Rain and museum attendance: Are daily data fine enough?

I investigate the intraday effects of rain on the demand for indoor leisure. To do so, I use sub-daily museum attendance and weather data to reveal a dynamic response to precipitation that would be obscured using day-level data. I find that the magnitudes and signs of the effects of rainfall vary significantly throughout the day. In some hours, the predicted increase in visitors is nearly three times larger than would be expected from estimates using daily measures. Many individuals appear to actively adjust their plans throughout the day in response to rain, while others’ attendance depends upon prior weather forecasts of rain. Further analysis reveals that visit duration also increases during rainy periods, and visitors are more likely to attend pay-to-enter special exhibits. International visitors make up a greater share of total visitors during periods of observed precipitation. More broadly, this paper establishes the viability and value of working with widely available sub-daily rainfall data to uncover these dynamics.     

Baumol’s cost disease,efficiency, and productivity in the performing arts: an analysis of german public theaters

This paper analyzes the productivity development in the German public theater sector for the seasons 1991/1992 to 2005/2006. Using a stochastic distance frontier approach that allows decomposing total factor productivity change into different sources, we examine (a) whether Baumol’s cost-disease hypothesis is valid in this sector and (b) if so, whether any negative influence of the cost-disease effect on productivity can be compensated by efficiency gains. The findings indicate an increase in real unit labor cost as a result of rising wage rates and thus do support the cost-disease hypothesis. Further, increasing returns to scale are observed for the majority of the theaters, implying that significant efficiency gains can be realized by the exploitation of scale economies. However, because of the increasing unit labor cost and an increasing scale inefficiency, we find an overall decrease in average productivity of about 8% within the sample period.     

Willingness to pay: how stable are the estimates?

The purpose of this paper is to examine the stability of WTP estimates when discrete choice models are applied in cultural valuation studies. This valuation technique has recently emerged and is expected to be more widely applied in cultural economics. However, little is known about whether or not WTP estimates that are derived using different functional forms and structures in the same valuation study are stable enough to be within an acceptable range. This paper tries to examine the stability of estimated WTP values when uncertainty remains in the selection of best choice models. A more careful selection of choice models might be needed to improve the valuation reliability.     

Culturalisation and devices: what is culture in cultural economy?

Theorisation of culture is often absent from research on production in the creative and cultural sector. Further, cultural production has been largely untouched by the insights of the cultural economy approach. Culturalisation is a means of addressing the question of what constitutes culture and thus a cultural (economy) approach. It is the process by which culture and cultural production combine in the ‘operationalisation of the real.’ Culturalisation underpins much scholarship in this journal by posing the (economic) real as a problem of definition in order to illustrate the operations involved in its temporary resolution. The implications of this position need further addressing. There is a feedback between culture as a problem of definition and a cultural approach. Devices can interrogate the relationship between processes of cultural definition and the conceptual parameters of a cultural economy approach. Workshopping, projects and events are put forward as cultural devices emerging from a 10-month ethnography of literary performance in Bristol, England. This illustration shows firstly, how culturalisation occurs in a designated cultural sector to contingently realise culture; and secondly, the implicit logic of cultural economy as culturalisation, typified by the device as method, so as to open a debate concerning its implications.     

Mediating Science and Society in the EU and UK: From Information-Transmission to Deliberative Democracy?

In this paper we critically review recent developments in policies, practices and philosophies pertaining to the mediation between science and the public within the EU and the UK, focusing in particular on the current paradigm of Public Understanding of Science and Technology (PEST) which seeks to depart from the science information-transmission associated with previous paradigms, and enact a deliberative democracy model. We first outline the features of the current crisis in democracy and discuss deliberative democracy as a response to this crisis. We then map out and critically review the broad outlines of recent policy developments in public-science mediation in the EU and UK contexts, focusing on the shift towards the deliberative-democratic model. We conclude with some critical thoughts on the complex interrelationships between democracy, equality, science and informal pedagogies in public-science mediations. We argue that science and democracy operate within distinct value-spheres that are not necessarily consonant with each other. We also problematize the now common dismissal of information-transmission of science as inimical to democratic engagement, and argue for a reassessment of the role and importance of informal science learning for the “lay” public, provided within the framework of a deliberative democracy that is not reducible to consensus building or the mere expression of opinions rooted in social and cultural givens. This, we argue, can be delivered by a model of PEST that is creative and experimental, with both educational and democratic functions.     

