Levi’s Auschwitz and Dante’s Hell

On reading Primo Levi’s Holocaust memoir If This is a Man, one is immediately struck by its literary quality, and especially its generous use of Dante’s Inferno, both of which point to the more general problem of Holocaust witnessing. This paper focuses on Levi’s reasons for using Dante’s poem in particular to communicate his experience. Levi’s choice of Inferno is pointed, not only because of the obvious trope of existence in Hell, but also because Levi conceived of Auschwitz as an experiment designed to destroy the “human,” created in part, at least in the West, by Dante’s poem. What I will be suggesting is that Levi emphasizes the distinctions between his and Dante’s experiences by including in his conversation with Dante’s Inferno (paradoxically) his rejection of that conversation. There may or may not be something “human” which persists after Auschwitz, and the only way to ask this question, without preconceiving an answer, is to dramatize silence. The resultant ambiguity urges readers to, as Levi puts it, “participate in” the events described and/or dramatized.

To Build A “Harmonious World”: China’s Soft Power Wielding in the Global South

This study attempts to answer a new but important question in China’s foreign policy— how Beijing has wielded its soft power to construct its ideal of international order in the age of China’s rise. Before empirical analyses, this study tries to set up a conceptual framework on the relations between the idea of “harmonious world” and China’s soft power wielding in its rising process. Within this framework, this study examines a rising China’s foreign policies towards three targeted regions in the global south—Africa, East Asia, and Latin America. On the one hand, due to Beijing’s carefully-designed and soft power-based foreign policies, the global south has become an increasingly harmonious environment for Beijing to cultivate a favorable national image, exert its political influence on regional affairs, benefit its own domestic economic developments, etc. On the other hand, some problems such as the so-called “China’s New Colonialism” and the increased vigilance from the other powers have already began to challenge Beijing’s harmony in those regions. Sheng Ding is assistant professor of political science at Bloomsburg University. He received both his masters and doctoral degrees from Rutgers. His research interests include soft power in international relations; transnational identity in globalization; information technology and world politics; politics in Pacific Asia; Chinese politics and foreign policy; U.S.-China relations, etc. His research articles have been published by Pacific Affairs, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics and East Asia: An International Quarterly. The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on the draft of the paper.     

The evolving corporate board

This study draws heavily on the author’s report “Strengthening the Corporate Board” and on his textbook Business and Government in the Global Marketplace.Samuel Hughes provided helpful research assistance.     

Marianne Weber and her circle

An expanded version of his English introduction to Marianne Weber’s biography of Max Weber was published in the Transaction edition. A companion piece on “émile Durkheim and the Principles of 1789: The Issue of Gender Equality,” appears in Telos.     

Peter Berger and His Critics: The Significance of Emergence

Peter Berger has attempted to develop an account of the relationship between social structure and human agency that navigates a middle way between voluntarism and determinism. Berger’s approach has been criticised by social theorists for reproducing, rather than transcending, the very errors of voluntarism and determinism that he strives to avoid. However, the critics have focused on Berger’s explicit, meta-theoretical pronouncements about the nature or ontology of the social world, whilst ignoring the more sophisticated account of the structure agency relationship that is implicit in, and presupposed by, his substantive sociological research. The notions of ‘emergence’ and ‘emergent properties’ are used to develop an account of the structure-agency relationship that is consistent with Berger’s concrete sociological work, whilst avoiding the shortcomings of his explicit reflections about the nature of the social world.     

The possibility of secular human rights: Alan gewirth and the principle of generic consistency

This article explores Alan Gewirth’s argument for a secular foundation for the idea 2 of human rights as a possible response to Michael J. Perry’s claim “that the idea of 3 human rights is…ineliminably religious.” I examine Gewirth’s reasoning for constructing 3 a theory, namely that existing theories are fundamentally flawed and leave the idea of human rights without a logically consistent foundation, before considering in detail his claims for the Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC). Having looked at his critique of numerous other theories, as well as at his own argument about human action grounding basic rights to freedom and well-being, I then offer a critique of Gewirth’s PGC. Ultimately my conclusion is that Gewrith's 3 theory relies too heavily on the notions, first that we have a meta-desire not to contradict ourselves and, second, that we are unable to find persuasive justifications for our behavior that might allow us to avoid self-contradiction. If one is not troubled by charges of self-contradiction or, as is more often the case, one does not recognize that one’s victim is as much a human being as oneself, Gewirth’s theory 5 V 3 will not seem particularly persuasive. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A28BB025 00003     

