Reflections on Scientific Inquiry,Academic Freedom,and Enlightenment

This paper explores the connections between scientific inquiry, scholarly reflexivity, and enlightenment. I argue that the free intellectual inquiry essential to the practice of science is a fundamental constituent and enactment of human dignity, freedom, and democracy. The expansion and diffusion of these values are both unavoidable in the modern age and immensely valuable, even if there are of course many obstacles to their expansion and no guarantees of their ultimate realization. This process of scientific inquiry also contains the seeds of a discourse ethic with broader ramifications for public enlightenment and perhaps even democratization. I develop these themes through a dialogue with some of the writings of Professor Yu Keping on the topics of Chinese political science and “incremental democracy.”     

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.     

The Logic of Comparative Politics and the Development of Political Science in China

This article attempts to discuss the debate about “indigenizing political science in China” from the logic of comparative politics. The author believes that the phrase “indigenizing political science in China” is misleading at best and destructive to political science development in China at worst. The logic of comparative politics is the same as other comparative social sciences: namely, it is the process of replacing proper names and treating tempo and spatial factors as potential variables contributing to the explanation of political phenomena. As social scientists, we should not be content in using “local Chinese conditions” or “special Chinese cultural factors” to explain political behavior and phenomena in China. Instead, we should decompose the “special Chinese conditions” and “cultural factors” for the deeper meaning of these conditions and factors so that we can conceptualize and elevate these conditions and factors to a theoretical level. In short, the author favors making political science study in China more scientific and argues that the future of political science studies in China lies in replacing the proper name “China” or “Chinese”.     

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.     

Torture in Israel

Conclusion The High Court's verdict is a major step forward insofar as that the existing institutionalized GSS torture practices are declared unlawful and are no longer possible in any institutionalized form. It appears, however, likely that Israel will attempt to reintroduce the legal use of different forms of “physical pressure” under specific circumstances. The legality of these forms in Israel is then likely to be tested by a High Court of Justice which is still clearly ambivalent and far from unequivocal in declaring all forms of physical means during interrogations to be unlawful. Whereas the Court's ruling declaring the present guidelines and various practices of “moderate physical force” unlawful is a positive step from a human rights perspective and in the context of the Middle East peace process, its significance might thus eventually turn out to be less of a breakthrough than initially thought. The international community has ample reason to continue to follow Israel critically regarding possible infractions of the Convention and the ICCPR. I would like to thank Jeroen Gutter and Ian Seiderman for their assistance with this article.     

Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom,Let One Hundred Thoughts Contend: Political Science with Chinese Characteristics

The development of Chinese political science was not a relatively neat and tidy event. It was profoundly impacted by two revolutions, war, civil war, and political turmoil throughout most of the 20th Century. In the first three decades of New China, political science suffered from both ideological rigidity and political suspicion. With the heralding of Reform and Opening-up, Chinese political science has experienced a renaissance, influenced as much by the concept of indigenization (ben tu hua) as Western ideas. Much like its American counterpart, Chinese political science is now experiencing a healthy debate about the primacy of the discipline’s contending intellectual influences and traditions, as well as its core functions and future direction. The on-going debate suggests that Chinese political science is developing, in the words of Deng Zhenglai, “its own plurality of methodological approaches to the study of politics”. This article examines the rise and growth of contemporary Chinese political science, with particular emphasis devoted to the influence that a burgeoning political science with “Chinese Characteristics” will have on the discipline both within and outside China.     

The Social Construction of Expertise

In The Social Construction of Reality, Berger and Luckmann discuss experts. They contrast the stabilizing monopoly traditionally enjoyed by “universal experts” with the destabilizing competition of a modern pluralistic society. “When a particular definition of reality comes to be attached to a concrete power interest, it may be called an ideology.” The current institutions of forensic science illustrate the claim that monopoly in expertise is associated with political power. Applying the analysis of universal experts in The Social Construction of Reality to forensic science provides useful insights into forensic science as a social phenomenon.     

