Noting Silence

Abstract

In coming to words, language "reserves" itself: it holds back its event, keeping it illegible and silent. It is possible to see much of modern innovative or "experimental" poetry as such an experience of reticence and stillness, an experiment of language listening to itself "speaking" in order to allow the force of the illegible to come to speech. How this silence both limits what can be said and holds what has been written open to the possibilities of saying otherwise comes from the "restraint" characteristic of the specific way in which language "speaks", that is, arrives each time singularly as words precisely by withholding this very arrival from signification. Myung Mi Kim's poetry stands out among contemporary American poets precisely for its specific attentiveness to this simultaneously "generative" and "constraining" force of silence. To understand better the workings of this force of silence, I examine Kim's poetry in the context of Heidegger's reflection on language, specifically his point about the withdrawal and restraint "essential" to the unfolding of language. I suggest that this withdrawal marks the poietic momentum of language, which can be traced, though, only by way of a listening response. This listening response becomes in turn a kind of constraint under which poetic thinking operates, a holding back of assertions and statements in favor of a listening which responds precisely to how the saying withholds itself from what comes to be said. Exploring the proximity between Kim's poetry and Heidegger's thinking, this essay examines how this withdrawal—a restraint at play in language itself—necessitates the attitude of poetic "reservedness".     

The Place of Human Rights in American Efforts to Expand and Universalize Healthcare

This article explores the very limited cases historically in the twentieth century when human rights was used in American policy debate as a defending principle for the provision of government-guaranteed universal healthcare. It discusses these cases and examines various reasons as to why this is so, noting the major emphasis in American political culture on negative rather than positive liberty. It examines the shift in political culture from the Roosevelt, Truman, and Johnson eras that embraced social and economic rights and defined them as such to the post-Reagan era when conservative ideologies were ascendant. These ideologies reject the legitimacy of social and economic rights and remain dominant in the United States. It comparatively situates the American refusal to consider universal healthcare a human right with European affirmations of such a right and to those found in various treaties of international law. Finally, it analyzes how Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—while not adopting the rhetoric of human rights does, functionally, enable as a matter of public policy an entitlement to healthcare.     

How to read Michelle Obama

ABSTRACT

Michelle Obama's role as the first African American First Lady is more than merely symbolic. Her self-representation as a professional woman, mother and spouse is directed towards a wider representativeness that is new in American political discourse. As a descendant of slaves and slave owners whose American ancestry can be traced back to the 1850s, she can lay claim to an African American legacy that the President lacks. As a result, some of her more controversial statements during the presidential campaign about the black family, class mobility and national pride need to be read in the context of an African American literature and historiography that challenges the American creed of equality, liberty and unconditional love of one's country. Michelle Obama's family history, her Princeton undergraduate thesis and her own words in interviews are analysed here in the discursive context of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Toni Morrison's Beloved, Richard Powers's The Time of Our Singing, and Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave-girl, as well as the historiography of the civil rights movement. Such a reading reveals how Michelle Obama's background weaves the legacy of slavery into the American fabric, and shows that a redemptive construction of American history—in which the success of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the Obama presidency are taken as fulfilment of the American creed (and of Martin Luther King's dream)—must be refused if a new national self-definition with African America at its heart is to take its place.     

Riots,disasters and racism: impending racial cataclysm and the extreme right in the United States

ABSTRACT

Three events in late 2005—Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in New Orleans, the Muslim riots in the suburbs of Paris, and the Cronulla ‘uprising’ in Australia—were interpreted by the American extreme right as confirmation of a long-feared impending racial cataclysm. Michael and Mulloy examine analyses of these events from various representatives of the American extreme right. While the mainstream media were often diffident about reporting frankly on the more sensitive implications of these events, this phenomenological approach may provide insight on how various controversial issues—such as immigration, race and multiculturalism—impinge on contemporary American society, culture and politics.     

Agonism and Hope in William Apess’s Native American Political Thought

This article examines the Native American thinker, William Apess (Pequot), and especially his Eulogy on King Philip (1836), which argues, ironically, that King Philip—the seventeenth century Wampanoag leader who launched the bloodiest rebellion in New England’s history—ought to be embraced as an American pioneer and canonized as a founding father. Apess satirizes conventional founding narratives, even as he upholds the principles of freedom those narratives support. The effect of this irony is to interrupt and invert discourses of progressive history and American patriotism that underlie Manifest Destiny policies, in ways that open spaces for new historical accounts to surface and compete in a force field of agonistic powers. I argue that Apess’s ironic historical revisionism expresses a political theory of hope, one that I contrast with representations of hope by other nineteenth century Native American political thinkers, such as Plenty Coups (Crow).     

