Showing papers on "Ideology published in 2003"

Can the Subaltern Speak

Abstract: Some of the most radical criticism coming out of the West today is the result of an interested desire to conserve the subject of the West, or the West as Subject. The theory of pluralized ‘subject-effects’ gives an illusion of undermining subjective sovereignty while often providing a cover for this subject of knowledge. Although the history of Europe as Subject is narrativized by the law, political economy, and ideology of the West, this concealed Subject pretends it has ‘no geo-political determinations.’ The much publicized critique of the sovereign subject thus actually inaugurates a Subject. . . . This S/subject, curiously sewn together into a transparency by denega­ tions, belongs to the exploiters’ side of the international division of labor. It is impossible for contemporary French intellectuals to imagine the kind of Power and Desire that would inhabit the unnamed subject of the Other of Europe. It is not only that everything they read, critical or uncritical, is caught within the debate of the production of that Other, supporting or critiquing the constitution of the Subject as Europe. It is also that, in the constitution of that Other of Europe, great care was taken to obliterate the textual ingredients with which such a subject could cathect, could occupy (invest?) its itinerary not only by ideological and scientific production, but also by the institution of the law. ... In the face of the possibility that the intellectual is complicit in the persistent constitution of Other as the Self’s shadow, a possibility of political practice for the intel­ lectual would be to put the economic ‘under erasure,’ to see the economic factor as irreducible as it reinscribes the social text, even as it is erased, however imperfectly, when it claims to be the final determinant or the tran­ scendental signified. The clearest available example of such epistemic violence is the remotely orchestrated, far-flung, and heterogeneous project to constitute the colonial

Party over policy: The dominating impact of group influence on political beliefs.

Abstract: Four studies demonstrated both the power of group influence in persuasion and people's blindness to it. Even under conditions of effortful processing, attitudes toward a social policy depended almost exclusively upon the stated position of one's political party. This effect overwhelmed the impact of both the policy's objective content and participants' ideological beliefs (Studies 1-3), and it was driven by a shift in the assumed factual qualities of the policy and in its perceived moral connotations (Study 4). Nevertheless, participants denied having been influenced by their political group, although they believed that other individuals, especially their ideological adversaries, would be so influenced. The underappreciated role of social identity in persuasion is discussed.

Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order

Abstract: Robert Kagan asserts that on international issues, "Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus" (p. 3). Picking up on classical gender associations recirculated by John Gray's advice books, this catchphrase projects onto transatlantic relations sexy notions about the supposed differences between men and women. The analogy mobilizes conventional assumptions about the supposed biological determinants of sexual difference in support of what Kagan sees as another essential truth: "The United States and Europe are fundamentally different today" (p. 6). Although Kagan's analysis is in places sophisticated, it relies on narrow, even simplistic, concepts of power, strength, and weakness. While Kagan finds power "the all important question" (p. 3), he considers only military power efficacious. In his supposedly realistic world, neither economic and political pressures, nor cultural influence and ideology (save for ideas about the use of military force) have much impact. Kagan discusses the rise of the Nazis without reference to the Great Depression, which elevated what had remained a minor party during German prosperity. Nor does he mention that until 1939, leaders in the Western democracies appreciated the internal order secured by fascism in Italy and Germany while they worried that another war would spawn communist revolutions. Ignoring such textbook history, Kagan focuses on what he calls the "psychologies of power and weakness": in the inter-war period, "a frightened France" and "the traumatized British" (p. 12) tried "to make a virtue out of weakness" (p. 13). This narrow view of power and motivation fits the book's rhetorical structure: a simplifying, polarized depiction of the post-Cold War era. In this setup, robust Americans act on realism, while less manly Europeans display "fundamental and enduring weakness" (p. 28), military "impotence" (p. 46), and an "anemic" foreign policy (p. 65). Rejecting power, Europeans opt instead for "exuberant idealism" (p. 60) and "more and more shrill..,. attacks on the United States" (p. 100). Kagan stresses Europe's "relative weakness," reiterating the point on almost every page. By depicting Europe's post-1989 decision not to match American spending on advanced weapons as a failure of will that led to "inadequacies" (p. 24), he denigrates non-military power while justifying Washington's actions. "Given a weak Europe ... the United States has no choice but to act unilaterally" (p. 99). Kagan argues that Europeans, sheltered by Washington from the "brutal laws of power politics"(p. 58), are "settling into their postmodern paradise and proselytizing for their doctrines of international law and international institutions" (p. 76). While such "doctrines" appear to the author and to many in Washington as indulgent idealism, to worldly Cold Warriors such as Dean Acheson they appeared as useful adjuncts to American hegemony. Despite the sneer at Europe and at norms of peace and cooperation still held by most Americans, Kagan's ultimate target lies "outside the laws of

