Suchergebnisse

This article presents a novel diagramming approach which employs aspects of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) in the creation of ANT Analysis Diagrams (AADs). ANT is a socio-material approach which allows for the consideration of both human and inanimate entities in a social context. AADs provide a novel method for the analytical investigation of social situations, thereby both operationalizing elements of ANT and generating a visualization of a domain. It is the process of creating an AAD which is crucial, focusing attention on the characteristics of the entities involved and the nature of the relationships between them, thereby supporting the analysis of qualitative social data. As this article illustrates, AADs can be usefully applied to a wide range of social contexts and across scales, from the individual person, to groups through to broad social concepts.

AbstractAs an analytical methodology, the Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) can be used to provide indicators of the incentives faced by producers in a given policy and institutional environment. However, the methodology suffers from the limitation that the analyst is unable to attach any level of confidence to the results, other than that generated through sensitivity analysis. In this paper the technique of bootstrapping is introduced as a general method for assessing the degree of uncertainty surrounding indicators derived from PAMs. The example of wheat production in Slovakia is used to demonstrate the usefulness of the additional information generated by this approach. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.