This paper explores the phenomena of environmental coordination within Northeast Asia. I initially frame the discussion around claims that... Show moreThis paper explores the phenomena of environmental coordination within Northeast Asia. I initially frame the discussion around claims that China is a pollution haven for its neighboring countries, and I look for evidence in the domestic and regional environmental institutions which challenge China’s pollution haven status. I find that that there is a science and technology-based epistemic community in Northeast Asia which provides an important theoretical response to counter the pollution haven hypothesis. As well, given its strong science and technological output, Japan is poised to assume leadership of the Northeast Asian environmental regime for at least the short- to medium-term. Show less
This article introduces a theory of emotion-driven behavior in construction contracting and provides support for this theory by presenting the... Show moreThis article introduces a theory of emotion-driven behavior in construction contracting and provides support for this theory by presenting the quantitative results of a study on the emotional reaction of individuals to the language in contract clauses. Four different versions of the standard Delay Clause found in most construction contracts were extracted from four different contracts and were presented to a group of 27 individuals. Participants rank ordered the clause versions from 1 (most negative) to 4 (most positive). Overall, Clause Version 2 was ranked as having the most negative contract language, with nearly 75% of the participants ranking it as most negative. In contrast, Clause Version 4 was ranked as having the most positive contract language, with over 50% of the participants ranking it as most positive. Participants likewise selected negative emotion words to describe their reaction to Clause Version 2 and positive emotion words to describe their reaction to Clause Version 4. The findings suggest that contract clauses that contain negative language do tend to generate negative emotional reactions while positive contract language do tend to generate positive emotional reactions. Show less
Twitter is increasingly becoming a medium through which constituents can lobby their elected representatives in Congress about issues that... Show moreTwitter is increasingly becoming a medium through which constituents can lobby their elected representatives in Congress about issues that matter to them. Past research has focused on how citizens communicate with each other or how members of Congress (MOCs) use social media in general; our research examines how citizens communicate with MOCs. We contribute to existing literature through the careful examination of hundreds of citizen-authored tweets and the development of a categorization scheme to describe common strategies of lobbying on Twitter. Our findings show that contrary to past research that assumed citizens used Twitter to merely shout out their opinions on issues, citizens utilize a variety of sophisticated techniques to impact political outcomes. Show less
Does rhetoric highlighting social norms or mentioning science in a communication affect individuals’ beliefs about global warming and / or... Show moreDoes rhetoric highlighting social norms or mentioning science in a communication affect individuals’ beliefs about global warming and / or willingness to take action? We draw from framing theory and collective-interest models of action to motivate hypotheses that are tested in two large web-based survey-experiments using convenience samples. Our results show that attitudes about global warming, support for policies that would reduce carbon emissions, and behavioral intentions to take voluntary action are strongly affected by norm-based and science-based interventions. This has implications for information campaigns targeting voluntary efforts to promote lifestyle changes that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Show less
