Oren Perez

Psychological factors behind the lack of participation in online discussions

The majority of participants in online communities are lurkers, who browse discussions without actively contributing to them. Their lack of active participation threatens the sustainability of online communities. This review provides an understanding as to why the majority of participants in online communities remain silent. It specifies a variety of factors that come into play when people determine their level of participation: individual differences: need for gratification, personality dispositions, time available and self-efficacy; social-group processes: such as socialization, type of community, tendency toward social loafing, responses to delurking and the quality of responses; technological setting factors: technical design flaws, privacy and safety of the online group. All are factors that are liable to influence involvement in online communities. This article provides an understanding as to why the majority of participants in online communities remain silent.This article specifies a variety of factors that come into play when determining various levels of participation.The paper suggests ways in which to encourage people to participate in online discussions.

Regulation as the Art of Intuitive Judgment: A Critique of the Economic Approach to Environmental Regulation

The article develops a general critique of the economic approach to environmental regulation, drawing on the insights of systems theory. It highlights, first, the problematic of subjugating the regulatory system to a single purpose - which in the context of environmental economics is interpreted as the utilitarian maximization of collective welfare. Second, it questions the teleological pretense of the regulatory project as it is configured in the economic literature. It highlights in this context the problem of trans-systemic incompatibilities, which impede the incorporation of economic ideas into the systems of law and politics. Environmental economics in both its normative and socio-political strands, fails to provide a convincing response to this dilemma. The article discusses two examples of the reconstruction of economic ideas within the legal and political domains, drawing on the EU and US regulatory experience. This twofold critique of the economic approach can be extended, it is argued, to every regulatory project with far-reaching teleological ambitions. The article applies this critique to some alternative regulatory visions, such as self-regulation, reflexive law and responsive regulation, noting in this context the limitations of systems theory itself. It concludes with a discussion of the role of intuition in regulatory decision-making.

An examination of the factors contributing to participation in online social platforms

The purpose of this paper is to examine participation in online social platforms consisting of information exchange, social network interactions, and political deliberation. Despite the proven benefits of online participation, the majority of internet users read social media data but do not directly contribute, a phenomenon called lurking.,A survey was administered electronically to 507 participants and consisted of ten sections in a questionnaire to gather data on the relationship between online participation and the following variables: anonymity, social value orientation, motivations, and participation in offline activities, as well as the internet’s political influence and personality traits.,Findings show that users with high levels of participation also identify themselves, report higher levels of extroversion, openness, and activity outside the internet, the motivations being an intermediary variable in the relationship between the variables value.,The study shows that participation in online social platforms is not only related to personality traits, but they are impacted by the nature of the motivations that drive them to participate in the particular social platform, as well as by the interest toward the specific topic, or the type or nature of the social group with whom they are communicating.

Precautionary Governance and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge: A Democratic Framework for Regulating Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology presents regulators with a difficult challenge. Nano materials and nanoprocesses involve deep uncertainties regarding their potential benefits and health and environmental risks, reflecting the embryonic state of the underlying science. These uncertainties have led various observers to argue that the regulation of nanotechnology should be based on the precautionary principle (PP). Another important theme which underlies the public debate regarding nanotechnology concerns the need for greater public participation in the regulatory process. This Article explores the intrinsic link between the calls to apply the PP to the domain of nanoregulation and the calls to subject the regulation of nanotechnology to deeper public scrutiny. It offers a new vision of the PP, which interprets it as a political framework for regulating risks. This vision responds, it is argued, to the foregoing dual demands. Further, the political interpretation of the PP also resolves the contested question of the meaning of the PP. The intrinsic vagueness of the PP has undermined its capacity to serve as a prescriptive principle, generating normative perplexities and inconsistencies. After presenting this general argument the Article discusses five key challenges that underlie the political interpretation of the PP, placing them in the context of the nanotechnology regulatory puzzle.

Science, Politics and Transnational Regulation: Regulatory Scientific Institutions and the Dilemmas of Hybrid Authority

The main objective of this article is to develop a better understanding of the structure of transnational regulatory scientific institutions (RSIs). We argue that the hybrid political-legal-epistemic nature of RSIs creates a continual tension between their hierarchical and policy-driven structure and the paradigms of objectivity, parallelism and non-centralism that characterize science. The article examines the way in which RSIs cope with the challenge of maintaining their epistemic/political authority against the tensions generated by their hybrid structure. The article focuses on three institutions: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), and the International Competition Network (ICN) and examines how this challenge manifests itself in the context of these three bodies. The article links the discussion of hybrid authority with the problem of scientific uncertainty. It concludes with a discussion of the optimal design of RSIs.

Motivating Environmental Action in a Pluralistic Regulatory Environment

In designing a recycling policy, the regulator must choose between multiple instruments. Our study seeks to address the linkage between the choice of regulatory instruments and institutional frameworks, people’s intrinsic motivation, and various attitudinal measures. We examined the behavioral repercussions of several instruments that are used widely in recycling regulation, using an experimental survey on a representative sample of the Israeli population (n=1,800 participants). Our findings suggest that the design of recycling policies should be sensitive to the framing effects of varied regulatory instruments and to the interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on the desirability and efficacy of the law. In particular, we pointed out the potential regulatory advantage of using deposit schemes over other instruments and of using private organizations as regulatory agents. Drawing on these findings, we discuss the potential value of using differentiated regulatory policies to provide incentives for recycling in societies characterized by broad heterogeneity in levels of intrinsic motivation.

