Revisiting the Equality/Difference Debate: Redefining Citizenship for the New Millennium

The argument for parity ignores the fact that 'politics' and 'citizenship' are not neutral terms, and thus to include women without redefining and challenge those terms might not produce any change to the masculine norms that support the system. In fact, politics can be reshaped to fit women rather than the other way around. The best antidote to a masculinist culture seems to be the stripping of political authority of its masculinist connotations in the name of a womanfriendly polity. Women's movements must therefore propose a new definition of citizenship‐as evidenced by the mobilization of several groups of women at the margins of the traditional political universe. In other words, we need to present a new image of citizenship that both includes political, economic, and social aspects, which responds to the needs and demands of women, and which takes into account gender, class, and ethnic differences in a pluralistic framework. A better approach implies calling into question the reductive common definition of several concepts such as politics, universalism, equality, and difference. At a time of growing disenchantment with conventional politics in many countries, there is the need to overcome traditional modes of political organization both within and beyond the nation-state. Women, working within the spaces where public and private worlds collide, operating at the interstices of the public and the private, are providing new role models for active political citizenship.     

Revisiting the Income Tax Effects of Legalizing Same‐Sex Marriages

In this paper we estimate the impacts on income tax collections of legalizing same‐sex marriage. We utilize new individual‐level data sources to estimate the federal income tax consequences of legalizing same‐sex marriages. These data sources also allow us to estimate the impact of legalization on state income tax collections. We find that 23 states would realize a net fiscal benefit from legalization, while 21 states would experience a decline in revenue. The potential (annual) changes in state tax revenue range from negative $29 million in California to positive $16 million in New York. At the federal level, our estimates suggest an overall reduction in revenues, ranging from a potential loss of $187 million to $580 million. Overall, we find that the federal and state impacts are quite modest. We also find that our estimates are only marginally affected by alternative assumptions about how many same‐sex couples will choose to marry and which partner will claim any children for tax deduction purposes.     

Politics and enlightenment: Kant and Derrida on cosmopolitan responsibility

Walter Benjamin once remarked of the enterprise of translation ‘that it is nowhere’: that the labour of transcribing the sense, inflection and difference of any particular language and text must always situate the translator in a space which is neither ‘of the original, nor ‘of the language into which it is to be transcribed. This ‘non‐position’ of the translator—between the original and its analogue, between the ‘spirit’ and the ‘letter’, the difference and the acceptability of the text—marks the labour of translation as an ethical responsibility: that of communicating the significance of something—a gesture, a story, a custom, a tradition—which has appeared to this/our socio‐linguistic culture as strange and unfathomably alien; and to achieve this communication without annulling its strangeness, its alterity. The purpose of my comparison of Kant and Derrida's remarks on cosmopolitical responsibility therefore, is fourfold. First, I want to suggest that it is this ‘stricture’ of translation—this difficult responsibility of both judging and respecting the difference of foreign’ cultures—which marks the (non‐Kantian, non‐situated) ‘territory’ of cosmopolitical responsibility. Second, by using Kant's remarks on the relationship between the political evolution of European Enlightenment culture and a possible world confederation of sovereign states, I want to point up the hierarchies and secondarizations involved in the determination of universal standards of moral, ethical and political conduct (even if these standards are originally prosecuted as the legislative conditions of a ‘radical democracy'). Third, I want to look at the ways in which the stricture of translation has been articulated as a theory of ‘global’ responsibility—particularly in the divergent ethical and political approaches of Jurgen Habermas and Jean‐Francois Lyotard. Fourth, I want to suggest that it is Derrida's idea of a ‘dual responsibility’ of critical thought to the political and philosophical resources of European Enlightenment and to the difference of non‐European nations and cultures, that marks the difficulty (the stricture) of acting responsibly within the global economics of power, identity and legislation. I want, in other words, to show that the ‘nowhere’ of Benjamin's translator, is a ‘place’ whose possibility demands a certain ‘Kantian’ right of reflection; that is, the right to pursue the ‘transcendent’ principle of respect for the other.     

Review Essay: Between Deleuze and Derrida,Editors, Paul Patton & John Protevi

Abstract

Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida have each made significant contributions to philosophies of difference and yet few have tackled the difficult task of studying the connection between the two. In their forthcoming book, Between Deleuze and Derrida, editors Paul Patton and John Protevi do exactly this. What emerges is a fascinating study of the similarities and differences between the two philosophers and in particular the ethical and political threads underlying their connection.     