The Sociological Analysis of Professionalism Occupational Change in the Modern World

Abstract: The paper analyses and explains the appeal of the concepts of profession and professionalism and the increased use of these concepts in different occupational groups, work contexts and social systems. The paper begins with a brief preliminary section on defining the field where it is suggested that a shift of focus is required from a preoccupation with defining `profession' to analysis of the appeal to `professionalism' as a motivator for and facilitator of occupational change. Then the paper examines two past, alternative and contrasting, sociological interpretations of professionalism (as normative value system and as ideology of occupational powers). In the third section the paper argues that, in the 1990s, a third interpretation has developed which includes both normative and ideological elements. Sociologists have returned to the concept of professionalism in attempts to understand occupational and organizational change and the prominence of knowledge work in different social systems and global econo...

In Pursuit of a New 'Enterprise' and 'Entrepreneurship' Paradigm for Learning: Creative Destruction, New Values, New Ways of Doing Things and New Combinations of Knowledge

Abstract: The paper argues for a new approach to the study of entrepreneurship and a new paradigm as a basis for entrepreneurship education. It also argues that such an approach is unlikely to come from university business schools. It needs an organisational revolution which, however, can be managed within a university as a whole. The paper is divided into two parts. The first explores the political imperative in Europe for development of the 'enterprise culture' and attributes this mainly to pressures for greater international competitiveness. The educational response is then examined and, with the help of a number of recent surveys, some of the key issues pertaining to the development of entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions in the UK and Europe are reviewed. The second part attempts to address the imperative at a more conceptual level. The pursuit of entrepreneurial behaviour is seen as a function of the degree of uncertainty and complexity in the task and broader environment and/or the desire of an individual, in pursuit of an opportunity or problem solution, to create it. It is argued that the key trigger for the growing interest in entrepreneurship is globalization. The way in which this has impacted on the role of the state, the organization of business activity and public services and on individuals to create greater uncertainty and complexity in the environment is explored. This leads to a conclusion that a wide range of stakeholders are being confronted with the need for entrepreneurial behaviour, for example, priests, doctors, teachers, policemen, pensioners and community workers and, indeed, potentially everyone in the community. Entrepreneurship is therefore not solely the prerogative of business. It follows that the traditional focus of entrepreneurship education on business, and new venture management in particular, provides an inadequate basis for response to societal needs. Moreover, the pervasive ideology of the 'heroic' entrepreneur can be seen as a dysfunctional when viewed against the needs of a wider community. The wider notion of 'enterprise' is therefore introduced as a means of moving away from the hitherto narrow paradigm. How this relates to the development of the individual and the design of enterprising organizations is explored. The paper explores the challenge of this broader context by reference to a number of issues central to the globalization debate including: culture, market liberalization, forms of governance and democracy. It then links these with the ontological and epistemological challenge to education. It concludes with discussion as to how this relates to the traditional concept of a university and argues that universities as a whole are in a much better position to respond to the challenge than are business schools.

Public Attitudes toward Welfare State Policies A Comparative Analysis of 24 Nations

Abstract: Morten Blekesaune Norwegian Social Research – NOVA, Oslo, Norway Jill Quadagno Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy, Florida State University, USA To be presented at the first annual conference of The Network for European Social Policy Analysis (ESPAnet), Copenhagen November 13-15 2003. To be published in European Sociological Review, vol.19, no.5, December 2003. Abstract The paper investigates public attitudes toward welfare state policies as a result of both situational, i.e. unemployment, and ideological factors, i.e. egalitarian ideology, at both the individual and national level. The dependent variables are public support for the sick and the old as well as for the unemployed as target beneficiaries of welfare state policies. Data from the ISSP-study «Role of government» are analyzed using a multi-level regression technique. Findings indicate that the nation level is important in shaping public attitudes toward welfare state policies in industrialized nations, and that both situational and ideological factors play a role. Apparently, various nations generate different public beliefs about national social problems and about the relationship between individuals, the state and other institutions. Eventually, these understandings and beliefs influence popular attitudes regarding what kind of policies the state should pursue, and who should benefit.