The prospects of E-democracy: an experimental study of collaborative E-rulemaking

ABSTRACT The recent literature on e-democracy reflects a certain disillusionment with the capacity of e-ruling initiatives to generate processes that serve concurrently the goals of democratization and of “good governance”. The main challenge has been to create e-ruling platforms that facilitate a deliberative process that is sufficiently inclusive and also makes a significant contribution to the policy debate. The present article contributes to this debate through the analysis of a wiki-styled system that combined a forum and a collaborative writing tool. This system enhances the opportunities of citizens to influence the policy debate beyond conventional “notice-and-comment” platforms. The experiment sought to test the capacity of this platform to facilitate an epistemically complex dialogue in a setting that closely resembles real regulatory consultation. We also examined the dynamics of the deliberative process, focusing on the influence of differences in social value orientation on participation levels (distinguishing between active participants and lurkers). The analysis is based on a field experiment held at Bar-Ilan University in December 2014. The topic of the experiment was a debate over the Bar-Ilan University Code Concerning Political Activity on Campus. The Code establishes procedures and rules for conducting public and political activities on campus.

The Green Economy Paradox: A Critical Inquiry into Sustainability Indexes (הפרדוקס של 'כלכלה ירוקה': ניתוח ביקורתי של מדדים של אחריות חברתית-סביבתית)

The idea of “green economy,” which was placed on the global agenda by the Rio 20 conference, claims to serve as a bridge between the demands of global capitalism and the vision of sustainability. In the corporate social responsibility literature, writers such as Michael Porter and Mark Kramer have made a similar claim, arguing that there is a positive correlation between corporate social performance and corporate financial performance. I argue that the claim underlying the green economy thesis, whereby the goals of (classical) economic growth and sustainable development can be achieved concurrently, is highly problematic. First, the claim disregards the extent to which the web of ideas and institutional structures that underpin the global capitalist system constrains the capacity of agents to commit themselves to sustainable policies. Second, it understates the difficult tradeoffs involved in implementing green growth policies. This critique ties in with the debate over the capacity of corporate social responsibility instruments to promote sustainable development. I examine this general critique in the context the two leading global sustainability indexes: the FTSE4Good Index Series and the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI). Sustainability indexes epitomize the green economy thesis because they claim to positively affect the sustainability profile of firms despite the fact that (or precisely because) they are situated at the heart of modern capitalism: the stock exchange. I demonstrate how the paradox at the heart of the green economy thesis manifests in sustainable indexes. In particular, I highlight the tension between the indexes’ dual role as financial products (tracking the firms’ share values) and as CSR instruments. I also show that both indexes suffer from a deep democratic deficit, which is inconsistent with their public function. I conclude with policy recommendations that could bring the indexes closer to a more meaningful understanding of the concept of green economy.

The Administrative State Goes Global

The emergence of global norms of administrative law reshapes the administrative state. The integration with the global arena requires the state to forgo some of its regulatory powers. The article maps the various mechanisms through which transnational regulatory processes intervene in the local realm, reshaping the contours of domestic administrative law (part I). To analyze these processes we develop an analytical schema that captures the distinct impacts of global administrative law on the domestic level. This schema distinguishes between three forms of influence: the substitution of domestic administrative discretion by global standards, the emergence of universal standards of administrative due process, and the globally inspired transference of enforcement responsibilities. We focus in particular on the emergence of universal standards of the administrative process. Here, we address the fact that beyond the particular norms generated by global bodies, transnational norm-production processes also establish basic standards of procedural and institutional integrity, which together form an emerging body of universal administrative law. By standards of procedural and institutional integrity we refer to those rules that regulate the procedure and structure through which decisions are being made. These include both due-process rules, which focus on the fairness of the administrative process, and perfecting rules, which seek to improve the decision outcome in terms of some overarching principle. We adopt a pluralistic approach by highlighting the diverse sources and paths through which global law influences the domestic realm. In part II of the article we proceed to examine the normative challenges posed by these processes of transnational rule making. We criticize the hidden ideological agenda of this transnational legal body, highlighting especially its propensity to neo-liberal, capitalist ideas. This bias undermines any attempt to ground the legitimacy of global administrative law on some universal rationality. Next we discuss the problematic posed by the fragmented accountability regimes that characterize today’s global legal system. This fragmentation calls into question the legitimacy of global administrative law by exposing the lack of efficient control mechanisms on both the domestic level and the global level. Finally, we examine the democratic challenge posed by the expanding influence of universal administrative law norms. These reflections question the legitimacy of the new body of globalized administrative law and point to the need to adapt our democratic practices to this new reality. In this context our analysis departs from the global constitutionalism literature by focusing on the potential of administrative law for democratic innovativeness.