The ethos of sovereignty: A critical appraisal

Taking as its starting point the commonly held claim about the obscurity of the concept of sovereignty, the article first identifies a fundamental paradox between the classical Westphalian notion of state sovereignty and human rights. In the rhetoric of international politics, attempts to establish the responsibility of states to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms within their jurisdictions are often countered with claims referring to the “sovereign equality” of all states and the subsequent principle of non-intervention. The article suggests that in a more contemporary understanding of sovereignty the responsibility of a state to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms is seen as a constituent ingredient of the state itself. The chapter continues to elaborate how this change has come about. The classical notion of sovereignty is illustrated through a reading of Bodin’s Six Books of the Commonwealth (1576). In Bodin’s world, sovereignty is a constitutive element of the state, and the possibility of a multitude of sovereign entities in a global world logically denying the possibility of any “supra-national” normative framework is still a minor consideration. This possibility is only worked out with the emergence of international law. In both classics such as Emmerich de Vattel’s The Law of Nations (1758) and more contemporary treatises such as Lassa Oppenheim’s International Law (1905), state sovereignty has become conditional to recognition by other sovereign states and a subsequent membership in the “family of nations.” The conditional membership in the “family of nations” involves a contradiction: a sovereign state must act in a “dignified” manner, it must use its sovereignty with “restraint” by respecting the human rights and fundamental freedoms of its citizens, i.e., it must employ its sovereignty in a non-sovereign way. This restriction of sovereignty, addressed as “ethical sovereignty,” becomes a constitutive element in a post-Westphalian state and a central ingredient in the contemporary doctrine of humanitarian intervention. The article further criticizes the various uses (and abuses) of “ethical sovereignty” in the regulation of “failing” and “rogue” states and concludes by identifying its general political dangers. Finally, with reference to Jacques Derrida’s Rogues (2003), the article suggests a more radical reappraisal of the concept of sovereignty. It is a fact that sovereignty is a term used without any well-recognised meaning except that of supreme authority. Under these circumstances those who do not want to interfere in a mere scholastic controversy must cling to the facts of life and the practical, though abnormal and illogical, condition of affairs.¹ —Lassa Oppenheim But to invoke the concept of national sovereignty as in itself a decisional factor is to fall back on a word which has an emotive quality lacking meaningful specific content. It is to substitute pride for reason.² —Eli Lauterpacht     

The Physical Basis of Voluntary Trade

The article discusses the conditions under which can we say that people enter the economic system voluntarily. “The Need for an Exit Option” briefly explains the philosophical argument that voluntary interaction requires an exit option—a reasonable alternative to participation in the projects of others. “The Treatment of Effective Forced Labor in Economic and Political Theory” considers the treatment of effectively forced interaction in economic and political theory. “Human Need” discusses theories of human need to determine the capabilities a person requires to have an acceptable exit option. “Capability in Cash, Kind, or Raw Resources” considers what form access to that level of capability should take—in cash, kind, or raw resources, concluding that a basic income guarantee is the most effective method to ensure an exit option in a modern, industrial economy.     

Adaptive Justice in the Chinese Context: Law versus Commonsense

Under certain circumstances, law may come into conflict with commonsense, which by definition refers to “popular conceptions of right and wrong”, a conflict to which rescue comes a mechanism I conceptualise as “adaptive justice”, as it aims to adapt the law, in balance with other non-positive, but equally universal rules, to the circumstances at hand. It follows two propositions: (1) When law encounters or engenders difficulty during its legislation, application or interpretation, certain non-positive, universal rules will have to be introduced in order to make flexible the rigidity of written law; (2) the solution is an adaptive application of legal rules, rather than adherence to a literal reading of legal texts. In the context of the libertarian-communitarian debate on justice, this notion of adaptive justice may offer us a new angle, as it has an in-built focus on “methodological relationalism”, which by definition uses interpersonal relationship as the basic unit of analysis to decode human behaviour and values.     

