Russia,NATO, and the "Color Revolutions"

On 12 July, while addressing people he trusted who had helped him in the elections, President Yeltsin finally said something that many people had long wanted to hear from him: Russia needed a new national idea. It may "already be needed in the next presidential elections in the year 2000," the head of state predicted, and hence its development should begin promptly, with the first results visible within a year.     

Litigating Scientific Creationism, or "Scopes" II, III,…

This paper is concerned with the institutional role of courts in dealing with long term political conflict. Such conflict is likely to involve group mobilization on both sides; the analysis therefore utilizes a judicial interest group approach, presenting evidence from the on-going policy debate surrounding presentation of the Darwinian theory of evolution in public schools. The findings demonstrate the importance of courts in developing public policies, not only by articulating policy, but also by affecting subsequent moves by interest groups to promote their agendas elsewhere in the system. Many extended conflicts may not be resolved in institutional settings, but they may be repetitively reformulated and translated to engage the decisionmaking process of specific forums in on-going activities. In successive moves, each adversary attempts to shift the balance of power to its respective advantage, where, paradoxically, the parties may change sides as the debate travels full circle. The analysis also illustrates the advancement of the creation science advocates' game plan, beginning with a publicity-oriented strategy, which is a hallmark of the relatively "amateurish" litigant, and eventually moving to a result-oriented position, a more "professional" approach to the courts.     

Morality, Identity and "Constitutional Patriotism"

In a modern, plural society, there can be no settled agreement on the concrete legal content of a country's constitution. The idea of the constitution is nonetheless pivotal in contemporary, liberal-minded theories of political justification, such as the ones advanced by Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls. Justification in these theories depends finally on "constitutional patriotism," a consciously shared sentiment arising from an ethical assessment of their country by the country's people, according to which the country credibly pursues a certain regulative political ideal for which the constitution stands.     

Law, Religion, and "Public Health" in the Republic of Brazil

The essay evaluates the general problem that, while most modern republican constitutions follow the U.S. and French models in declaring religious freedom, absolute religious freedom is impossible and undesirable. How are religious freedoms constrained, and how much should they be? The essay evaluates the strategies by which limitations on freedoms of religion are constructed and imposed, especially the powerful isomorphism of law and science described by Boaventura de Sousa Santos. Taking the example of Afro‐Brazilian religions in relation to the Brazilian state since 1890, post‐emancipation, the essay argues that pseudo‐scientific discourses of “public health” constrained the religious practice of former slaves, thus allowing the trompel'oeil of religious freedom to continue in the new republic, even as freedoms were in fact constrained by the state.     

"Special treatment": BiDil, Tuskegee, and the logic of race

BiDil, a drug approved in 2005 by the FDA only for African Americans, was seen by many as almost reparations for the horrors of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (1932-72) where treatment for black men was denied. The logic of race, however, rather than racism, links BiDil to the past many thought it was escaping.     

Pierre Bayle, the Rights of the Conscience, the "Remedy" of Toleration

Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) is often considered one of the staunchest defenders of toleration, especially in the domain of religion. His Commentaire philosophique , published in 1686, one year after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, argued for a broad idea of toleration, to be extended with no exceptions to all sects and religions. However, his thought can hardly be reduced to an exaltation of the "rights of the conscience," for he realized very soon that such an exaltation risks bringing forth religious fanatism, which in turn is the cause of religious wars and acts of violence. Toleration, in these conditions, is only a political remedy for the sickness of the human mind.     

"Interdependence": The Reality,the Concept,and the Policy

During the entire postwar period, the term "interdependence" has figured repeatedly in statements by American governmental figures and in the writings of bourgeois political scientists. In the past two or three years, it has acquired a new ring. Whereas previously American expressions regarding "interdependence" applied to relationships within the framework of NATO, today they have to do with a considerably broader sphere of foreign policy relationships of the United States, including those involving the entire capitalist world and the developing countries. In a number of cases, American writers working on the "interdependence" problem have also included certain aspects of the relation between capitalist and socialist states. They undertake to analyze, from the standpoint of bourgeois political science, various aspects of "interdependence" — economic, physical-geographical (deriving from mankind's ever more intensive joint utilization of the atmosphere, the waters and floor of the world ocean, near outer space, solar and subsurface energy, etc.), military-political (having to do with the threat of destruction of world civilization should a nuclear war occur), cultural, and so on.     

