Contesting Ideologies: Deconstructing Racism in African-American Fiction

Baillie's article is concerned with how African-American fiction seeks to define and shape an aesthetic in opposition to racial ideologies as diffused through science, education and popular culture. In an examination of Count Joseph de Gobineau's Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines (1853-5), it traces the construction of racialized discourse in nineteenth-century America. Baillie examines Toni Morrison's first novel The Bluest Eye (1970) in terms of Morrison's engagement with nineteenth-century racial theory and its implicit presence within ideologies of beauty and American popular culture of the 1930s. Through the figure of Shirley Temple, Morrison shows how the African-American community's internalization of cinematic images of beauty can lead to a psychosis that leaves identity fractured and the racial self all but erased. As well as reading The Bluest Eye as both a critique of scientific racism and as an historical novel in sustained debate with the cultural hegemony of the 1930s, Baillie examines its significance as a text in dialogue with the social and political milieu in which it was written. Here, The Bluest Eye becomes an intervention into the affirmative aesthetic of 1960s Black Power politics and its extreme proclamations of racial pride rooted firmly in black lower-class expression. She discusses the Black Power movement's appropriation of Frantz Fanon's theories and argues that Morrison's own articulation of a black identity eschews the nationalism of Black Power, and instead finds its focus in the political contestation of ideologies through the expression of African-American art forms. The Bluest Eye is an oppositional narrative that draws on western forms and yet privileges African-American vernacular as a counter-balance to language as a vehicle for ideologies of beauty and scientific racism.     

For a European Constitutional Patriotism

In recent years, two dominant models for understanding the source of common political identities have emerged in the European context: the universalist paradigm of constitutional patriotism and the communitarian paradigm of 'civic nationalism'. In view of this dichotomy, one could be tempted to think that only a combination of these two positions could deal with the mixed nature of European architecture. The European Union would thus give birth to the appealing synthesis of a 'cosmopolitan communitarianism'. This choice of a middle way is challenged in this paper. Instead, I argue that the national or communitarian challenge would be better met by the development of constitutional patriotism rather than by a loose compromise. Contrary to what most commentators seem to believe, constitutional patriotism has practical significance, is historically embedded and seeks to promote a shared political culture.     

False Profits: Why Product Counterfeiting is Increasing

Product counterfeiting has grown in scope, scale and complexity in the last two decades, and now affects many areas of manufacturing and retailing from clothes and CDs to items such as shampoo and vehicle components. Based on a wide range of interviews in the UK, this article argues that despite recent legislative change and increased criminal penalties for counterfeiters, enforcement is haphazard, resource problems often dictate that no criminal prosecution is undertaken, and actual penalties remain low. Moreover, questions of whether or not a particular item is counterfeit have become greatly complicated by the development of outsourcing and the rise of parallel trading. These points suggest that counterfeiting is likely to grow in the future.     

“‘That’s a damn good officer any day of the week’: inmates’ perceptions of correctional officers”

Correctional scholars have suggested that research describing the world of imprisonment can help illuminate some of the consequences of incarceration, specifically how individuals experience incarceration and the ways in which these experiences effect their reentry and reintegration into society. The present study examines the perceptions, daily interactions, and relationships between prison inmates and correctional officers from the perspectives of those who have been incarcerated. Qualitative, in-depth interviews of men released from Texas prisons focus on former inmates’ personal experiences and perceptions toward correctional officers while serving time.     

Constructing a restorative school district collaborative

This action research initiative showcases the impact of a collaborative process involving educators who are delivering restorative practice to schools in the second largest school district in California. Three restorative practice action-oriented cycles engage educators in developing leadership capabilities to implement a restorative practice approach in targeted schools. Data shows through collaborative participation, restorative educators and stakeholders transform their ideas into restorative action.     

Bureaucratic Readiness in Managing Local Level Participatory Governance: A Developing Country Context

Participatory governance in developing countries is broadly viewed as an essential prerequisite for successful implementation of public projects. However, it poses many challenges for public bureaucrats in terms of their skills and willingness to engage citizens. Despite the growing evidence of the pervasiveness of participatory governance, research to date has not explored bureaucratic readiness to adopt participatory practices. This research presents findings of a bureaucratic readiness assessment for participatory governance in Bangladesh by exploring how public bureaucrats perceive the value of participation; how they are educated to collaborate with stakeholders; and the extent to which their attitudes are amenable to enhancing participatory governance. Our findings suggest that we can classify readiness in terms of both motivational and educational factors. The study has implications for how readiness can be developed in public officials that may assist in fostering participatory governance in Bangladesh and be informative to other countries experiencing similar issues.     

The Admissibility of the R-PAS in Court

The admissibility of the Rorschach has been a concern of forensic psychologists for many years. The focus of this debate has been the Comprehensive System, which is the most researched of the current Rorschach Systems available in the USA. However, recently, a new, competing system has been published: the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS; Meyer et al., Rorschach Performance Assessment System: Administration, Coding, Interpretation, and Technical Manual, 2011). Using Heilbrun’s (Law and Human Behavior 16:257–272, 1992) guidelines as a framework, we examine the admissibility of this new system according to the standards outlined in Daubert (1993) and Frye (1923). We conclude that we have reservations about the admissibility of the R-PAS in court at the present time, notwithstanding ongoing work on this system.     

An Emerging Consensus on the US Threat: the United States according to PLA officers

Though the PLA elite perceptions of the United States have fluctuated over time, there has been some regularity in the evolution of their perceptions. Comparing the dominant perceptions of the United States among different generations of Chinese military elites in the PRC, we find that the PLA elite perceptions of US intentions have been foremost influenced by China's strategic interest in a certain period, rather than the level and intensity of bilateral exchanges at the time. Using the case of US arms sales to Taiwan and the case of the South China Sea and the Diaoyu Islands, we try to assess how consistent and persistent PLA elite perceptions of the US have been in recent years. While we agree that these outspoken military men cannot be taken on the surface as indicative of China's national policies, we will also point out several important dimensions that are likely to allow the PLA to play a more influential role in setting the agenda for China's strategic interest in the era of Xi Jinping.