Wie lässt sich Demokratie am besten messen? Zum Forumsbeitrag von Thomas Müller und Susanne Pickel

Ohne Zusammenfassung * Die vier Autor(inn)en arbeiten in einem gemeinsamen Forschungsprojekt des NCCR Democracy (vom Schweizerischen Nationalfonds finanziertes National Centre of Competence in Research: Challenges to Democracy in the 21^st Century) und des WZB an einem „Demokratiebarometer“ für die 30 OECD-Staaten, das die Ignoranz der 0-Varianz bei Polity und Freedom House aufkl?ren will.

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Antwort auf die Replik von Marc Bühlmann,Wolfgang Merkel,Lisa Müller und Bernhard Weßels zum Forumsbeitrag von Thomas Müller und Susanne Pickel

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Secularism,American-Style

The American approach to secularism is distinctive, differing from the laicite of the French or the Turks in its greater friendliness to the public expression of religious beliefs and sentiments. Such arrangements are challenging to sustain, requiring constant renegotiation of acceptable boundaries, but may also provide a more fruitful way of drawing on the moral energies and insights of religion while keeping them contained within appropriate limits.

Close But Not Close Enough

The authors comment on an earlier aritice in Society by Eugene Goodheart and offer a novel hypothesis about the origins of religion.

The Weakness of Our Political Parties

Whatever else the 2008 presidential election may result in, we can be sure that it will only contribute further to the steadily declining role of political parties in American politics, and the myriad negative consequences arising from that decline.

Tourism,Development, and Media

Tourism has long figured in municipal and state-wide plans for economic development and revitalization. Such plans often articulate themes subsequently used to organize tours, advertising campaigns, and merchandising. In the 1990s, some residents of Roswell, New Mexico, tried to build tourism using typical southwestern themes. Others capitalized on Roswell’s unique association with an alleged crash of an extraterrestrial craft. Early support from the New Mexico Tourism Department (NMTD) facilitated the success of Roswell’s UFO-based tourism. In 2007, NMTD launched its own alien-based advertising campaign promoting New Mexico as a tourist destination.

Public Intellectuals as Media Critics

In the 1940s, leading public intellectuals established a commission to reform the American press. Many of them initially favored heavy regulation of newspapers and other media. Though the men failed to change the press, their report lives on in schools of journalism.

Reparations,Once Again

Reparations whether to blacks for slavery, or to Indians for land theft, or to settle any number of other conflicts, has an interesting political background. Analysts on the left, who are usually no friend of private property rights, nevertheless rely on this doctrine to support their case for reparations. Those on the right, in contrast, who supposedly defend the institution of property rights, jettison them when it comes to reparations. It is only libertarians, such as the present authors, who both favor private property rights in general, and, also, apply them to the issue of reparations, who are logically consistent.

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Why it Never Really was About Authenticity

Critics of the concept fail to note that staged authenticity is not authenticity but its opposite or negation. This error is illustrated referencing Ed Bruner’s reading of The Tourist in his recent book Culture on Tour.

Drastic Plastic and the Global Electronic Economy

This article considers the rise of cosmetic surgical culture against the backdrop of recent explanations that foreground celebrity culture and the consumer industries. By contrast to these mainstream accounts, the article contends that surgical culture has become increasingly interwoven with major institutional changes of the global electronic economy. Personal vulnerabilities in the workplace and wider new economy are explored in the context of people seeking to reinvent themselves and improve their life prospects through cosmetic surgery.

From Dictatorship to Democracy: Four Chilean Women’s Memories

A law school dean, a university president, a scholarly judge, and the head of the Foreign Ministry division in charge of Chile’s frontiers agree: The Constitution of 1980 was the initial turning point in Chile’s transition from autocracy to pluralism.

Day Laborers and Dock Workers: Casual Labor Markets and Immigration Policy

The situations of nineteenth century dock workers and today’s immigrant day laborers bear striking similarities and challenges, especially for those seeking to organize them into labor unions. The obstacles confronting such organizing efforts also underscore the legitimate concerns many Americans have about the threats to social order posed by immigrants today.

Open Societies and Closed Minds

Karl Popper’s equation of the closed society with tribalism is reviewed and modified. The German origins of the anthropological concept of culture and its related ideas of the folk culture and cultural relativism are explored. The vicissitudes of the idea of The Folk and its swing from Right to Left are related to contemporary neo-primitivism. The open society and high culture are defended.

Lost in Translation

Conservative, and particularly religious opponents of enhancement technologies and of prolonging life indefinitely face formidable challenges from policymakers who are largely liberated from any forms of Christian moral consensus. This is the predicament of Daniel Callahan and others who are unable to translate their inescapably religious objections in secular terms.

Is the Ceiling Truly Glass or Something More Variable?

Women advance more rapidly in the appointive executive and judicial branches than in the elected legislative branch at both national and state levels. Demand side and supply side factors explain much of this. In particular, greater male variability restricts the opportunity for gender equity.

Getting to Peace? Negotiating with the LRA in Northern Uganda

Getting to peace is not a straightforward process. In Uganda, internal conflict has raged for more than 20 years between the Government and the Lord’s Resistance Army. The construction of a comprehensive negotiated settlement is at the mercy of conflicting ideologies and influences at the international, national and grassroots levels. This paper examines the Juba peace talks, the major actors in the negotiation process, and tension between prosecution and amnesty.

The Need for Death

‘Social precognition’ is the forerunner of new developments in science and technology such as extended life or immortality. While life-extension may have been neglected by philosophers or social scientists, it has been explored in depth by creative writers. They underline the threat of new kinds of inequality and of the conservatism of a society that protects the interests of the long-lived. They also question the quality of a longer life as likely to be lonely and empty rather than wise, peaceful and fulfilled.

The Social Sciences and a New Administration

The policy issues confronting the new administration in 2009 can benefit greatly from the results of social, behavioral, and economic sciences research. Climate change, energy, human capital, social, capital, migration, public health, fairness, new technologies, and foreign and defense policy are all issues that the research has addressed. The participation of social scientists in the policy process will enhance the contributions of the research.

Heroic Action and Its Discontents: Safe Horizon’s Response to 9/11

Based on first-hand qualitative research, this article describes and analyzes the significant role that a local, New York City-based social service agency played in responding to 9/11; the sources of its notable ability to provide assistance to individuals and families affected by this terrorist attack; and the structural strains and unanticipated divisions within the agency that the heroism of its fervid engagement nevertheless engendered.

Socialist Heroes in East German Schoolbooks

Based on examples of socialist heroes from East German schoolbooks and teaching guides designed for elementary school, this essay examines the role of state ideology in primary education. It assesses the German curriculum of the now-defunct German Democratic Republic (GDR) and illuminates distinctions between civic education and political propaganda. It also shows how the curricular emphasis on socialist virtue helped to form “the socialist personality.”