Fiscal pressures,institutional context,and constituents: a dynamic model of states’ arts agency appropriations

This report focuses on state government appropriations to state arts agencies (SAA), a primary figure in arts and cultural policy in the United States. A dynamic panel-data estimator can identify the fiscal, institutional, and demographic determinants on SAA appropriations. Agency budgets are particularly sensitive to past appropriations, past state revenues and NEA grants, some demographic variables, party control of state government, and state budgeting rules. Federal funds attract, rather than crowd out, state appropriations. While the influence of some demographic variables may be shifting over time, income growth continues to explain much of SAA appropriations.

Quality,service level,or empire: which is the objective of the nonprofit arts firm?

In this article, we examine the objectives of nonprofit arts firms. We approach this problem from both theoretical and empirical angles, building a structural model of arts nonprofit utility that distinguishes between the maximization of quality, the organization’s level of service, and its budget. We then construct an empirical method for testing which objective is evident in firm-level data. As an example application, we test the objectives of the managers of American public radio stations in the 1990s, finding that about half of stations have discernible objectives. The data show service is not an objective for about 30% of the stations; quality can be ruled out for 49%; and budget is rejected for 69%. In addition, large stations are harder to classify by objective than small ones are.

Assessing Quality and Evaluating Performance in Higher Education: Worlds Apart or Complementary Views?

This paper reflects on quality assessment and performance evaluation in higher education, namely by analysing the insufficient link between those two aspects. We start by reviewing the current state of the art regarding different processes and mechanisms of quality assessment and performance evaluation and discuss some of the major issues regarding the implementation of some of them. In particular, we analyse the current limitations regarding data collected, available and publicised on the performance of HEIs and the problems those limitations bring to a fair evaluation of higher education. Through this analysis we intend to contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms of evaluation in higher education and the way these may lead to the promotion of better quality assessment practices and institutional management.     

Mission Completed? Changing Visibility of Women’s Colleges in England and Japan and Their Roles in Promoting Gender Equality in Science

The global community, from UNESCO to NGOs, is committed to promoting the status of women in science, engineering and technology, despite long-held prejudices and the lack of role models. Previously, when equality was not firmly established as a key issue on international or national agendas, women’s colleges played a great role in mentoring female scientists. However, now that a concerted effort has been made by governments, the academic community and the private sector to give women equal opportunities, the raison d’être of women’s universities seems to have become lost. This paper argues otherwise, by demonstrating that women’s universities in Japan became beneficiaries of government initiatives since the early 2000s to reverse the low ratio of women in scientific research. The paper underscores the importance of the reputation of women’s universities embedded in their institutional foundations, by explaining how female scientific communities take shape in different national contexts. England, as a primary example of a neoliberal welfare regime, with its strong emphasis on equality and diversity, promoted its gender equality policy under the auspices of the Department of Trade and Industry. By contrast, with a strong emphasis on family values and the male-breadwinner model, the Japanese government carefully treated the goal of supporting female scientists from the perspective of the equal participation of both men and women rather than that of equality. Following this trend, rather contradictorily, women’s universities, with their tradition of fostering a ‘good wife, wise mother’ image, began to be highlighted as potential gender-free institutions that provided role models and mentoring female scientists. By drawing on the cases of England and Japan, this paper demonstrates how the idea of equality can be framed differently, according to wider institutional contexts, and how this idea impacts on gender policies.     

Collective memory and sacred space in post-genocide Rwanda: Reconciliation and rehumanization processes in Mureithi’s ICYIZERE

ABSTRACT

We assess Mureithi's 2009 documentary, ICYIZERE: hope (Motion Picture, Josiah Films), as a document of representational space and collective memory. We argue that the post-genocide reconciliation workshop represented in the film embodies and constructs a sacred/secular space. The reconciliatory space is produced through (1) negotiations of dialectical tensions between past/present as well as individual/collective memory, and (2) (re)presentations of rehumanization within the workshop whereby participants (and audiences) can (re)interpret the Other. We analyze the rehumanization process in the documentary via identity widening theory (Ellis, D.G., 2006, Transforming conflict: Communication and ethnopolitical conflict. Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers) and empathetic human interaction. Finally, we detail how the documentary situates participants within a transformative space of negotiated memories of the genocide with current day reconciliation efforts.     

