Cornerstone of democratic life

Privacy is a fundamental right. It is a hard won right: won against the inroads of tyranny and autocracy, where the private lives, homes and communications of ordinary men and women – who protested against tyranny and autocracy, who were dissidents or advocated rights of the weak – were regarded as the property of the state – to be discovered and displayed and used against them whenever deemed necessary and used to capture their souls, to force them into undesired and to push them to subjugation.

People deserve a private life because private life is essential to the maintenance of human balance. Private life, respect for it, is a cornerstone of democratic life: for without it, without that right, enshrined in law and respected, the lives, above all, of the weak are rendered vulnerable. Respect for private life is an attribute of citizenship in a democratic and civil society. Men and women fought for it, and can not so easily give it away.


People have the right to private life, have the right to feel free from interpretation in the corner of their home, because privacy is essential to the peace of mind and the maintenance of human balance. There need to be spaces without intruders, for men and women to work out relationships, to overcome their fears and to restore their confidence and to care for their children and to rethink their friendships.

If they are condemned to have any or all of these made public at any moment they become areas of suspicion, where every relationship must be examined for betrayal; where every act must be combed for negative connotations, where all words must be checked and re-checked for unintended meanings – because in addition to exposure, people are subject to interpretation or worse misinterpretation. Moral and political correctness is thus enforced – by fear of exposure. .

The right to privacy should be asserted even more strongly where private life is destroyed. Where there are so many forces employed to violate privacy means that the force of the law has to powerfully counteract them. For if that right goes, if it becomes open season, our very life becomes a commodity.


Reference:
http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/blogs

Environmental regulations: concession or enforcement

As pressures grow to develop more stringent economic obligations to address global climate change problems, there is an increasing possibility of a damaging clash between the WTO and MEA regimes. Many governments have continued in other international fora to agree to new MEA commitments that relate to trade policy without a clear understanding of how the design and implementation of those commitments are affected by WTO rules. This policy disconnect is problematic and must be addressed on multiple fronts.

MEAs seek to facilitate compliance and participation through political means or market-based incentives – partly because it leads to a more effective result for the environment, and partly because they do not generally have the kind of political and economic leverage that could force compliance with dispute settlement
findings.

In contrast, WTO rules are enforced through an active dispute settlement system backed up by economic sanctions. Although some WTO cases so far may have been favourable to environmental priorities, the prospect of a WTO panel overseeing a dispute over an MEA trade-related measure, with no mandate or expertise to assess the legitimacy of an MEA measure, is problematic. The WTO has no inherent expertise on environmental issues and therefore may place trade liberalization priorities at the forefront in a conflict with environmental provisions. This is unsatisfactory from an environmental policy perspective and will only increase the incoherence in global governance.

Environmental regulations not well specified could take a direction as to violate WTO rules. The impacts of WTO rules on negotiations for the Biosafety Protocol are, however, well documented: agricultural commodities were subject to less rigorous trading rules than other GMOs and efforts to have clear provisions addressing the relationship to other international agreements were relegated to the preamble in ambiguous form.

Moreover, parties to the Biosafety Protocol may find they have difficulty implementing the agreement against economically powerful non-parties, such as the United States, which may emphasize the predominance of their WTO entitlements.

The MEA-WTO relationship has been at the heart of discussions in the WTO’s
Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) since its inception in 1995. Specifically, the CTE was mandated to examine ‘the relationship between the provisions of the multilateral trading system and trade measures for environmental purposes, including those pursuant to multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs); and the relationship between the dispute settlement mechanisms in the multilateral trading system and those found in MEAs.’40 In the years that followed, many of the WTO Members represented in the CTE maintained that there was no inherent conflict between MEAs and WTO rules and that, if there were, it would be resolved in a mutually supportive way, within existing rules and frameworks. Other Members have proposed reforms aimed at greater clarity. They believe there is a potential conflict between WTO rules and MEAs that might subvert MEA objectives by inappropriately impeding the implementation of MEAs or overly constraining the design of MEA trade measures.

Members in favour of reform have put forward proposals ranging from suggested amendments to the substantive and procedural rules themselves, to the introduction of processes designed to facilitate MEA and WTO harmony. The demandeurs of reform have, for the most part, comprised the European Communities (EC) and other European Members while several developing-country Members have resisted reforms seen as opening the door to veiled protectionism in Northern markets.

Source: www.chathamhouse.org.uk

Survey research method

Surveys

The basic process of survey research can be outlined as follows:
1. define your research aims
2. identify the population and sample
3. decide how to collect replies
4. design your questionnaire
5. run a pilot survey
6. carry out the main survey
7. analyse the data

A crucial part of good research design concerns making sure that the questionnaire design addresses the needs of the research. To put this another way; somehow we need to ensure that the questions asked are the right ones. To move from the research aims (1) to deciding what are the right questions to put on a questionnaire (4) is a key aspect that needs to be addressed by the researcher.
Define Your Research Aims
Start your survey by setting down the aims for the survey. To define the aims for academic, as opposed to market, research you will need to review the relevant literature and you may need to do some preliminary research amongst your target subjects. Fulfilling these aims should then drive the design of your questionnaire and help select questions that are relevant, concise and efficient.
Most researchers make the mistake of asking too many questions. This often arises from an incomplete analysis of how to meet the survey aims. Your greatest enemy in survey research may well be poor response rate. Clear and concise questionnaires can help get the best response.
Questionnaire Design
Design of the questionnaire can be split in to three elements:
a) determine the questions to be asked,
b) select the question type for each question and specify the wording, and
c) design the question sequence and overall questionnaire layout.

Available software tends to focus on support for (b) and (c).
Determine the Questions to be Asked
This step is a key one that seems not to be sufficiently stressed in the literature or conducted in practice. A key link needs to be established between the research aims and the individual questions via the research issues. Issues and questions can be determined through a combined process of exploring the literature and thinking creatively. A simple illustration of the outcome of such a process is given below.
Survey aims: to explore the factors that might explain the reasons that Leeds University candidates give for undertaking a MBA programme:

Issue: What reasons might candidates give for undertaking an MBA?

