Intuitive Ethics and Political Orientations: Testing Moral Foundations as a Theory of Political Ideology

Originally developed to explain cultural variation in moral judgments, moral foundations theory (MFT) has become widely adopted as a theory of political ideology. MFT posits that political attitudes are rooted in instinctual evaluations generated by innate psychological modules evolved to solve social dilemmas. If this is correct, moral foundations must be relatively stable dispositional traits, changes in moral foundations should systematically predict consequent changes in political orientations, and, at least in part, moral foundations must be heritable. We test these hypotheses and find substantial variability in individual‐level moral foundations across time, and little evidence that these changes account for changes in political attitudes. We also find little evidence that moral foundations are heritable. These findings raise questions about the future of MFT as a theory of ideology.     

Citizenship,reproduction and the state: international marriage and human rights

The relationship between citizenship, marriage and family has often been overlooked in the social and political theory of citizenship. Intimate domestic life is associated with the private sphere, partly because reproduction itself is thought to depend on the private choices of individuals. While feminist theory has challenged this division between private and public – ‘the personal is political’ – the absence of any systematic thinking about familial relations, reproduction and citizenship is puzzling. Citizenship is a juridical status that confers political rights such as the right to carry a passport or to vote in elections. However, from a sociological point of view, we need to understand the social foundations and consequences of citizenship – however narrowly defined in legal and political terms. This article starts by noting the obvious point that the majority of us inherit citizenship at birth and in a sense we do not choose to be ‘Vietnamese’ or ‘Malaysian’ or ‘Japanese’ citizens. Although naturalisation is an important aspect of international migration and settlement, the majority of us are, as it were, born into citizenship. Therefore, the family is an important but often implicit facet of political identity and membership. In sociological language, citizenship looks like an ascribed rather than achieved status, and as a result becomes confused and infused with ethnicity. This inheritance of citizenship is odd given the fact that, at least in the West, there is a presumption, following the pronouncements of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, to think of citizenship in universal terms that are ethnically ‘blind’, but it is in fact closely connected with familial or private status. These complex relations within the nation-state are further complicated by the contemporary growth of transnational marriages and this article considers the problems of marriage, reproduction and citizenship in the context of global patterns of migration.     

An Inquiry Concerning Liberty and Equality in the American Constitutional System

This essay is an examination of the theory of constitutionalchoice that was used to conceptualize and design the Americansystem of governance as grounded in liberty and justice. Theinquiry is pressed to deeper foundations concerning the methodof normative inquiry and presuppositions about how conflictcan be used to drive a due process of law and a due processof inquiry to achieve conflict resolution in a pluralistic systemof order.     

New Institutionalism: Distilling some 'Hard Core' Propositions in the Works of Williamson and March and Olsen

The efflorescence of work on new institutionalism has encouraged scholars to build bridges between various schools of thought. Such cross-fertilisation enlivens the debate but runs the risk of erecting bridges on shaky foundations. My article seeks to minimise this risk by going back to basics. It narrows the field of inquiry to the economic and the sociological institutionalist tradition represented by Williamson on one side, and the collaborative work of March and Olsen on the other. It explores and assesses their contribution on three interrelated issues fundamental to any analysis of political institutions: the goals attributed to institutions, the theory of action and the commitment to methodological individualism versus methodological holism. I conclude by noting that in the transition from the old to the new institutionalism – as represented in the works of these authors – the role of power conflicts, negotiations and bargaining between individuals seems to have lost its central position.     

Citizenship as a weapon

The focus of this article is on citizenship in its juridical sense. Other theorists, especially communitarians and civic republicans, have attempted to expand the idea of citizenship to include a social/political sense; they advocate expanding citizenship beyond its juridical confines to include civic participation as one of the hallmarks of citizenship. A new stage of expansion has begun; it is represented by those who want to make citizenship more multiple and flexible, to see citizenship in a more ethical/normative sense. These expansionist approaches do not jettison the juridical sense of citizenship. In fact, they build upon it. Therefore, these conceptions of citizenship become problematic to the extent that the juridical building block becomes problematic. Thus, the first task is to problematize this juridical sense of citizenship. This article explores a different critical path than the ones typically taken. It pushes the envelope by thinking about citizenship as a weapon. While more exposés of administrative and political abuses involving citizenship claims and issues are needed, this analysis unearths deeper, more fundamental problems with the concept of citizenship. Minimally, it pushes the debate beyond how inclusive or expansive citizenship should be made. It calls for a radical reappraisal of citizenship by recognizing citizenship as a weapon.     

