Conservatism and the rhetoric of rhetoric

There is currently a revival of the intellectual tradition of rhetoric as a reaction to modernism. Because of rhetoric’s links with conservatism, this revival’s own rhetoric needs to be examined. A revival of an aesthetic rhetoric could easily be backward-looking and draw upon the backward-looking, conservative traditions within the history of rhetoric. On the other hand, if the revival stresses the pragmatic features of rhetoric it might be seen either as an adornment to those skills of persuasive selling, encouraged today by pragmatic conservatism, or as a development of today’s science of persuasion. Despite the obvious links to romantic and to pragmatic conservatism, rhetoric does contain the possibility for a radical critique of modernism; this would unite aesthetics and pragmatism, form and style, and raise the image of free and unending argumentation.     

Anomalous authoritarianism: what,which, why?

Research on autocracies has gained new momentum in the last decade. One element of this research is the observation that some autocracies are characterised by structural conditions that are normally conducive for democracy. These ‘anomalous autocracies’ have high levels of socioeconomic development and democratic neighbour countries. The study of these cases might expose factors that are decisive for autocratic stability and studying them might give us a better understanding of barriers towards democratisation. This paper contributes to the growing literature on autocracies by mapping anomalous autocracies during the third wave of democratisation, thereby paving the way for systematic case selection in future studies. A large-N analysis of 159 cases (1975–2008) identifies Belarus, Chile, China, Cuba, Morocco, North Korea, Peru, Singapore, Swaziland, Togo and Zimbabwe. In a second step, the paper lays out a theoretical framework that centres on actors and institutions. Rulers must establish elite–elite and elite–mass interaction, and this papers argues that they can do so through quasi-compliance of elites and the masses based on traditional institutions woven into a dominant party. The paper uses the framework to tentatively examine the resilience of authoritarian rule in Swaziland and Morocco, two most-different anomalous cases. In both cases, an elaborate traditional institution has co-opted government, business and rural elites and coordinated interaction within elite circles and with the masses, in turn enabling the remarkable regime resilience.     

Racial Stereotypes and Asian American Youth Paradox

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Asian Americans are simultaneously stereotyped as a perpetual foreigner and a model minority. This cross-sectional study of 308 Filipino American youth (mean age...     

Body mass and suicide risk

Body mass has been neglected as a possible predictor of suicidal behavior. The present investigation explores the association between body mass index and completed suicide. Data are from the National Mortality Followback Survey and refer to 373 suicides, and 518 deaths from motor vehicle accidents as controls. The results of a logistic regression analysis indicated that, for females, the greater the BMI the greater the suicide risk. However, this relationship did not hold up under controls for race and other covariates of BMI. For males, the BMI was not significantly related to suicide risk either at the bivariate or multivariate levels of analysis. The best predictors of suicide were living alone for females, and alcohol abuse for males.