Is the candidate looking for:
career change
career advancement
higher remuneration
etc.

Issue: Could past experience affect the reasons?
How many years work experience does candidate have?

Issue: Could gender differences affect the reasons?

Is the candidate male or female?

Issue: Could educational background and attainment affect the reasons?

What is highest educational qualification obtained?
What subject area(s) is this qualification in?
The above process generates the focus for individual questions that can then be designed in detail.
If you are relying on the respondent to complete the questionnaire, begin with questions that will raise interest. However, there are different views on sequencing of questions. For example, someone might argue that the easier questions to answer should be at the beginning to get the respondent in to the swing of things. However, someone else might suggest that questions about personal data, which are easy to answer, should be left until the end when the respondent has committed themselves to answering and they are less likely to object to giving such data. Whatever approach you choose you should try to have a logical sequence, e.g. group together all questions that relate to similar areas.
You should try to keep the flow through a questionnaire logical and very simple, i.e. avoid complex branching. Although some questions may be consequent upon earlier answers, keep the number of branches to the minimum. If necessary, use two or three versions of the questionnaire for respondents in different situations.

Analyse the Data
A precursor to analysis is the coding, entry and checking of data. Some comments were made earlier about the statistical analysis packages that are available (e.g. SAS, Minitab and SPSS). In all instances data can either be entered direct or imported from other packages such as Excel, provided the instructions for the receiving package are adhered to. In all cases a similar approach is used for coding and formatting data.
Usually the data is help on the computer in a rectangular data table where each row represents a ‘case’, i.e. a specific respondent and their data. Each column represents a specific variable, i.e. the data for that variable for all respondents. Note that a question on the questionnaire may require more than one variable to specify the data collected by that question.
A variable will have a unique title and a specific level of measurement. The measurement level of a variable is important because it determines the type of analysis that can be undertaken. In ascending order of sophistication these levels are:
Nominal, Ordinal, Interval and Ratio
(Note in SPSS the Inteval and Ratio levels are grouped together and called scale.)
For ease of data handling and analysis the
values that variables can take are usually designated by numeric codes, even when the variable is a nominal one. For example, gender can take the value male or female, but would usually be coded O and 1 (or 1 and 0) for ease of handling. Putting these data entry codes on the distributed questionnaire can help at data entry time, but obviously has the downside of putting numbers on the questionnaire that are of no relevance to the respondent and therefore could make the questionnaire look messier than it needs to.
Analysis packages usually make arrangements for missing values to be coded automatically; if they do not, this will have to be specifically taken care of when entering data.


Source: A general introduction to the design of questionnaires for survey research, http://remiss.politics.ox.ac.uk

The UK's future climate change

The UK's future climate

Climate change scenarios have been developed for the UK to show the possible changes in the UK climate over the 21st century. The scenarios, known as UKCIP02, are an important advance in our understanding of future climate change, providing information on possible changes at a regional level, along with insight into potential changes in extreme weather events and sea level.

Here is a quick guide to the climate changes the UK can expect.

Temperature

Rain and snow

Sea Level Changes

This information is taken from a UKCIP report on possible changes to the UK’s climate. You can download a copy of the summary report or request a printed version here.

Further information is also provided in UKCIP’s reports which can be downloaded or ordered from here

Researchers requiring more detailed information on the UKCIP02 scenarios and their use within climate change impact assessments should visit the Scenarios Gateway


source: www.ukcip.org.uk, www.eci.ox.ac.uk

Public Reason

Public reason is the set of reasons – principles and ideals – that all citizens “may reasonably be expected to endorse”, the set of reasons, that is, which are acknowledged as good reasons by an “overlapping consensus of all reasonable people”. The question whether the opinions that overlap in this consensus are correct or true, and whether those reasons are valid or sound, is to be set aside by public reason, i.e. in decision-making on the fundamental questions of political life and legislation. This drastic restriction of public reason’s content and grounding is asserted and defended by Rawls as an implication or requirement of the principle or criterion of reciprocity, viz. that the reasons employed and decisions accordingly made must be reasons and decisions that the decision-makers believes could reasonably be accepted by other people as free and equal citizens.


Chapter 37 of Hobbes, Leviathan (1651), Hobbes asserts that the question whether it may be taught that miracles occur, e.g. that transubstantiation occurs in the Mass, is one “In which … we are not every one to make our own private reason or conscience, but the public reason, that is the reason of God's supreme lieutenant, judge; and indeed we have made him judge already, if we have given him a sovereign power to do all that is necessary for our peace and defence. A private man has always the liberty, because thought is free, to believe or not believe in his heart those acts that have been given out for miracles…. But when it comes to confession of that faith, the private reason must submit to the public; that is to say, to God's lieutenant” .



Finnis J., On 'Public Reason', University of Oxford - Faculty of Law;
www.law.ox.ac.uk





His heart, Satan professes in his soliloquy, “melts” when he contemplates the endlessly cruel revenge he is about to take on the “harmless innocence” of our first parents. But he is compelled, he says, to this revenge -- a deed that otherwise even he would “abhor”. Compelled by what? “Public reason just”, that is, “Honour and empire [rulership] with revenge enlarg’d / By conquering this new world” – the human world from “now” down to the world’s end. And there his soliloquy ends. The poet’s immediate comment is more famous with us: “So spake the Fiend, and with necessity, / The tyrant's plea, excus'd his devilish deeds.” (Book iv, ll. 380-94)


“ ‘…Hell shall unfold,
To entertain you two, her widest gates,
And send forth all her kings; there will be room,
Not like these narrow limits, to receive
Your numerous offspring; if no better place,
Thank him who puts me, loath, to this revenge
On you, who wrong me not, for him who wrong'd.
And, should I at your harmless innocence
Melt, as I do, yet public reason just--
Honour and empire with revenge enlarg'd
By conquering this new world--compels me now
To do what else, though damn'd, I should abhor.’
So spake the Fiend, and with necessity,
The tyrant's plea, excus'd his devilish deeds.”

