No description available.

The study lies within in the realm of architectural theory and considers the ontology of interior design by investigating the marginalisation of the discipline within the architectural profession. The discipline is personified and placed in a dialectic relationship with architecture. This enables the researcher to disengage interior design from architecture and, by stating the disciplines as ‘absolute Others’ the researcher is allowed to essentialise the disciplines in question. The research was conducted with a liberal plural meta-theoretical approach and can best be described as a heuristic enquiry. In this situation neither the objective realm, nor the researcher’s subjectivity is the primary focus. Literature studies were employed to identify relevant architectural theories to supply the necessary empirical material. The dissertation is presented as object-relations oriented criticism and follows a subversive strategy to allow the researcher to inscribe his self-identification as an interior designer. The findings are presented as a negative depiction of the status quo. This can be summarised as a situation where the existence of a dialectic opposite pair (‘interior design’: ‘architecture’) is the main obstacle in the establishment of a discrete identity for interior design. The dialectic pair is deconstructed to allow interior design to form its own identity without reference to architecture. The study concludes that interior design and architecture are not separate professions, since they are unable to establish discrete, autonomous fields of knowledge; they are, however, distinct disciplines or ‘branches of learning’. The study defines interior design as a mode of cultural production which engages in the design of enclosed spaces in existing structures, with emphasis on the design of volume. In addition, the study proposes the creation of a single architectural profession to contain the architectural disciplines. / Dissertation (MInt (Research))--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Architecture / unrestricted

This thesis reports the results of both normative and empirical investigations into human conditional reasoning, i.e. reasoning using if ... then and related constructions. Previous empirical investigations have concentrated on experimental paradigms like Wason's Selection Task, where subjects must assess evidence relevant to the truth or falsity of a conditional rule. Popperian falsification provided the normative theory by which to assess errorful behaviour on these tasks. However, it is doubtful whether this is an appropriate normative theory from which to derive a competence model of human reasoning abilities. The relationship between normative theory and competence model need not be direct, no more than the relationship between competence model and performance needs to be. However, research in this area has imported a theory directly into individual psychology from the philosophy of science. On the apparently orthodox assumption of directness, continued adherence to this import may stand in need of re-assessment in the light of the quite radical descriptive inadequacy of falsification as a model of rational scientific inquiry. However, this model also possesses the virtue of relating the interpretation of the rule directly to the normative task strategy. Hence, this thesis has two aims: first, to retain the virtue of a direct relation between normative task strategy and interpretation while simultaneously offering a competence model which is consistent with more recent and descriptively adequate accounts of the process of scientific inquiry. In Part I, this will involve introducing a semantic theory (situation semantics) and showing that the process of inquiry implicit in this semantic theory is consistent with recent normative conceptions in the philosophy of science. The second aim is to show that the competence model derived in Part I can provide a sound rational basis for subjects' observed patterns of reasoning in conditional reasoning tasks. In Part II, chapter 5, the data obtained from the Wason Selection Task using only affirmative rules is discussed and the behaviour observed rationally reconstructed in terms of the competence model of Part I. A central concept of that model is partial interpretation (motivated by concerns of context sensitivity). Prima facie evidence for partial interpretation is provided by the observation of defective truth tables. However, in conditional reasoning experiments using negated constituents, this evidence has been interpreted differently. A subsidiary aim of Part II (which will constitute the largest section of this thesis) therefore concerns the empirical demonstration of the consistency of this data with the competence model.

The practice and study of public administration has long included questions of efficiency, effectiveness, and economy. In the literature of the last decade, the New Public Management (NPM) movement argues that government should be run like a business and that entrepreneurial-based techniques should be utilized in an effort to enhance government performance. The normative perspective, however, raises counter ideas. The primary purpose of this research is to examine the impact of managed competition, a NPM technique, on four primary study areas including (1) democratic governance, (2) the politics administration dichotomy, (3) organizational effects, and (4) accountability. The study findings indicate that the economic model has had a significant impact on the four study areas to varying degrees. The theoretical propositions posed in the study center around principal-agent theory, public choice theory, and the market model and aid in reconciling the NPM perspective with normative considerations applicable to local government practice. Examining managed competition allows us to see how Charlotte has evolved in its attempt to meet demands from both perspectives. / Ph. D.

