The Narrative History of the Chocolate Wars: A Short and Tasty Bargaining Game

ABSTRACT

This single lesson classroom game is designed to test student knowledge of Realist and Liberal concepts through an imbalanced resource bargaining mechanic. The game is designed for approximately 20 students divided into state teams of three to four students each and uses chocolate to represent the state teams’ economic capacity, military capability, and human security. Each state team had competing goals, over which they must cooperate or conflict for additional pieces. This game also uses an abstract design to maximize active learning through a short course of play while also making the game useful for testing concepts at any point in an International Relations course. In addition to offering a complete yet easily modifiable game for classroom use, this article also describes the game’s pedagogical contribution to the discipline, game design notes, and techniques for preventing students from stuffing their faces with game pieces.     

The Professors on Public Life

Many academics misunderstand public life and the conditions under which policy is made. This article examines misconceptions in three major academic traditions—policy as science (e.g., ‘evidence‐based policy’), normative political theory, and the mini‐public school of deliberative democracy—and argues that the practical implications of each of these traditions are limited by their partial, shallow and etiolated vision of politics. Three constitutive features of public life, competition, publicity and uncertainty, compromise the potential of these traditions to affect in any fundamental way the practice of politics. Dissatisfaction with real existing democracy is not the consequence of some intellectual or moral failure uniquely characteristic of the persona publica, and attempts to reform it are misdirected to the extent that they imagine a better public life modeled on academic ideals.     

生活观的超越:"新写实"意义重估

新写实之"新"的根本所在,表现为对生活和人生的看取方式上的突破。这是一种"网"与"烦"相缠绕的"非牧歌生活观"。它生成于原生态日常生活的层面,"一地鸡毛"的现实生存之网与生命个体的"烦恼"意绪相交织,构成了其生活观的基本叙事特征和底色,其整体特征则表现为"无奈"与"直面"并存,"烦恼"与"寻求"共生。这种非牧歌生活观在当代文学史上具有刷新与开拓的意义,也是促成中国小说形态现代转换的内在动因。     

2000-2004中国都市电影创作状况分析

2000～2004年,中国都市电影作品数量在逐年增加,这些影片关注当下普通人的现实生活,影片呈现出强烈的现实主义色彩,而且,无论是演员的表演水准还是影片视听语言的运用都是在逐步提高,可以说这五年中国都市电影的创作取得了较为丰硕的成果,个别影片堪称中国电影中精品.但是,题材的重复、情节设置缺乏新意、形式与内容的疏离等等问题不可忽视.     

唯美主义与现实主义的巧妙融合——奥斯卡·王尔德《亚瑟·萨维尔勋爵的罪行》解读

奥斯卡.王尔德的短篇小说《亚瑟.萨维尔勋爵的罪行》从故事情节、人物塑造和叙事手法等方面,反映出王尔德唯美主义文艺观的丰富内涵。王尔德的文学创作并非都是“为艺术而艺术”,其中有些作品既是唯美主义又具有现实主义社会批评性质,是两者的巧妙融合。     

From Mrs. Burns To Mrs. Oxley: Do Co-habiting Women (Still) Need Marriage Law?

Following the U.K. Labour government commitment to marriage in the 1998 Green Paper ‘Supporting Families’, Barlow and Duncan produced a robust critique calling for ‘realism’ in recognising that many couples are now choosing not to marry, that too many do not make informed decisions as to whether to marry or not and that, on the basis of their survey, over 40% of respondents believed that some form of family law protection would be available to them, despite their lack of marital status. When added to a concern that economically vulnerable cohabiting women do not receive adequate protection in property law, it seemed all too obvious that the government commitment to marriage should be challenged. In fact, government policy does seem to have shifted somewhat when, partly as a tactical manoeuvre to help the passage of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 and specifically recognising concerns with the needs of economically vulnerable parties, the issue was referred to the Law Commission for England and Wales. This places the ‘realism’ arguments firmly within the reform agenda. However, this article argues that there is a need to look more closely at the arguments used by the ‘realists’, in particular at the evocation of the figure of Mrs. Burns. The more contemporary case of Oxley v. Hiscock is used to both raise questions about the socio-economic profiles of cohabitants, as well to question the presentation of property law as failing women (and family law as offering the protection they need). I argue that feminists should take a cautious approach in relation to the seemingly compelling argument that cohabitants will benefit from the extension of aspects of marriage law to cover property issues at the end of a relationship.     

政治现实主义视野中的军事法

政治对军事的控制是一切民主国家的最后底线,绝不可能存在背离政治现实的军事法。在政治现实视野中,战争威胁始终存在,军事法作为军事制度的重要组成必须以战争准备和战争胜利为第一要义。由战争影响的军事现实是军事法的社会基础,在不同社会背景的比较中,军事法的价值选择体现了极强的政治功利。     

《大国政治的悲剧》霸权逻辑的脆弱性——评约翰·米尔斯海默的“中国威胁论”

由于美国学者约翰·米尔斯海默的《大国政治的悲剧》这本书刚出版不久 ,所以目前国内对约翰·米尔斯海默的国际政治理论进行研究的并不多 ,从逻辑结构的角度进行研究的更为鲜见。作者与约翰·米尔斯海默教授的辩论内容主要包括 5个部分 :逻辑起点 :进攻性现实主义辨析 ;逻辑支点 :民主和平论辨析 ;逻辑基点 :人口和财富辨析 ;逻辑推论 :“一个国家要想生存下去就必然成为霸权国家”辨析 ;结论     

中国环境权理论的认识论研究

中国目前的各种环境权理论都没有达致认识主体间的理解、交往和商谈。二十世纪末期的环境权理论具有建构主义的倾向,二十一世纪初的环境权理论不仅具有现实主义的倾向,而且更为符合中国精英的“自然主义认识论”倾向。当下中国语境中主张“现实主义者的建构主义认识论”的理论家们试图在一个弱势的自然主义基础上个体性和群体性地建构中国环境权的公共话语。     

Democracy and the limits of political realism

ABSTRACT

This article explores the recent resurgence of realism in the political sciences, questioning its relevance for democratic theory. Starting from a critical review of recent works in the field, the article calls into question the relevance of empirical investigations of political reality for normative theorizing, and contends that some of the normative conclusions advanced in this literature are not warranted. More precisely, the article questions the reliability of studies of political behavior and of political opinion as a sound basis on which to draw normative inferences about democratic legitimacy. It contends that the kind of epistemic realism their authors promote cannot deliver what it promises. The article concludes by proposing an alternative interpretation of the democratic principle as a practical postulate of political reason that reconciles empirical evidence about political behavior with the classical interpretation of democratic legitimacy.