A Neo‐Gramscian Approach to Corporate Political Strategy: Conflict and Accommodation in the Climate Change Negotiations*

Abstract: A neo-Gramscian theoretical framework for corporate political strategy is developed drawing from Gramsci's analysis of the relations among capital, social forces, and the state, and from more contemporary theories. Gramsci's political theory recognizes the centrality of organizations and strategy, directs attention to the organizational, economic, and ideological pillars of power, while illuminating the processes of coalition building, conflict, and accommodation that drive social change. This approach addresses the structure-agency relationship and endogenous dynamics in a way that could enrich institutional theory. The framework suggests a strategic concept of power, which provides space for contestation by subordinate groups in complex dynamic social systems. We apply the framework to analyse the international negotiations to control emissions of greenhouse gases, focusing on the responses of firms in the US and European oil and automobile industries. The neo- Gramscian framework explains some specific features of corporate responses to challenges to their hegemonic position and points to the importance of political struggles within civil society The analysis suggests that the conventional demarcation between market and non-market strategies is untenable, given the embeddedness of markets in contested social and political structures and the political character of strategies directed toward defending and enhancing markets, technologies, corporate autonomy and legitimacy.

Consumers and Consumption

Abstract: Consumption is a social, cultural, and economic process of choosing goods, and this process reflects the opportunities and constraints of modernity. Viewing consumption as an “institutional field,” the review suggests how consumption bridges economic and cultural institutions, large-scale changes in social structure, and discourses of the self. New technologies, ideologies, and delivery systems create consumption spaces in an institutional framework shaped by key social groups, while individual men and women experience consumption as a project of forming, and expressing, identity. Studying the institutional field requires research on consumer products, industries, and sites; on the role of consumption in constructing both the consuming subject and collective identity; and on historical transitions to a consumer society. Ethnography, interviews, and historical analysis show a global consumer culture fostered by media and marketing professionals yet subject to different local interpretations.

Women's Political Representation: The Importance of Ideology

Abstract: Women's low rate of participation at the highest levels of politics is an enduring problem in gender stratification. Previous cross-national research on women in national legislatures has stressed three explanations for differences in women's political representation: social structure, politics, and ideology. Despite strong theory suggesting the importance of ideology, it has not found support in previous cross- national statistical studies. But ideology has not been as well measured as structural and political factors. In this article, we demonstrate that gender ideology strongly affects the number of women in national legislatures. We do so by introducing a newly available measure of national gender ideology into a cross-national model of women in legislatures. We demonstrate that ideology, when measured more precisely, strongly predicts differences in women's political representation. Despite advances in women's levels of education and participation in the paid economy over the last 20 years (Clark, Ramsbey & Adler 1991; Jacobs 1996), women have made little significant progress with respect to their representation in national politics. In the U.S., women compose 46% of the paid labor force and 55% of tertiary students (United Nations 2000). However, their representation in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate remains 13% and 14%, respectively. The situation is similar in other nations. Currently 182 countries allow women to run for office. Yet women constitute less than 20% of elected representatives in the great majority of these countries. Women's

Critical Discourse Analysis. Theory and Interdisciplinarity.

Abstract: Preface Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction Theory, Interdisciplinarity and Critical Discourse Analysis G.Weiss & R.Wodak PART 1: CRITICAL - CRITICAL - CRITICAL Critical Discourse Analysis and the Rhetoric of Critique M.Billig Critical Discourse Analysis and the Development of New Science C.A.M.Gouveia Reflexivity and the Doubles of Modern Man: The Discursive Construction of Anthropological Subject Positions M.W.Jorgensen PART 2: DEBATING AND PRACTISING INTERDISCIPLINARITY The Discourse-Knowledge Interface T.A.van Dijk Critical Discourse Analysis and Evaluative Meaning Interdisciplinarity as a Critical Turn P.Graham Texts and Discourses in the Technologies of Social Organisation J.Lemke Identities in Flux: Arabs and Jews in Israel M.Dascal Political and Somatic Alignment: Habitus, Ideology and Social Practice S.Scollon Voicing the 'Other': Reading and Writing Indigenous Australians J.R.Martin PART 3: FROM THEORY TO SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PRACTICE Activist Sociolinguistics in a Critical Discourse Analysis Perspective P.O'Connor Discourse at Work: When Women Take on the Role of Manager L.Martin-Rojo & C.Gomez Esteban Cross-Cultural Representation of 'Otherness' in Media Discourse C.R.Caldas-Coulthard Interaction Between Visual and Verbal Communication: Changing Patterns in the Printed Media C.Anthonissen Index

