Centering Theory
Oxford Brookes University (Gipsy Lane Campus)
A New Theoretical Approach to Social Well-being: Romanian Case Study View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Doina Gavrilov
The society we live in for centuries focused on social welfare with the intention of guaranteeing social well-being. To ensure this, we concentrate on the concept of economic growth and job creation. Similarly, in 2020 the European Union came up with the Horizon Europe program that aims to improve European welfare through economic growth and job creation. However, we ask ourselves if these aspects are able to ensure social well-being. To answer this question we consider a Romanian case study. In the first instance, we disseminated 100 questionnaires among Romanian working citizens, which helped us observe how much free time people have, their ability to develop social and personal relationships, and the influence of the job and its quality on people's level of happiness. As a result, we understand that social well-being no longer depends only on the possession of a job and economic growth, but also on the quality of life that a job and financial growth ensure. Taking these into account, we propose a new approach to the concept of social well-being, starting from the psychological and social needs of man. We also analyze the social policies formulated according to the old social welfare ideology and their impact on social well-being. This paper ends with solutions for the improvement of social well-being in order to allow social development.
The Idea of Private Law: A Communitarian Version of Kantian Right View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Guanghua Yu
This paper begins with the introduction of two competing schools in tort or private law. One school claims that tort or private law is to achieve efficient resource allocation or wealth maximization. The other school follows the bipolar structure of corrective justice with the assistance of the Kantian theory. While each side is very strong and elegant, neither is able to claim the totality of tort or private law. Naturally, scholarship reconciling the two schools is urgently needed. Although there is a thin body of literature, trying to rationalize or reconcile the two competing schools, the outcome has been far from satisfactory so far. This paper tries to fill an important gap in the literature by developing the communitarian version of Kantian right while taking into consideration of efficient resource allocation within the bipolar structure of corrective justice. After articulating such a theory, the article has made an effort in searching empirical evidence from US judicial practice to test whether the communitarian version of Kantian right is supported by evidence. The study then examines the success or failure of judicial analyses when the utilization of the communitarian version of Kantian right respects the bipolar structure of corrective justice and keeps an appropriate balance on the interaction of the relationship between private parties in private law and the relationship between the government and individuals under public law. The idea is on the horizon, realization of the idea, however, remains a daunting task.
The Psycholinguistic Authenticity of U.S. Presidential Speeches: Two Outliers - a Comparison of Nixon and Clinton View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Arthur McGovern
The word choices people make for expressing ideas and interests can reveal important social and psychological characteristics, and text analysis allows researchers to reliably and quickly assess features of the words people use. In a previous study, we found significant differences in the linguistic styles that Democrat and Republican presidents used to express themselves and their concerns in their speeches, and also that those have changed over time (McGovern, 2022). In this exploratory study, we investigate which U.S. presidents over the last sixty years display the most and least authenticity in their formal speeches, and whether there are other significant differences in linguistic styles among those presidents. Based on text analysis, our findings show that both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were statistically significant outliers, and that Nixon’s speeches measured the highest and Clinton’s the lowest in markers of authenticity in their presidential speeches overall. Analyses of specific speeches also shed additional light on the specific topics that each president displayed the most and least authenticity. The present study also investigated the levels of confidence indicated by their speeches for each president. Clinton displayed a consistently high level of confidence in his speeches with a few notable exceptions, whereas Nixon’s confidence was consistently lower and also seemed to decline over time, again with some notable exceptions. The implications of these findings and limitations of the present study are explored.
