Contrary to current individualistic epistemology, Classical rhetoric provides us with a pragmatical and particularly dynamic conception of ‘testimony’ as a source made available for the orator by the particular community in which she acts. In order to count as usable testimony, a testimony to which one could appeal in further communications, any discourse must comply with specific rules of soci...

The study examines the association between the size of previous environmental sanction charges and subsequent compliance towards environmental regulations. Data used for the study come from about 9000 Swedish firms fined sometime between January 2002 and December 2012. Probabilities of compliance across various levels of sanctions are estimated using life-table methods and tested for equality u...

We understand a socio-technical system (STS) as a cyber-physical system in which two or more autonomous parties interact via or about technical elements, including the parties’ resources and actions. As information technology begins to pervade every corner of human life, STSs are becoming ever more common, and the challenge of governing STSs is becoming increasingly important. We advocate a nor...

Students mandated for intervention following an alcohol-related sanction event often reduce their drinking prior to intervention. Knowing the determinants of self-initiated change may help identify intervention targets for individuals who do not reduce their drinking. Guided by self-regulation theory, we tested whether fewer past alcohol consequences and higher descriptive and injunctive norms ...

T o what extent do the institutions of presidentialism allow voters to hold governments accountable? Powell and Whitten (1993) suggested that voter capacity to sanction is strong when “clarity of government responsibility” for outcomes is clear, and vice versa. I argue that clarity of responsibility functions differently under presidentialism and that presidentialism generates particular forms ...

Open and decentralised multi-agent systems (ODMAS) are particularly vulnerable to the introduction of buggy or malevolent agents. It is therefore very important to protect these systems from such intrusions. In this article, we propose the L.I.A.R. model to control the agents’ interactions. This model is issued from the social control approach, which consists in developing an adaptive and autoo...

OBJECTIVE One of the key goals of the current reforms in the English National Health Service (NHS) under the Health and Social Care Act, 2012, is to increase the accountability of those responsible for commissioning care for patients (clinical commissioning groups (CCGs)), while at the same time allowing them a greater autonomy. This study was set out to explore CCG's developing accountability ...

How should the government support small and medium-sized enterprises amid a pandemic crisis while balancing trade-off between short-run stabilization long-run allocative efficiency? We develop two-sector equilibrium model featuring businesses with private information on their likely future success screening contract. Businesses in sector adversely affected by can apply for loans to stay afloat....