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Each of four theoretical traditions in the study of American politics—which can be characterized as theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic-Elite Domination, and two types of interest-group pluralism, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased Pluralism—offers different predictions about which sets of actors have how much influence over public policy: average citizens; economic elites; and organized interest groups, mass-based or business-oriented. A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. We report on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues. Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.

Which is prior, the whole or its parts? The holds that the whole is prior to its parts, and thus views the cosmos as fundamental, with metaphysical explanation dangling downward from the One. The holds that the parts are prior to their whole, and thus tends to consider particles fundamental, with metaphysical explanation snaking upward from the many. There seem to be physical and modal considerations that favor the monistic view. Physically, there is good evidence that the cosmos forms an and good reason to treat entangled systems as irreducible wholes. Modally, mereology allows for the possibility of , with no ultimate parts for the pluralist to invoke as the ground of being.

PurposeThis paper presents an historical reconstruction of the radicalisation of Alan Fox, the industrial sociologist and a detailed analysis of his early historical and sociological writing in the classical pluralist phase.Design/methodology/approachAn intellectual history, including detailed discussion of key Fox texts, supported by interviews with Fox and other Biographical sources.FindingsFox’s radicalisation was incomplete, as he carried over from his industrial relations (IR) pluralist mentors, Allan Flanders and Hugh Clegg, a suspicion of political Marxism, a sense of historical contingency and an awareness of the fragmented nature of industrial conflict.Originality/valueRecent academic attention has centred on Fox’s later radical pluralism with its “structural” approach to the employment relationship. This paper revisits his early, neglected classical pluralist writing. It also illuminates his transition from institutional IR to a broader sociology of work, influenced by AH Halsey, John Goldthorpe and others and the complex nature of his radicalisation.

This article seeks to put the \"public\" back in public values research by theorizing about the potential of direct citizen participation to assist with identifying and understanding public values. Specifically, the article explores eight participatory design elements and offers nine propositions about how those elements are likely to affect the ability of administrators to identify and understand public values with regard to a policy conflict. The article concludes with a brief discussion about potential directions for future research.

This article builds on findings that racism significantly affects the well-being of minoritised students in early childhood education in Sweden and Norway. We understand the lack of a specific antiracist early childhood education in a colourblind society as impacting the development of young children and the future of the Earth when racial disparity amplifies the instabilities caused by predatory capitalism and the climate crisis. We challenge the assumption that education in the arts is inherently beneficial and speculate on a future where critical awareness of differences and colonial understanding are integral in early childhood education. Our aim with this article is to enhance the abilities of early childhood education students and teachers, as well as early childhood teachers, to develop visual racial literacy. We unpack the Solmaz collective's emerging concept of pluralist proximity: a state of collective professional development that can scaffold a practice of emancipatory antiracism needed in early childhood education contexts. It is a speculative, emerging pathway for students and teachers to develop antiracist pedagogy for early childhood education in Sweden and Norway. The notion of pluralist proximity investigates how zones of racial discomfort can be acknowledged and harnessed to develop antiracist teaching practices. The authors of the article use performative research, which is entangled with postcolonial thought. By identifying how stereotypes are subtly perpetuated through colonised lenses, the image thus becomes a theoretical and methodological tool for critically thinking about our entanglements in racialisation processes. It aligns with the concept of visual racial literacy.

A core question in the contemporary debate on distributive justice is how to understand fairness in situations involving production. Important theories of distributive justice, such as strict egalitarianism, liberal egalitarianism, and libertarianism, provide diferent answers to this question. This paper presents the results from a dictator game where the distribution phase is preceded by a production phase. Each player's contribution is a result of a freely chosen investment level and an exogenously given rate of return. We estimate simultaneously the prevalence of three principles of distributive justice among the players and the distribution of the weight they attach to fairness.

PurposeThis article examines the intellectual antecedents of Alan Fox’s frames of reference and contributes to academic work that seeks to unravel the pre-Donovan roots of British industrial relations. It examines the origins of the unitary and pluralist frames of reference with a particular focus on the work of Norman Ross.Design/methodology/approachThis article draws on published academic materials to examine the origins of the unitary and pluralist frames of reference.FindingsThe article identifies usage of the term “frame of reference” in industrial relations literature from the 1940s and demonstrates the origins of the unitary and pluralist conceptions of the firm in the works of Ross in the 1950s and 1960s.Originality/valueThe article provides a “fresh look” at the origins of the frames of reference.

Darwin claimed that a unique inclusively hierarchical pattern of relationships between all organisms based on their similarities and differences [the Tree of Life (TOL)] was a fact of nature, for which evolution, and in particular a branching process of descent with modification, was the explanation. However, there is no independent evidence that the natural order is an inclusive hierarchy, and incorporation of prokaryotes into the TOL is especially problematic. The only data sets from which we might construct a universal hierarchy including prokaryotes, the sequences of genes, often disagree and can seldom be proven to agree. Hierarchical structure can always be imposed on or extracted from such data sets by algorithms designed to do so, but at its base the universal TOL rests on an unproven assumption about pattern that, given what we know about process, is unlikely to be broadly true. This is not to say that similarities and differences between organisms are not to be accounted for by evolutionary mechanisms, but descent with modification is only one of these mechanisms, and a single tree-like pattern is not the necessary (or expected) result of their collective operation. Pattern pluralism (the recognition that different evolutionary models and representations of relationships will be appropriate, and true, for different taxa or at different scales or for different purposes) is an attractive alternative to the quixotic pursuit of a single true TOL.

North American state wildlife agencies are increasingly faced with the challenge of effectively representing a diverse public. With increasing social conflict over wildlife issues, the future of wildlife conservation hinges on preparedness of the profession to respond to this challenge. In the interest of finding ways to improve response, 19 agencies in the western U.S. joined forces to initiate an investigation that would provide a better understanding of the diversity of wildlife-related interests in the region. Specific objectives, accomplished through use of a mail survey administered in 2004, were to categorize people on the basis of their value orientations toward wildlife and explore how different groups were distributed across states and to examine differences on sociodemographic characteristics and attitudes toward wildlife-related topics among groups. The focus was on two orientations: domination (view of wildlife that prioritizes human well-being over wildlife and treats wildlife in utilitarian terms); and mutualism (view of wildlife as capable of relationships of trust with humans and defined by a desire for companionship with wildlife). Four types of people were identified on the basis of these orientations. Types differed in their geographic distribution and wildlife-related attitudes and behaviors, revealing how value orientations can form the foundation for conflict on wildlife issues. Our characterizations of stakeholder groups offer a framework that can be applied over time and across geographic scales to improve conservation planning efforts and inform broader thinking about the social aspects of wildlife conservation.