Racial Solidarity and Political Participation

Studies conducted in the 1960s and 1970s generally confirmed that racial group solidarity boosted rates of participation among African Americans. But since the 1980s, research has tended to conclude that the effect of solidarity on voter turnout among blacks and other minorities has moderated if not faded entirely. We hypothesize that part of this observed decline is explained by a dilution of measures of group solidarity in recent studies. We argue that a fair test of racial solidarity requires using a comprehensive measure that incorporates both psychological “identification” and the ideological beliefs that comprise “consciousness.” Moreover, we hypothesize that the effects of solidarity, will vary across forms of participation and be greatest on political activities that require group coordination. Our re-analysis of the 1984 NBES using separate measures of identification and consciousness indicates that the more narrowly circumscribed measures of these concepts used in recent studies are likely to have underestimated its influence on political participation. We show that racial identification and consciousness had a modest effect on voting turnout in 1984, but a significant influence on participation in several traditional campaign activities, petitioning government officials, and especially participation in protests and boycotts.     

Independent Candidates in China’s Local People’s Congress Elections

In the Chinese political system, according to the constitution, the people’s congresses at the primary level are the only institution which the voters can directly elect. However, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tightly controls the “direct elections” and takes every measure in the elections to prevent grassroots power from entering even the primary-level people’s congresses. In recent years, grassroots power has kept struggling for its legal rights in the “direct elections” held in a few localities. The conflicts between the grassroots power and the authoritarian party in the “direct elections” have become an interesting political phenomenon, a subject deserves close observation and research. This paper studies the background of the independent candidates, their motivations and behaviour in elections. The paper also examines the party’s control in the elections and thus exposes the true nature of China’s people’s congress “direct” elections. The paper argues that independent candidates can have little impacts on China’s political structure at the current stage because of the party’s tight control, but their political participation has the most democratic value, compared with the “reforms” instigated and carried out by the CCP.     

A Moral Argument for the Priority of the Right Over the Good: A Case Study of the Confucian Ethics

The paradox of Confucian ethics in prioritizing filial piety over humane love can show that only the good of right, which is encapsulated in an age-old precept “harm no one and benefit fellow humans” as well as in a modern principle “respect the deserved rights and interests of every human being,” is the ultimate good and should trump any other goods in human life. In cases of the conflict between the good of right and other goods, therefore, one should give up other goods for the good of right. Otherwise, the result will be an ultimate evil: doing substantive harm to human beings or infringing upon the deserved rights and interests of human beings.     

Politics Against Science: Reflections on the Study of Chinese Politics in Contemporary China

As a preliminary investigation and an intellectual reflection of the state of the field of Chinese domestic political study conducted in the Chinese language in mainland China, this paper deals with a threefold task. It first assesses the state of the field of the study of Chinese politics in mainland China, and argues that this scholarship is underdeveloped in comparison with the study of home-country politics in some other countries. It then clarifies the often blurring boundaries in contemporary China between the political science study of Chinese politics on one hand and other categories of political writings on the other, and maintains that the political penetration from the Party-state has been the major factor that hinders the intellectual development of the study of Chinese politics as a branch of political science. The paper, thirdly, suggests the so-called “open-minded independence of scholarship” with the emphases on academic autonomy and institutionalized professionalism as what the most needed for developing the study of Chinese politics in the Sinophonic world.     

Consultants, depoliticization and arena-shifting in the policy process: privatizing water in Berlin