David Riesman: A Personal Appreciation

David Riesman, the Harvard sociologist, rose to eminence in the 1950s as one of America’s most influential “public intellectuals,” gaining renown as principal author of the must-read sociological classic of the time, The Lonely Crowd. In that work, Riesman accounted for something of a sea-change in American life, marked by his famous distinction between inner-directed and other-directed character-types, and in such a convincing fashion that the book became a watershed in post-war America’s understanding of itself. Beyond that, Riesman continued to carry out urbane studies of a wide-ranging array of subjects, all the while actively engaged in the major political–ideological–ethical controversies and torments of his time. As something of a principled yet reasoned “Establishmentarian” contrarian, Riesman extended the work of such incisive social thinkers as Tocqueville, Max Weber, Veblen, and George Orwell. In this personal appreciation, Michael Delaney charts his acquaintanceship with Riesman, going back to the early 1960s (Riesman acted as a kind of mentor to Delaney at a distance; the two never met in person and their association was carried on solely through letters spanning some three decades). The essay surveys Riesman’s intellectual legacy as a self-conceived ethnographer of American life, and dwells on his “exceptionalism” as a generous, caring, high-minded man of principle, discerning judgment, and exemplary character.

Leadership transition and Chinese foreign polic

This essay examines the nature of China’s leadership transition, contending perspectives on Chinese foreign policy, and new foreign policy orientation. By examining leadership transition and new policy development, this essay demonstrates change and continuity in Chinese foreign policy. For analyzing new policy orientation, the following points require special attention. First, the fundamental goal of Chinese foreign policy is to create a peaceful environment for socioeconomic development. Second, “do not seek enemy” has become an essential part of China’s foreign policy. Third, pragmatism and professionalism are becoming key features of Beijing’s diplomacy. Finally, China’s new leaders are facing enormous domestic and international challenges. They must learn to balance domestic and international concerns in order to achieve peace and development. He is the author ofStates and Markets: Comparing Japan and Russia, co-author ofAmerican Foreign Policy and U.S.-China Relations, and co-editor ofNew Directions in Chinese Politics for the New Millennium. He has recently editedChinese Foreign Policy in Transition (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, forthcoming). The author would like to express his appreciation to William Dorrill, He Li, Lucian W. Pye, Wei Tang, Zhiqun Zhu, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. An earlier version of the paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of American Political Science Association in August 2003.     

The energy factor in China’s foreign policy

This paper argues that China’s foreign policy behavior has been influenced by growing energy dependence. As a major importer, China can pursue energy security through strategies that result in conflict; alternatively, energy vulnerability might lead it toward cooperation with rival oil consuming nations through participation in multilateral organizations and other forums. After outlining the argument for the strategic nature of energy, China’s increasing energy dependence is assessed, as are Beijing’s efforts to shift China’s energy balance. China’s energy diplomacy with the Middle East, Russia and Central Asia, the Asia-Pacific, Africa and Latin America are examined, and Beijing’s efforts toward greater energy security through multilateral organizations are discussed. The evidence supports the liberal hypothesis that economic interdependence promotes international cooperation. Energy demands have accelerated China’s rise to global prominence, and appear to moderate conflictual aspects of Chinese foreign policy. He is co-editor of and contributor toRussia’s Far East: A Region at Risk (University of Washington Press, 2002), and author ofThe History of Russia (Greenwood, 1999),Foreign Policy and East Asia (Cambridge University Press, 1993), andEnvironmental Policy in the USSR (University of Massachusetts Press, 1987). His articles have appeared inProblems of Post-Communism, Asian Survey, Pacific Affairs, Comparative Politics, Political Science Quarterly, British Journal of Political Science, and many other journals and edited books. The author would like to thank Igor Danchenko for his able research assistance on this project.     

Peter Berger and the Comedic Drama of Political,Economic and Social Life

Peter L. Berger’s work offers his readers a window into the human drama in all its dimension: political, economic and social. He invites his readers to think intensely, endlessly, and shamelessly about the doings of man. Through a comparative analysis of Invitation to Sociology this paper discusses Berger’s contributions to the sciences of man in terms of methodological individualism, the theory of unintended consequences, spontaneous sociability, institutional analysis, and freedom. In so doing, I hope to show that Berger’s work demonstrates the intellectual power of spontaneous order analysis and the link between the humanistic project in sociology and our understanding of the human condition in general and the freedom of the individual in society in particular.     

