Feminism and Constructivism: Worlds Apart or Sharing the Middle Ground?

The discipline of international relations (IR) is witnessing a "constructivist turn." In this article, we argue that the new preoccupation with constructivism provides a unique opportunity to further understanding between feminism and the IR mainstream. Feminism and constructivism share a commitment to an ontology of becoming that can serve as a common basis for conversation. Yet there are also profound differences between feminists and constructivists. First, most IR feminists approach gender and power as integral elements in processes of construction, whereas most constructivists consider power to be external to such processes. This failure to conceptualize power and gender as social and pervasive leads constructivists to miss an important part of the empirical reality of power politics. Second, constructivists tend to ignore the implications of a postpositivist epistemology, whereas for feminists the question of "Who knows?" is crucial. We argue that the constructivist failure to problematize the research process as a social (and therefore political) process of construction is logically inconsistent with an ontology of becoming. We introduce empirical materials to illustrate the advantages of feminist approaches. We hope to advance a dialogue between feminism and constructivism because the two approaches add to each other and in combination can yield better theoretical and empirical understandings of the world.     

Rechtsanwälte,Disziplinarrecht, Werbung,Meinungsäußerungsfreiheit

Die zugrundeliegende Disziplinarstrafbestimmung ist hinreichend bestimmt. Eine demokratische Gesellschaft kann die inkriminierte Werbung hinnehmen, ohne dass der Schutz des guten Rufes oder das Ansehen und die Unparteilichkeit der Rsp Schaden erleiden. Die Disziplinarstrafe verletzt die Bf im Grundrecht auf Meinungs?u?erungsfreiheit, indem die bel Beh dem Gesetz einen verfassungswidrigen Inhalt unterstellt hat.     

The Use of Race and Ethnicity in Medicine: Lessons from the African-American Heart Failure Trial

Race or ethnic identity, despite its imprecise categorization, is a useful means of identifying population differences in mechanisms of disease and treatment effects. Therefore, race and other arbitrary demographic and physiological variables have appropriately served as a helpful guide to clinical management and to clinical trial participation. The African-American Heart Failure Trial was carried out in African-Americans with heart failure because prior data had demonstrated a uniquely favorable effect in this subpopulation of the drug combination in BiDil. The remarkable effect of the drug in reducing mortality in this study has illuminated an important new mechanism of therapy for heart failure. Application of these findings need not be confined to the population studied, but the observation highlights the need for more precise ways to identify individual responsiveness to therapy.     

Strength and growth in a plantation economy

Conclusion Fogel and Engerman's self-conscious application of economic theory to historical data is extremely useful in clarifying the market relationships operative in the antebellum Southern economy. What is missing in their study is an appreciation of the explanatory limits of the theory they have employed. They have paid a high price in attempting to stretch the capabilities of neoclassical theory into domains beyond its scope. In particular this takes the form of an implicit assumption that if market efficiency is attained, modernization is within reach. There is, on the contrary, no necessary correlation between efficiency defined in this market sense, and long-term strength, growth, or prosperity. Precisely because of the means employed within the plantation economy to achieve viability, there are serious questions which can be raised with respect to both the longevity of the slave system and the consistency of that system with development, and hence an increasing standard of living for its population. In analyzing the internal mechanism by which the slave system worked, Fogel and Engerman interjected issues for which they offered neither testable hypotheses nor employed the relevant methodological framework.     

The debate on World Dynamics: A response to Nordhaus

In a recent paper published in the Economic Journal, Professor William D. Nordhaus of Yale University reviewed World Dynamics by Jay W. Forrester. In his criticism, Nordhaus signals three serious problems and several additional questionable assumptions of sufficient importance to undermine the usefulness of Forrester's book. However, a careful examination of his analysis shows that each point made by Nordhaus rests on a misunderstanding of World Dynamics, a misuse of empirical data, or an inability to analyze properly the dynamic behavior of the model by static equilibrium methods.The three serious problems raised by Nordhaus concern the assumptions that connect industrialization to net birth rates in World Dynamics, the representation of technology and production within the world model, and the impact of prices on global resource use. The analysis presented here refutes the Nordhaus arguments and shows that World Dynamics is consistent with his references to real-world data on population, production, and capital accumulation.This paper is a response to William D. Nordhaus, World Dynamics: Measurement Without Data, published in the Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, December 1973. An earlier, unpublished, version of the Nordhaus paper, bearing the same title, was widely circulated hand-tohand within the United States, Canada, and Europe. A response to the original Nordhaus paper (System Dynamics Group Memorandum D-1736-4) was written in February 1973 and is available from Jay W. Forrester, Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. 02139. The present paper, a revised version of the earlier response, deals with several new or modified arguments contained in the Economic Journal article by Nordhaus.