Performative Bodies,Tactical Agents and Political Selves: Rethinking the Political Geographies of Childhood

Theoretical elaboration and conceptualisation of children's political geographies is presently in a state of modification. Since the concepts of childhood and politics are not commonly brought together, there is plenty of work to be done. This article concentrates on revealing some political aspects of childhood and bringing up other focal questions concerning children's political geographies. Special attention is paid to children's agency and tactics to reach a better understanding of their ways of participating in politics. The theoretical foundations for this paper are in critical social theory. Following the thoughts of Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Michel de Certeau and Nigel Thrift on the potentials of non-representational theory, it explores performativity and body politics in general.     

The Two Browns: Policy Implementation and the Retrenchment of Brown v. Board of Education

The colorblind individualism that pervades American politics and society keeps schools segregated although Americans support integrated public education. While the 1954 US Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education has never been overruled, later cases and policies have encouraged its retrenchment. We argue in this multi-disciplinary review of published literature that there are two different versions of Brown—the iconic, pro-integration symbol supported by most Americans, and a formal, juridical requirement that permits continued school segregation. The formal, juridical Brown is supported by the implementation of multiple educational policies, particularly neighborhood schools, magnet schools, and charter schools, all built on the firm belief that there is no violation of Brown. Rather than promoting a vision of Brown that champions a strong integration goal, these policies bolster the second interpretation of Brown: one that allows segregation to occur, so long as it is not outwardly deliberate.     

Über die Notwendigkeit und Bestimmung liberaler Bürgertugenden

Numerous sociological studies describe the status of contemporary liberal democracy as frightening. Taking up these investigations, this article asks for the pre-conditions of liberal democracy, particularly for their moral foundations. In contrast to the classic political theory of liberalism, these moral foundations are not assumed to be locked in the institutional order of the state, but in a certain morality of the citizens. The first target of the investigation is to proof that a moral quality of the citizens is a necessary prerequisite for the persistence of a liberal democracy. The second aim of the work is to show how these moral orientations (liberal virtues) should be shaped within each citizen. This is clarified by discussing three liberal thinkers (Charles Larmore, John Rawls, and Ralf Dahrendorf). The so distilled central liberal virtue is formulated as follows: The political convictions of the citizens must be justifiable for everybody, i.e. also to citizens with a different world view. Political convictions and values, which are expressed during the political process and which influence the voting-behaviour, should therefore not rely exclusively on one’s own set of moral values. The work closes with a discussion of the implications of this normative claim.     

民事诉讼中法院调解结案与判决结案的协调

民事诉讼中法院调解制度在我国有着优良的传统和深厚的历史背景，并因其独特的优势得到了司法工作者的偏爱。然而，现行司法实务中，调解结案的方式已经过分白热化，给判决结案造成了消极影响。如何从诉讼法的角度正确认识调解的社会本质，并在实践中正确把握两者的平衡度，应是司法实践中研究的重点所在。     

On Hobbesian Resistance Theory

As many have observed, Hobbes's political theory contained elements of an inchoate resistance theory. The present article identifies those elements, and considers their significance for the general interpretation of Hobbes's thought. It is suggested that Hobbes's resistance theory provides evidence of his belief that the artificial commonwealth was built upon foundations of natural morality. If the sovereign ruler of any commonwealth infringed natural morality then she might well face the natural punishment of rebellion, even though in the artificial realm of civil law this rebellion could never be justified. In the light of these remarks, the interpretation of Hobbes given by Howard Warrender is reexamined. Although Warrender's conclusion that Hobbes grounded natural morality in the command of God cannot be sustained, it is shown that much else in Warrender's work remains valid. In particular, his contention that Hobbes was a genuine natural law thinker seems more defensible when Hobbesian resistance theory is properly understood.     