Leadership change, legitimacy, and party transition in China

Using Max Weber’s theory of legitimacy and transition, this article suggests that the biggest challenge for China’s new leadership is to transform the Communist Party into an institutionalized ruling party. After analyzing the scenarios of democratization, legitimation, decay, or repression, resulting from the interactions between public contention and the ruling elite, this article argues that the CCP has accomplished the transition from a revolutionary to a reformist party but is now somewhere between claiming to “govern for the people” and “hanging on to power.” To become an institutionalized ruling party, the CCP needs to curtail official corruption and control its membership growth. There are, however, some serious political and personal limitations that China’s new leaders will have to overcome. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Yale University in 1988 and 1992 respectively. He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University, research fellow at the Salzburg Seminar in Austria, and a visiting senior fellow at the East Asian Institute of the National University of Singapore. His research interests include Chinese political institutions and leadership changes, theories of international relations, Taiwan-Strait relations, and U.S.-China relations. He is the author ofParty vs. State in Post-1949 China: The Institutional Dilemma (Cambridge University Press, 1997). The author wishes to thank John Watt, Joshua Forrest and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the draft version of this article.     

Bush, China, Taiwan: A triangular analysis

This paper reexamines American policy toward China, Taiwan, and their ambivalent bilateral relationship, focusing on the period since Washington’s shift from strong (but not unconditional) support of Nationalist China to the role of balancer in the early 1970s, particularly on the most recent period under George W. Bush. We analyze the relationship from a strategic triangular perspective. The China-Taiwan-US relationship is triangular in the sense that each actor’s relations with the other two depend on its relations with the third. It is strategic in its focus on security. The United States has been the consistent “pivot” of this triangle, having better relations with both “wings” than they have with each other. Washington has retained this structurally advantageous position partly because of its disproportionate strategic weight, and partly because of the inherent difficulties Taipei and Beijing have had forging a cooperative bilateral relationship. This structure has been quite stable since the Cold War, as Washington has periodically shifted its balance from one wing to the other without altering the triangle’s basic configuration. Yet so long as the configuration is maintained, the basic problem on which the triangle is based — the contested independence of Taiwan — cannot be resolved. This creates a sense of national identity frustration that will continue to generate attempts at resolution, either by Taiwan’s declaration of independence or China’s forced reunification (or both). editor ofAsian Survey, has written or editedSino-Soviet Normalization and Its International Implications (1992),China’s Quest for National Identity (with Samuel Kim, 1993), and many other analyses of Chinese domestic and foreign policy. His most recent book (with Haruhiro Fukui and Peter N.S. Lee) isInformal Politics in East Asia (Cambridge, 2000).     

China’s Harmonious World: Beyond Cultural Interpretations

A culture “specter” is haunting the ongoing discourse regarding China’s declared policy of “peaceful rise” for a “harmonious world.” While some Western scholars “cherry-pick” “evidence” of China’s aggressiveness from Confucius legacies, the same cultural heritage is heavily tapped by many Chinese scholars to interpret the current policy of striving for internal and external harmony. Both seem to ignore, though to different degrees, the historically specific political environment, within which the cultural elements function and interact with other socio-political variables. China’s current pursuit of harmony is possible and desirable only at a time when China is able to achieve sustained sociopolitical stability (30 years) in the past 160 years and after its protracted encounter and experiment with Western liberalism, Marxism and capitalism. Although it has not explicitly rejected any of these Western ideologies, China has tested the limits of all of them—hence China’s search for its own identity and policy alternatives at the onset of the new millennium. It is toward a more historical and holistic explanation that this paper constructs the political space and historical trajectory of China’s search for modernity and for itself in the past two centuries and into the future. Yu Bin is Professor of Political Science and Director of East Asian Studies at Wittenberg University, Ohio, USA; Senior Fellow at Shanghai Institute of American Studies; analyst on Russian-China relations for Pacific Forum (CSIS) in Honolulu, Hawaii; and former president of Association of Chinese Political Studies (1992-94). Yu is the author and co-author of several books including the most recent ones: The Government of China (Stockton, NJ.: OTTN Publishing, 2006); Power of the moment: America and the world after 9-11 [Shunjian de Liliang: 9-11 Hou de Meiguo Yu Shijie] (Beijing: Xinhua Chubanshe, 2002); and Mao’s Generals Remember Korean (The University Press of Kansas, 2001). He has published more than 60 articles in journals including World Politics, Strategic Review, Asian Survey, International Politics Quarterly (Beijing), The China and Eurasian Forum Quarterly, International Journal of Korean Studies, Harvard International Review, Comparative Connections, etc.     

