Piecemeal Reform in Plato's Laws

Karl Popper has called Plato a dangerous Utopian who offers an unworldly blueprint for society. I argue that, in making this criticism, Popper offers an incomplete reading of Plato's political thought, overlooking the more worldly and modest blueprint of the Laws. In addition, I show that a better understanding of the relationship between the Republic and the Lans - between Plato's philosophical ideal and politically best possible state - demonstrates the necessity of considering Plato's Laws in any discussion of implementation. In fact, a more complete reading of Plato is required by the very criteria Popper employs in advancing his critique. When the political programme of Plato's Laws is viewed in light of Popper's famous distinction between piecemeal social engineering and Utopian social engineering, the problems of applying these characterizations to Plato become apparent.     

Hegel's Plato: The Owl of Minerva and a Fading Political Tradition

The strengths and weaknesses of Hegel's interpretation of Plato's political philosophy are shown to derive from Hegel's own philosophical premisses, namely the progressive, historical development of freedom and the dependence of political philosophy upon an actual political tradition. Hegel's historicism is seen as enabling him to recognize the Republic 's reflection of traditional practice in the priority it assigns to the ideals of social harmony and community. The innovative radicalism and artistic suggestiveness of the Republic , however, are denied in Hegel's interpretation of it as a systematic reconstruction of a fading political tradition. This critical analysis of Hegel's Plato both evaluates Plato's political philosophy and assesses the explanatory power of Hegel's system.     

Knowledge and Law in Plato's Laws

Although at one time the nocturnal council, discussed in Book XII of the Laws , was widely viewed as inconsistent with institutions presented in the earlier books, Glenn Morrow apparently solved this problem, in Plato's Cretan City , and his interpretation is accepted by most recent scholars. I revisit the case for inconsistency. As interpreted by Morrow, the nocturnal council is charged with attempting to improve the laws of Magnesia, through application of philosophic knowledge. However, textual evidence demonstrates that, at one point while he was writing the work, Plato was committed to the rule of all but unchanging laws, and to the extent laws were subject to revision, the nocturnal council played no role in this process. Unlike other inconsistencies in the Laws , this is a major conflict. Although we cannot be sure how to explain it, the most likely explanation posits a change of plans on Plato's part, the philosophical implications of which he did not fully work out.     

Plato and Castoriadis: The Concealment and the Unveiling of Democracy1

ABSTRACT In the first part of the paper Castoriadis' critical analysis of Plato's Statesman2 is discussed and the main points of this critique, chiefly the concealment of politics and democracy are presented. The second part (which is followed by a short comparison of the projects of autonomy and Inclusive Democracy) briefly deals with Castoriadis' critique of contemporary political practice and theory, and depicts the unveiling of politics and of democracy--views which are particularly significant for us today.     

Political Philosophy and Sophistry: An Introduction to Plato's Protagoras

This study of Plato's Protagoras seeks not only to advance the understanding of ancient sophistry, a task both important in its own right and essential to the study of the history of political thought, but also to lay a foundation for subsequent inquiries into the connection between ancient sophistry and the relativism characteristic of our age. According to the Protagoras , the chief difference between philosopher and sophist is that the latter wrongly believes himself to be beyond or above the concern for justice as a virtue; the examination of Protagoras' moral teaching, then, proves to be the key to understanding him and therewith the intellectual position he represents .     

A Feminist Utopia

Project Alternative Future is funded by the Norwegian parliament, and its aim is partly the construction of a model for an alternative society It is a Utopian project in the best meaning of the concept. Like Plato's ideal society, the project attempts to combine ambitious visions and concrete thinking. This paper is a discussion of feminist principles on which to base a model for a fundamentally different society. Feminism, as distinct from womanism, is seen as a political ideology criticizing the sexist, patriarchal social structures as well as general structures of domination, competition and violence. A feminist Utopia involves new principles for allocating values; a new ethics based on the principle of reproduction. Feminist theory is criticized for us dualist tradition, and the paper argues for the rationality of aesthetics in addition to the rationality of utility and the rationality of care. Several suggestions as to how to approach a feminist Utopia are made.     

Aristotle and the Eleatic Stranger on the Nature and Purpose of Political Life

This article argues that Book I of the Politics represents Aristotle's critique of Plato's Eleatic Stranger on the specific character of political rule and the knowledge required for political rule, and that this critique produces a different understanding of the proper division of regimes and the relationship between political theory and practice. These differences can be traced to a more fundamental disagreement about nature: Aristotle sees nature as generally hospitable to human life and argues that the natural end or goal of political association is not mere life but the good life, while the Eleatic perceives nature as hostile and proposes a minimalist politics, aimed primarily at preserving life. Although the Eleatic's view of nature might appear to be closer to and more compatible with modern political thought, the conception of nature Aristotle presents in his Politics offers richer possibilities for political theory and political life.     