The vast number of refugees in the world represents a very real, quantifiable, and troublesome "problem" for mainstream scholars of International Relations (IR). Mainstream IR is not able to address the problem of the refugee because of its emphasis on the state as a central actor and its inattention to justice in an international system. This thesis argues that the approaches of the English School and normative theory might come together to create a "via media" or middle ground which better addresses the problem of the refugee in international relations than mainstream IR has to date. While both approaches have limitations, the concept of international society and order versus justice debate of the English School compliments the attention given by normative theory to state responsibility and justice concerns of normative theory. The English School and normative theory can work in tandem to provide a middle ground which can directly address the problem of the refugee. The two approaches together provide a better way to start the conversation concerning the refugee.

Managing outdoor recreation requires that managers do the following: (1) consider the user experience, environmental and cultural resources, and type and intensity of management actions; (2) specify desired conditions to be maintained, monitor conditions, and take appropriate action if unacceptable impacts occur; (3) adapt to new conditions and information; and (4) exercise good judgment based on their professional experience and the best information available to them. Social science studies of visitors and studies of significant recreation resources like campsites are important sources of information for managers and are commonly used in parks and protected areas to support planning and decision-making. The studies presented here are designed to enhance our understanding of how visitors evaluate the acceptability of impacts to recreation resources and how we can more effectively analyze large campsite resource condition datasets to get meaningful results. A better understanding of impacts to cultural and environmental resources, the people who visit parks, and how they evaluate the acceptability of impacts will enable managers to make more informed decisions. This is an important part of the adaptive management of parks and protected areas.

The Problems of Protest and the Persistence of Domination: Social Movement Theory and Bourdieu’s Economy of Practice is a normative intervention into social movement theory and debates about social movement goals, strategies and tactics. The project asks: what normative implications derive from incorporating Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological framework into social movement research? My core arguments are that Bourdieu’s framework has the potential to sensitize activists and analysts to the tension between conformity and failure and that escaping radical/reformist debates requires working through this tension. The dissertation intervenes in social movement theory from within the critical theory tradition by refusing to separate empirical and normative questions. I develop my argument using two strategies. First, I undertake a close reading of Bourdieu’s most important works and the debates they have provoked. Second I apply the conceptual tools this close reading offers to reconsider the logic behind two key social movement theory concepts: collective identity and repertoires of contention. Following a general introduction and literature review, I undertake a close consideration of habitus and an argument for how attention to the suffering produced by symbolic power constitutes grounds for normative justice claims. I then consider how collective identity formation in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer mobilization indicates the presence of symbolic violence, primarily in the form of epistemic violence. Next I argue that the nature of neoliberal symbolic power creates political antinomies for representation and affinity-based segments of the alterglobalization movement. Finally I argue that Bourdieu needs to be balanced by Nietzsche and that an orientation toward ‘overcoming’ offers a way out of the tension between conformity and failure. My findings point to the need for more sophisticated instruments for understanding the relationship between objective interests and subjective perception, impositions of, and challenges to, ‘logical consensus’, and strategies for counter-training and other mechanisms to support activists in resisting symbolic violence. / Thesis (Ph.D, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2013-01-29 14:14:16.699

A democracia é, atualmente, o modelo preeminente de organização e de exercício da autoridade política. No entanto, os regimes políticos democráticos existentes ao redor do mundo nem sempre satisfazem critérios de justiça substantiva. Isto é, a democracia política pode existir, e perdurar ao longo do tempo, mesmo que se verifiquem violações claras de exigências normalmente associadas à justiça política e social. A partir dessa constatação, a questão substantiva desta dissertação é o exame da maneira pela qual considerações de justiça política e social são tratadas pela literatura da teoria democrática. O ponto de partida é o exame da teoria democrática minimalista. A despeito da acurácia e parcimônia analítica dessa teoria, as respostas que ela oferece à questão substantiva aqui examinada podem não ser satisfatórias. Portanto, são analisadas as formas de lidar com a nossa questão substantiva também no campo da teoria política normativa. Nesta análise, a principal alternativa teórica examinada é o liberalismo político de John Rawls, com o objetivo de desvendar em que medida o conteúdo normativo dessa teoria é menos ou mais compatível com as dimensões que são enfatizadas pela teoria democrática minimalista e que a tornam atraente. / Democracy currently is the most prominent model of organization and of exercising political power. However, democratic political regimes existing around the world do not always satisfy criteria of substantive justice. In other words, political democracy may exist and endure for long periods, even alongside with clear violations of requirements normally associated with political and social justice. In the face of this fact, the substantive question of this dissertation is the examination of the way how the literature on democratic theory deals with considerations of political and social justice. The starting point is the examination of the minimalist democratic theory. In spite of the accuracy and analytic parsimony of this theory, its answers to the substantive question, here examined, may not be satisfactory. Therefore, the ways in which the normative political theory deals with our substantive question are also analyzed. In the present analysis, John Rawls political liberalism is the main theoretical alternative examined, according to the objective of discovering in to what extent the normative content of Rawls theory is less or more compatible with the dimensions emphasized by the minimalist democratic theory, and that make it attractive.

