Key political symbols: the dissociation process

Key political symbols are an important but neglected topic in the policy sciences. As instruments of policy, they are used to fashion consensus and misused for purposes of exploitation. Scientific inquiry into the possibilities for maximizing consent and minimizing exploitation has been frustrated for lack of systematic, empirical methods - despite a rich theoretical tradition that has been available for decades. This article introduces suitable methods and reintroduces available theory through a case study of a key symbol, ‘Watergate.’ Originally a reference to a building in Washington, D.C., it became a reference to a complex of unresolved involving integrity in government. The process of dissociation from its original meaning provides cues that policy scientists might use to anticipate the course of issue expansion and simplification in connection with other policy issues, including the Iran-Contra arms affair.     

Domestic legislatures and international human rights law: Legislating on religious symbols in Europe

This article examines the dynamics of domestic legislatures' application of international human rights law. Specifically, this article asks the following: What factors shape how domestic legislatures apply international human rights law while they enact national law and policy? Lawmakers have a variety of motives for invoking and deliberating international law. Given these motives, the article identifies two factors — civil society actors and legal experts and the flexibility of international law — that are likely to contribute to if and how national legislatures interpret and apply international human rights law while legislating. These factors are examined through case studies on religion in schools in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. This article argues civil society actors and legal experts and the flexibility of international law inform lawmakers' estimation of political costs related to compliance and thus how they apply international human rights law to domestic legislation.     

Flags of our fathers: Voting on Confederate symbols in the State of Georgia

Participants in a special election held in the State of Georgia on 2 March 2004 voted overwhelmingly in favor of adopting a newly designed state flag that no longer incorporated a divisive Confederate symbol. We analyze the legislative politicking that defined the voters’ options as well as the outcome of popular voting on the flag design across Georgia’s 159 counties. We find the referendum’s results to have been determined largely by demography (education, race, and population density) and by the level of support in 2002 for the two gubernatorial candidates who played significant roles in the flag controversy.     

国学与"新国学"精神

“新国学”是在国学的基础上提出的一种以自己独特的文化立场和学术价值判断为基点进行开拓的新概念,是观念的变化,不仅需要观念、心理的认同,还需要学术、文化、主体、实践、审美等方面的认同。在众多的研究者论说中,它实际上就是新“精神”的倡导与实践,主要表现为学术精神、实践精神、主体精神与文化精神。