Private Environmental Governance and International Relations: Exploring the Links

Abstract: •This article is concerned with private environmental governance at the global level. It is widely acknowledged that private actors play an increasing role in global environmental politics. Corporations lobby states during negotiations on multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), featuring prominently in the implementation of international accords. They also interact with each other, as well as with states and other nonstate actors, to create institutional arrangements that perform environmental governance functions. The rise of such private forms of global governance raises a number of questions for the study of global environmental politics: How does private governance interact with statecentric governance? In what ways are the roles/capacities of states and nonstate actors affected by private governance? Does the rise of private governance signify a shift in the ideological underpinnings of global environmental governance? This article explores these questions, seeking a better understanding of the signiacance of private environmental governance (PEG) for International Relations.

Enlightenment against Empire

Abstract: In the late eighteenth century, an array of European political thinkers attacked the very foundations of imperialism, arguing passionately that empire-building was not only unworkable, costly, and dangerous, but manifestly unjust. "Enlightenment Against Empire" is the first book devoted to the anti-imperialist political philosophies of an age often regarded as affirming imperial ambitions. Sankar Muthu argues that thinkers such as Denis Diderot, Immanuel Kant, and Johann Gottfried Herder developed an understanding of humans as inherently cultural agents and therefore necessarily diverse. These thinkers rejected the conception of a culture-free "natural man." They held that moral judgments of superiority or inferiority could be made neither about entire peoples nor about many distinctive cultural institutions and practices.Muthu shows how such arguments enabled the era's anti-imperialists to defend the freedom of non-European peoples to order their own societies. In contrast to those who praise "the Enlightenment" as the triumph of a universal morality and critics who view it as an imperializing ideology that denigrated cultural pluralism, Muthu argues instead that eighteenth-century political thought included multiple Enlightenments. He reveals a distinctive and underappreciated strand of Enlightenment thinking that interweaves commitments to universal moral principles and incommensurable ways of life, and that links the concept of a shared human nature with the idea that humans are fundamentally diverse. Such an intellectual temperament, Muthu contends, can broaden our own perspectives about international justice and the relationship between human unity and diversity.

Bilingual Education in the United States: Historical Development and Current Issues

Abstract: Bilingual education in the United States has been contested and reformulated within varying historical, political, social, and economic contexts. Guided by three interrelated research questions on ideology, policy, and politics, this article examines the various interpretations of the historical forces that have determined language policy in the United States by first briefly discussing the permissive, restrictive, opportunist, and dismissive periods and then focusing on the current challenges to bilingual education. The author argues that changing political, social, and economic forces, rather than any consistent ideology, have shaped the nation's responses to language diversity. He concludes that language ideology in the United States has shifted according to changing historical events, and the absence of a consistent U.S. language ideology has enhanced the role of symbolic politics—the resentment of special treatment for minority groups.

Ideology: A Very Short Introduction

Abstract: Ideology is one of the most controversial terms in the political vocabulary, exciting both revulsion and inspiration. This book examines the reasons for those views, and explains why ideologies deserve respect as a major form of political thinking. It investigates the centrality of ideology both as a political phenomenon and as an organizing framework of political thought and action. It explores the changing understandings of ideology as a concept, and the arguments of the main ideologies. By employing the latest insights from a range of disciplines, the reader is introduced to the vitality and force of a crucial resource at the disposal of societies, through which sense and purpose is assigned to the political world. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Psychological motives and political orientation--the left, the right, and the rigid: comment on Jost et al. (2003).

Abstract: Presenting an impressive model based on a large body of evidence, J. T. Jost, J. Glaser, A.W. Kruglanski, and F. J. Sulloway (2003) proposed that political conservatism uniquely serves epistemic, existential, and ideological needs driven by fears and uncertainties. The authors offer an alternative view based on conceptual considerations, historical events, features of communist ideology and practice, and additional social science research not reviewed by Jost et al. (2003). First, the authors take issue with Jost et al.'s (2003) description of the two core components of political conservatism. Second, they propose that the motives in the model are equally well served by rigid adherence to any extreme ideology regardless of whether it is right wing or left wing.