Religious policies in post-totalitarian China: Maintaining political monopoly over a reviving society

In the post-Mao era China’s society and religion are both becoming increasingly pluralistic. State policies toward religion are also evolving. Views of state-society relations as “totalitarian” exaggerate the state’s control; the civil-society approach overestimates society’s autonomy. This paper explains the state’s religious policies in terms of a “post-totalitarian” frame of reference. Religious organizations and the Communist Party share a reliance on ideology and organization to operate and survive, making them potential rivals. As a shrewd monopolist of organizational and ideological instruments, the state seeks to reduce the threat posed by religion, adopting differentiated strategies toward them as they revive. The state co-opts, tolerates, deters, restricts, or suppresses different religions or sects, according to each specific religion’s organizational strength, doctrine, and compliance with state authority. The state is thus able to prevent the rise of large, independent, and organized religious groups while leaving considerable space for religious activity. Dr. H. H. Lai is a faculty member the National University of Singapore who has researched on China’s state-society relations. The author would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their comments and Mr. Kelly for his thorough and helpful copy editing.     

Hu Jintao and the CCP’s ideology: A historical perspective

The role of ideology in Chinese politics has experienced dramatic changes in the past six decades. Mao Zedong had tremendous power over the political institutions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). During the Cultural Revolution, he mobilized the masses against the Party’s institutions in the name of Mao Zedong Thought. Deng Xiaoping significantly downplayed the role of ideology in politics by trying to avoid theoretical debates. Jiang Zemin invented a new thought, “Three Represents,” yet the thought was detached from his name when it was enshrined in the CCP Constitution. Most recently, as a result of the political succession at the Sixteenth National Congress of the CCP, Jiang is no longer the most authoritative interpreter of the thought. Now it is Hu Jintao, new General Secretary of the CCP, who has become the official interpreter of the thought. He offered a new interpretation in his July 1^st speech on the “Three Represents” in 2003. It seems that ideology is no longer a personal trademark. It has become an asset of the Party and been institutionalized under Hu Jintao because Hu has become the legitimate interpreter of the Party’s ideology as the General Secretary of the Party. He will be the inaugural Joe and Teresa Long Endowed Chair in the Social Sciences at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas in the Spring Semester of 2005. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago. He is the author ofChinese Provincial Leaders: Economic Performance and Political Mobility since 1949 (Sharpe, 2002). The author wishes to thank three anonymous referees for their valuable comments on the earlier drafts of this article, Stephine Corso, Nancy Hearst, and Fong Ruey-Jay for their research assistance, and Jessica Loon and Stephine Corso for their editorial assistance.     

Revisiting Lasswell

This article continues the line of argument and historical interpretation we offered in “The Policy Scientist of Democracy: The Discipline of Harold D. Lasswell” by way of a response to Ronald Brunner’s “The Policy Scientist of Democracy Revisited.” Problems regarding Lasswell’s capacious vision of the policy scientist and vagaries surrounding “democracy,” do not diminish the importance of the questions Lasswell asked and left as his legacy to the discipline of political science. We here supply further evidence for our historical interpretation of Lasswell and sketch what sort of “policy scientist of democracy” fits our times and the current state of the discipline of political science.     

The Denial of Virtue

When a New York City man risked his own life to save a stranger on the subway tracks, the New York Times interpreted his behavior not in terms of virtue but as a product of certain ‘hard-wiring’ he happened to possess. In denying virtue, the Times followed a school of thought that is pervasive in social science (referred to in this paper as the ‘individualists’) who, for example, explain charitable donations by pointing out tax deductions, explain volunteer work by revealing the opportunities contained therein to meet other singles, and so on. Actually, the assumptions and arguments which ground this widespread ‘denial of virtue’ are both empirically and normatively flawed, and the theory itself is belied by data about people doing good for moral reasons. Evidence drawn from personal introspection, from empirical studies of human behavior, from analysis of voting as a civil act, from interpreting peoples’ reaction to Alzheimer’s disease, from critical inspection of the logic of ‘individualist’ social explanations, and from a normative criticism of the products of the ‘individualist’ approach all support a rejection of the ‘individualist’ approach. The deniers of virtue should heed the evidence and pay mind to the amoralizing consequences of their erroneous theories.