Incrementalism: Dead yet Flourishing

Charles Lindblom's 1959 essay “The Science of ‘Muddling Through’” is best known for the strategy of decision making—disjointed incrementalism—that it recommended. That famous paper and Lindblom's related work also provided two theories: a critique of the conventional method (the synoptic approach) and an argument for using incrementalism instead. Both are applied theories: they are designed to help solve complex policy problems. Lindblom's negative applied theory has stood the test of time well: the empirical foundations of its main micro‐component (cognitive constraints of individuals) and its central macro‐component (the impact of preference conflict on policy making) have grown stronger since 1959. The picture regarding the positive applied theory is more mixed. As a coherent decision‐making strategy, disjointed incrementalism has almost disappeared. Yet its key elements, the major heuristics identified in “Muddling Through,” are thriving in many applied fields. Intriguingly, they are often accompanied by subroutines—especially optimization as a choice rule—typically associated with the synoptic approach.     

An alternative approach to explaining political popularity

Previous empirical work on the relationship between political popularity and economic events has either not attempted to model the alternative policies of the different parties, or has modelled them in a rather simplistic manner. It has also typically assumed that voters are backward-looking in contrast to recent work on expectations theory. An approach is outlined which is based on a forward-looking comparison of the parties and incorporates the effect of news. An alternative derivation relying on the evaluation of the stock of goodwill built up for each party is also suggested. Empirical evidence from the Gallup opinion poll provides some support for these hypotheses.     

Foundations of Relating: Theory and Evidence on the Formation of Street‐Level Bureaucrats’ Workplace Networks

Despite the importance of peers in forming role expectations, fostering group identity, and facilitating job learning, limited theory and empirical evidence exist on the antecedents of street‐level peer relationships. To address this gap, the authors draw on social capital and social exchange theories to develop hypotheses about the micro‐social foundations of street‐level bureaucrats’ peer selection. The hypotheses are tested using a rich data set from an intraorganizational network of teachers in a large urban school implementing a reform that strongly promoted frontline innovation. Both structural and instrumental considerations, such as seeking peers possessing characteristics and resources valued by the reform, figure prominently in the work relations of street‐level bureaucrats. These results imply that the introduction of improvement initiatives requiring frontline participation, in addition to altering work practices, may also alter social networks within the frontline of an organization in a manner that favors some frontline workers over others.     

Between ‘Objectivism’ and ‘Contextualism': the Normative Foundations of Social Philosophy

Abstract

One of the principal challenges facing contemporary social philosophy is how to find foundations that are normatively robust yet congruent with its self-understanding. Social philosophy is a critical project within modernity, an interpretative horizon that stresses the influences of history and context on knowledge and experience. However, if it is to engage in intercultural dialogue and normatively robust social critique, social philosophy requires non-arbitrary, universal normative standards. The task of normative foundations can thus be formulated in terms of negotiating the tension between ‘contextualism’ and ‘objectivism’. Six contemporary responses to this challenge are examined. Their respective limitations call for renewed reflection on justificatory strategies, in particular for a conception of ‘objectivity’ based in a normative theory of social learning processes.     

混沌理论与公共行政

本旨在探讨运用混沌理论分析公共行政的必要性与可能性。公共组织的非线性、复杂性、不确定性和变动性特征表明，主流公共行政学的理论预设并不符合公共行政的实际。为此，运用主要研究系统的非线性特征的混沌理论来理解公共行政现象并解决公共行政问题，不仅可能，而且必需。混沌不仅为我们提供了研究公共行政的的视角，而且为公共行政的改革提供了理论基础。     

The Pertinence of International Relations

Established as a distinct academic discipline at the end of the second world war, International Relations has above all been concerned with analysing relations between sovereign states - in the first instance, the causes of war between them and alternative forms of cooperation. Throughout its history, IR has been dominated by 'realism', an approach based on a juridical totalizing concept of the state. This denies the relevance of factors located within polities and societies and stresses the primacy of security issues in inter-state relations. More recent work in the field has sought to analyse the interaction of the domestic and the international and to explore the interaction of security with other, most evidently economic, factors. The relation of 1R to political science is defined by the shared concern with the 'pertinence' of the international; that is, how far specific political and social systems are, and are not, affected and determined by factors beyond their frontiers and how these forms of international influence are changing in the contemporary world.     

