Obsession With English

Almost every day I am asked by someone in China to teach English. Professors ask me to come to their classes; friends ask me to tutor their children; deans ask me to join their foreign language departments.     

Rationalism in Public Law

Rationalism is ‘the stylistic criterion of all respectable politics’. So lamented political philosopher Michael Oakeshott in a series of essays published in the 1940s and 1950s. Rationalism, for Oakeshott, is shorthand for a propensity to prioritise the universal over the local, the uniform over the particular and, ultimately, principle over practice. It culminates in the triumph of abstract principles over practical knowledge in a manner that erodes our ability to engage in political activity. Although Oakeshott's critique was made with the practice and study of politics in mind, it has a wider relevance. Rationalism, as we see it, has become the dominant style in public law. We draw upon Oakeshott's critique to elucidate the risks associated with rationalism in public law and call for a renewed engagement with practical knowledge in the study of the constitution.     

Developmental Pathways from Genetic,Prenatal, Parenting and Emotional/Behavioral Risk to Cortisol Reactivity and Adolescent Substance Use: A TRAILS Study

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Cortisol reactivity is a frequently studied biomarker of substance use, though infrequently examined in adolescence. However, past research provides evidence that...     

Organizing Atlanticism: the Bilderberg group and the Atlantic institute, 1952–1963

The Bilderberg group, which originated in Europe in 1952, slowly organized an American participation in the following two years. After a first conference held in May 1954, it rapidly developed into one of the most successful private transatlantic organizations of the 1950s. The project for an Atlantic Institute, which dates back to 1953–54, took longer to develop into a concrete institution, and was formally created, after several years of preparation, in January 1961. Both organizations received funding and support from the Ford Foundation and became fully-established fora in the early 1960s. The study compares the two initiatives to see how they shed light on the more general context of a ‘transatlantic culture’ in the Cold War. Although the networks of personnel were of a different nature and drew on different circles and professions, one can observe some interlocking, and their joint success in the early 1960s was partly due to their importance in ‘outflanking’ Gaullism in France.     

Genetic and Environmental Overlap between Low Self-Control and Delinquency

Low self-control has emerged as a consistent and strong predictor of antisocial and delinquent behaviors. Using the twin subsample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), genetic analyses were conducted to examine the genetic and environmental contributions to low self-control and offending as well as to their relationship with one another. The results revealed that low self-control and criminal behaviors are influenced by genetic and nonshared environmental factors with the effects of shared environmental factors being negligible. In addition, the co-variation between low self-control and criminal behaviors appears to be largely due to common genetic and nonshared environmental factors operating on both phenotypes. The implications of these findings on the current understanding of Gottfredson and Hirschi??s general theory of crime are discussed.     

Policy termination in mental health: The hidden agenda

Three policy termination objectives can be analyzed in the field of mental health: the move to phase-down, and in some instances close, large state institutions for the mentally disabled; the elimination in some states of indefinite involuntary commitment procedures; and the attempt to transfer responsibility for the provision of direct services from the state level to local government and/or private providers of care. Initiatives in these areas have come from the executive, the legislature, consumer organizations, and most recently from the public interest law community through the use of litigation. Termination in this field, however, has met with increasing resistance because of the failure in many instances to pair these objectives with positive program development. In some states, the result has been the dismantling of one system without the commitment of resources necessary to encourage the development of an alternative system.