Stigmatizing Thorstein Veblen: A Study in the Confection of Academic Reputations

The life, work, and appraisal of Thorstein Veblen reveal well the defense mechanisms employed by society's dominant strata to counter ideological challenges to the established order. They also offer insight into the sociology of reputation and, more narrowly, the psychology of Veblen's biographers, who have frequently sought to enhance their own reputations at the expense of his. Central to an understanding of Veblen's sullied reputation is Joseph Dorfman, whose voluminous biography of Veblen projects Dorfman's own cultural demons and insecurities onto his subject, at the same time as it has influenced the uncritical views of later scholars.     

Local Chairs vs International Networks: the Beginning of the Scholarly Career in a Peripheral Academic Field

Sensitive to the differences between centers and peripheries of knowledge production, this article explores how scholars in peripheral fields use knowledge from central fields to structure their academic careers. The article presents the findings of a case study of career choices of political scientists in Argentina. In order to understand the interplay between foreign knowledge and local strategies of enacting networks, this article focuses on the beginning of academic careers. At this early stage, political scientists in Argentina usually have to make a decision whether to stay in the country or go abroad for postgraduate education. Relying on positioning theory and recent developments in Science and Technology Studies, we identified two alternative positioning strategies. Those who stay in Argentina tend to hoard as many scholarly positions as possible, enacting local networks oriented towards teaching. Scholars who go abroad enact networks with international dimensions, in the process enrolling persons and objects, though not always successfully. Scholars with international experience tend to be research oriented, and they mention the working conditions abroad as particularly attractive. We show the extent to which these findings challenge some views of centers and periphery and highlight the active role of scholars in peripheral scientific fields.     

Effect of Parental Migration on the Academic Performance of Left Behind Children in North Western China

China’s rapid urbanisation has induced large numbers of rural residents to migrate from their homes in the countryside to urban areas in search of higher wages. As a consequence, it is estimated that more than 60 million children in rural China are left behind and live with relatives, typically their paternal grandparents. These children are called Left Behind Children (LBCs). There are concerns about the potential negative effects of parental migration on the academic performance of the LBCs that could be due to the absence of parental care. However, it might also be that when a child’s parents work away from home, their remittances can increase the household’s income and provide more resources and that this can lead to better academic performance. Hence, the net impact of out-migration on the academic performance of LBCs is unclear. This paper examines changes in academic performance before and after the parents of students out-migrate. We draw on a panel dataset collected by the authors of more than 13,000 students at 130 rural primary schools in ethnic minority areas of rural China. Using difference-in-differences and propensity score matching approaches, our results indicate that parental migration has significant, positive impacts on the academic performance of LBCs (which we measure using standardised English test scores). Heterogeneous analysis using our data demonstrates that the positive impact on LBCs is greater for poorer performing students.     

Misjudging Islamic Terrorism: The Academic Community's Failure to Predict 9/11

Most academic experts within the International Relations (IR) community and other, more specialized disciplines, failed to predict or warn government policymakers and the public of the possibility that events of 9/11 magnitude could take place on the U.S. homeland. Given that long-term investigation of trends in world affairs is one of the sources that has always informed policy analysis, this represents an interesting question to examine. The analysis contained in this assessment suggests that the ontological, methodological, and conceptual problems within and between the disciplines, combined with a skewed absorption with the prospect of developments in Asia, created a gap in the knowledge about Islamic terrorism and groups like Al Qaeda, which in turn caught most of the academic community unaware on 9/11. This article performs a quantitative study to determine the nature and scope of this apparent analytical failure on the part of academics in IR and other specialized disciplines to predict 9/11 and aims to address why this failure took place.     

Public Policy Analysis in Contemporary France: Academic Approaches, Questions and Debates

Today French academic studies of government are dominated by a particular form of public policy analysis which cannot be explained using literal translations. Instead this article endeavours to explain the nature of French research carried out in this vein by tracing its development over the last thirty years and focusing in particular upon the role of conflict within political science and sociology. Despite the considerable strengths of public policy analysis, however, doubts have recently emerged as to its capacity to adapt to the theoretical and empirical challenges raised by contemporary politics     

国际政治经济学美英学派的论战——学术分野、国家地位与中国议题

历史传统、学术文化与国际地位的差异导致了国际政治经济学美英学派之间明显的学术分野。英国学派更具有体系与制度的批判精神,美国学派主流理论霸权护持心态较为明显。在2008年爆发的全球金融危机面前,美国学派处于普遍失语状态,而英国学派则给予了及时、建设性的学术反应。中国学术界必须清算美国学派的不适当影响,建立更具广泛性的借鉴性知识体系,提出更多具有创造性的中国议题与中国命题。     

Electronic Governance: Locals and Cosmopolitans “In and As” a Virtual Academic Community