Extending resemiotisation: time,space and body in discursive representation

The present article offers a critical appraisal of resemiotisation through the investigation of a controversial comment made by South African president, Jacob Zuma. The comment (that Jacob Zuma took a shower to minimise his risk of contracting HIV/AIDS) was made during a rape trial in 2006. Over a period of eight years, this comment has been continually recontextualised into different modes, and has served different functions. This article investigates newspaper reports, cartoons and YouTube clips which were collected from 2006 to 2014. All of these texts refer to the “Shower comment” in linguistic, visual or multimodal ways. Drawing on a multimodal analysis, focussing specifically on modes of representation, the article critically discusses the notions of mode, time and space in connection to resemiotisation. I argue that a Bakhtinian account of time, space and body allows for a non-binary view of semiotic phenomena that will lead to a deeper theoretical understanding of semiotic transformations in all their complexity.     

Collective and Individual Consciousness in Testimonies of Navy Divers

Sick Israeli Navy divers, who were exposed to chemical sewage during their army service, suspected that this exposure was the cause of their cancer. The divers appealed to the courts and demanded the establishment of an independent committee for the investigation of this issue. This step created strong emotional tension between the sick divers and their former brothers-in-arms from the navy. The aim of this paper is to describe the process by which the tension between the divers' individual and collective consciousness is discursively elaborated in their testimony to the committee. This testimony is described by means of a Bakhtinian/Volosinovian semiotic analysis.     

Big Societies,Little Platoons and the Problems with Pluralism

Conservative talk of a ‘big society’ is one more mutation of the unstable family of pluralism. It is a large family, with both benign and progressive left wing members and rogue right wing black sheep. The progressive contribution has been substantial, but pluralism is not a homogeneous ideology or set of policies, and the single word conceals stresses and irreconcilable oppositions in theory and practice. An examination of this variety gives clues to the latest contributions, and to some of the more regressive uses to which pluralism can be put. The left needs both to insist on its own major contribution to progressive pluralism, and to beware of wolves in pluralist clothing.     

Political cartoons as carnivalesque: a multimodal discourse analysis of Argentina’s Humor Registrado magazine

Political cartoons, although generally neglected by academic criticism, are often one of the only forms of socio-political critique permitted during authoritarian rule (Barajas, Rafael. 2000. “The Transformative Power of art: Mexico’s Combat Cartoonists.” NACLA Report on the Americas, 3: 6–41). This paper explores the reasons behind this, reading the genre as a form of Bakhtin’s carnivalesque, a participatory space of oppositional discourse outside the official version with which it has an “ambivalent” relationship (Bakhtin, Mikhael. 1984. Rabelais and His World (Trans Iswolsky H). Bloomington: Indiana University Press) and can be allowed to circulate as a “safety valve” (Holquist, Michael. 1984. “Prologue.” In Rabelais and his World, edited by M. Bakhtin, xiii–xxiii. Bloomington: Indiana University Press) of controlled protest. Drawing on tools of Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Social Semiotics (Kress, Gunther, and Theo Van Leeuwen. 1996. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. New York: Routledge) and Semiology (Barthes, Roland. 1968. Elements of Semiology. New York: Hill and Wang) for methodological purposes, this study investigates this hypothesis through the political cartoons of the covers of satirical fortnightly publication Humor Registrado during the final year of Argentina’s last dictatorship, 1982–1983. The magazine’s role in challenging the dictatorship is explored through an analysis of its representations of key social actors and events during Argentina’s difficult period of transition from dictatorship to democracy following defeat in the 1982 Malvinas/Falklands War.