Books: Political Theory and Methodology

Neal Wood, John Locke and Agrarian Capitalism (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984)
John W. Yolton, Locke: an Introduction (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1985)
N. Tarcov, Locke's Educationfor Liberty (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1984)
F. G. Whelan, Order and Artifice in Hume's Political Philosophy (Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1985)
J. Robertson, The Scottish Enlightenment and the Militia Issue (Edinburgh, John Donald, 1985)
J. R. Dinwiddy, (ed.), The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, Volume 6, January 1798 to December 1801 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1984)
Alvin W. Gouldner, Against Fragmentation: the Origins of Marxism and the Sociology of Zntellectuals (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1985)
Bruce Mazlish, The Meaning of Karl Marx (New York, Oxford University Press, 1984)
Edmond Preteceille and Jean-Pierre Terrail, Capitalism, Consumption and Needs (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1985)
F. R. Dallmayr, Polis and Praxis (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1985)
J. L. Talmon, The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution (London, Secker and Warburg, 1980)
L. J. Macfarlane, The Theory and Practice of Human Rights (London, Temple Smith, 1985)
Jeremy Waldron (ed.), Theories of Righfs (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1984)
Bill Jordan, The State: Authority and Autonomy (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1985)
Franlin I. Gamwell, Beyond Preference: Liberal Theories of Independent Associations (Chicago, University of Chicago Press)
Ted C. Lewellen, Political Anthropology: an Introduction (South Hadley, Mass., Bergin and Garvey, 1983)
Ilkka Heiskanen and Sakari Hanninen (eds), Exploring the Basis of Politics (The Finnish Political Science Association, 1983)
Christopher G. A. Bryant, Positivism in Social Theory and Research (London, Macmillan, 1985)     

A Political Science of Punishment: Francis Lieber and the Discipline of American Prisons

This article examines the history of political science in relation to the history of the prison. It considers how theories of the state in political science have assumed that proper states should punish with prisons, and traces these ideas to the work of Francis Lieber, the first academic political scientist in the USA. Because his ideas about prison reform were central to his conceptualization of the discipline as a science of punishment, his theory of the state is an understudied part of the history of mass incarceration. Lieber argued that the state had a moral duty to punish its citizens with the prison, and an obligation to manage the risks of democracy through the prison's principles of scientific certainty, less eligibility, and disciplinary solitude. By examining the life and work of Francis Lieber, this article offers new ways of thinking about political science's past, and its status as part of the history of the American prison.     

Western Political Research Approaches and the Development of Political Science Methodology in China

The restoration and development of political science as a discipline in China since 1980 benefits from its methodological improvements that were made largely by introducing research approaches from western academia. The aim of this paper is to examine the evolution of the introduction based on articles published in Chinese academic journals since 1990. There exists a wide diversity in research approaches in political science, and the authors try to explain why each approach has a different impact on Chinese political studies and how the introduction of such knowledge has changed the way Chinese political researchers understand the methodology and political science as a discipline.

Philosophical Argument and Political Practice: On the Methodology of Normative Theory*

The article discusses methodological issues in normative political theory. The basic assumption is that normative theory has a dual purpose in both establishing valid principles of differentiating right from wrong and influencing actions and institutions in the right direction. The article starts by distinguishing between two approaches to normative political theory: one stresses the interpretation of existing ideas and conventions; the other takes on the constructivist task of finding out what is really right. Then the relationship between theory and practice is explored. The question is how philosophical arguments can instigate practical reform. It is argued that practical considerations should be incorporated as an explicit element of normative political theory. The recommendation is. in particular, that philosophical theories enter into dialogue with the moral conventions of everyday life. whose normative force people already acknowledge.     

政治学行政学前沿:研究路径与方法论

前沿是一个学科发展的新趋势、新思潮、新分支、新主题和新方法,代表了学术研究方向性的创新思想、观念、原理和体系。研究政治学、行政学理论前沿,可以从具有重大时代意义的话题、社会广泛关注的难题、学界集中研究的论题、政府部门的治理命题中去把握,应当在创新性强的实践中去体验和阐发。研究理论前沿是为了创造前沿性思想。按照学术的成长规律、演化规律和整合规律,运用目标分析、比较研究、趋势分析、多学科交叉研究等创新研究方法论,研究政治学、行政学理论前沿,可望从中打开学术创新的“窗口”。     

National Political Parties and European Integration: Mapping Functional Loss

This article specifically examines the role of national political parties in the light of European integration. It introduces the functions that are normally associated with parties, which allows for a systematic evaluation of the performance of national parties in the European Union. Probing these functions that parties are reputed to implement, it arrives at the conclusion that national parties are fairly unsuccessful in fulfilling their core tasks at the European level.     

经济学方法论比较研究

本从经济学方法论的角度,研究了马克思主义经济学和西方经济学这两大经济学理论体系产生、发展的秫络,阐明了它们在哲学基础、对人的假设、研究的出发点和侧重点等方面的根本差异,并从研究对象的互补性以及某些具体研究方法的共同适用性等方面阐述了这两大理论体系之间的联系。在此基础上,本最后还探讨了我国经济学方法论的合理发展趋。     

Measuring Political Brands: An Art and a Science of Mapping the Mind

The field of political brands has developed a host of approaches and explored a variety of cases over the last years. However, less attention has been devoted to brand measurement—specifically efforts to construct a measure that attempts to explain the relationship between voters and parties. Against this backdrop, this article discusses how to measure a political brand by first selecting one part of the diverse brand concept for further investigation. Next, the two existing brand measures in the literature are evaluated, and the article proposes an alternative measure that underlines a stronger connection to the immense political science literature on voters and parties. Then, the three measures are compared by empirically investigating which measure is best at explaining voters' party sympathy. Here, it is demonstrated that the alternative measure seems to be the most valid and reliable construct when it comes to explaining voters' sympathy for a particular party. Finally, the proposed alternative measure is further validated in a representative sample (N = 2251), establishing a preliminary correlation between party brand and voter sympathy.     

