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Recent years have seen an explosion in research by scholars from the social sciences and humanities who apply neuroscience to research in their home disciplines. One way these ‘neuroscholars’ have engaged in conversations with neuroscience is by incorporating books of popular neuroscience into their work. This chapter explores some of the textual changes that result from the translation of neuroscience to popular neuroscience, and through rhetorical analysis, examines how popular neuroscience is used to support claims in emerging disciplines like neuroeconomics, neuroliterary criticism, neurolaw, and neuroeducation. An examination of scholarship from several disciplines – including sociology – reveals that popular neuroscience is often marshaled not as a translation or accommodation of science, but as science itself via two primary rhetorical strategies we have termed ‘fact finding’ and ‘theory building.’

In this article, we focus on alternative dispute resolution procedures, in particular third party procedures. We describe eight different procedures and provide examples of how these procedures are used in different cultural contexts. We then evaluate the procedures in terms of how they impact four key criteria that have been noted in the literature related to negotiation: process criteria, settlement criteria, issue-related criteria, and relationship criteria. We subsequently explore the potential impact of culture on evaluations of these criteria. We finish with a discussion of future directions for research and practice, emphasizing that procedural recommendations should be made carefully when the criteria for effectiveness and applicability are derived from US-centric research. In other words, there is not “one best choice” for third party procedures universal to the myriad cultures on our planet.

This paper develops and tests a new integrative theoretical framework for the study of workplace conflict that links the literatures of such disciplines as organization behavior, industrial relations, management, psychology, sociology, and social movement. It provides testable hypotheses where conflict is structurally blocked by laws, organizational rules, or social norms. It is hypothesized that a blockage of one expression will cause conflict to take on more covert forms of that same expression and to shift to other permitted forms.

In a test of the theory in municipal collective bargaining, the paper found that conflict that was structurally blocked in the form of strikes was redirected to both covert collective actions (sick-outs, slowdowns, etc.), other permitted collective actions (e.g., unfair labor practices) and such individual expressions as grievances.

There would appear to be a promising agenda for future research into the other cases described in the framework. For example, from the nonunion employer where collective actions are prohibited but individual grievances allowed it is hypothesized that such covert conflict as absenteeism, theft, or sabotage will be reduced. On the other hand, these same nonunion firms are predicted to have higher levels of individual conflict than unionized firms where both strikes and grievances are permitted.

Future research that evaluates workplace conflict resolution ought to take into account the complex relationships between conflict expressions suggested in the new framework. The temptation of researchers to study one expression at a time should be resisted.

Certain features of collective bargaining have, over time, promoted uniformity and sometimes inflexibility in teacher policy and negotiated contracts. From the start, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) – passed in 1935 to regulate unionization and collective bargaining in the private, industrial sector – served as the template for state labor laws regulating education. The framers of the NLRA never had the needs of the public sector or schools in mind. Yet the 35 states that now require collective bargaining for teachers have drawn on the NLRA’s procedures and standards. For example, they have used the NLRA for defining how teachers organize and are represented; what constitutes an unfair labor practice; and how obligatory membership or dues provide union security (e.g. agency shop, union shop). They have also drawn on the NLRA to define what range of issues can be bargained; whether strikes are legal; and what processes are used to resolve an impasse (e.g. mediation, fact finding, binding arbitration, or all three).¹ Although the laws of the 35 states show some important variations, their similarity is more striking than their differences. Jessup (1985) concluded that the narrow scope of bargaining established by New York’s Taylor Law “severely restricted the range of concerns teachers could productively bring to the bargaining table” (p. 195).

This chapter addresses the possible consequences of the United States Supreme Court's increasing attention to international and foreign human rights law in its death penalty jurisprudence, particularly with respect to the Eighth Amendment. I question the belief of those commentators who argue that such attention might assist with efforts to abolish the death penalty in the United States, and argue instead that the perceived threat to state sovereignty that the invocation of international and foreign human rights law poses might result in attempts to retain the death penalty as a means of reasserting state autonomy.

This chapter analyses the private financial sector's policy responses, lending practices and various forms of engagement with non-governmental organisations (NGOs), communities and institutional clients involved in controversial commodity industries. The chapter demonstrates that secrecy plays a constitutive role in this engagement. For investment banks, client-confidentiality is the ultimate limit to transparency. At the same time, NGOs campaign to make public and reveal links between investment banks and clients in commodity industries. The chapter also explores techniques within the financial sector for the assessment of social and environmental risk. The chapter argues that these techniques combine both practices of uncertainty and practices of risk. For civil society organisations, NGOs and local communities, these techniques remain problematic, and various campaigns question both the robustness of the financial sector's social risk screening methods as well as the sustainability of the investments themselves.

This article considers the independent liberty interests of children in foster care and their mothers in parental termination proceedings. Recent federal reforms impose a mandatory deadline for the state to terminate parental rights. That policy erroneously presumes that the passage of time alone establishes parental fault and satisfies a parent’s due process rights. It also fails to protect the minority of children who assert an interest in preserving a safe relationship with mothers who are unlikely to meet the state’s schedule – including many substance abusers and victims of domestic violence.

This chapter provides a framework for organisational analysis of the newly created position of ‘independent’ Commissioner, especially whether it is sufficiently backed by administrative capacities.

In the many variables that determine organisational behaviour (Mintzberg, 1989), this approach follows Olsen (2005) in its analysis through communication structures and strategic directions, and adds procedures (networks) and personnel to this. The chapter is primarily based on interview data in addition to literature and document analysis.

This chapter acknowledges the ‘stickiness’ of institutions and the difficulties in reorganising (formal) institutions. The conclusion shows that there are multiple problems in the current process of institutionalisation of the independent Commissioner. Generalising the findings to the use of an administrative approach, the frugal framework used here indicates that ‘independence’ cannot simply be proclaimed but also demands attentions for organisation design. Organisational analysis helps to understand the organisation and the organisational weaknesses behind the policy objective.

As is often the case with MLG it gives a perspective on governance, but must be complemented with an approach for analysis, in this case organisational design. In the chapter the approach is limited to organisational values, personnel and communication lines. It provides a basic framework to evaluate one of the key elements of European integration – independence. However, additional work is needed to further develop this framework as well as other components of the organisational behaviour of the Commission.

This chapter comes up with suggestions for organisational redesign of the Commission in order to restore trust in its tasks and responsibilities. With the instalment of the new Juncker Commission these findings might provide useful insights for the ongoing process of reorganisation of the Commission.

The new economic legislation and the role of the independent Commissioner have a direct impact on member state budgets (cuts), with a far reaching societal impact. Therefore, the level of (public) trust is critical in the acceptance of the process. Trust is established inter alia by the organisational implementation of principles of good administrative behaviour such as transparency, capability, independence, etc.

The chapter uses the MLG perspective in order to get a comprehensive picture of the organisational implications to effectively embed the ‘independent’ Commissioner in the organisation. The added value is based on the extensive amount of interviews over a longer period of time (2011–2014) during the operationalisation of the European semester.