The social sub-optimality of competitive elections

One of the common normative assumptions about elections is that competitive elections are inherently good, and non-competitive elections are problematic. This paper challenges that assumption. At the level of individual elections, competitive elections produce either sub-optimal results or trivially optimal results, but competitive elections are never uniquely optimal. In aggregation, competitive elections for a set of offices are inherently sub-optimal. From a procedural perspective, the circumstances in which competitive elections are appropriate are rare, and from a diagnostic perspective, we cannot conclude that there are problems in the electoral system based on a lack of competition. In the context of social choice theory, competitive elections are not inherently good.     

Risk assessment in the policy-making process: environmental health and safety protection

This article examines the extent to which differences exist in the relative degree of discretion permitted by the statutory mandates under which health risk assessments are conducted as a basis for regulatory action. Attention is focused on the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration, because they are the lead federal regulatory agencies on most environmental health matters. The statutes are found to define risk, consider effects, identify target populations, and use benefit-cost analysis in a flexible way. But the burden of proof of risk typically is assigned in a more direct and stringent fashion. Overall, however, agencies are found to have substantial discretion in the manner in which risk assessments are incorporated into the policy process. A number of examples of efforts to reduce this flexibility are outlined and their implications for the future of the analysis of risks are delineated.     

Corruption and the shadow economy: an empirical analysis

This paper analyzes the influence of the shadow economy on corruption and vice versa. We hypothesize that corruption and the shadow economy are substitutes in high income countries while they are complements in low income countries. The hypotheses are tested for a cross-section of 98 countries. Our results show that there is no robust relationship between corruption and the size of the shadow economy when perceptions-based indices of corruption are used. Employing an index of corruption based on a structural model, however, corruption and the shadow economy are complements in countries with low income, but not in high income countries.     

Persuasion and Resistance: Race and the Death Penalty in America

Although there exists a large and well-documented "race gap" between whites and blacks in their support for the death penalty, we know relatively little about the nature of these differences and how the races respond to various arguments against the penalty. To explore such differences, we embedded an experiment in a national survey in which respondents are randomly assigned to one of several argument conditions. We find that African Americans are more responsive to argument frames that are both racial (i.e., the death penalty is unfair because most of the people who are executed are black) and nonracial (i.e., too many innocent people are being executed) than are whites, who are highly resistant to persuasion and, in the case of the racial argument, actually become more supportive of the death penalty upon learning that it discriminates against blacks. These interracial differences in response to the framing of arguments against the death penalty can be explained, in part, by the degree to which people attribute the causes of black criminality to either dispositional or systemic forces (i.e., the racial biases of the criminal justice system) .     

Region, Local Context, and Voting at the 1997 General Election in England

There has been considerable debate in recent work on voting patterns in Great Britain regarding the importance of regional effects: are these “real” or are they simply statistical artifacts of decision‐making processes at smaller spatial scales which are aggregated up to the regional scale if not incorporated directly into any modeling? Using a multilevel model design, this article reports on analyses of survey data for the 1997 general election in England which allows tests of whether regional variations are no more than aggregation effects. Individual voters are nested within households, neighborhoods, constituencies, and regions and when all of the smaller‐scale spatial levels are included in the model, the observed regional effects are statistically insignificant. At the 1997 general election, at least, regional variations within England in support for the three main parties—basically, a north‐south divide—are aggregation effects.     

Comparing non-voters in the USA and Norway: permanence versus transience

Abstract. Voter turnout for the 1984 presidential election in the USA was 30 percent lower than the last parliamentary election in Norway (1985). Similarities among the factors which explains non-voting in the two nations are apparent, but the factors unique to each country are important for understanding the difference in turnout level as well as patterns of non-participation. While the Norwegian non-voters are in a transient situation where youth and limited life-cycle experience determine non-voting, factors effecting American non-voters are more permanent. In particular, if socio-economic resources are not acquired in youth, the development of political involvement and participation will be obstructed.     

The Global Demographics of the Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal

The demographics of the Renewal are best understood by its constituent parts, namely, the three waves: Pentecostals, Charismatics, and neocharismatics. Each of these waves has different strengths in various countries around the world. Thus one finds that while Renewalists are numerous in China, Brazil and the USA, there are relatively few Pentecostals in China; Charismatics dominate in Brazil; and Independent Charismatics (neocharismatics) are most numerous in China and the USA.     