Church Stewardship Evaluation Information Requirements: A Pilot Study

There is a potential for financial abuse in church organizations. Large amounts of money are collected, performance is difficult to measure, and financial records and controls are often not as strong as in other not-for-profit organizations. Members/ donors of church organizations must be able to judge the financial stewardship of the organizations. Thus, financial statements for churches must include usable information and be in an understandable format. This study examines the appropriateness of two different types of financial statements: the GAAP format and a specialized church format.     

Opinion Research and the Counter-Revolution in American Political Science

The identity of political science, its tenuous orthodoxies and continuing divisions, is bound up with its history. The historical subject of this essay is the rise of one particular orthodoxy, the socio-psychological model of opinion research and voting behaviour originally associated with the University of Michigan. This rise helps constitute a conservative defence of American liberal democracy in the early cold war, owing much to the peculiar politics of that era. The contemporary payoff of this historical reconstruction is an identification of the vulnerabilities and invulnerabilities of the model as highlighted by its struggles with the understandings it superseded and the contingent political context of these struggles. The substantial legacy for the discipline as a whole merits careful critical scrutiny, especially given changes in the political context since the 1950s, and the end of the cold war.     

The Death Penalty and the Peculiarity of American Political Institutions

This article examines distinctive American political institutions that contribute to explaining the continued use of the death penalty. In the light of wide popular support for capital punishment, strong political leadership is considered to be a principal channel for the abolition of capital punishment. The dilemma of the US death penalty, however, lies in populist features of political structures that greatly limit the political leverage and possibilities available to leaders. The institutional arrangements in the United States allow public support for the death penalty to influence political decision making more directly than it can in the European counterpart. A strong receptiveness of US political leaders to the public also implies that once public opinion changes, political leaders are likely to respond to the public’s new attitude. Unlike most countries, which abolished the death penalty through political initiatives that were counter-majoritarian, the United States may abolish it only after a change in public opinion.

---

政治文明研究综述

一、社会主义政治文明提出的背景及意义 众多学者认为,社会主义政治文明思想的提出顺应了历史潮流和时代的要求,反映了中国共产党开拓创新的意识,具有重大的现实意义和深远的历史意义。 首先,建设社会主义政治文明的思想是以江泽民同志为核心的中央领导集体对马克思主义政治学理论和邓小平民主政治建设理论的丰富和发展。“政治文明”一词,马克思于1844年11月在《关于现代国家的著作的计划草稿》中就提出了,但是没有明确界定。多数学者认为,我国过去没有提出社会主义政治文明的概     

Political Parties and Representation of the Poor in the American States

Motivated by recent work suggesting that low‐income citizens are virtually ignored in the American policymaking process, this article asks whether a similar bias shapes the policy positions adopted by political parties much earlier in the policymaking process. While the normative hope is that parties serve as linkage institutions enhancing representation of those with fewer resources to organize, the resource‐dependent campaign environment in which parties operate provides incentives to appeal to citizens with the greatest resources. Using newly developed measures of state party positions, we examine whether low‐income preferences get incorporated in parties’ campaign appeals at this early stage in the policymaking process—finding little evidence that they do. This differential responsiveness was most pronounced for Democratic parties in states with greater income inequality; it was least evident for Republicans’ social policy platforms. We discuss the implications of these findings for representation in this era of growing economic inequality.     

Predispositions and the Political Behavior of American Economic Elites: Evidence from Technology Entrepreneurs

Economic elites regularly seek to exert political influence. But what policies do they support? Many accounts implicitly assume economic elites are homogeneous and that increases in their political power will increase inequality. We shed new light on heterogeneity in economic elites' political preferences, arguing that economic elites from an industry can share distinctive preferences due in part to sharing distinctive predispositions. Consequently, how increases in economic elites' influence affect inequality depends on which industry's elites are gaining influence and which policy issues are at stake. We demonstrate our argument with four original surveys, including the two largest political surveys of American economic elites to date: one of technology entrepreneurs—whose influence is burgeoning—and another of campaign donors. We show that technology entrepreneurs support liberal redistributive, social, and globalistic policies but conservative regulatory policies—a bundle of preferences rare among other economic elites. These differences appear to arise partly from their distinctive predispositions.     

Political Culture, Political System Characteristics, and Public Policies Among the American States

Daniel Elazar's typology of political culture is updated forall states for 1980 using religious affiliation data. On average,the political culture indices do not vary much from simitarmeasures constructed for 1906–1936. The effects of politicalculture on state politics and policy are tested in two ways:(1) by calculating partial correlation coefficients for tendependent variables holding four environmental variables constant(affluence, industrialization, fertility, and liberal politicalideology), and (2) by estimating regression equations withintwo categories of political culture (individualistic and traditionalistic)to gauge the indirect or contextual effects of culture. Thepartial correlation analysis yields the expected outcome—moralisticstates have more interparty competition, higher voter turnout,more policy-relevant parties, and more liberal and innovativepolicies; traditionalistic states show the opposite result.The attempt to assess the contextual effects of political cultureproves less satisfactory. No such effects appear for about halfthe dependent variables, and the contextual effects that arefound correspond only in part to expectations.