Beyond All Reason: Living with Ideology in the University

Abstract: Introduction Part One: The end of the matter The ends of reason A complex world The states of higher education The end of ideology? Part Two: Pernicious ideologies 'The entrepreneurial university' Anything you can do Never mind the quality 'The academic community' Part Three: Virtuous ideologies Communicating values Engaging universities Uniting research and teaching Reasonable universities Prospects Appendices Notes Bibliography Index

The Future of Political Islam

Abstract: FOR ALL THEIR nearly unrivaled influence in the Muslim world today, Islamists face one supreme question: will they be able to rise to the challenges that confront today’s ineffective leaderships and any potential leaders of the future? Islamists are good at identifying and articulating the grievances, but to succeed they must move beyond their present roles if they wish to remain relevant to societies’ needs.

Social Movement Organizations: A Metaphor for Strategic Actors in Institutional Fields

Abstract: Faced with increasing real-time dislocation of institutionalized practices in empirical studies, it has become clear that neo-institutional theory is still ill-equipped to elucidate strategies of change in institutional fields. In this article, I endorse the claim that neo-institutional theory can both become more strategic and give a richer meaning to the strategy-formation process by integrating issues of ideology, power and agency in a political-cultural rhetoric of legitimation. Using the social movement metaphor to describe institutional change, I study incumbents and challengers as potentially antagonistic social movement organizations (SMOs) that strive to hegemonize entrepreneurship in fields. After having outlined a model linking institutional change to the strategy-formation process, I identify four archetypes of SMOs and strategic propensities, and illustrate the presented propositions about the incumbent SMO-challenger SMO dynamic using the case of emerging Internet challengers in the music in...

Who wants to be an active citizen? The politics and practice of community involvement

Abstract: The notions of active citizenship and community involvement have become increasingly prominent in political discussions and policy practices within Britain in the past 15 years. This is a significant development as the modus operandi of modern liberal democracies has been a representative mode of government in which the wider citizenry has a passive role. This paper contextualizes active citizenship in terms of the interrelationship between civic society and the political realm. The Foucauldian-inspired literature on governmentality has made a concerted attempt to examine such issues. Governmentality regards government, not in the conventional sense as the provenance of centralized institutions, where interest groups and ideologies play their part, but as a complex and ever-changing process that forges ways of thinking about governing with a myriad of practices that proliferate throughout society. Whilst it is informative, it is questioned whether this analytic approach can fully explain and illuminate po...

Why Muslims Rebel: Repression and Resistance in the Islamic World

Abstract: Foreword: Rebellion in the Islamic World - Fred Halliday Introduction: The Challenge of Explaining Muslim Rebellions Political Exclusion in the Muslim World Repression and Rebellion Exclusive Organizations and Protracted Conflict Ideology and Anticivilian Violence Conclusion: Patterns of Rebellion

Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam

Abstract: Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, by Gilles Kepel. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002. viii + 376 pages. Notes to p. 429. Gloss. to 433. Index to p. 454. $29.95. Few books will so fully and comprehensively intimidate the reader with their depth, breadth, and mastery of argument as Gilles Kepel's new study of Islamist movements. In just 400 pages, Kepel has managed to tell the story of the origins, ideological history, and profile of groups and states which make up the world of "Political Islam." The book is truly a detailed account of the trail of political Islam. Jihad is divided into two parts, but is weak in one important area: it lacks a bibliography! The first of the two parts, a total of eight chapters, tells the tale of the rise of political Islam, tracing its progress across Asia and Africa. In addition to the wealth of information which it provides, Part I also illustrates the ability of Islamists to penetrate Muslim societies of very different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. The author carefully assesses the impact of key political events - from the Six Day War to the Iranian revolution, from the Jihad in Afghanistan to the rise of the Islamic Salvation Front (Front islamique du salut, or FIS) in Algeria - in the Muslim world on the march of political Islam. By seeking, at each juncture, to evaluate the broader consequences of each of these events on political Islam, Kepel provides readers with a cumulative narrative of forces which have given shape and content to political Islam. He ends Part I with insights on the influence of political Islam in shaping Muslim opinion in one of its newly-adopted homes, Western Europe. In the course of analyzing the multifaceted impact of Muslim immigrants and of political Islam on Western European responses to political Islam, Kepel makes an important statement, and one which has been the source of controversy since Olivier Roy's `Failure of Political Islam' study. Kepel expresses the view that for all its successes, 1989 was to be "the high point of Islamist expansion" (p. 201). In the remaining seven chapters of the book (Part II), Kepel sets out to explain why 1989 may prove to have been the apex of "Islamist expansion." Much of the debate here is about the decline of political Islam since the early 1990s. The analytical focus is very much on the corroding impact on political Islam as a transnational movement of the terror tactics adopted by Islamist groups. Some of the chapter titles convey the message rather well: chapter 11, for example, is entitled "The Logic of Massacre in the Second Algerian War," chapters 12 and 13 are called, respectively, "The Threat of Terrorism in Egypt" and "Osama bin Laden and the War Against the West." These and the other four chapters in Part II make the argument that the Islamists' terror tactics not only turned public opinion against them, not only adversely affected their recruitment drive at home, but also galvanised the ruling regimes into action. The latter made very effective use of their security forces, unleashing them against Islamist strongholds in Egypt, Algeria, and Jordan. But, in addition, the state, with Western support, also attempted to fight the Islamists with economic tools: provision of aid to deprived regions, allocation of extra resources for education, job creation and infrastructural development, and of course, the deepening of economic reform and liberalization strategies in order to attract more private investment. …

