The brown decades

Current positive attitudes towards the historic Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision are likely to mislead us into thinking that it was welcomed when announced in 1954. Beyond that, Chief Justice Warren's opinion seemed to announce two separate justifications for ruling school segregation unconstitutional: the Fourteenth Amendment principle of ‘equal protection of the laws’ and the negative effects of segregation on the self-image and self-respect of black schoolchildren. These two lines of reasoning were both important in the context of the emergence of a new ‘universalist’ way of thinking about race after the Second World War. By the late 1960s, however, this colour-blind universalism had given way to a race-conscious particularism. By that same period, the federal court system was moving to embrace race-conscious measures to insure school integration and not just desegregation, and then to allow affirmative action rather than merely requiring the abolition of racial discrimination. Thus the conflicting logics of Brown were present in the racial jurisprudence and politics of the last fifty years. Another question raised by Brown is also important: how did it comport with the progressive tradition of jurisprudence called ‘legal realism’ that was dominant up to the end of the Second World War? Surprisingly little attention has been devoted to this problem in the intellectual history of constitutional thought. One thing is clear, however: legal realism has a different origin and orientation than the ‘race and rights’ tradition that the Warren Court initiated with the Brown decision. Again, the conflicting logics of Brown reflect the two traditions of legal reasoning: one based on an appeal to rights and principles and one grounded in experience. Finally, reflection upon the half-century history of Brown reveals considerable progress in abolishing legal and political racial discrimination, although ironically more progress in integrating schools has been made in the South than the North. Moreover, such progress has come at a certain cost to black institutions in both regions of the United States. That said, there is still much to be done to overcome the effects of over a century of racial segregation.     

The Portuguese parliament during the first two decades of democracy

This article sets out the main stages in the development of the Portuguese parliament over the past two decades. This development has been characterised by the growing rationalisation of the internal operation of parliament, notably through an increased role for committees, and the greater importance attached to parliamentary scrutiny of the executive. Recently, the Portuguese parliament has taken important steps in strengthening its links with society and in responding to public concerns. Some of the measures discussed in this context have helped to support the legitimation function of parliament; but parliament will need better developed resources if it is to act an effective check on the government.     

The housing and neighborhood conditions of America's children: patterns and trends over four decades

This paper uses national and metropolitan area data from American Housing Surveys over four decades to examine the patterns and trends in the housing and neighborhood circumstances of children. Children across the income distribution have experienced dramatic improvements in the physical adequacy of their dwellings and in crowding but significant deterioration in housing affordability. Poor children are often in greatest jeopardy, with the rate of complaints about crime 25 percent higher in 2005 than in 1975, and the rate of school complaints twice as high in 2005 than 1975. Poor children also experience little payoff from residential mobility in terms of physical dwelling adequacy, crowding, affordability, or adequacy of schools, though moves are associated with fewer complaints about crime. However, it is the near poor – those between 101–200 percent of poverty – and not the poor who appear to be most affected by the tightness or looseness of the housing market.     

And donor makes three

A growing number of infertile women are being implanted with embryos conceived from their husband's sperm and eggs donated by other women. Though some clinics report a success rate of one in three, such adopt-an-embryo procedures pose legal, ethical and emotional problems.     

Socialist research in three countries

True War

Tim O'Brien, in the Lake of the Woods (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994; and Penguin, 1995).

Fallen First

Albert Camus, The First Man. Translated from the French by David Hapgood (New York: Knopf, 1995).

Promises, Promises

Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How it Changed America (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991).

Trouble After Nafta

James W. Russell, After the Fifth Sun: Class and Race in North America (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994).     

三大惯性思维评析

在我们的现实生活中,存在着很多怪圈和怪现象。探究其根源,不能只着眼于体制,还要多从文化背景中挖掘,分析惯性思维的影响。就我们党的执政实践而言,影响较广的思维惯性主要有三个,即运动化、一刀切、矫枉过正。从方法论的角度看,这些惯性思维,都有走极端的特征。将其深植于头脑中,对事业是非常有害的。因此,必须主动加以破除。     

Science three,religion zero

His research focuses on biosociology and the social aspects of technology and environment.     

The three faces of evaluation

Program evaluation can be used for three purposes: to learn about a program's operations and effects, to control the behavior of those responsible for program implementation, and to influence the responses of outsiders in the program's political environment. Most agencies fail to take full advantage of all three faces of evaluation. They begin their evaluation programs too late; they assign evaluation responsibilities to staffs which lack the requisite skills; or they yield to temptations to distort or suppress evaluation findings. The case of the evaluation of civil service reform demonstrates how these multiple purposes can be pursued together with constructive results. It also suggests several lessons of more general relevance.     

从三个维度看邓小平的现代化思想

与世界其他国家相比,中国的现代化道路起步于近代半殖民半封建社会的特殊国情,具有艰难曲折的特点。了解邓小平的现代化思想,有助于我们理解中国选择马克思主义、中国特色社会主义道路的历史必然性。可以从历史、价值、现实三个维度来把握邓小平的现代化思想。     

三农困境之探析

“三农”问题目前是制约我国农村发展的主要问题,“三农”问题形成的原因众多,本文着重从提高农民的素质、扩大农民的政治权利及农民的组织化问题等方面,具体提出解决“三农”问题的方法。     

论国家利益的三分性

国家利益是实体利益、关系利益、意识文化利益的辨证统一体,在性质属性上表现为阶级性、民族性、国际性的辩证统一。在国家利益的实现方面,国家间相互关系也表现出三分性特征。     

A sheriff, two bullets and three problems

This paper analyzes deterrence in international conflicts. Assume a strong country has several opponents and faces a military capacity constraint, which is not exhausted after just one war. Two main effects are at work. If the strong country is constrained, then reputation is more expensive and may occur less often. The problem is that the opponents may (but need not) be more aggressive compared to a world without a constraint. It may be that an “axis of evil” does not exist before a war occurs, but is implicitly formed even by moderate countries after the first war was waged. A point of interest is whether the constrained strong country should obtain additional capacity, given that the objective is to minimize the number of wars. The analysis sheds some new light on the U.S. foreign policy, the United Nations and the “axis of evil”