A democracia é, atualmente, o modelo preeminente de organização e de exercício da autoridade política. No entanto, os regimes políticos democráticos existentes ao redor do mundo nem sempre satisfazem critérios de justiça substantiva. Isto é, a democracia política pode existir, e perdurar ao longo do tempo, mesmo que se verifiquem violações claras de exigências normalmente associadas à justiça política e social. A partir dessa constatação, a questão substantiva desta dissertação é o exame da maneira pela qual considerações de justiça política e social são tratadas pela literatura da teoria democrática. O ponto de partida é o exame da teoria democrática minimalista. A despeito da acurácia e parcimônia analítica dessa teoria, as respostas que ela oferece à questão substantiva aqui examinada podem não ser satisfatórias. Portanto, são analisadas as formas de lidar com a nossa questão substantiva também no campo da teoria política normativa. Nesta análise, a principal alternativa teórica examinada é o liberalismo político de John Rawls, com o objetivo de desvendar em que medida o conteúdo normativo dessa teoria é menos ou mais compatível com as dimensões que são enfatizadas pela teoria democrática minimalista e que a tornam atraente. / Democracy currently is the most prominent model of organization and of exercising political power. However, democratic political regimes existing around the world do not always satisfy criteria of substantive justice. In other words, political democracy may exist and endure for long periods, even alongside with clear violations of requirements normally associated with political and social justice. In the face of this fact, the substantive question of this dissertation is the examination of the way how the literature on democratic theory deals with considerations of political and social justice. The starting point is the examination of the minimalist democratic theory. In spite of the accuracy and analytic parsimony of this theory, its answers to the substantive question, here examined, may not be satisfactory. Therefore, the ways in which the normative political theory deals with our substantive question are also analyzed. In the present analysis, John Rawls political liberalism is the main theoretical alternative examined, according to the objective of discovering in to what extent the normative content of Rawls theory is less or more compatible with the dimensions emphasized by the minimalist democratic theory, and that make it attractive.

The way in which environmental designers design neighborhood spaces has a role to play in the quality of outdoor spaces that shapes and directs daily outdoor social activities as well as creates a bridge between individuals and the local community. The high quality design of outdoor spaces is fundamental in fostering social cohesion among users/residents in order to produce a healthy social atmosphere, whereas a decline in the quality of outdoor spaces can contribute to antisocial behavior. Today, In Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia, in many cases of new neighborhoods, the outdoor space has become abandoned, and empty, or is avoided. Within this setting, these spaces do not provide opportunities for families with their children to gather and play, to sit and socialize with neighbors, to gather in outdoor activities, to walk to the mosque or school, or to do their daily grocery shopping without being threatened by dangerous car traffic. Moreover, even if users and residents experience problems in their neighborhood, and have their own needs and visions to solve the problem, they do not have the experience to mentally visualize and resolve these problems. Through this qualitative research, the researcher proposes a new approach in incorporating users' imagination in the ideation process of design in order to examine to extend the current normative theory through the development of a more "collaborative ideation process."In this new collaborative process, the representation of ideas becomes more iterative and knowledge exchange between researcher and users becomes more seamless. Through incorporating the researcher's sketching skills as a process of "collaborative-sketching," possible ideas and solutions are explored that are responsive to the needs and desires of users. Using a number of photographs of an outdoor residential space as an example, the objective of this study is to examine the use of collaborative sketching as a way of taping into users' imagination as a rich source of their needs and desires to empower the design process. The findings showed that applying a collaborative sketching process in the early ideation stage of design can result in a rich exchange between designers and user, enabling the designer to have a better and more realistic understanding of needs and desires from the perspective of the user. Through this collaborative-sketching process, the users were continuously, iteratively, and instantly stimulated to not only to narrate their needs and desires, but to visually provide realistic and specific details about the social activities and physical elements including their affordance, rationale of using, value of use, and how social interactions might occur within the different settings. / Ph. D.