Reflections on a Half Century of Political Science: Lecture Given by the Winner of the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science, Uppsala, 30 September 1995

Since I am to have the honour this evening of being presented with the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science, it seemed to me that it might be appropriate to say something about the development of political science. Do not fear, however, that I am about to begin my reflections with the study of government in 1622, a task that would greatly exceed my time, my competence and, I imagine, your patience. On a much more modest scale, let me mention a few of the conspicuous changes in political science since I first began teaching and writing in the field about a half century ago. Let me add at once that I do not mean to suggest that my brief account is at all comprehensive or systematic. It is merely a rather subjective survey of a few changes that I find interesting and important.     

Erring on the side of kindness in social welfare policy

Social welfare administrators inevitably err, and in one of two ways: either they err on the side of harshness (denying benefits to people who deserve them), or on the side of generosity (granting benefits to those who do not deserve them). The same things making errors inevitable also make inevitable a tradeoff between these two kinds of error, so at least for a large class of cases reductions in one kind of error can be accomplished only by increasing the other. Here I develop a criterion for striking the right balance. This criterion implies (contrary to all ordinary political and administrative impulses) that when times are tough and demands on welfare budgets heavy, administrators should not clamp down on applicants but should instead bias their decisions in favor of erring on the side of generosity.This paper was written during my tenure as Research Fellow in the Social Justice Project, RSSS, Australian National University. I am grateful to my colleagues there (particularly Valerie Braithwaite, Dorothy Broom, Diane Gibson and Julian LeGrand) for their advice and encouragement, and to various anonymous referees for suggesting subsequent refinements.     

UNDERSTANDING PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: REFLECTIONS ON AN ACADEMIC OBITUARY —"ALAS, POOR YORICK"

It seemed that "Alas, Poor Yorick" was an appropriate subtitle for this attempt to respond to Understanding Public Administration. Yorick, you will remember, was the deceased royal jester, whose skull Hamlet inspected in the churchyard in Elsinore, causing him to meditate on the vanity of human life. "Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come." Though not a professional jester, I am keenly aware of the ephemeral character of the work of Professors of Government and Public Administration, or at least of this particular one; though Festsehriften may be said to "lay it on thick", they cannot altogether disguise the rather plain face beneath. I am glad to be fortified by having the more distinguished countenance of Robert Parker alongside me, and I mean that.     

‘I am an American’: protesting advertised ‘Americanness’

How are citizenships and nationalisms constructed, connected, and contested in the post-9/11 USA – performatively, affectively, and visually – and how do their relationships figure ‘Americanness’? This article takes up this question (1) by tracking how Americanness was advertised in the American Ad Council's ‘I am an American’ campaign and (2) by introducing the multimedia project ‘I am an American’: Video Portraits of Unsafe US Citizens, which engages the Ad Council's campaign as a practice-based protest of the Ad Council's advertised ‘Americanness’. The article traces how the Ad Council's campaign advertises what Evelyn Alsultany calls ‘diversity patriotism’. It also constructs a complex, mobile system of differentiation that marks some citizens as ‘safe’ and others as ‘unsafe’, which runs counter to the idealized notion of a unified ‘Americanness’ that it advertises. The article then examines how the practice-based protest project ‘I am an American’ takes these ‘unsafe citizens’ – US citizens who either will not or cannot make their differences normatively conform to the national ideal of the ‘One’ composed of the ‘Many’ propagated by the Ad Council's campaign – as its point of departure to reflect upon how citizenship protests function for and against citizenship, nationalisms, and various figurations of Americanness.     

New Technologies in the Politics Classroom: Using Internet Classrooms to Support Teaching and Learning

This article introduces some ideas about using internet classrooms to enrich the experience of those learning and teaching politics. It draws and reflects upon my three-year experience of using internet classrooms to teach politics in optional and compulsory politics undergraduate modules, providing critical evaluation of the successes and problems involved. Much of what the article discusses can be applied to most, if not all, politics modules and will be useful to those wishing to use new technologies to support active learning strategies in their undergraduate teaching. The article is based on personal experience and student evaluations, rather than any rigorous research of learning outcomes. As such, I do not set out to prove that using internet classrooms has pedagogical advantages over using only traditional methods, and I am not arguing a case for or against using either.     

