management problem the identification of stakeholders is not easily solved. It comprises a modelling and a normative issue, which need to be solved in connection with each other. In stakeholder literature knowledge can be found, e.g. on various stakeholder categorizations, that could be useful for the modelling issue. However, the normative issue remains unresolved. Additionally, the modelling of the so-called stakeholder category ,the affected' further complicates this issue. Nevertheless, from a normative perspective, this group holds justified interests in aspects of organizational activity and its members are, for that reason, legitimate stakeholders. In this article it is explored to what extent critical systems heuristics can help in resolving the managerial problem of identifying stakeholders. Critical systems heuristics is a modelling methodology in which the normative aspect of modelling is crucial. Using the distinction between ,the involved' and ,the affected', a variety of boundary judgments are discussed. Special attention is given to the so-called ,witness' as a representative of the affected. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source]

Consumer morality in times of economic hardship: evidence from the European Social Survey

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSUMER STUDIES, Issue 2 2010
*Article first published online: 1 FEB 2010, Cláudia Abreu Lopes
Abstract Crimes of everyday life, often referred to as unfair or unethical practices committed in the marketplace by those who see themselves and are seen as respectable citizens, have burgeoned as a result of the transformations in the European economy in the late 20th century, namely the transition to neo-liberal markets and the emergence of consumer society. A ,cornucopia of new criminal opportunities' has given rise to a new range of crimes such as ripping software, making false insurance claims or paying cash on hand to circumvent taxes. These shady behaviours (legal or not) are part of people's experience, albeit they are collectively regarded as morally dubious. Taken collectively, crimes of everyday life are indicators of the moral stage of a particular society and therefore a valuable instrument for social and political analysis. This paper addresses the question of whether and under which conditions feelings of economic hardship trigger crimes of everyday life. A multilevel theoretical and empirical perspective that integrates theories stemming from political science, sociology, and social psychology is adopted. I start by exploring the embeddedness of economic morality in social institutions, followed by an elaboration of the concept of market anomie to account for deviant behaviour in the marketplace, to finally step down to the examination of the correspondence between social attitudes and consumer behaviour, as postulated by the Theory of Planned Behaviour. The empirical study relies on micro data from the European Social Survey (ESS) (Round 2) and attempts to model, for each country, a formative measure of crimes of everyday life based on socio-demographic variables and the current economic situation, as it is perceived by the individual (taken as a measure of relative deprivation). The resultant country-specific regression coefficients are mapped onto the broader economic and normative context of 23 European countries. The results reveal that crimes of everyday life are driven by feelings of economic hardship only in countries where normative factors dictate their deviance. In countries where fraudulent behaviour is more generalized, inner motivations to offend play a secondary role as the more privileged consumers are more likely to commit fraud as they interact more often with the market. In turn, normative aspects result from a dynamic interplay of cultural and economic factors. As the economy grows faster, the tendency to offend in the market becomes more visible, but only in countries whose gross domestic product (GDP) stands above the European average. In countries with low GDP, the normative landscape is shaped by cultural factors that seem to obfuscate the power of economic factors favourable to consumer fraud. [source]

Beyond Inclusive Legal Positivism*

RATIO JURIS, Issue 3 2009
JULES L. COLEMAN
In this essay, I characterize the original intervention that became Inclusive Legal Positivism, defend it against a range of powerful objections, explain its contribution to jurisprudence, and display its limitations and its modest jurisprudential significance. I also show how in its original formulations ILP depends on three notions that are either mistaken or inessential to law: the separability thesis, the rule of recognition, and the idea of criteria of legality. The first is false and is in event inessential to legal positivism. The second is inessential to legal positivism. The third is likely inessential to law. I then characterize the central claim of ILP in a way that relies on none of these: ILP is the claim that necessarily social facts determine the determinants of legal content. I show that ILP so conceived leaves the central debates in law largely untouched. I suggest how the most fundamental of these,the question of the normativity of law,at least can be usefully addressed. The essay closes by suggesting that even though one can distinguish the social from the normative dimensions of law, a theory of the nature of law is necessarily an account of the relationship between the two: It is a theory either of the difference that certain distinctive social facts make in normative space, or it is an account of the distinctive normative difference that law makes, and the social and other facts that are necessary to explain that difference. One can distinguish between but one cannot separate the social from the normative aspects of legality. [source]

,You'll never walk alone': CCTV surveillance, order and neo-liberal rule in Liverpool city centre1

THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 4 2000
Roy Coleman
ABSTRACT This paper is concerned to chart the establishment and uses of CCTV within the location of Liverpool city centre. In doing this the paper seeks to contextualize CCTV within contemporary ,partnership' approaches to regeneration which are reshaping the material and discursive form of the city. Thus CCTV schemes along with other security initiatives are understood as social ordering strategies emanating from within locally powerful networks which are seeking to define and enact orderly regeneration projects. In focusing on the normative aspects of CCTV, the paper raises questions concerning the efficacy of understanding contemporary forms of ,social ordering practices' primarily in terms of technical rationalities while neglecting other, more material and ideological processes involved in the construction of social order. [source]

The Proliferation of Human Rights in Global Health Governance

THE JOURNAL OF LAW, MEDICINE & ETHICS, Issue 4 2007
Lance Gable
Human rights play an integral role in the global governance of health. Recently, both structural and normative aspects of human rights have proliferated across multiple levels and within multiple contexts around the world. Human rights proliferation is likely to have a positive impact on the governance of health because it can expand the avenues through which a human rights framework or human rights norms may be used to address and improve health. [source]