Progressive Reform and the Decline of Democratic Accountability: The Popular Election of State Supreme Court Judges, 1850-1920

This essay probes the relationship among different kinds of political cultures, the conduct of judicial elections, and the extent of dissent on the state supreme courts of California, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas from 1850 to 1920. The introduction at the turn of the twentieth century of Progressive election reforms—most notably the secret ballot, the direct party primary, and the nonpartisan ballot—reduced levels of turnout in judicial contests and increased roll-off from major statewide political to judicial elections. These reforms made judicial elections the tail on the electoral kite and denied the public its best means of regulating judicial policy making. Yet these changes in the electorate's behavior were seemingly unrelated to variations in the rate of dissent in these four state courts, whose judges apparently viewed popular partisan election as more a potential than a real threat to their independence.     

The Discursive Demolition of the Asian Development Model

I demonstrate the constitutive effects of discursive strategies and explore the discursive conditions in which changing ideas generate these effects. I perform an extensive analysis of the discursive strategies generated by three key actors in the Asian financial crisis. I argue that all three, U.S. Treasury, the International Monetary Fund, and the Kim Dae-jung South Korean administration, represented key practices associated with the Asian model as "cronyism" and as "corruption," thereby normatively delegitimating these practices, thereby effecting the demise of the Asian model of development in Korea. I argue that these discursive practices generate narrative structures that have a constitutive effect on the subsequent discursive and economic practices of actors. The manner in which the narratives represent "causes" of the crisis constitute and reconstitute the social meanings by which past and current social and economic practices are legitimated or de-legitimated. The structures constituted by these social meanings re-create and reconstitute the present and future conditions for strategic action. I conclude with a demonstration of how these narratives institutionalize the discourses they construct through changes in Korean state and commercial institutions.     

China Perceives America: Perspectives of international relations experts

This article seeks to examine Chinese analysts' perceptions of America, particularly their views on US China policy. It intends to explore how that issue has evolved over time, what progress has been made, what factors have shaped it, what principal impediments have existed, and what the prospects are for future management. Focusing on the period from the mid-1990s to the present, the study finds that there remains a perceptual gap in US-China relations today, though Chinese understanding of America continues to improve. Specifically, there seems to be a lessened diversity of opinions and an emerging consensus on the hegemonic nature of US foreign policy, particularly its intention of containing a rising China--though its dual strategy of containment and engagement continues to exist. More importantly, many Chinese analysts remain highly critical and negative. Thus, American external behavior worldwide would always be viewed with a great deal of suspicion.