The contextualist turn and schematics of institutional fit: Theory and a case study from Southern India

The policy literature has long recognized the inherent need for a program to fit the unique conditions found in a certain context. We present a theory of institutional contextualism that focuses on the mechanisms by which actors adapt a policy design to fit a situation. We conceptualize institutions as phenomena that are constituted by a constant dialectic between text (the general blueprint) and context (the particular setting). The first half of this dialectic, which is the diffusion of the constitutive text or norm onto the institutional setting, has been discussed in the literature. Our research focuses on the second half, and we delineate, in concept, mechanisms for fitting the program to the local context. We then use a case study of improvised microfinance programs in Tamil Nadu, India, to illustrate how this occurs in reality. The research underscores the unexamined link between effective governance and contextual fit and offers a typology of mechanisms for fit that should inform future research.     

学科视野中的历史政治学:以历史社会学、政治史、比较政治学为参照

历史政治学是中国学者提出的研究政治学之全新范式,但当然不是从零开始,而有众多可资利用之知识资源,本文探讨其与历史政治学之关系。历史政治学与历史社会学均致力于带回历史、带回国家,并共享众多方法;但后者有西方中心论偏见,奉行价值无涉原则,止于理解或解释;历史政治学则破除西方中心论,公正对待中国等非西方国家、文明丰富的政治实践,且有明确价值追求,致力于从历史中探究善治之道。历史政治学呼吁历史学再度重视政治史,并使之有政治学想象力。历史政治学可为比较政治学带入大历史视野,以矫正其以西式政治制度为标准的偏失。     

The Local Voter: A Geographically Weighted Approach to Ecological Inference

Drawing inferences about individual behavior from aggregate ecological data has been a persistent problem in electoral and behavioral studies, in spite of important methodological advances. In a recent article Anselin and Tam Cho (2002) provided Monte Carlo evidence that King's Ecological Inference (EI) solution will produce biased estimates in the presence of extreme spatial heterogeneity. In this article we provide further empirical evidence that supports their findings and shows that in the presence of spatial effects the residuals of Goodman's naïve model exhibit the same spatial structure that King's local  B ^B _i  estimates. Solving for extreme spatial heterogeneity, it is argued here, requires controlling the omitted variable bias expressed in the spatial structure of much ecological data. In this article we propose a Geographically Weighted Regression approach (GWR) for solving problems of spatial aggregation bias and spatial autocorrelation that affect all known methods of ecological inference. The estimation process is theoretically intuitive and computationally simple, showing that a well-specified GWR approach to Goodman and King's Ecological Inference methods may result in unbiased and consistent local estimates of ecological data that exhibit extreme spatial heterogeneity.     

The Chechen Exception: Rethinking Russia's Human Rights Policy

Orthodox interpretations of human rights policies and practices in post-Soviet Russia are often construed by external critics through a historicist lens of tsarist and Soviet-era authoritarianism. Contemporary Russia's adherence to emerging international human rights norms is commonly judged in sole reference to its human rights disaster in Chechnya. In this article, we contest the notion that human rights abuses in Chechnya fully illustrate Russia's stance on international human rights. We suggest that Chechnya is the exception in the post-Soviet era, and that Russia has increasingly brought its human rights standards in line with the West. We use a historical comparative context as well as Russia's discursive response to NATO's intervention in Kosovo and its UN Security Council voting record as empirical evidence for our argument. ¹     

'TRADITIONS' AS CONTEXT IN THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THEORY

Abstract An adequate methodology in the history of political theory is dependent on a adequate philosophy of history. Firstly, in the course of a critical consideration of other writers on methodology (principally W. G. Greenleaf and Q. Skinner) it is suggested that 'intellectual traditions', of two sorts, might provide an appropriate unit of context. Secondly, a broadly anti-naturalist philosophy of history is adopted, which makes use of Collingwood and Hegel, and it is argued that intellectual traditions are compatible with this view of historical knowledge. It is concluded that the opposition between the universalist text-orientated approach and the particularist historical approach to the study of the history of political theory is a false dichotomy. We can learn from past ideas as a traditional inheritance.     