Oxfam: Ethical Concerns

Increased ethical concerns leave UK public unhappy with supermarket shopping

2 March 2007


New research by Oxfam today for Fairtrade Fortnight reveals that although 92% of British consumers buy their food and drink at major supermarkets, just 11% of us actually want to do so. Instead, most of us would prefer to buy direct from farmers (69%), local independent retailers (54%) or to grow our own food (47%), according to the survey of more than 1,700 UK residents.


This reluctance to shop at supermarkets, fuelled by concerns that they are still not doing enough to tackle increasing ethical and environmental issues, is coupled with an acceptance that they are hugely influential. Almost half of us (48%) think supermarkets can do the most to change how we shop: one in three (30%) think consumers can do the most themselves, and just 16% see the government as having the greatest influence on our shopping habits.


The survey also reveals some of the increasing ethical concerns underpinning our shopping habits:


· The biggest factor considered by consumers when buying food is whether the product comes in an excessive amount of packaging (86%), followed by whether the product is fairly traded (78%), how much it costs (75%) and whether it was air-freighted a long distance (65%);
· Two-thirds of us (68%) have refused to buy something because we associate its producer with unethical practices;
· 80% of us intend to buy more Fairtrade goods this year. By comparison, 60% say they will buy more organic food, and 51% will be buying more GM-free food;
· 44% say the only reason they don't buy more ethical goods is that there simply isn't an ethical equivalent for everything they want to buy, while 39% believe that ethically-sound versions are more expensive;
· Fighting the causes of climate change is yet to become an important part of everyday life - 39% of us haven't yet considered reducing our carbon footprint.
· However, environmental concerns are top of the UK's shopping list in 2007: 78% of us will do more to reduce our carbon footprint this year.


David McCullough, director of trading at Oxfam, said:
"Some supermarkets have made excellent progress to date. The Co-Op's commitment to Fairtrade has been outstanding for many years, while the decision by Sainsbury's and Waitrose to stock only Fairtrade bananas will have enormous benefits in the Windward Isles. Marks and Spencer, meanwhile, continue to lead the way in terms of making a wider range of Fairtrade products available on the high street.


"We would strongly encourage competitors such as Tesco and Asda to take their lead from such groundbreaking moves. By doing more to commit to fair trade practices and reduce their environmental impact, the biggest retailers can start to reverse the suspicion felt by many consumers over their huge influence."


As Britain heads into the second week of Fairtrade Fortnight, the findings point to the increasingly mainstream role that fair trade has to play in our lives:


· 14% of us buy Fairtrade at every possible opportunity, while 57% shop Fairtrade on a regular basis.
· 80% of the public feel very clear about why they should buy Fairtrade goods, with only 2% claiming not to understand the reasons for buying Fairtrade.
· The most popular ideal Fairtrade goods include Fairtrade cosmetics, which 13% were keen to see (and which are actually likely to appear in the near future), and Fairtrade computers, with one in ten of us keen to switch on a Fairtrade PC if that were possible. Other popular suggestions were Fairtrade meat (11%), Fairtrade mobile phones (8%) and Fairtrade cars (7%).


"Consumers are increasingly seeing Fairtrade as a practical way for them to fight poverty while they shop. With new products emerging faster than ever and such a high demand, 2007 should see Fairtrade take the high street by storm," said David McCullough.


Oxfam has been selling fair trade goods since the 1960s, and last year sold £7.8 million worth of fair trade products. It was a co-founder of the Fairtrade Foundation and Cafédirect (which is now the UK's fourth-largest roast and ground coffee brand), and was the first retailer of fair trade products or their equivalent in the UK, beginning in the 1960s. The charity also launched Progreso Fairtrade coffee bars in 1997, in collaboration with coffee cooperatives in Honduras and Ethiopia.


-Ends-


Notes to editors


Recent figures from the Competition Commission show that Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons control almost 75% of the UK grocery market, while Tesco takes approximately £1 in every £8 spent on the high street in Britain.

Oxfam works with supermarkets and other retailers through the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), an alliance of companies, NGOs and trade union organisations that works to promote and improve corporate codes of practice dealing with working conditions throughout the supply chain.



Survey conducted by Oxfam amongst more than 1,700 UK residents aged 16-65 during February 2007.

Source: www.oxfam.org.uk

Liability on environmental harm

Are environmental harms special?

Major pollution incidents and a concern for the future well-being of the planet have caused many lawyers to support the idea of a distinct civil liability regime for compensating environmental damage. But unless we are sure that environmental harms do deserve special treatment, special liability regimes may prove to be a mistake in the long-run. The main aim in the design of liability law should be to distribute the past costs of pollution rather than to punish or act as a future deterrent. A critical evaluation of the nature of environmental harms suggests that they are not special in a way that justifies a special legal regime, and where liability regimes are used as a means of raising money to clean up the environment they are a costly and cumbersome means of doing so. Similarly, when most legal systems start from a position that non-contractual liability for harm should be based on fault, it is difficult to justify in terms of legal policy and principle a pocket of strict liability for environmental harm. People who view environmental harms as presenting distinctive legal issues do so because they focus on the environmental source of the harm rather than its nature. This may be useful politically but it creates legal confusion. In constructing regimes for liability for environmental harms, it is important to appreciate the limits of compensation law for achieving our environmental goals.


Source: P Cane, www.oxfordjournals.com




To tax or not to tax

Utilitarian philosophical perspective seeks to maximize the aggregate happiness or welfare of the individuals that comprise the relevant political community.

For utilitarianism, the assumption that the happiness derived from each addition to one’s economic resources decreases as these resources increase (diminishing marginal utility) suggests that taxes and expenditures should (other things equal) be highly redistributive, since the increase in utility from transferring economic resources to the less affluent is greater than the utility that is lost by taking these economic resources from the more affluent. On this basis, for example, utilitarian thinkers like John Stuart Mill have often favoured graduated or progressive tax rates.
.
On the further assumption that individual well-being is closely correlated with individual income, utilitarian thinkers have often favoured progressive income taxes – that personal consumption over the course of a year was a better measure of individual well-being than personal income. Others have occasionally argued that personal wealth at any time is a better measure of individual well-being than income or consumption. (This debate over the ideal tax base continues to this day.)