The distribution of income,incomplete information and the rank and Pareto criteria

One income distribution dominates another according to the rank criterion if the income in each position, ordered from lowest to highest, is at least as great in the former distribution as the corresponding income in the latter, with the strict inequality holding at least once. Pareto dominance implies rank dominance, but not conversely. But rank dominance does imply Pareto dominance where agents are expected utility maximizers relative to subjective probability distributions that characterize incomplete information regarding agents' positions in income distributions. This suggests the rank criterion as a way of evaluating income distributions without resorting to interpersonal comparisons of utility.I have benefitted from presenting an earlier version of this paper in the seminar series of the Economics Department of Emory University and in the lecture series sponsored by the Economics Institute at the University of Colorado, Boulder. I am grateful to Peter Aranson and three referees for many helpful comments and suggestions.     

THE FEDERAL PRINCIPLE AND NATIONAL PLANNING

I am pleased to be able to speak today to this conference of the Royal Institute of Public Administration. Your conference comes at a time of renewed interest in federalism. In the past year or so there has been an upsurge of new studies and assessments of federalism in the universities and in the press. New life has been breathed into a subject which for so long has seemed dead in spirit, if not in die flesh.     

Reviews Editor's Introduction

Many thanks are due to John Berg for his service to the journal as Reviews Editor for the past seven years. After preparing this, my first issue, for publication I am more fully aware of the time and energy that he devoted to the task. I also thank John for his assistance and guidance as I have assumed the role of Reviews Editor. I plan no major departures from the path established by John, who commissioned reviews on a wide array of topics and cultural forms. My commissioning of reviews will be guided by the following considerations, not necessarily in this order: (1) of likely interest to NPS members; (2) critical, progressive perspectives; (3) written or produced by NPS members; (4) somebody recommended it for review or volunteered to review it; and (5) my own idiosyncratic preferences. I claim no ability to comprehensively represent the diverse interests of NPS Caucus members. While my own research and teaching interests include democratic theory, political economy, public policy, and the politics of art and popular culture, I will attempt to commission reviews covering a broad range of topics. Since New Political Science is “A Journal of Politics &; Culture,” I will seek to include reviews of cultural forms other than books. This issue includes a fine review by Bruce Caswell of two films of potential interest to readers. In addition to books, I am interested in commissioning reviews of cultural forms as diverse as public art, comic books, contemporary fiction, music, and movies, always with the understanding that they say something interesting and valuable about contemporary politics. Our publication schedule, which includes a substantial lag of at least five to six months between finishing a review and publishing it, makes it impossible to publish timely reviews of movies and some other cultural forms. However, movies and other cultural forms often have a deep and lingering impact on culture and politics, making them fit subjects for retrospective review.     

Sketches for a Democratic Utopia

I want to sketch the general shape of several new structures that would in my view provide stronger support for democracy than is provided by any existing society. I call these sketches for a democratic Utopia not because I would expect these structures to inaugurate a perfect democracy, whatever that might be, nor because they are beyond human reach. On the contrary the institutions I want to suggest are well within human reach. I call them Utopian only because I am not able to point with confidence to the historical forces that are likely to bring them about.
The structures I have in mind are designed to strengthen freedom and equality among citizens of democratic orders.     

FASHIONS AND FANTASIES IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION*

The title of this address results in part from discontent with much of the literature of Public Administration and Public Policy. It is mild discontent, and I do not want unduly to depreciate our writings. But I stop reading many books and articles disappointed, at finding old or obvious ideas restated in new words; at seeing a useful idea refined by scholasticism into complex and empirically untestable propositions; feeling that I am being "got at"; worst of all, with a sense that the work casts only a fitful or elusive light on the important problems it claims to deal with. Schuyler Wallace said years ago when I was starting my academic career that administrative study had been mainly built on the basis of half-truths and fictions,¹ and I believe this is still true. If I had remembered this phrase earlier, I might have called the paper "Half-Truths and Fictions in Public Administration". If it reflects some real discontents, it is also intended to be a bit jokey. Should the jokes fall flat or degenerate into vulgar abuse, blame the author.     

