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This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

The purpose of this paper is to engage readers with Unity Productions Foundation (UPF) films, which provide a powerful, inspirational digital tool for teachers. The organization's mission is to create documentaries, films and educational materials that contribute to bringing to light compelling stories of Muslim engagement through history and culture. UPF films and educational projects aim to promote peace and understanding to increase cultural pluralism and counter bigotry in our world.

Teachers will be able to utilize the resources provided in this paper to harness the power of media in their classrooms. Outlining the process by which teachers can follow the C3 inquiry using the film Prince Among Slaves will prepare teachers to see the alignment of the C3 Framework with their teaching. The “best practice” classroom strategies in structuring deliberations are ones that encourage students to fully participate and emphasize their voice.

This paper will unpack the practice methods that address the film Prince Among Slaves to be of benefit when sharing narratives through digital film and engage students in critical thinking through the C3 Framework. UPF films are the product of scholarly research and innovative production teams as the films provide the opportunity to visualize and explore multiple perspectives to understand historical content by providing a context for inquiry teaching and learning that is inclusive through deliberative discussions in the classroom.

The author certifies that this manuscript submission is original work and that all authors were involved in the intellectual elaboration of the manuscript and all parties have been acknowledged.

In recent years, the public sector has faced the challenge of digitalisation. This has significantly impacted the relationships between citizens and public organisations and, thus, it widely affects participatory processes, such as participatory budgeting (PB); in fact, digital tools (DTs) have emerged as a solution, increasing citizen engagement whilst improving efficiency, reducing costs and saving time. This contribution analyses PB in Rome, which is also implemented with DTs, seeking to understand how DTs impact citizens’ role in creating public value.

The study is based on a qualitative approach, precisely by analysing a descriptive and exploratory single case study of PB’s first adoption in Rome in 2019. The information is obtained from multiple sources and examined through document analysis.

In the Roman context, DTs in PB primarily facilitated cost-effective information sharing, offering citizens basic participation. Unfortunately, the potential for more interactive DTs was overlooked, failing to enhance citizen engagement in critical phases like deliberation, evaluation or monitoring. Therefore, the tools did not fully support citizens becoming co-creators of public value instead of just users in governance.

The novelty of this study lies in exploring the difference between the use of DTs that assist citizens/users in improving service quality and those that support citizens in creating a public and shared value. It ventures further to assess various tiers of participation, meditating on the digital elements that stimulate active engagement and value creation instead of simply expanding the participant pool or process efficiency.

This study evaluates how publicly available archival documents shaped online discussions about allegations that thousands of children were kidnapped during the 1950s in Israel, known as the Yemenite children’s affair. It examines if access to historical records leads to more informed and rational public discourse, especially on social media.

Using content analysis, this study examines Facebook posts from media outlets, politicians, NGOs and public groups between 2016 and 2021 to understand how the Israeli State Archives’ release of over 300,000 documents affected support of the kidnapping.

Despite extensive archival information debunking the kidnapping theory, public opinion and discourse largely continued to support it. This suggests a complex interaction between information availability, preexisting beliefs, echo chambers and group allegiances, suggesting that access to factual data alone may not effectively challenge established beliefs in online public settings.

Since data were collected only from Facebook, our conclusions cannot be generalized to other platforms. The study relies only on publicly accessible data and does not establish causality between exposure to information and shifts in opinion. Our findings show that disclosing archival information does not significantly benefit public political discourse on contentious topics but also point to the advantages of mediating information by politicians, NGOs and journalists.

As a unique case study, this research contributes to understanding the role of historical archives in digital-age public discourse. It highlights their potential and limitations in facilitating informed debate and deliberation, emphasizing the complexity of influencing established beliefs with factual data.

Political Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), based on ideas about deliberative democracy, have been criticised for increasing corporate power and democratic deficits. Yet, deliberative ideals are flourishing in the corporate world in the form of dialogues with a broad set of stakeholders and engagement in wider societal issues. Extractive industry areas, with extensive corporate interventions in weak regulatory environments, are particularly vulnerable to asymmetrical power relations when businesses engage with society. This paper aims to illustrate in what way deliberative CSR practices in such contexts risk enhancing corporate power at the expense of community interests.

This paper is based on a retrospective qualitative study of a Canadian oil company, operating in an Albanian oilfield between 2009 and 2016. Through a study of three different deliberative CSR practices – market-based land acquisition, a grievance redress mechanism and dialogue groups – it highlights how these practices in various ways enforced corporate interests and prevented further community mobilisation.

By applying Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of hegemony, the analysis highlights how deliberative CSR activities isolated and silenced community demands, moved some community members into the corporate alliance and prevented alternative visions of the area to be articulated. In particular, the close connection between deliberative practices and monetary compensation flows is underlined in this dynamic.

The paper contributes to critical scholarship on political CSR by highlighting in what way deliberative practices, linked to monetary compensation schemes, enforce corporate hegemony by moving community members over to the corporate alliance.

Drawing on the personalization–privacy paradox and guided by means–end analysis, this study explores how consumers balance their concerns for privacy and the benefits of smart home device personalization and the role that trust plays in the process. More specifically, this study aims to investigate how perceptions of smart device personalization and privacy concerns are shaped by consumers’ experiences and the role of trust in the deliberation process.