Totem and Taboo: Depolarizing the Space Weaponization Debate

The debate over space weaponization is typically cast in simplistic, unidimensional terms, while many participants caricature their opponents as naive pacifists or rabid warmongers. This article redraws the subject more realistically. First, it surveys the question of what systems are truly space weapons and what developments would constitute weaponization. Second, it describes six distinct schools of thought regarding weaponization: idealist, internationalist and nationalist sanctuary theories, and preemptive, utilitarian and hegemonist pro-weaponization perspectives. Third, it analyzes and largely debunks the leading arguments which hold that space weaponization is inevitable. Finally, it suggests reforms to make the debate more sensible and productive.     

The 1990 Budget Package: Redefining the Debate

The debate of budgeting issues in the 1980s culminated in a dramatic change in 1990—the passage of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. The negotiations leading to this agreement considered the status of the deficit and the philosophical shift from "no new taxes" to "fair taxes." It led to changes in direct spending, enforcement of budget targets, timing of the budget, sequesters usage, tax increases, and entitlement reforms.     

Derrida, Lyotard and the Orientations of a New Academic Responsibility

The paper examines the ethics of research and knowledge as it is constructed in the postmodern, technophilic university. It takes as its premise that the modern university is driven by research that is funded by external sources and therefore is directed or guided toward questions that arise outside of the university. Academic responsibility therefore must take into account not only the duty to questions of knowledge and truth but to the nature of who that knowledge will serve and how. The paper looks at these questions through the work of Jacques Derrida and Jean-Francois Lyotard to understand the ethical problems the question of research pose for educational institutions and those who live within their walls.     

Flexible Adjustment and Political Stability: The Terms of the Debate

Flexibility is a prominent catchword in recent economic and political debate. The need for increased flexibility in various areas of society is generally accepted. The article presents and criticizes the terms of this debate. As part of the general neoliberal trend flexibility is often perceived as a purely desirable quality. Less state, less unions and flexibilization by means of greater reliance upon markets are the policies that are proposed to overcome the crisis of the Western industrialized countries. However, flexible adaptation requires a foundation of stable institutions and behaviour patterns. Japan today represents one successful combination of flexibility and stability. Scandinavia - and other small European countries - have been attributed other successful combinations. Here, political stability seems to arise from a big state and an extended corporatist system and, according to Katzenstein, this does not contradict, but rather reinforces, the capacity for economic flexibility. Recent developmental trends, however, challenge this interpretation. The recent structural changes have been considered part of a general transition from Fordism to post-Fordism. The international race to modernize or to implement post-Fordism might imply a new 'match' of techno-economic structures and sociopolitical institutions - also in the Scandinavian countries.     

Revisiting Tiebout: Moving Rationales and Interjurisdictional Relocation

This article evaluates a key component of the model of localpublic expenditures put forth by Charles Tiebout and embracedby analysts in the public choice tradition. Central to thismodel is the assumption that citizens who are unhappy with localgovernment policies have an incentive to relocate to a differentjurisdiction that offers preferable taxes and services. Usingdata from a survey of actual movers in over fifty communities(including a large central city) located in the two largestcounties of a metropolitan area, we examined factors affectingboth the decision to move and the choice of a new residence.Empirical findings support the expectations of the Tiebout model,showing that tax and service factors significantly influencethe choice of a new residence for those who moved from one jurisdictionto another. The implications of the findings for central citiesare developed.     

Up for Debate: Consultations,the Constitution and the Communications Allowance

Using the Parliamentary Communications Allowance, MP David Drew recently conducted a large scale research project into public opinion on the British Constitution. There could not have been a better time to do so. Not only are we in the wake of severe economic and political crises, but also a period of unprecedented legislative interest in the constitution. Coordinated by Ed Leighton (an undergraduate at the LSE), the project consisted of a postal survey of 43,000 households, public debates around the constituency and workshops in local schools. The response from the public was incredible, and the results both interesting and unexpected. This article will outline some of those findings and demonstrate that large scale consultations with the public are both readily achievable and warmly welcomed. That this can all be done within the budget of the Parliamentary Communications Allowance also shows that at its best this fund can be used to genuinely engage with the public.