Abstract

This investigation revisits Robert Merton’s concepts of “locals” and “cosmopolitans” with respect to academic organizations. It explores the normative structure of electronic governance by analyzing the discourse of a virtual bulletin board. Data from a sample of faculty at a large state university are analyzed to conduct a semi-ethnographic exploratory analysis of the professional role structure and organizational consequences of a virtual academic community. A traditional organizational model used for understanding the public administration of higher education is one of bifurcated governance. In the context of this model, faculty and administration may have separate and conflicting interests. To negotiate and articulate competing interests, members of each constituency organize a formal forum of civil dialogue to initiate and resolve disputes (e.g., faculty meetings; unionized groups such as the American Association of University Professors). Two diverse professional role orientations emerge for airing concerns—locals and cosmopolitans. Formal interactions seem to be a mainstay and vehicle for cosmopolitan interests; locals, who rely more typically on informal discourse, have not found ample outlets for communication. The advent of e-bulletin boards has made possible a virtual community distinguished by norms for both formal and informal discourse, allowing for the clear identification of local and cosmopolitan interests and their competing agenda. The virtual context of discourse was expected to blur the distinctions between locals and cosmopolitans; because of the medium, institutional and local goals become aligned and apparent as opposed to discrepant and inaccessible. But in fact, electronic governance that seems to encourage coalition in the approach to solving tasks makes the demarcation more pronounced, whereupon conflict ensues and the localism and cosmopolitanism professional role structure persists.     

The Effect of Intergenerational Conflict and School-Based Racial Discrimination on Depression and Academic Achievement in Filipino American Adolescents

Abstract

Bronfenbrenner's ecological model postulates the home and school to be key microsystems in fostering emotional well-being and school functioning in children. Utilizing a sample of 663 Filipino American adolescents who participated in the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS), we assessed the effect of intergenerational conflict at home and racial discrimination at school on their mental health and academic achievement. Cross-sectionally, intergenerational conflict and school-based racial discrimination increased depression and decreased academic achievement in early adolescence. Longitudinally, conflict and discrimination in early adolescence decreased academic performance while conflict alone increased depression in late adolescence. Implications of the findings were discussed.     

Academic freedom and international standards in higher education: Contestation in journalism and political science at Moscow State University

Recently two new departments, the School of Broadcast Journalism and the Department of Political Science, were created at Moscow State University while leaving the two traditional departments that engendered them intact. The result has been a contestation over academic freedom, standards, and the very definition of both disciplines at Russia’s premier university. The new departments are both closely associated with United Russia, the dominant political party in Russian politics and the political movement designed to promote the priorities and policies of Prime Minister and former President Vladimir Putin. This paper examines the self-definition of each of the four departments by means of open-ended, semi-structured interviews with faculty and content-analytic examination of curricular materials, including syllabi and assigned readings. We conclude that the newer departments are somewhat more attuned to certain aspects of the international standards of both disciplines, but demonstrate little adherence to key ethical and pedagogical norms, leaving them more susceptible to political influence.     

The Transition to Equity in South African Higher Education: Governance,Fairness, and Trust in Everyday Academic Practice

In South Africa, 15 years into a new political order, higher education institutions are under pressure to create and sustain the conditions necessary for the consolidation of democracy. One of the more important of these conditions is the need to shift their academic staff profiles in ways that are more representative of a diverse democracy. This process is mediated by legislative and policy reforms that have as their aims the establishment of a more diverse community of academics (see, inter alia: White Paper, 1997; Employment Equity Act No. 55 of 1998; National Plan for Higher Education, 2001). While much current thinking is at the macro-level and focused on narrow human resource aspects related to “getting the numbers right,” there is limited research on what happens in the daily experiences of faculty. This article draws on a research project conducted at five universities in South Africa in order to explore how academics in their everyday micro-practices of governance, teaching, and research respond to this external systemic pressure. The findings are considered in terms of their implications for the democratization process, in relation to issues of governance, fairness, and trust, at the levels both of institutions and of society as a whole.     

也谈苏联解体的一个原因--兼评美国学者科兹的几个论点

苏共及其社会主义失败的一个重要原因,是在苏共内部产生了一个特权阶层.美国学者科兹看到是这个特权阶层搞跨了苏共和苏联,却不懂得它产生的真正原因,而是把它归之于改革,进而得出了反对市场化改革的错误结论.历史已经证明,并将继续证明,社会主义不改革、不正确地进行改革,只能是死路一条.     

热话题与冷思考(二十三)--关于时代发展与政党现代化的一些思考

早在1996年,您就在<政党的危机--国外政党运行机制研究>一书中提出:"政党政治进一步现代化的问题已经提上日程."现在越来越多的人关注"政党现代化"这个问题,但在那时人们对"政党现代化"这个词还相当陌生,所以您的提法应该说十分"前卫".那么,您当时是如何考虑这个问题的呢?     

我国“外来人员第二代”犯罪的预防与治理

随着中国改革开放与现代化政策的实施、城市化进程的不断深入，中国有越来越多的农民进城谋生，由于户籍制度等社会原因，他们下一代的问题日趋突现。根据社会和谐发展的理念，笔者从我国“外来人员第二代”的现实境遇出发，提出了对这个群体犯罪问题的预防与治理对策，以供社会有关部门作为决策参考与借鉴。