时代剧变推动下近代史学演进大势(下)

三、封建帝制崩溃前后"新史学"的倡导和推进戊戌维新虽然被顽固派扼杀了,但戊戌运动由此开启的思想解放的潮流是阻挡不了的。至20世纪初年,由于空前民族危机的刺激以及逐步形成的共和革命思想的推动,中国思想界出现了急剧变化的局面,掀起了输入西方新思想、新学理,用以分析中国历史与现实问题,寻找救国道路的进步潮流。十年之间,雨后春笋般地刊行了大量译著、杂志和报纸。梁启超对当时情况有过生动的概括:"戊戌政变,继以庚子‘拳祸’,清室衰微益暴露,青年学子,相率求学海外。     

Jenseits von Distanz und Richtung. Die Verbundmessung von Politikpräferenzen im Vergleich mit dem Distanz- und dem Richtungsmodell des Wählens — Empirische Befunde eines Methodenexperiments

The analysis of issue voting is of central importance in empirical electoral research. In this context, policy positions of voters and parties are normally surveyed by means of bipolar policy scales developed within the spatial model of voting. Even if such policy scales are widespread, their use can be criticised for a series of theoretical and methodological reasons. Beyond this background, conjoint measurement of policy preferences is presented as an alternative mode of operationalization. Using data from a methodological experiment it is shown that (full profile) conjoint measurement is superior to the use of traditional policy scales in the proximity and the directional model of voting.     

The Joys and Sorrows of Diversity: Changes in the Historical Profession in the Last Half Century

The evolution of the historical profession in the United States in the last 50 years provides much reason both for celebration and sorrow. An unprecedented amount of scholarship and teaching is being devoted to regions outside of the traditional American concentration on itself and Europe. New subjects of study—gender, race and ethnicity—have developed. At the same time, political correctness has both narrowed and distorted enquiry. Traditional fields demanding great intellectual rigor, such as intellectual and economic history, are in decline. Even worse, education about Western civilization and the Enlightenment has come to be treated with increasing disdain at colleges and universities. There has instead been a considerable expansion of cultural and women’s studies, including women’s and gender history. These have contributed greatly to the holy trinity of gender, race and class that seems to dominate history departments today. Affirmative action hiring for greater racial, ethnic and gender “diversity” has had an equally great effect on the historical profession. Many of those who were hired preferentially on the basis of past and present discrimination (either real or imagined) continue to emphasize that theme in their research and teaching, since it is their chief claim to professional legitimacy. As a purely intellectual movement, oppression studies cannot last. Any school that leaves out too much about the past is not something to hold serious minds for long. But since it in a small way supports a nationally based political spoils system of racial and ethnic preferences upon which the futures of many politicians rest, it might be expected to have a long life. This is one of the greatest challenges facing historical scholarship today. Even this pales into insignificance in the face of the looming changes in liberal arts education. History is in the process of being reduced from a requirement to an elective on many campuses. This is part of a national trend to move away from the acquisition of knowledge in favor of more broadly based skills. In this way history will suffer the same sorry fate as so much of traditional education in America.     

SOCIAL ADMINISTRATION IN AUSTRALIA: THE NEED FOR A PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION

There appear to be two current, opposing misconceptions concerning the nature of social administration. On the one hand there is the belief that it constitutes "no special or definite study but a part of that general mass of things which every earnest young man or woman should know" and, on the other hand, it is "often assumed without question to be concerned with administrative practice"¹.
The domain of the subject of "social administration" is the social service industry in all its parts, its relationship with the industrial and commercial world, and its relationship with primary groups such as families, friends, and neighbours².
Narrowly defined, social administration is the study of the development structure and practices of the social services. Broadly defined, it is an attempt to apply the social sciences — including philosophy — to the analysis and solution of a changing range of social problems³.     

Territory and Power Revisited: Theorising Territorial Politics in the United Kingdom after Devolution

The article seeks to contribute to theoretical analysis of political decentralisation in the UK occasioned by devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in 1998–9. It examines the contribution that can be made by Jim Bulpitt's 1983 book, Territory and Power in the United Kingdom . First, it argues that Bulpitt's critique of conventional wisdoms in the early 1980s remains highly relevant to reflecting on shortcomings in the literature today. Key among these is the lack of a common conceptual language for analysis, and Bulpitt's overarching re-conceptualisation of the field as the study of 'territorial politics' would repay renewed reflection. Secondly, the article clarifies Bulpitt's own centre perspective and argues that its application is best understood today as a realist historical institutionalist account of UK territorial politics. In so doing Bulpitt also provides an enduring methodological and interpretative challenge to assumptions of state centralism. Thirdly, the article argues that key methodological/interpretative insights can be adapted from Territory and Power in analysis of UK territorial politics and the advent of devolution. This reinforces the utility of Bulpitt's historical institutionalism to contemporary analysis. Finally, it argues that Territory and Power 's concepts and methods, understood in these ways, would bear application in comparative studies of political decentralisation.     