Russian and American Cosmism: Religion,National Psyche,and Spaceflight

A product of science, religion, and national culture, cosmism is reflected in academic and popular views about our place in the universe, space exploration, and human destiny. Although linked historically to the Russians, cosmism captures many aspects of American thinking about space. The present comparison shows that prophets, prophecies, striving for perfection, utopian visions, and hopes for salvation are evident in both Russian and American thought, but that there are also differences. Geert Hofstede's cross–cultural research on national values—power distance, individualism, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance—is useful for understanding Russian–American differences. Russian acceptance of power inequalities, collectivism, concern for group welfare, and aversion to uncertainty lead to constellations of beliefs and emotions about spaceflight that differ from those bred by American egalitarianism, individualism, obsession with personal achievement, and acceptance of uncertainty. Both Russian and American thinking include occult and paranormal phenomena, but Americans have been more reluctant to assimilate such influences within mainstream science. As a concept, American cosmism captures the occasional blurring of the lines between religion and science in discussions of humanity's place in the universe and future in space.     

Deixis and space in drama

This article seeks to explore some of the functions of deixis in the delineation of space in drama. The dramatic text addresses a context of performance and, therefore, space depiction is generally regarded as within the province of theatre since the transformation of the hare boards of the stage into other spaces and places calls forth the skills of scenographers, lighting experts, etc. Verbal depictions of space are seen to be best employed in referring to off‐stage space or restricted to reference to objects onstage, when they need to be particularly foregrounded as significant for the onstage action in its relation to the whole. The, basically, onstage/off‐stage division is mapped on to the visual/verbal one so that the visual, onstage space is the main business with verbal references to offstage space backgrounded as a consequence. Deictic phenomena, however, cut across such divisions. Deixis uses the body of participants in speech events as the primary point for calculations of space. The body has access to different channels—visual, auditory, tactile, etc. which deictic usages mobilise. Moreover, from a linguist's point of view, the mode of discourse appropriate to drama is speech since the dialogue presupposes actors on stage interacting with each other, via speech, and not reading texts silently. The voice is the medium of communication, and hence, the body is installed back into the page of the text. Deixis presupposes a corporeal context of utterance with corporeal bodies and channels of communication open for use. This article explores some of the consequences for delineating dramatic space, when the visual/verbal division and its progeny are undercut by the use of deixis.     

Brexit and Fisheries: Fish and Chips Aplenty?

When discussing Brexit and food, fisheries take a special place: first, because the fisheries sector punched far above its (economic) weight in the campaign leading up to the Brexit referendum; second, because of the promise of a bright future for the fishing industry—both by politicians promising to ‘take back control of our waters’ as well as by industry representatives auguring a ‘sea of opportunities’ for fishermen. As it is still far too soon to assess fully the effects of Brexit for the fishing industry and the market for fisheries products, this paper takes a step back and analyses the context within which the changes brought about by Brexit will be taking place. It analyses the complexity of the post‐Brexit fisheries context and its possible repercussions for food policy and the seafood sector. One of the central questions is whether Brexit could contribute to reviving the fisheries industry and enhancing food security in the UK. To explore this further, two other questions present themselves: when is fish UK fish? And what do UK consumers want? Finally, the paper looks at the structure of employment in the seafood industry and how that may present policy makers with difficult decisions. The paper concludes that the picture when it comes to the effect of Brexit on fisheries policy is expected to be mixed, and that both the potential benefits and costs of Brexit are likely to be unevenly distributed within the fisheries sector.     

Civil service reform in Uganda: Lessons learned

This article presents the Civil Service Reform Programme (CSRP) in Uganda. It outlines the context in which the CSRP is being implemented and establishes the link between the CSRP and other reform programmes, particularly constitutional decentralization, liberalization/privatization and army demobilization. It also analyses the progress made so far, given certain obstacles, and attempts to assess and make some suggestions for the road ahead. The issues of civil service reform go beyond addressing the need for pay reform and improving organizational structure. While these are important pieces of the puzzle, they cannot stand alone. Issues of greater participation, transparency and accountability in decision making—all of which strangthen democratization—are also at stake. The aim of these reforms is to enable the state to function more rationally and effectively, as the duties it performs—as well as the country's needs—become more complex and varied. The overarching theme is to develop the state's own capacity in order to create sustainable reforms in the quest for long-term development. The close of the cold war has brought many changes. In recent years, for example, the international donor community has paid increasing attention to reform issues. It has called on recipient governments to participate in the design and implementation of these programmes. In recipient countries, the movement toward decentralization, privatization and commercialization of many government functions has increased the range of opportunities available to citizens. It has also brought demands for greater responsiveness on the part of the government and parastatal agencies. Moreover, in an era of dwindling aid budgets, donors are now seeking better value for their money, and they are less willing to excuse widespread graft and corruption on geopolitical grounds.     