Three Sorries and You’re In? Does the Prime Minister’s Statement in the Australian Federal Parliament Presage Federal Constitutional Recognition and Reparations?

Then newly elected Labor Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, made a historic statement of “Sorry” for past injustices to Australian Indigenous peoples at the opening of the 2008 federal parliament. In the long-standing absence of a constitutional ‘foundational principle’ to shape positive federal initiatives in this context, there has been speculation that the emphatic Sorry Statement may presage formal constitutional recognition. The debate is long overdue in a nation that only overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius and recognised native title to lan with the High Court’s decision in Mabo in 1992. This article explores the implications of the Sorry Statement in the context of reparations for the generations removed from their families under assimilation policies (known since the Bringing Them Home Inquiry as the Stolen Generations). We draw out the utility of recent human rights statutes—such as the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT)—as a mechanism for facilitating justice, including compensation for past wrongs. Our primary concern here is whether existing legal processes in Australia hold further capacity to provide reparation for Australian Indigenous peoples or whether their potential in that regard is already exhausted. We compare common law and statutory developments in other international jurisdictions, such as Canada, as an indication of what can be achieved by the law to facilitate better legal, economic and social outcomes for Indigenous peoples. The year 2008 also saw Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper express his apology to residential school victims in the Canadian Parliament, providing thematic and symbolic echoes across these two former colonies, which, despite remaining under the British monarchy, both forge their own path into the future, while confronting their own unique colonial past. We suggest that the momentum provided by the recent public apology and statement of “Sorry” by the newly elected Australian Prime Minister must not be lost. This symbolic utterance as a first act of the 2008 parliamentary year stood in stark contrast to the long-standing recalcitrance of the former Prime Minister John Howard on the matter of a formal apology. Rather than a return to a law enforcement-inspired “three strikes and you’re out” approach, Australia stands poised for an overdue constitutional and human rights-inspired “three ‘sorries’ and you’re in”.     

Conceiving human rights without ontology

Conclusion In his book, World Poverty and Human Rights, Pogge sets out to articulate an approach to basic justice that is inversal and cosmopolitan. This notion of justice is to be articulated through the language of human rights. Pogge’s arguments about justice, moral universalism and cosmopolitanism are impressive and reward serious study. It is to be hoped. indeed, that many aspects of his argument might be adopted by the elite ruling classes of world politics; they have much to offer in the project of creating a world that is humane for all. The issues that I have raised in the foregoing argument however are central to the integrity of Pogge’s project. I have argued, in sum that it is not possible to advance a program for the expansion of justice and the implementation of human rights in world politics without making an appeal to a specific account of the nature of justice and of human rights. The account that informs Pogge’s argument is that of political liberalism, and this is an account that has much in its favor as a preferred vehicle for justice in world politics. However, this account makes itself vulnerable when it argues for universal principles without acknowledging their partisan and normative base. My argument has been that this issue is at the center of Pogge’s attempt to isolate the conception of human rights he explicates, which he wants to serve as the language for his global ethical universalism, from the ontological affirmations which make that conception of human rights possible, and which of necessity tie human rights to a specific conception of the nature of the good for human persons and groups. The attempt to establish a single, universal criterion of justice, and to express it in the language of human rights, is undermined from within for as long as it fails to engage with ontological concerns.     

Elite politics and the fourth generation of chinese leadership

The personnel reshuffle at the 16^th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is widely regarded as the first smooth and peaceful transition of power in the Party’s history. Some China observers have even argued that China’s political succession has been institutionalized. While this paper recognizes that the Congress may provide the most obvious manifestation of the institutionalization of political succession, this does not necessarily mean that the informal nature of politics is no longer important. Instead, the paper contends that Chinese political succession continues to be dictated by the rule of man although institutionalization may have conditioned such a process. Jiang Zemin has succeeded in securing a legacy for himself with his “Three Represents” theory and in putting his own men in key positions of the Party and government. All these present challenges to Hu Jintao, Jiang’s successor. Although not new to politics, Hu would have to tread cautiously if he is to succeed in consolidating power. The authors are grateful to the two anonymous referees for their valuable comments on the paper.