After the Imperial Turn: Thinking with and through the Nation

Abstract: From a variety of historically grounded perspectives, After the Imperial Turn assesses the fate of the nation as a subject of disciplinary inquiry. In light of the turn toward scholarship focused on imperialism and postcolonialism, this provocative collection investigates whether the nation remains central, adequate, or even possible as an analytical category for studying history. These twenty essays, primarily by historians, exemplify cultural approaches to histories of nationalism and imperialism even as they critically examine the implications of such approaches. While most of the contributors discuss British imperialism and its repercussions, the volume also includes, as counterpoints, essays on the history and historiography of France, Germany, Spain, and the United States. Whether looking at the history of the passport or the teaching of history from a postnational perspective, this collection explores such vexed issues as how historians might resist the seduction of national narratives, what—if anything—might replace the nation’s hegemony, and how even history-writing that interrogates the idea of the nation remains ideologically and methodologically indebted to national narratives. Placing nation-based studies in international and interdisciplinary contexts, After the Imperial Turn points toward ways of writing history and analyzing culture attentive both to the inadequacies and endurance of the nation as an organizing rubric. Contributors. Tony Ballantyne, Antoinette Burton, Ann Curthoys, Augusto Espiritu, Karen Fang, Ian Christopher Fletcher, Robert Gregg, Terri Hasseler, Clement Hawes, Douglas M. Haynes, Kristin Hoganson, Paula Krebs, Lara Kriegel, Radhika Viyas Mongia, Susan Pennybacker, John Plotz, Christopher Schmidt-Nowara, Heather Streets, Hsu-Ming Teo, Stuart Ward, Lora Wildenthal, Gary Wilder

Ideology, Racism, and Critical Social Theory

Abstract: The problem of the future world is the charting, by means of intelligent reason, of a path not simply through the resistances of physical force, but through the vaster and far more intricate jungle of ideas conditioned on unconscious and subconscious reflexes of living things; on blind unreason and often irresistible urges of sensitive matter; of which the concept of race is today one of the most unyielding and threatening. —W. E. B. Du Bois

Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy: The Cold War Origins of Rational Choice Liberalism

Abstract: In "Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy," S. M. Amadae tells the remarkable story of how rational choice theory rose from obscurity to become the intellectual bulwark of capitalist democracy. Amadae roots "Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy" in the turbulent post-World War II era, showing how rational choice theory grew out of the RAND Corporation's efforts to develop a "science" of military and policy decisionmaking. But while the first generation of rational choice theorists William Riker, Kenneth Arrow, and James Buchanan were committed to constructing a "scientific" approach to social science research, they were also deeply committed to defending American democracy from its Marxist critics. Amadae reveals not only how the ideological battles of the Cold War shaped their ideas but also how those ideas may today be undermining the very notion of individual liberty they were created to defend."

Risk and morality

Abstract: Risk and Morality examines how decisions about risk and uncertainty relate to moral principles and ethical conduct. Editors Richard Ericson and Aaron Doyle have brought together in this volume a selection of original essays on the topic by renowned scholars in the disciplines of philosophy, sociology, law, political science, geography, criminology, and accounting from Canada, the United States, England, France, and Australia. Presenting cutting-edge theory and research, the essays analyse the broader social, political, economic and cultural dimensions of risk and morality. The concept of risk has become pervasive in recent years in political discourse, popular culture, organizational communications, and everyday life. The contributors' respective research projects on risk and morality in politics, business, legal regulation, crime prevention, insurance, extreme sports, and biotechnology provide original empirical evidence to substantiate their theories and address the ideological and policy relevance of their work. Collectively, the contributors explain why risk is such a key aspect of Western culture, and demonstrate that new regimes for risk management are transforming social integration, value-based reasoning and morality. Further, they illustrate that these new regimes do not necessarily foster more responsible conduct or greater accountability in institutions.