GLOBALIZATION'S IMPACT ON STATE-LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT POLICY

The growing exposure of the U.S. economy to international competition, popularly termed globalization, over the past two decades has brought some momentous changes affecting the American economy, society, and life styles. Not surprisingly, these changes have been reflected in growing political turbulence and shifts in policy paradigms as well. This symposium explores the effects that globalization has had on economic development policy and practice by state and local governments in the United States. Part I charts and seeks to explain“The Expanding Global Linkages” of state and local governments over the last several decades. Part II on the” Potential for Transformation “then argues that the economic transformations set off by globalization are pushing state and local development policy toward strategies that should overcome some of the problems associated with the previous strategy dubbed “smokestack chasing.” Yet, caution is certainly necessary before accepting such optimistic interpretations. Part III, therefore, presents several analyses suggesting that smokestack chasing “struck back” and that blind reliance on free markets and entrepreneurs hip can be dangerous to a community's social and economic health, indicting the existence of “Pitfalls in a Changing Universe.”     

The Continuing Volatility of Devolution in Northern Ireland: The Shadow of Direct Rule

Since the establishment of devolution in 1999, Northern Ireland's power‐sharing governments have been fragile and prone to crisis. However, following a decade of relative stability and cooperation between Nationalists and Unionists at Stormont, hopes were high that the devolved arrangements had finally become embedded and more resistant to collapse. This optimism was dashed when Sinn Féin brought down the devolved institutions in January 2017. A snap election once again returned the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin as the largest parties and their inability to form a government resulted in yet another political stalemate. This article begins by outlining the pattern of political crises in Northern Ireland and assesses both the trigger factors and the responses. It then goes beyond the most obvious explanation for this continuing instability—that of the deep sectarian based divisions—and points to a number of other reasons for the volatility. These include issues such as the incomplete implementation of previous agreements, the impact of broader UK policies and the shadow of Direct Rule.     

Economic Voting in Latin America: Rules and Responsibility

The impact of institutions on the economic vote stands as a well‐established proposition for the advanced democracies of Europe. We know less, however, regarding the institutional effects on the economic vote in the developing democracies of Latin America. Carrying out an analysis of presidential elections in 18 Latin American countries, we offer evidence that the usual Eurocentric conceptualization of the clarity of responsibility is not ideal for understanding the economic vote in this region. There does exist a powerful effect of institutions on the economic vote within Latin American democracies, but one uniquely associated with its presidential regimes and dynamic party systems. Rules for these elections—such as concurrence, term limits, and second‐round voting—suggest that we should reconceptualize the notion of the clarity of responsibility in Latin America, focusing more on individuals in power and their constraints, and less on the political parties from which they hail.     

“Keep Your Government Hands Off My Medicare!”: An Analysis of Media Effects on Tea Party Health Care Politics

This article analyzes the political effects of American media coverage on Tea Party health care politics. It suggests that the American media's inability to critique the neoliberal assumptions that lay at the foundation of Tea Party ideology have served—however inadvertently—to excite ideological confusion in American health care debates, especially those surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Specifically, this article shows that media failure to make sense of the ideological and statistical basis of Tea Party opposition to the ACA, as well as a general unwillingness to mediate disagreement, have barred mainstream media from helping Americans see that the ACA is largely consistent with neoliberal orthodoxy, and certainly far from “socialist.” As a result, the media has served to legitimate rather than critique positions that stand at the center of Tea Party ideology.     

Opus Dei and Mexico: Civil but Sinister?

Are voluntary organizations an essential ingredient of democratization, and if so, does that include the vast number of voluntary organizations, such as the Opus Dei, which appear to be authoritarian in their internal affairs? Do groups whose goals and internal structure have little relationship to the nurturing of democracy nevertheless contribute to a democratic culture? Discussing such questions is one of the main burdens of this article, which on that respect is a contribution to the now‐growing volume of literature about political transition from authoritarianism to democracy. The problems presented by such groups as Opus Dei are an illustrative case in weighing the contributions of Latin American volunteerism to democratization. The Catholic Church has had a more than passing interest in which nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) would be successful in Mexico and which would not. It has encouraged some NGOs—Opus Dei being, we think, a strong case in point.     