Modern Management Tools in State Agencies: The Case of Norway

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the broad package of modern management tools that are used by Norwegian state agencies. These tools are regarded as forms of regulation inside government as well as a “shopping basket.” We describe the range of different tools and look at how intensively they are used and how they are interrelated. We also examine variations in use of these tools by different agencies. The empirical basis is a survey addressed to all organizations in the Norwegian civil service, apart from the ministries, in 2004. Our theoretical approach is primarily based on neo-institutional organization theory. Our main empirical findings are that the use of modern management tools is widespread; that some are very common while others are more marginal; that there are different families of tools that supplement each other; that there is significant variation in the use of different tools; and that size is the most important independent variable in explaining the use of different tools. Neo-institutional considerations, particularly normative isomorphism as a source of legitimacy, do not appear to be a major explanation for tool adoption.     

The programme to policy linkage: The fulfilment of election pledges on socio–economic policy in The Netherlands, 1986–1998

To what extent are the contents of party election programmes congruent with subsequent government policy actions? Existing research on the fulfilment of pre–election pledges focuses on systems of government in which executives formed by a single parties are the norm. This study extends this research to coalition systems of government. Specific policy proposals made by the main Dutch parties in their recent election programmes are identified and compared with subsequent government policy actions. Hypotheses about the conditions under which pledges are more likely to be acted upon are formulated and tested. Although clear linkages between election programmes and subsequent policies are found, pledges made by prospective coalition parties in the Netherlands are less likely to be acted upon than those made by prospective governing parties in the United Kingdom. Prominent features of cabinet government, such as the allocation of ministerial portfolios and the coalition policy agreement, are found to influence the likelihood of pledges being fulfilled. In addition, consensus between parties is also found to increase the likelihood of government actions responding to election pledges.     

Apples and horned toads: On the framework-determined nature of the energy debate

A common view of the energy problem holds that what is at stake in most energy policy debates are questions of fact that are in principle susceptible to resolution by objective, scientific research. It is argued in this paper that this view is misguided, and that underlying many of the factual issues apparently in dispute are differences at the framework level, that is differences in basic presuppositions and the patterns of thinking employed.By means of an examination of the debate over soft and hard energy paths, it will be argued that framework differences are fundamental to that debate and that such differences are not susceptible to factual resolution. As a result, the debate has taken on the character of a ritualized performance, as each side strives to convince, not their opponents, but policymakers of the rightness of their opinion. Some of the implications of these findings for energy policymaking are explored.     

Patterns of Disagreement in Democratic Politics: Comparing Germany, Japan, and the United States

An important ingredient in democratic politics is the experience of disagreement through social communication and political discussion. If people fail to encounter contrary viewpoints, their own views are never challenged, they are never forced to reconsider initially held opinions, and they are effectively excluded from democratic deliberation. This article examines patterns of political agreement and disagreement within the communication networks of citizens in Germany, Japan, and the United States. Several questions are addressed. Are there cross‐national differences in patterns of agreement and disagreement among citizens? To what extent are these patterns subject to individual attitudes, to the structure of communication networks, and to levels of aggregate support for particular preferences and opinions? Finally, what are the implications of disagreement for civic capacity and political engagement? Empirical analyses are based on cooperative election surveys conducted in each country during the early 1990s.     

China’s evolution toward an authoritarian market economy—a?predator–prey evolutionary model with?intelligent design

The following study, integrating public choice theory and evolutionary game theory, develops a predator–prey model with intelligent design to explain the “evolutionary-institutional perspective” that is a well-accepted premise in transitional economics. In the model, growth-oriented central government leaders are intelligent designers of institutional change, provincial and local officials are potential predators, and private firms are potential prey. The model finds that reductions in discriminatory policies are the major institutional contributors to China’s market miracle, whereas improvements in the rule of law and in the protection of private property rights are not needed for short-run economic growth.     

The programme to policy linkage: The fulfilment of election pledges on socio-economic policy in the Netherlands, 1986–1998

To what extent are the contents of party election programmes congruent with subsequent government policy actions? Existing research on the fulfilment of pre-election pledges focuses on systems of government in which executives formed by a single parties are the norm. This study extends this research to coalition systems of government. Specific policy proposals made by the main Dutch parties in their recent election programmes are identified and compared with subsequent government policy actions. Hypotheses about the conditions under which pledges are more likely to be acted upon are formulated and tested. Although clear linkages between election programmes and subsequent policies are found, pledges made by prospective coalition parties in the Netherlands are less likely to be acted upon than those made by prospective governing parties in the United Kingdom. Prominent features of cabinet government, such as the allocation of ministerial portfolios and the coalition policy agreement, are found to influence the likelihood of pledges being fulfilled. In addition, consensus between parties is also found to increase the likelihood of government actions responding to election pledges.