The Spirit of Development: Protestant NGOs, Morality, and Economics in Zimbabwe

Abstract: Religious NGOs are important sources of humanitarian aid in Africa, entering where the welfare programs of weakened states fail to provide basic services. As collaborators and critics of African states, religious NGOs occupy an important structural and ideological position. They also, however, illustrate a key irony-how economic development, a symbol of science, progress, and this-worldly material improvement, borrows heavily from other-worldly faith. Through a study of two transnational NGOs in Zimbabwe, this book offers a nuanced depiction of development as both liberatory and limiting. Humanitarian effort is not a hopeless task, but behind the liberatory potential of Christian development lurks the sad irony that change can bring its own disappointments. While rapt attention has been given to the supposed role of NGOs in democratizing Africa, few studies engage with the ground operations. Questioning the assumption that economic development is a move away from religious mysticism toward the scientific promise of progress, the author offers a remarkable account of development that is neither defeatist nor comforting.

The Coming of the Third Reich

Abstract: From one of the world's most distinguished historians, a magisterial new reckoning with Hitler's rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. In 1900 Germany was the most progressive and dynamic nation in Europe, the only country whose rapid technological and social growth and change challenged that of the United States. Its political culture was less authoritarian than Russia's and less anti-Semitic than France's; representative institutions were thriving, and competing political parties and elections were a central part of life. How then can we explain the fact that in little more than a generation this stable modern country would be in the hands of a violent, racist, extremist political movement that would lead it and all of Europe into utter moral, physical, and cultural ruin? There is no story in twentieth-century history more important to understand, and Richard Evans has written the definitive account for our time. A masterful synthesis of a vast body of scholarly work integrated with important new research and interpretations, Evans's history restores drama and contingency to the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, even as he shows how ready Germany was by the early 1930s for such a takeover to occur. With many people angry and embittered by military defeat and economic ruin; a state undermined by a civil service, an army, and a law enforcement system deeply alienated from the democratic order introduced in 1918; beset by the growing extremism of voters prey to panic about the increasing popularity of communism; home to a tiny but quite successful Jewish community subject to widespread suspicion and resentment, Germany proved to be fertile ground in which Nazism's ideology of hatred could take root. The first book of what will ultimately be a complete three-volume history of Nazi Germany, "The Coming of the Third Reich" is a masterwork of the historian's art and the book by which all others on this subject will be judged.

Feminism in transition: Chinese culture, ideology and the development of the women's movement in China

Abstract: This study is concerned with transitional gender roles and relations, illuminated through an examination of the status of women in China from the Mao era to the post-Mao era. The study reveals that the socialist state has maintained a high degree of control over gender construction in order to legitimise its historical achievement of revolution and liberation, assuming given gender identities within the official discourse of socialism. Liberation meant creating a fundamentally new and more democratic socialism within a male hegemony. This is derived from the core philosophy Confucianism in which human role relations are cultivated and developed within a male-centred world. Consequently, this discourse opens up an authoritative normalisation process that hinders women's progress in the state, in the household and in organisations. Women's new identity involves aspects of biologically given features, internalisation of the patriarchal family and social relations. Collective relational construction therefore emphasises the feminine/maternal principles of identity, denouncing separation and independence. This phenomenon seems to be pushing the whole of gender politics in China back towards more traditional sex role differences and power imbalances.

Habitus, field and discourse: Interpreting as a socially-situated activity

Abstract: Taking Toury's model of norms as its starting point, this paper examines the macro–micro relationship evident within the context and culture of interpreting activity. The paper theorises this relationship drawing on Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and field and Bernstein's theory of pedagogic discourse. It proposes a model which directs the analysis of norms to the social dimension of language and cognition, as well as to the sociological and ideological determinants of what counts as a legitimate meaning in a particular context. The paper draws on the analysis of a particular context — the interpreted political asylum interview. However, it suggests the possibility of applying a similar theoretical model across a range of interpreting contexts.