对《夏商周断代工程1996—2000年阶段成果报告·简本》的质疑

《夏商周断代工程1996—2000年阶段成果报告.简本》中,除依据《尚书.召诰》的记载而得出成王元年为公元前1042年这一条是正确的外,其余论述都不够严谨,或明显是错误的,因此不可轻信。依据现存先秦文献,可以求得周武王灭纣的准确日期、西周及西周以前若干位帝王的在位年代或其元年。依据出土西周青铜器的铭文,可以求得西周某几位周王的在位年代。结合青铜器的铭文及先秦文献记载,已求得西周共和元年以前全部十位周王(武王、成王、康王、昭王、穆王、共王、懿王、孝王、夷王、厉王)的在位年代。现存先秦文献中,有唐虞夏商周历代帝王在位年代记载的唯一文献是《竹书纪年》。《竹书纪年》中,从西周初年至西周共和元年这段时间内的记载,的确已被后人篡改,因此不可置信。但除此之外,《竹书纪年》中西周共和元年以后的记载、唐虞夏商时期的记载,没有遭受后人篡改,仍基本保持着晋代出土时的原貌,因此应与《古本竹书纪年》的记载一样,是完全可信的。由以上所述可知,从唐帝尧元年(公元前2145年)至西周末年历代帝王的在位年代,都已可一一列出。因此,现在可以着手编写一册可令世人信服的《唐虞夏商周年表》了。     

关于20世纪中国史学发展道路的对话

20世纪中国史学名家辈出,成就巨大,今天对其发展道路认真地反思、总结,具有重要的学术价值和现实意义。首先,应当树立动态发展的眼光,从宏观上做出“新史学流派”的新概括,研究它如何由“思潮”发展到“流派”,研究这一群体所取得的重大成就,这一群体学者的共性和各自的学术个性;并进而形成20世纪史学“三大干流”（新史学流派、新历史考证学派、马克思主义史学流派）平行发展和相互影响的总体研究思路,取代以往“两大干流”的认识。其次,应进一步探究新历史考证学如何继承了乾嘉考证学的优良传统,同时又因获得进化史观等新的理论指导而成为一门近代学术;至1949年以后,又因为接受唯物史观的指导,而推进到新的境界。再次,对于马克思主义史学,应如实地总结它取得的巨大成就,同时深刻反思其经历过的曲折;要开掘出“传统思想的精华如何通向唯物史观”一类的新课题;对于建国后“十七年”史学,应抓住“两种对立的学风”这一关键做观察、分析,既认真总结教条主义一度盛行的深刻教训,又恰如其分地总结正直学者发扬优良学风而取得的巨大成绩,以此坚定我们坚持和发展唯物史观、用以指导史学研究的信心。     

The development of social indicators from content analysis of social documents

If we agree that social indicators indicate or measure only within the context of a theory of social change, and if we further assume that theories of social change which deal only with social conditions, behavioral interchanges or transactions, and the material environment, are likely to be unsuccessful because they ignore the mental side of life, it follows that we will want our theories of social change, and the social indicators associated with them, to incorporate the cultural and group psychological aspects of social behavior.When we look to possible data bases in search of raw material for social indicators of culture and group psychology there are, broadly speaking, two possibilities. Data may be gathered from interviews or from cultural artifacts.But interview response data, because of (a) their reactive character; (b) the difficulty of compiling time-series of responses; (c) the impossibility of making use of historical sources and (d) difficulties of validation against indicators external to the survey research context are, perhaps, less than ideal as a possible basis for social indicator systems. This leaves us with the possibility, and with the problem, of developing group psychological and cultural indicators from an analysis of cultural artifacts: literary documents, films, political speeches and other sources of this sort.     

The Institutionalization of Environmental Attention in the United States and Denmark: Multiple- versus Single-Venue Systems

The European countries have surpassed the United States with regard to comprehensive and stringent environmental regulation. This policy pattern has become very visible in the international debate about reduction of CO₂ emissions. From a comparative public policy perspective, the recent difference is interesting because it restates the question about policy consequences of political institutions. This article addresses this theoretical question from the perspective of policy agenda-setting theory. We present the argument that while the U.S. political system, with its many "venues" that are relatively open to internal and external competing forces, might be quicker in generating attention to new issues like the environment, the institutionalization of attention is also less strong than in a European parliamentary system. The article substantiates this argument with empirics by comparing attention to and policymaking for environmental issues in the United States to Denmark.     

THE FORGOTTEN ROYAL COMMISSION: PUBLIC SERVICE REFORM IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA

The publication Public Service Inquiries in Australia edited by R.F.I Smith and Patrick Weller (1978) concentrated on the wave of inquiries that swept Australia in the 1970s with most attention being given to the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration (RCAGA). While the focus of the book was on contemporary developments, Roger Wettenhall's chapter 2 outlined "A Brief History of Public Service Inquiries" so as "to set the present generation of inquiries more firmly in a historical context" (1978, p.15).     