Despite their initial inclination toward steeply progressive income, consumption or wealth taxes, however, utilitarian thinkers and public finance economists whose views are generally shaped by this philosophical perspective typically back away from this prescription for two reasons:

1. Since taxes (and to a lesser extent spending programs) can discourage economically productive activities, the goal of redistribution must be balanced against the goals of efficiency and economic growth.

2. Since the collection of taxes and the transfer of economic resources is not costless, the benefits of redistribution must also be weight against the direct costs that must be incurred in order to achieve this redistribution.

Although early works in public finance tended to downplay these costs (and therefore preferred steeply progressive rates), more recent scholarship has devoted greater attention to these costs, as a result of which the focus for redistribution has tended to shift from the tax side of the equation to the spending side. Indeed, Professor Mirrlees pioneering work on optimal income taxation (1971) was a crucial contribution to this development.

A further intellectual contribution to this development is the work of American philosopher John Rawls, whose Theory of Justice (1971) placed particular emphasis on the well-being of the least well off rather than relative shares among more affluent sectors of society. Although his philosophical approach is generally not utilitarian in that it gives priority to individual rights rather than social welfare, this emphasis on individual rights is limited to basic liberties like freedom of speech and conscience and political rights like the right to vote and participate in public life. With respect to the distribution of economic resources, Rawls’ approach reflects a kind of modified utilitarianism which seeks to maximize the well-being of the least well-off rather than the aggregate well-being of all members of society.

Consistent with these intellectual developments, tax policy prescriptions over the last 30 years have generally emphasized lower marginal rates of income taxation, increased reliance on consumption taxes like the value-added tax, and the pursuit of distributive objectives through spending programs (especially targeted at the least well off) rather than taxation.



At the same time as modern public finance theory and the Rawlsian approach to distributive justice were becoming firmly entrenched in intellectual circles and beginning to influence tax and public policy, a very different intellectual tradition emphasizing individual rights and private property manifested itself .

Buchanan’s work on public choice theory applied economic analysis to government actors (legislature, executive, including the bureaucracy) and formulated a much less benign conception of the state than that assumed in collectivist and utliltarian perspectives. Regarding these actors as self-interested “rent-seekers”, Buchanan described the modern state as a fiscal Leviathan that needed to be controlled by constitutional limits on the power to tax (and therefore spend) – on the basis that many if not most tax and spending programs do not further the general interests of society as a whole, but instead advance the interests of government actors who benefit from the expansion of the state and voting coalitions who are able to use the state to engage in naked transfers of resources from other groups.


Professor David G. Duff, Taxation and the Distributive Function, Lecture at Oxford, November 2006

Emotional Intelligence and Social Work

Emotional Intelligence, Emotion and Social Work: Context, Characteristics, Complications and Contribution

________________________________________
Emotional intelligence (EI) has become one of the new management ‘buzz’ terms. It is suggested that this is the missing ingredient that separates average from top management or performance. However, despite its potential relevance for social work practice, there has been little investigation and few reports about its application in social work settings. This paper seeks to stimulate debate about the role of EI in social work practice by considering its development, definitions and problematics. Whilst the empirical evidence supporting the existence of a separate and measurable EI is ambiguous and emergent, the role of emotion in the organization of human behaviour is more firmly established. The paper examines the role of EI and emotion in relation to five core social work tasks: engagement of users; assessment and observation; decision making; collaboration and co-operation; dealing with stress. The paper situates itself in the rapidly changing context of social work: the merger of social services departments with larger more powerful bureaucracies; the movement towards integrated service delivery; and the new social work degree. It is argued that social work needs to identify its claims to professional competence at a time of such change, one of which is the ability to use relationships to address users’ needs. This requires the capacity to handle both one’s own and others’ emotions effectively.

Keywords: emotional intelligence, emotion, social work practice, relationships, change

Source: Tony Morrison, www.oxfordjournal.com

Why people obey?

The sources of political power in any society are: authority, human resources, skills and knowledge, intangible factors, material resources, and sanctions. All these are provided by the cooperation and obedience of the population and institutions in the society. Therefore, by withdrawing the needed cooperation and obedience, the power of any regime can be weakened and potentially destroyed. The theory is represented that even oppressive regimes depend on the cooperation and obedience of the ruled population. It then turns to examine why people obey.

How the population is going to recover its power and achieve justice is highlighted, whether by nonviolent or violent means. The classes of methods of nonviolent action include, protest and persuasion, noncooperation (social, economic, and political), and intervention. The mechanisms of change in this technique reviewed as conversion, accommodation, nonviolent coercion, and disintegration.

Attention is then given to the contaminants that operate to wreck the operation of nonviolent struggle: violence, disunity, appearance of exclusiveness, presence of foreign nationals within the movement, active participation of military forces in political processes. Also discussed are problems posed by an ill-suited organizational structure, secrecy, and agents provocateurs.

Various developments in communications technology have in recent years been greatly facilitating the spread of ideas and information world-wide. This has supplied access to information about nonviolent struggle to populations whose rulers do not appreciate this development. New technologies have also facilitated communication among dissenting populations and the sharing of information with the outside world. Naturally, highly undemocratic regimes are unhappy with these developments and seek means to control or halt them. Their means, however, have proven to be inadequate. These types of technologies are constantly developing and innovating so that reliable analyses and recommendations for their use by groups facing conflicts must also continue to develop and expand.

It should not be assumed that if credible information about nonviolent struggle becomes readily available to the previously weaker side in a conflict, or if that group may even adopt this alternative, that the dominant group will welcome such moves. Quite to the contrary, there have been important evidences that oppressive regimes are sometimes alarmed. In 1995 and 1996 the Burmese military dictators (called the SLORC) many times in newspapers, radio, and other means of communication denounced ‘political defiance’.