In-depth interviews were conducted across diverse demographic groups of smart device users to shed light on the balancing act between personalization and privacy.

The study found that product experience, ownership type, perceived value of convenience and control and quality of life via “smart things” are key motivators for product usage. The benefits of tailored recommendations and high relevance are balanced against the risks of echo chamber effects and loss of control. The results also show the role of active involvement in the privacy calculus and trust level. The study points to the significance of an ecosystem-based service/business model in gaining consumer confidence when they balance between personalization and privacy.

Although many studies have explored trust, privacy concerns and personalization in an artificial intelligence (AI)-related context, few have addressed trust in the context of both smart devices and the personalization–privacy paradox. As such, this study adds to the existing literature by incorporating the concept of trust and addressing both privacy concerns and personalization in the AI context.

The paper addresses the issue of change in Wikidata ontology by exposing the role of the socio-epistemic processes that take place inside the infrastructure. The subject of the study was the process of extending the Wikidata ontology with a new property as an example of the interplay between the social and technical components of the Wikidata infrastructure.

In this study, an interpretative approach to the evolution of the Wikidata ontology was used. The interpretation framework was a process-centric approach to changes in the Wikidata ontology. The extension of the Wikidata ontology with a new property was considered a socio-epistemic process where multiple agents interact for epistemic purposes. The decomposition of this process into three stages (initiation, knowledge work and closure) allowed us to reveal the role of the institutional structure of Wikidata in the evolution of its ontology.

This study has shown that the modification of the Wikidata ontology is an institutionalized process where community-accepted regulations and practices must be applied. These regulations come from the institutional structure of the Wikidata community, which sets the normative patterns for both the process and social roles and responsibilities of the involved agents.

The results of this study enhance our understanding of the evolution of the collaboratively developed Wikidata ontology by exposing the role of socio-epistemic processes, division of labor and normative patterns.

Beneficiary photos on charity appeals are believed to engender prosocial behavior. This study explores photo framing of healthy and unhealthy beneficiary photos in the context of photo-rich online medical crowdfunding. Based on framing theory, emphasis framing effect (i.e. unhealthy photos only vs both healthy and unhealthy photos) and equivalency framing effect (i.e. healthy photos prior to unhealthy photos vs unhealthy photos prior to healthy photos) are identified.

A scenario-based experiment with 135 participants was used to empirically test the proposed research hypotheses. The subjects were randomly assigned to three treatment groups, with 45 subjects in each group. ANOVA, linear regression, and multiple mediation analysis were used to analysis data.

The results reveal that disclosing both healthy and unhealthy photos can elicit stronger sympathy and perceived need than merely disclosing unhealthy photos. Moreover, the order of unhealthy photos prior to healthy photos leads to a higher level of sympathy than the order of healthy photos prior to unhealthy photos. Furthermore, sympathy and perceived need are positively related to donation intention.

First, this study extends the photo-related research limited to certain characteristics of a single photo to the sequence effect of multiple photos. Second, this study contributes to framing theory by introducing photo framing, particularly the equivalence and emphasis framing effect of beneficiary photos. Finally, this study reveals the emotional and cognitive routes through which beneficiary photos stimulate prosocial behavior. It also offers practical guidance in the aspects of the framing effect of beneficiary photos for crowdfunding management.

This study operationalizes risks in stakeholder dialog (SD). It conceptualizes SD as co-produced organizational discourse and examines the capacities of organizers' and stakeholders' practices to create a shared understanding of an organization’s risks to their mutual benefit. The meetings and online forum of a German public service media (PSM) organization were used as a case study.

The authors applied corpus-driven linguistic discourse analysis (topic modeling) to analyze citizens' (n = 2,452) forum posts (n = 14,744). Conversation analysis was used to examine video-recorded online meetings.

Organizers suspended actors' reciprocity in meetings. In the forums, topics emerged autonomously. Citizens' articulation of their identities was more diverse than the categories the organizer provided, and organizers did not respond to the autonomous emergence of contextualizations of citizens' perceptions of PSM performance in relation to their identities. The results suggest that risks arise from interactionally achieved occasions that prevent reasoned agreement and from actors' practices, which constituted autonomous discursive formations of topics and identities in the forums.

This study disentangles actors' practices, mutuality orientation and risk enactment during SD. It advances the methodological knowledge of strategic communication research on SD, utilizing social constructivist research methods to examine the contingencies of organization-stakeholder interaction in SD.

The purpose of this study is to understand how critical care pharmacists (CCPs) coped during the COVID-19 crisis by investigating what sense-making and leadership processes were evident during the crisis.

Data from ten semi-structured interviews of lead CCPs across different National Health Service organisations in the UK was analysed through a thematic process.

The findings identified that strong pre-existing relationships and high levels of trust play a significant role in successfully navigating a crisis. Four sense-making processes seem important to building and maintaining these relationships and trust, namely, identifying cues for change; authoring and labelling; interpretation and storytelling; negotiation and deliberation.

The research also highlights the need for organisations to acknowledge the leadership roles undertaken by CCP teams and leverage this role by investing in leadership training, thereby increasing resilience and preparedness for future storms or crises on the horizon.