马克思写《黑格尔法哲学批判》的思想动机

文艺复兴后，西方思想界出现笛卡尔主体哲学，“我思故我在”，强调自我为中心，康德继承了笛卡尔的思路提出了主体性原则，黑格尔认为不赞同这些观点，提出了主体间性。马克思认为黑格尔解决的是天国问题，对于现实问题解决不了。于是他对黑格尔的法哲学进行了批判。     

Rent-seeking with multiple winners

This paper examines the impact of the number of winners allowed by regulators on rentseeking expenditures. It is demonstrated in a widely used model that an increase in the number of winners will decrease total rent-seeking expenditures. This result is generally obtained regardless of whether the firms are risk-averse or risk-lovers. When regulators award coveted market franchises, there will be smaller welfare losses if more winners are allowed.I am grateful to an anonymous referee whose comments were very helpful. The usual caveats apply.     

What Ministers Do

Having been a minister in three different departments for a period of over nine years (1999–2008), during the Blair and, briefly, the Brown governments, I thought it might be useful to reflect on what ministers actually do, their functions and how they spend their days. In thinking about what I did as a minister, I have avoided going back to some of the classic constitutional texts on what ministers supposedly do, how they are accountable and such like. I am sure there is good literature on this from political scientists and constitutionalists, but I have avoided influencing my own views and approach by consulting these texts.     

Multi-party competition with exit: A comment on Duverger's Law

Contrary to Duverger's Law, there exist multi-party systems in conjunction with simple majority single-ballot systems. At least three exceptions exist to this law. Rae (1971) and Riker (1976; 1982) offer explanations for two of the most prominent exceptions, i.e. Canada and India. I also discuss another exception, Great Britain. In this paper, I use a simple one-dimensional spatial model to show that a multi-party system can be supported under a simple majority single-ballot system. This explanation depends on the way political parties exit the system. If parties decide sequentially whether or not to exit, a multi-party system can not be maintained. If political parties make this decision simultaneously, a multi-party system may be able to sustain itself.I am grateful to Evelyn Fink, Ken Shepsle, and Gordon Tullock for their very helpful comments. I would especially like to thank John Kautsky who introduced me to Duverger's Law.     

Looking Out for Our Indigenous People: The Canadian Experience

Respected Elders Djerrkura and Dodson, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. My Aboriginal name is Pad8gi Pai8, which means 'Coming Thunder' in the Abenaki language and I am a member of the Odanak Band of the Abenaki First Nation. I want to acknowledge and thank the traditional caretakers of the land we stand on today, the Larrakia People Meegwetch. I am truly honoured to be here with you today and want to take this opportunity to thank the Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA) and the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management (CAPAM) for inviting me.     

Popularity functions based on the partisan theory

This paper presents popularity function estimates for U.S. presidents which are based on a model in which voters' evaluations reflect an understanding of partisan reputations for differing policies.I am indebted to J.C. Siebrand, F.A.A.M. van Winden and an anonymous referee for many useful suggestions.     

The effect of rent-seeking on family income levels: Some suggestive empirical evidence

The comments of Jason Shogren, Pat Gaynor and Gordon Tullock on an earlier version of this paper are gratefully acknowledged, as is the typing assistance provided by Deborah Culler. I am responsible for any errors or omissions.     

The impending transformation of public choice scholarship

I am grateful to Charles K. Rowley and Karen I. Vaughn for valuable advice on many of the issues I address here, and to the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation for its continuing support of my scholarly efforts.     

The Consequences of Political Cynicism: How Cynicism Shapes Citizens’ Reactions to Political Scandals

This paper argues cynicism toward elected officials colors how individuals in the mass public interpret information about political scandals. Specifically, citizens rely on prior levels of cynicism toward elected officials when assessing new information about potential political malfeasance. Drawing on panel data surrounding two prominent political scandals, this paper demonstrates prior levels of cynicism shape individuals?? interpretations of information about scandals, but cynicism does not affect the amount of attention individuals pay to scandals. Ultimately, the results shed light on individual-level variation in response to scandals, and suggest expressed cynicism toward politicians is a politically consequential individual-level attitude that affects whether or not political leaders can survive ethical transgressions.