Although political defiance is said to be nonviolent, it is the conspiracy that
will lead to violence and anarchy to disintegrate the Union. If the State
Law and Order Restoration Council was a weak and stupid government, it
would not be able to withstand the attacks of political defiance. The Union
would be disintegrated.

In facing the future, and preparing for it, there is another option in place of improvisation and spontaneity: deliberate steps to increase the effectiveness of nonviolent action. This option requires increased understanding of its major characteristics, capacity, requirements, and strategic principles. This makes possible wise strategic planning—that is identifying the characteristics of the present situation, what needs to be done, why, when, and how to do it, and how to counter the opponents' actions and repression.

Beneficial changes in the conditions of the conflict, and in the relative power of the contending groups, can be produced by actions of the nonviolent struggle group. These can be achieved principally through the skillful choice and application of wise strategy. Wise strategy can greatly increase the effectiveness of nonviolent struggle and its capacity to undermine oppression. Strategic nonviolent struggle can be targeted to apply the strengths of the resisting population against the weaknesses of the opponents in order to change power relationships. The oppressed population can be strengthened, the domination can be undermined, and highly repressive regimes can be weakened, and even disintegrated. As the population’s strength grows, it becomes possible for them to move from defeats, to initial small victories, to large successes.


Gene Sharp, The politics of non-violent action, www.sant.ox.ac.uk

Research Methods

Introduction to Bayesian inference and computation for social science data analysis


• Bayesian methods have been widely applied in many areas
– medicine / epidemiology / genetics
– ecology / environmental sciences
– finance
– archaeology
– political and social sciences, ………
• Motivations for adopting Bayesian approach vary
– natural and coherent way of thinking about science and learning
– pragmatic choice that is suitable for the problem in hand

• Medical context: FDA draft guidance www.fda.gov/cdrh/meetings/072706-bayesian.html:
“Bayesian statistics…provides a coherent method for learning from evidence as it accumulates”
• Evidence can accumulate in various ways:
– Sequentially
– Measurement of many ‘similar’ units (individuals, centres, sub-groups, areas, periods…..)
– Measurement of different aspects of a problem
• Evidence can take different forms:
– Data
– Expert judgement
• Bayesian approach also provides formal framework for propagating uncertainty
– Well suited to building complex models by linking together multiple sub-models
– Can obtain estimates and uncertainty intervals for any parameter, function of parameters or predictive quantity of interest
• Bayesian inference doesn’t rely on asymptotics or analytic approximations
– Arbitrarily wide range of models can be handled using same inferential framework
– Focus on specifying realistic models, not on choosing analytically tractable approximation


Bayesian Inference

• Distinguish between
x : known quantities (data)
q : unknown quantities (e.g. regression coefficients, future outcomes, missing observations)
• Fundamental idea: use probability distributions to represent uncertainty about unknowns
• Likelihood – model for the data: p( x | q )
• Prior distribution – representing current uncertainty about unknowns: p(q )
• Applying Bayes theorem gives posterior distribution

Conjugate Bayesian inference

• Example: election poll (from Franklin, 2004*)
• Imagine an election campaign where (for simplicity) we have just a Government/Opposition vote choice.
• We enter the campaign with a prior distribution for the proportion supporting Government. This is p(q )
• As the campaign begins, we get polling data. How should we change our estimate of Government’s support?
Data and likelihood
• Each poll consists of n voters, x of whom say they will vote for Government and n - x will vote for the opposition.
• If we assume we have no information to distinguish voters in their probability of supporting government then we have a binomial distribution for x


This binomial distribution is the likelihood p(x | q )

Prior
• We need to specify a prior that
– expresses our uncertainty about the election (before it begins)
– conforms to the nature of the q parameter, i.e. is continuous but bounded between 0 and 1
• A convenient choice is the Beta distribution
Posterior
• Combining a beta prior with the binomial likelihood gives a posterior distribution
• When prior and posterior come from same family, the prior is said to be conjugate to the likelihood
• Occurs when prior and likelihood have the same ‘kernel
• Suppose I believe that Government only has the support of half the population, and I think that estimate has a standard deviation of about 0.07
• This is approximately a Beta(50, 50) distribution
• We observe a poll with 200 respondents, 120 of whom (60%) say they will vote for Government
• This produces a posterior which is a
Beta(120+50, 80+50) = Beta(170, 130) distribution
A harder problem
• What is the probability that Government wins?
– It is not .57 or .60. Those are expected votes but not the probability of winning. How to answer this?
• Frequentists have a hard time with this one. They can obtain a p-value for testing H0: q > 0.5, but this isn’t the same as the probability that Government wins
– (its actually the probability of observing data more extreme than 120 out of 200 if H0 is true)
• Easy from Bayesian perspective – calculate Pr(q > 0.5 | x, n), the posterior probability that q > 0.5

Bayesian computation
• All Bayesian inference is based on the posterior distribution
• Summarising posterior distributions involves integration
• Except for conjugate models, integrals are usually analytically intractable
• Use Monte Carlo (simulation) integration (MCMC)

• Can also use samples to estimate posterior tail area probabilities, percentiles, variances etc.
• Difficult to generate independent samples when posterior is complex and high dimensional
• Instead, generate dependent samples from a Markov chain having p(q | x ) as its stationary distribution → Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)

Borrowing strength

• Bayesian learning → borrowing “strength” (precision) from other sources of information
• Informative prior is one such source
– “today’s posterior is tomorrows prior”
– relevance of prior information to current study must be justified

Informative Prior

Example 1: Western and Jackman (1994)*
• Example of regression analysis in comparative research
• What explains cross-national variation in union density?
– Union density is defined as the percentage of the work force who belongs to a labour union
• Two issues
– Philosophical: data represent all available observations from a population → conventional (frequentist) analysis based on long-run behaviour of repeatable data mechanism not appropriate
– Practical: small, collinear dataset yields imprecise estimates of regression effects