INNOCENCE, ERROR, AND THE "NEW ABOLITIONISM": A COMMENTARY

If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed.
- Justice Sandra Day O'Connor     

Public values, health inequality, and alternative notions of a "fair" response

The fact that disadvantaged people generally die younger and suffer more disease than those with more resources is gaining ground as a major policy concern in the United States. Yet we know little about how public values inform public opinion about policy interventions to address these disparities. This article presents findings from an exploratory study of the public's values and priorities as they relate to social inequalities in health. Forty-three subjects were presented with a scenario depicting health inequalities by social class and were given the opportunity to alter the distribution of health outcomes. Participants' responses fell into one of three distributive preferences: (1) prioritize the disadvantaged, (2) equalize health outcomes between advantaged and disadvantaged groups, and (3) equalize health resources between advantaged and disadvantaged groups. These equality preferences were reflected in participants' responses to a second, more complex scenario in which trade-offs with other health-related values - maximizing health and prioritizing the sickest - were introduced. In most cases, participants moderated their distributive preferences to accommodate these other health goals, particularly to prioritize the allocation of resources to the very sick regardless of their socioeconomic status.     

我国民营经济制度变迁、制度"锁定"及"解锁"研究

我国民营经济制度变迁历程是我国经济体制改革过程的一个缩影.运用新制度经济学分析范式对我国民营经济制度变迁、制度"锁定"及制度"解锁"进行研究探讨,有助于我们总结民营经济发展的经验,把握民营经济未来的发展方向,为我国民营经济更好更快发展提供有益的参考.     

"Business Unionism" versus "Responsible Unionism": Common Law Confusion, the American State, and the Formation of Pre-New Deal Labor Policy

The emergence of the American Federation of Labor in the 1880s and its ideology of voluntarism or "business unionism" transformed the mainstream American labor movement. Voluntarism, however, had little impact on the formation of the pre-New Deal labor policy. I suggest that members of the progressive movement developed "responsible unionism" as an alternative to "business unionism" and that it was the progressives' alternative that shaped later developments in labor policy. (1) Progressive state and federal court judges relied on the principles of agency, a fiduciary term, to make unions competent contracting parties and enforce collective trade agreements. (2) Although the AFL had long lobbied for anti-injunction legislation sup ported by an underlying ideology of voluntarism, the progressive Republican-Democratic coalition that engineered passage of the Norris-LaGuardia Anti-Injunction Act of 1932 based the legislation on their notion of "responsible unionism." These progressives interwove the principles of agency into the act. As a result, rather than withdrawing the American state from labor-management relations, the act caused unions to begin to lose their status as private, voluntary associations, thus creating the foundation for the construction of the statist regulatory apparatus, the National Labor Relations Board, during the New Deal.     

Imperialism, race, and therapeutics: the legacy of medicalizing the "colonial body"

The era of high colonialism in South Asia coincided with the period when eugenics came to dominate much of the scientific discourse in Europe and America. Such attitudes were naturally transplanted into the colonial world where medical researchers helped to establish a pathological "difference" between Europeans in India and the colonial "Other," thus creating a medical discourse dominated by racial segregated treatment regimes. With the growth of trans-national transfer of scientific knowledge, this colonial "research" began to underpin racially constructed medical practices wherever they occurred.     

群体性事件应急管理中的“望闻问切”

对于群体性事件可以借用中医上的"望闻问切"的思想来进行应急管理,所谓群体性事件应急管理中的"望诊"则是根据观察群体性事件的特点、规模、参与人群等表征来进行观察,来确定群体性事件的发生,"闻诊"则是根据观察群体性事件的目的、特征和行动指向来确定群体性事件的发生的类型和危机程度。"问诊"则是要倾听群众呼声、切实解决群众利益诉求,通过沟通来确定群体性事件的发生根源,找到解决问题的途径。"切诊"确定群体性事件的症结和根本所在。