‘It takes a Russian to beat a Russian’: the National Union of Labor Solidarists,nationalism, and human intelligence operations in the Cold War

This article reconstructs the CIA’s exploitation of the Natsional’no Trudovoi Soyuz, a right-wing Russian nationalist organization, as a part of ‘rollback’ and ‘stay-behind’ covert operations against the Soviet Union during the 1950s. Operations such as these relied on the notion that far-right nationalism presented a potent counter to international communism. The article explores postwar ties between American intelligence and the NTS in a shared effort to ‘roll back’ the borders of communism. It likewise discusses the ability of Soviet counterintelligence to intercept, penetrate, and sabotage nationalist networks and their operations backed by Western governments.     

‘Better in kung fu movies than in political parties’: Labour’s Factionalism and a Reappraisal of Eric Hobsbawm’s Political Thought

Eric Hobsbawm will forever be a giant intellectual figure. Yet, an aspect of his work is underappreciated—the case for a more pluralistic, dynamic and intellectually inquiring Labour Party. As such, his political thought is particularly relevant given the recent election of Keir Starmer, and the avowed quest for ‘unity’ in bringing Labour back to power. Hobsbawm came to believe that political strategies which sought to exploit social and political stratification and conflict—such as vilifying reformist political movements and those of moderate persuasion—doomed Labour to permanent opposition. A broad-based people’s party, uniting objectives of solidarity and aspiration, was the only viable class politics. Although from the Marxist tradition, Hobsbawm believed Labour’s purpose was to make liberal democracy function more effectively, rather than creating an alternative economic and political system. Suggesting conflict was more suited to kung fu movies, Hobsbawm’s predominant theme of ‘anti-factionalism with a purpose’ remains apposite today.     

Economic growth and income equality since the 1982 recession

This paper tests the “rising tide” and “trickle down” hypotheses of income growth by examining several measures of income inequality between 1983 and 1987. A close look at household incomes between those years shows that post-tax income growth has been concentrated among the 20 percent of American households with the highest incomes. The middle income classes have experienced only modest income growth over this period, and the 20 percent of American households with the lowest incomes have experienced a decline in income. These results hold whether the analysis is based on a summary measure of income equality such as the Gini coefficient, or on a less technical measure such as average income. Furthermore, income growth seems to be decreasing most rapidly for groups of households that historically have had the lowest incomes: female-headed households, blacks, and Hispanics. Finally, two standard explanations of the inequality trend—that the distributional changes are the result of either cohort effects or the movement of jobs to the lower wage areas of South—are tested by disaggregating the data. Neither hypothesis is confirmed by our research.     

Some realities about sprawl and urban decline

Abstract

Many urban analysts believe suburban sprawl has become an important issue because it helps generate two types of problems: growth‐related difficulties like rising traffic congestion, and high concentrations of poor minority households in core‐area neighborhoods. However, a careful regression analysis of measures of both sprawl and urban decline shows no statistically significant relation between these two conditions.

The basic nature of the American urban development process would cause core‐area poverty concentrations even if sprawl were replaced by more compact growth forms. But sprawl does aggravate growth‐related problems. Those problems could be attacked through either alternative overall growth strategies—such as high‐density, tightly bounded growth—or specific anti‐sprawl tactics, such as regional tax‐base sharing and regional coordination of land uses. But no feasible policies are likely either to alleviate traffic congestion much or cause most American regions to abandon sprawl.     

A Russian Citizen in Uniform? Assessing the Applicability of the German Model of Civil—Military Relations to the Armed Forces of a Democratising Russian State

A key element in determining the prospects for success in transforming totalitarian political systems into democratic political systems is the extent to which the armed forces can be included in the democratisation process and brought under constitutional, civilian and political control. In the aftermath of the 1998 financial crisis in Moscow and the probable retreat of democracy in Russia, this utterly critical question assumes even more importance. This article is concerned with the problem of devising a new system of civil—military relations for a democratising post-Soviet Russian state, particularly the relevance of the German citizen in uniform model to the armed forces of the Russian Federation. After a brief history of the German system of civil—military relations, the author proceeds to analyse the German model in detail. The paper then assesses the current context of the Russian state, society and armed forces before evaluating the prospects for the successful application of the German system of civil—military relations to Russia. The author concludes that the German system is inapplicable because Russia does not presently possess the socio-political structures and norms to sustain such a system of civil—military relations. However, the article proposes an immediately viable third strategy for democratising Russian civil—military relations which does not rely either on the inappropriate German model or on meekly managing the intolerable status quo.     

当代封建政治意识反思——关于“官本位”的若干思考

新中国成立以来,特别是改革开放以来,随着精神文明建设的不断深入,我们在反对封建意识方面取得了巨大的进展。但由于意识形态自身特有的独立性和文化存在的历史惯性,加上其与人们日常生活、价值观念等持久而深刻的联系,因而不易被清除。就当代封建政治意识的一种———"官本位",从其产生和现实存在的原因、危害及其矫正策略等三个方面展开论述。