对中国图书馆立法问题的思考及认识

从国内外图书馆立法背景和图书馆发展趋势出发,对图书馆是否立法进行了研究,分析了中国图书馆事业立法的必要性,提出图书馆急需制定出一部具有中国特色的图书馆法,才能保障和促进图书馆事业的繁荣与发展。     

International Relations and the Methodological Turn

Confusion has arisen in the debate between the advocates of classical and behavioural modes of analysis because epistemological and methodological issues are conflated in the debate. A distinction between logic-in-use and reconstructed logic disentangles these issues and demonstrates that the division between the classical and behavioural approaches cannot be sustained on methodological or epistemological grounds. History and social science cannot be distinguished in terms of either epistemology or methodology but only by the kind of research questions asked. This argument is reinforced by examining the methodological and epistemological posture adopted by Waltz. It is an illusion to imagine that theoretical debates in international relations will be resolved by methodological or epistemological fiat.     

The Limits of Rational Choice: New Institutionalism in the Test Bed of Central Banking Politics in Australia

This paper tests the explanatory capacities of different versions of new institutionalism by examining the Australian case of a general transition in central banking practice and monetary politics: namely, the increased emphasis on low inflation and central bank independence. Standard versions of rational choice institutionalism largely dominate the literature on the politics of central banking, but this approach (here termed RC1) fails to account for Australian empirics. RC1 has a tendency to establish actor preferences exogenously to the analysis; actors' motives are also assumed a priori ; actor's preferences are depicted in relatively static, ahistorical terms. And there is the tendency, even a methodological requirement, to assume relatively simple motives and preference sets among actors, in part because of the game theoretic nature of RC1 reasoning. It is possible to build a more accurate rational choice model by re-specifying and essentially updating the context, incentives and choice sets that have driven rational choice in this case. Enter RC2. However, this move subtly introduces methodological shifts and new theoretical challenges. By contrast, historical institutionalism uses an inductive methodology. Compared with deduction, it is arguably better able to deal with complexity and nuance. It also utilises a dynamic, historical approach, and specifies (dynamically) endogenous preference formation by interpretive actors. Historical institutionalism is also able to more easily incorporate a wider set of key explanatory variables and incorporate wider social aggregates. Hence, it is argued that historical institutionalism is the preferred explanatory theory and methodology in this case.     

Of “other” histories and identities: partition novels from the Indian subcontinent

Ever since the Partition, novelists on either side of the India–Pakistan border have used fictional space imaginatively to formulate discourses on a humanistically-centred, multiplistically-defined Other identity, which writes itself into existence through the prism of the novelists’ contextual present. In this article, I will focus on three partition narratives: Salman Rushdie's Midnight's children (1980), Bapsi Sidhwa's Ice candy man (1988) and Amitav Ghosh's The shadow lines (1988). By employing different modes of knowledge, the novelists draw out the micro-history embedded within the historical event, and resonate the voice of the Other, a creation of partisan politics. Bapsi Sidhwa appears as a social historian who perceives the event through the eyes of an eight-year-old Parsi girl Lenny; Amitav Ghosh, akin to a modern historian, focuses on rigid and illusory territorial divisions from Thamma's (grandmother's) perspective; while Salman Rushdie emerges as a postmodern historian who draws attention to the ambiguity and opacity of both historical and fictional knowledge through Saleem Sinai, born on the day India won her independence. History, as it is perceived by the Other – each belonging to a different generation – is a palimpsest: it is always in a state of becoming, of being lived, evaluated and rewritten. Fiction, as it interprets the historical knowledge, fills in the fissures and absences between the history of the past and that of the present. The article will eventually study how fiction and history inform each other, and how the rhetoric of fiction and history together constitute a dialectical discourse on identity – mapped by borders – which sees a convergence of private and collective memories.     

Reluctant policy innovation through profit concession and informality tolerance: A strategic relational view of policy entrepreneurship in China's urban redevelopment

This paper engages with the theoretical perspective of policy entrepreneurship to examine the pattern and process of policy change in the context of China's urban redevelopment. Drawing upon a strategic-relational reinterpretation of policy entrepreneurship, this paper identifies a distinctive form of reluctant policy innovation in the “three old renewals” scheme initiated in Guangzhou where profit concession and informality tolerance were practiced to create a small window of opportunity for the project of urban redevelopment to break ground. The motivation of policy entrepreneurship in the successful urban renewal projects in Guangzhou was heavily contingent upon the geographically important location of the project site and the historically incidence of hosting the 2010 Asian Games, which forced municipal government to become entrepreneurial and innovative in decision making and income redistribution in order to get things done as quickly as possible. The distinct fashion of policy innovation identified in the case of Guangzhou points to the polymorphous and dynamic nature of policy entrepreneurship and advocates a relational treatment of the strategies and motives of policy entrepreneurs embedded in concrete geographical and historical context.