• Competing theories
– Wallerstein: union density depends on the size of the civilian labour force (LabF)
– Stephens: union density depends on industrial concentration (IndC)
– Note: These two predictors correlate at -0.92.
• Control variable: presence of a left-wing government (LeftG)
• Sample: n = 20 countries with a continuous history of democracy since World War II
• Fit linear regression model to compare theories union densityi ~ N(mi, s2)

• Results with non-informative priors on regression coefficients (numerically equivalent to OLS analysis)

Motivation for Bayesian approach with informative priors
• Because of small sample size and multicollinear variables, not able to adjudicate between theories
• Data tend to favour Wallerstein (union density depends on labour force size), but neither coefficient estimated very precisely
• Other historical data are available that could provide further relevant information
• Incorporation of prior information provides additional structure to the data, which helps to uniquely identify the two coefficients

Prior distributions for regression coefficients
Wallerstein
• Believes in negative labour force effect
• Comparison of Sweden and Norway in 1950:
→ doubling of labour force corresponds to 3.5-4% drop in union density
→ on log scale, labour force effect size ≈ -3.5/log(2) ≈ -5
• Confidence in direction of effect represented by prior SD giving 95% interval that excludes 0 b2 ~ N(-5, 2.52)

Prior distributions for regression coefficients
Stephens
• Believes in positive industrial concentration effect
• Decline in industrial concentration in UK in 1980s:
→ drop of 0.3 in industrial concentration corresponds to about 3% drop in union density
→ industrial concentration effect size ≈ 3/0.3 = 10
• Confidence in direction of effect represented by prior SD giving 95% interval that excludes 0 b3 ~ N(10, 52)

Prior distributions for regression coefficients
Wallerstein and Stephens
• Both believe left-wing gov’ts assist union growth
• Assuming 1 year of left-wing gov’t increases union density by about 1% translates to effect size of 0.3
• Confidence in direction of effect represented by prior SD giving 95% interval that excludes 0 b1 ~ N(0.3, 0.152)
• Vague prior b0 ~ N(0, 1002) assumed for intercept

• Effects of LabF and IndC estimated more precisely
• Both sets of prior beliefs support inference that labour-force size decreases union density
• Only Stephens’ prior supports conclusion that industrial concentration increases union density
• Choice of prior is subjective – if no consensus, can we be satisfied that data have been interpreted “fairly”?
• Sensitivity analysis
– Sensitivity to priors (e.g. repeat analysis using priors with increasing variance)
– Sensitivity to data (e.g. residuals, influence diagnostics)

Hierarchical Priors

• Hierarchical priors are another widely used approach for borrowing strength
• Useful when data available on many “similar” units (individuals, areas, studies, subgroups,…)
• Data xi and parameters qi for each unit i=1,…,N
• Three different assumptions:
– Independent parameters: units are unrelated, and each qi is estimated separately using data xi alone
– Identical parameters: observations treated as coming from same unit, with common parameter q
– Exchangeable parameters: units are “similar” (labels convey no information) → mathematically equivalent to assuming qi’s are drawn from common probability distribution with unknown parameters

Accounting for data quality

• Bayesian approach also provides formal framework for propagating uncertainty about different quantities in a model
• Natural tool for explicitly modelling different aspects of data quality
– Measurement error
– Missing data

Model uncertainty

• Model uncertainty can be large for observational data studies
• In regression models:
– What is the ‘best’ set of predictors for response of interest?
– Which confounders to control for?
– Which interactions to include?
– What functional form to use (linear, non-linear,….)?
• Example 5: Predictors of crime rates in US States (adapted from Raftery et al, 1997)
• Ehrlich (1973) – developed and tested theory that decision to commit crime is rational choice based on costs and benefits
• Costs of crime related to probability of imprisonment and average length of time served in prison
• Benefits of crime related to income inequalities and aggregate wealth of community
• Net benefits of other (legitimate) activities related to employment rate and education levels in community
• Ehrlich analysed data from 47 US states in 1960, focusing on relationship between crime rate and the 2 prison variables
• Up to 13 candidate control variables also considered
• y = log crime rate in 1960 in each of 47 US states
• Z1, Z2 = log prob. of prison, log av. time in prison
• X1,…, X13 = candidate control variables
• Fit Normal linear regression model
• Results sensitive to choice of control variables

Discussion

• Bayesian approach provides coherent framework for combining many sources of evidence in a statistical model
• Formal approach to “borrowing strength”
– Improved precision/effective sample size
– Fully accounts for uncertainty
• Relevance of different pieces of evidence is a judgement – must be justifiable
• Bayesian approach forces us to be explicit about model assumptions
• Sensitivity analysis to assumptions is crucial
• Bayesian calculations are computationally intensive, but:
– Provides exact inference; no asymptotics
– MCMC offers huge flexibility to model complex problems
• All examples discussed here were fitted using free WinBUGS software: www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk
• Want to learn more about using Bayesian methods for social science data analysis?
– Short course: Introduction to Bayesian inference and WinBUGS, Sept 19-20, Imperial College
See www.bias-project.org.uk for details

Source: http://remiss.politics.ox.ac.uk

Motivated Environmental Civil Resistance

Non-violent civil resistance can be considered a form of passionate politics, drawing on deep-seated emotions and beliefs about the nature of just community.

Six strategic conditions render non-violent civil resistance a feasible and potent choice for ethnically-defined nationalist movements: 1) appropriate goals; 2) a political opening; 3) an extreme imbalance in the means of coercion; 4) strong and broadly shared identities; 5) weak counter-movements; and 6) significant support from external allies.

These circumstances reflect many of the same factors that render non-violent civil resistance strategically attractive to challenging groups irrespective of whether resistance is framed in ethnonationalist terms or assumes some other form (such as democratization, decolonization, or racial inclusion).

Non-violence can be an end in itself and a value to which movements can commit. In the Baltic case, however, there is considerable evidence that the choice of non-violence was more strategically motivated than values-based.