This paper examines the effects of the growing presence of management consultants in policy processes. In particular, it addresses the key concern that consultants employed by governments often operate in new institutional arrangements not subject to the formal rules of political systems. Their activities, often secretive, are seen to undermine the democratic legitimacy of political decision-making. Despite the significance of these concerns there is still a lack of conceptual and empirical research on these topics. Addressing this gap, the paper first seeks to begin a more conceptual discussion about the role of consultants and “governance”. Turning to the literature on depoliticization in public policy, and following Flinders and Buller (Br Polit 1(3):293–318, 2006), it is argued that the hiring of consultants should be seen not as a move from political to apparently neutral, expert forms of policy-making, but as a shift in the arena of political decision-making. Such shifts can contribute to the emergence of what Hajer (Policy Sci 36(2):175–195, 2003a) calls the “institutional voids” of governance: the emergence of ad hoc political spaces in which the rules and outcomes of policy-making are unclear. It is argued that these ad hoc spaces may work to undermine the traditional institutions of political systems without providing an alternative form of democratic legitimacy. The paper examines these issues with reference to a case study of consultants working for the Berlin government on the privatization of the Berlin Water Company in 1999. It concludes by reflecting on the usefulness of the arena-shifting notion and outlining areas for future research.     

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.     

On social position and political achievement

He is author and coauthor of more than 70 books and 150 articles including Riches, Class, and Power Before the Civil War; Three Centuries of Social Mobility in America;and “Social Structure and Politics in American History” in the 1982 American Historical Review.     

Britain’s holocaust memorial day: A case of post-cold war wish-fulfillment, or brazen hypocristy?

This article considers why institutionalized commemoration of the Holocaust in the United Kingdom developed in the 1990s. It finds that the answer may have less to do with Jewish lobbies, or the influence of a “Holocaust Industry” and much, more to do with state political objectives in the ebb of the Cold War. It argues that by repackaging and ritualizing the Holocaust into a “sacred” event in which Western states themselves were absolved of responsibility but also sought to come to Jewish rescue, it became an invaluable prop with which to promulgate Western values while at the same time acting as a moral alibi for interventions against anti-Western regimes. By focusing on the example of specifically British relations with Iraq, it is demonstrated that the moral high ground which Western states have attempted to milk from a Holocaust association is meretricious cant. Appalling and inhuman acts of genocide changed the course of history in the twentieth century. Millions of people perished or had their lives hideously damaged. This is an opportunity for us to recognize and act upon the lessons of the past. Our aim in the twenty-first century must be to work towards a tolerant and diverse, society which is based upon the notions of universal dignity and equal rights and responsibilities for all citizens. The Holocaust Memorial Day is a symbol of this. I would like to thank Prof. Dave Cesarani and two other unknown readers for extremely assiduous and helpful comments on the original draft of this article.     

“Relational goods” and participation: Incorporating sociability into a theory of rational action

Theoretical explanations of why rational individuals would participate in politics remain unsatisfactory. This paper addresses the problem by developing and analyzing models which include among citizens' payoffs “relational goods,” objectives which depend upon interactions among persons. The models predict more participation than do the standard approaches. For example, under some circumstances persons will be more likely to act if they believe others will act, contrary to free-rider logic. More importantly, conditions are identified under which leaders could increase mass activity. Thus, a model is provided of “mobilization” in terms of the preferences and decisions of a rational individual. The author thanks the Russell Sage Foundation for support as a Visiting Fellow during 1986–87. The paper has benefited from the comments of Patricia Gurin, Steve Brams, Jane Mansbridge, Linda Cohen, Tyler Cowen, Ami Glazer, and seminar participants at the University of Rochester.     

Participatory storylines and their influence on deliberative forums

For all the recent discussion on the virtues and vices of public deliberation, surprisingly little attention has been given to how deliberative procedures actually operate in different policy contexts. This article takes up this task with a specific focus on how deliberative designs such as citizens' juries and consensus conferences interface with their participatory context. The concept of the participatory storyline is developed to describe the competing narratives associated with a policy issue on who constitutes the public” and how “they” should be represented and involved in the policy process. An analysis of two Australian cases reveals how existing participatory storylines can productively or destructively influence deliberative forums. The empirical research suggests that a more productive deliberative procedure is one that supports or “speaks to” existing narratives on what constitutes public participation. Under these conditions key policy actors are more likely to engage in the deliberative process and endorse its outcomes. Some suggestions are provided for how practitioners can better anticipate the way a deliberative forum might interface with its participatory context.