Perverse Tactics: ‘Terrorism’ and National Identity in France

This essay focuses on the French legal concept of denaturalisation (déchéance de la nationalité), paying particular attention to the link between denaturalisation and the notion of ‘terrorism’ in French law. Critically reviewing and assessing relevant parliamentary debates and reports from the 1980s and 1990s, the essay discusses the extent to which the legal definition of terrorism is caught in and fuels an affective economy at the basis of denaturalisation practices. Accordingly, the essay argues that while ‘terrorism’ operates as the unknown and unknowable threat, the term follows a narrative of uncertainty and crisis that goes in two directions. On the one hand, it shapes a surface of power by aligning those being labelled as terrorists against the community. On the other, the ambiguous semantic content of the term allows those in power to constantly review the boundaries of their own categories.     

Gown and Town: The University and the City in Europe, 1200–2000

The paper explores town-gown relations in Europe across thecenturies from the point of view of the university. It arguesthat the history of their relationship can be largely dividedinto two distinctive periods: one, in the period 1200–1800, whenthe University was in the town, but not of it; the other,post-1800, when the two were much more closely connected. Italso briefly examines the influence of the American campus modelon the European university system.     

Unsustainable Growth,Hyper-Competition,and Worth in Life Science Research: Narrowing Evaluative Repertoires in Doctoral and Postdoctoral Scientists’ Work and Lives

There is a crisis of valuation practices in the current academic life sciences, triggered by unsustainable growth and “hyper-competition.” Quantitative metrics in evaluating researchers are seen as replacing deeper considerations of the quality and novelty of work, as well as substantive care for the societal implications of research. Junior researchers are frequently mentioned as those most strongly affected by these dynamics. However, their own perceptions of these issues are much less frequently considered. This paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of the interplay between how research is valued and how young researchers learn to live, work and produce knowledge within academia. We thus analyze how PhD students and postdocs in the Austrian life sciences ascribe worth to people, objects and practices as they talk about their own present and future lives in research. We draw on literature from the field of valuation studies and its interest in how actors refer to different forms of valuation to account for their actions. We explore how young researchers are socialized into different valuation practices in different stages of their growing into science. Introducing the concept of “regimes of valuation” we show that PhD students relate to a wider evaluative repertoire while postdocs base their decisions on one dominant regime of valuing research. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of these findings for the epistemic and social development of the life sciences, and for other scientific fields.     

Cultural participation in Europe: Can we identify common determinants?

This article examines the extent to which demographic and socioeconomic characteristics influence the decision to visit and the number of visits to museums, art galleries, historical monuments, and archaeological sites. Using ordered probit models based on data for 350,000 adults in 24 EU countries, we find that the likelihood and number of such visits depend mainly on per capita household income, education, labor market status, and country of birth. Attained characteristics such as education and income have remarkably similar positive effects on cultural participation across the countries in our sample, while the effects of age and gender are both weaker and less consistent across countries. We conclude that cultural distinctions along the lines of socioeconomic attainment are stable even in very different country contexts with varying cultural policies and economic conditions. We discuss the way these results inform three research topics: identification of the characteristics of visitors to museums and historical sites in order to attract new audiences; the effect of public spending on culture on accessibility to cultural sites; and cross-national variation in cultural stratification.     

Outlining a Dialogic Framework of Difference: How do Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees in India Constitute and Negotiate Difference?

Abstract

This article addresses the pedagogical aspects of cross-cultural communication, dialogue and democratic pluralism. Analysis of a classroom conversation about unrepaired levees in New Orleans and the media demonstrates the complexities that can arise when addressing race. Intercultural communication research has offered useful attention to these complexities, which have a direct link to the objectives of dialogue and pluralism. The article asserts that pluralism requires affective and cognitive recognition of that which offends and is beyond one's imagination, and that acts of racialized misrecognition often hold within them the practices of justice and hope.