With the defeat of the opposition movement by the mid-1950s, resistance to Soviet rule assumed less overt and more diffuse forms ranging from participation in underground groups to refusal to conform to official norms. But the vast majority of Balts accommodated to the Soviet system–in the words of one Estonian writer, believing it to be “unpleasant” but “inevitable and eternal,” compromising with the regime without identifying with it (Kaplinski et al., 2004: 158, 161).

Equally or even more important in motivating Baltic protest was the imperial dimension of Soviet rule–the overwhelming sense of foreign domination attached to it. The Baltic popular fronts viewed themselves as decolonization movements, not simply as democratization movements.

The first manifestations of Baltic nationalisms under glasnost’ assumed the form of environmental protest. Outrage over a series of industrial projects in the Baltic was fueled not only by their ecological impact, but also by the large numbers of Russians expected to flock to the region to build Environmental protest provided an opportunity for criticizing central government agencies for their indifference to local sentiments and for their “colonial” style of management (Dawson, 1996; Taagepera, 1993: 122).

Source: Civil Resistance and Power Politics Conference papers; www.sant.ox.ac.uk

Oxford:My piece of England

Civil Resistance

Yet, anyone following the furious developments on Tbilisi’s streets - the scale of protest, and the disintegration of ruling elites, would be hard put to deny there was a revolutionary situation. In that sense, the Rose Revolution was a classic example of structural disintegration from the center, a process Sir Lewis Namier described as the “corrosion of the moral and mental bases of government.”

Source: Civil resistance and power politics, http://cis.politics.ox.ac.uk



There is now a growing awareness that civil resistance can be a successful strategy. This awareness stems from the power of example, but it has also been promoted by the growing literature on civil resistance. Some of these movements were not committed to nonviolence, but where movements have espoused a nonviolent strategy, then journalistic or academic accounts have had to address this issue.
The writings specifically on nonviolent action are themselves varied. Some are by protagonists, justifying their cause and their methods of struggle. Many reflect the desire to publicise a neglected strategy, or to inspire emulation, by providing examples of impressive nonviolent campaigns.
Gandhi in India, from 1919 to 1948, put nonviolent methods on the political map. Choice of this approach reflected Gandhi's conviction that the end is determined by the means

The impact of meeting violent repression with nonviolent resistance explored the political potential of nonviolent resistance, considering the possibility of non-violence conquest.

Obligation and disobedience in a democracy entered the mainstream of political theory in the 1960s and 1970s - including that of John Rawls.

Eminent protesters elaborated on their moral and political reasons for breaking the law, and sometimes looked back to Socrates and Thoreau, while their opponents accused them of undermining the constitution and promoting civil disorder.

Sharp's aim was to show that civil resistance did not require a principled commitment to nonviolence or outstanding moral qualities. He argued for a strategy comparable to military strategy, with an emphasis on discipline and organisation, timing and choice of appropriate tactics. He also demonstrated that throughout history people had evolved an enormous variety of nonviolent tactics. He listed 198 methods, classified under categories of nonviolent protest and persuasion; social, economic and political non-cooperation; and psychological, physical, social, economic and political intervention.

Although there are a number of material, organisational and psychological elements in power, ultimately the power of rulers rests on the obedience of their subjects. Power is generated from below, and is therefore fragile. Since power depends on at least tacit consent, once this consent is actively withdrawn, a regime begins to crumble.

Whilst Sharp was developing a comprehensive theory of nonviolent action, Hannah Arendt discovered that the model of nonviolent resistance could illuminate her broader theoretical explorations of the threats to free politics, direct democracy, and the creative nature of political action.

Her most explicit discussion of nonviolent action, however was On Violence, in which she defined instrumental violence as the opposite of power, which is based on people acting in concert, and argued that the apparent power of a supreme leader depended on popular cooperation and consent

To undermine the system based on ideological lies individuals can refuse to 'live a lie' by individual noncooperation - for example by not voting in farcical elections.

The international context of civil resistance campaigns has always been important. International media and ' international public opinion' can potentially assist the struggle and offer some immunity to celebrated leaders. Regimes which seek to exclude the outside world make civil resistance even more difficult.

Source: Civil resistance and power politics, http://cis.politics.ox.ac.uk

Environmental Momentum

Environmental Taxing will influence people's choice by taking account of costs and benefits of an activity.

But it is likely that by tax rise polluters continue to pollute and pay higher prices or try to find ways and franchise if they remain ignorant of the consequences.

While tax rise will increase prices of basic goods and further deprive those in lower income. Damages incur by pollution and environmental degradation, are beyond functions relevant to tax rise.


Environmental momentum is when we have found the opportunity to revise our consumption habits, not only based on the cost but based on rational and humanitarian motive for collective benefit.



Mill, Chapter III Liberty:

That mankind are not infallible; that their truths, for the most part, are only half-truths; that unity of opinion, unless resulting from the fullest and freest comparison of opposite opinions, is not desirable, and diversity not an evil, but a good, until mankind are much more capable than at present of recognizing all sides of the truth, are principles applicable to men’s modes of action, not less than to their opinions. As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it that there should be different experiments of living; that free scope should be given to varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of different modes of life should be proved practically, when any one thinks fit to try them.




The Urban Environment
Two kinds of environmental issue
Environmental issues that impact urban areas fall into two broad, but overlapping, categories. The first category, cumulative issues, can arise anywhere, but are worse in towns and cities because of the concentration of people and activities there. For example, emissions from traffic are not a problem of urban areas alone, but the highest levels of pollution often occur there. By contrast, systemic issues arise from the unique characteristics of urban settlements. An example is the urban heat island effect that can raise the temperatures of towns and cities 1؛ to 6؛C above those in the surrounding countryside.

Good quality urban areas can be stimulating and offer opportunities not found elsewhere. But the urban environment places stresses and strains on human health and wellbeing that contribute to tens of thousands of deaths each year and a considerable burden of ill health. Major issues include air pollution, climate, obesity and mental health. Most of these problems are not unique to urban areas, but are important because of the high numbers of people living there and the aggravating impact of factors associated with urban areas, such as high levels of vehicle emissions, poor housing and a lack of good quality green space.

Environmental controls can help tackle some problems like air and water pollution. However, health concerns also need to be integrated into the design and management of urban areas so that, for example, urban layouts promote sustainable transport and provide green space to encourage social interaction

Policy and practice have tended to undervalue the natural environment of towns and cities and misunderstand its role. The natural urban environment incorporates not only parks and gardens but also air, soil and water, and a diversity of habitats, including neglected areas like brownfield sites and land along transport corridors. The natural environment in urban areas often experiences faster and more extreme rates of change than in rural areas. For instance, river flows may be faster and more prone to extreme variations.

The diverse habitats in urban areas create a variety of ecosystems providing important ecological services for biodiversity, climate, water and flood management. They are also important for individual health and wellbeing and for local communities, providing opportunities for exercise, leisure, education and employment, as well as creating a sense of place.

There is a drive to create new urban areas and at the same time a need for a radical rethink on the provision of associated transport, water and energy infrastructure to cope with new demands and to lessen environmental impacts. We also need to deliver the same level of infrastructure improvement in existing areas which, despite new development, will still make up the majority of the built stock in 2050. In the case of transport, the UK has experienced 50 years of rapid growth in road traffic, and the volume of traffic in urban areas is forecast to grow further by about 40% between 2001 and 2031. This predicted growth will squeeze out other more sustainable forms of transport in urban areas, as well as imposing considerable costs on the economy, seriously reducing the quality of life and causing high levels of pollution.

The environmental contract would be a high level agreement setting out the top priorities that all local authorities would tackle, such as climate change, but it would also encourage a large degree of local discretion in identifying and addressing other environmental issues. The contract would encourage innovation and the spread of good practice within local authorities by identifying

• minimum standards to be achieved by all local authorities in different policy areas;
• aspirational objectives based on the experience of the best performing
local authorities; and
• innovative action to find new ways of improving environmental performance, incentivised through a Local Government Environmental Innovation Fund.

Environmental standards also need to be raised systematically across a range of issues, for example, energy and water use, transport and waste generation. The reduction of environmental impacts should be encouraged through appropriate environmental taxes, subsidies and charges. Technologies that reduce environmental impacts will then become increasingly economically viable, especially where this is backed up by public purchasing.

We recommend that the UK government and utility regulators create packages of measures for water and energy that:

• provide customers with frequent billing information showing how much they are using in comparison with past use and average consumption levels. Bills should also provide information on the environmental impact of consumption and ways of reducing use;
• include appropriate smart metering; and
• encourage utility companies to set tariffs that reward conservation, do not provide discounts for high use and are structured to protect vulnerable groups.
We recommend introducing a similar incentives-based package for waste, including equitable charging related to waste generation.

We recommend that the UK government and devolved administrations:

• introduce a Water Efficiency Commitment on water suppliers, along the same lines as the Energy Efficiency Commitment;
• strengthen the Business Resource Efficiency and Waste programme; and
• establish a Water Saving Trust to provide advice on water efficiency to households.



Source:

- Royal commission on environment pollution: www.rcep.org.uk

- Palmer, J., Boardman, B., Bottrill, C., Darby, S., Hinnells, M., Killip, G., Layberry, R. and Lovell, H. (2006). Reducing the Environmental Impact of Housing: Final Report. Consultancy study in support of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution’s 26th report on the urban environment. Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford. Available at: http:// www.rcep.org.uk.

- Campaign to Protect Rural England, website: www.cpre.org.uk




Top 10 Energy Tips
1. S1. Set your thermostat at between 19 and 21° C. Every 1° C above this adds 10% on to your fuel bills.
2. Remember to turn lights off when leaving a room. It's a myth that florescent tubes use more energy to switch them on than they use when they are on. Switch them off when not required.
3. When the TV is not in use, turn it off rather than use standby. To find out how much your TV and other appliances use when they are left on standby use our calculator.
4. Don’t overfill the kettle for just one drink, but remember that with electric kettles the element always needs to be covered. Jug kettles need less water as they have smaller elements.
5. Replacing ordinary light bulbs with energy saving ones will use around a quarter of the electricity. To find out how much you could save use our light bulb calculator
6. A hot water tank jacket costs only a few pounds and can pay for itself in energy savings within a few months.
7. Don’t leave the fridge door open for longer than necessary, and try to avoid putting warm food straight into the fridge - wait until it has cooled down.
8. Wait until you have a full load before using the washing machine, or use the half-load or economy programme if your machine has one.


Source: http://www.tvec.org.uk/Energy_tips.asp
http://www.carbon-savers.co.uk



Evident cultural divide:

A shared heritage corrupted by increased burden for the poor
A yawning differential that corrupts respect for law
Behold a house divided distressed by burden long
By burden unremitting in the service of the strong.

Do you favour for the future where the carrot leads the law
One beholden to the dollar with scarce reverence for the poor
One where those who pose as victor can present at every chance
To pursue their self advantage. once again to self enhance?

Where silence is coerced the price paid by the free
To give succor to those privileged to preserve their destiny
To promote the healthy margin, those corrupted terms of trade
That are fuel to power of market, raw consumption, early grave.

One reads resource as bounty, those riches for the fair
As prized in heat of conflict, from unworthy heir
A bounty for the righteous who can by scheme and plan
Redistribute to the needy and the others of their clan

Yet for others wealth is nurture, an investment made with care
A building for the future, provisioning that’s fair
Through thought more for the morrow, than mere avarice today
A sacrifice of self, less a debt to be repaid

But for the future with wealth, resource more rare
And with ever increased number, how then will seek the fair?
Can still they hope through conflict to prosper, cause supreme?
Or make common cause with others to craft a new Shared Dream?

The Dream to husband Eden to restore to Life, her cloak
To rebuild the forests verdant and oceans sapphire, that bespoke
This world that Man in childhood has so torn with disregard
With new equity of purpose for a melding of the shards

Comments, Guardian