The Ethics of Property: A Semiotic Inquiry into Ownership

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique -     

Emotional responses to the nonverbal behavior of French and American political leaders

This paper summarizes the results of a series of experimental studies on the emotional responses of American and French viewers to televised excerpts of their leaders' facial displays. Using a combination of ethological and social-psychological theory it develops an explanation of such emotional responses.     

Nonverbal displays and political leadership in France and the United States

Because contemporary theories of politics discuss the appeal of leaders primarily in verbal terms, it is often difficult to go beyond anecdotes when explaining the effects of televized appearances of leaders and candidates. Experimental studies of the way American viewers respond to televized excerpts of leaders were replicated in France shortly before the legislative elections of March 1986, using comparable expressive displays of Laurent Fabius (then Social Prime Minister), Jacques Chirac (Gaullist Mayor of Paris who became Prime Minister), and Jean Marie LePen (head of the Front Nationale). Although the results show striking similarities in the system of nonverbal behavior in France and the United States, there are cultural differences in the role of anger/threat (which elicits more positive responses from French viewers than Americans) as well as variations in the evocative character of the facial displays of individual leaders. These experimental findings clarify recent discussions concerning the evolution of the French party system, providing insights into the role of political culture as well as leadership style in the media age.     

The New Managerialism and the Policy Influence of Consultants in Government: An Historical–Institutionalist Analysis of Britain, Canada and France

Following the rise of the New Public Management (NPM) in the 1980s, policymakers increasingly mobilized management consultants from the private sector in the course of reforming their bureaucracies. To describe this situation some coined the term "consultocracy," assuming that the emergence of the NPM created a growing demand for business management expertise in government circles that allowed consultants to penetrate the state and become powerful policy actors. Rather than taking these matters as given, I ask how has it been possible for consultants to become (or not) influential players in the process of administrative reform. It is argued that Britain, and to a lesser extent Canada, have been more likely than France to give rise to a "consultocracy" when implementing NPM reforms in the 1980s because in these two countries, management consultancy emerged earlier and is more strongly developed than in France because of its historical link with accountancy. Whereas French consultants only began to enter public administration in the 1980s, British and Canadian consultants have been involved in the last 30 years in the construction of the state's management capacities. Through their participation in these institution-building processes, they established networks of expertise with the state and acquired the experience of work in government. Over the years, this created opportunities for consultants to make their voices heard in the inner circles of decision-making and made possible the exercise of influence that they are now said to have on policy.     

Reviews

Steven Fortescue, The Communist Party and Soviet Science. Macmillan, London/Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1986, 234 pp. £27.50, $28–50.

Cameron Ross, Local Government in the Soviet Union: Problems of implementation and Control. London: Croom Helm, 1987, 229pp., £29.95.

Albert P. van Goudoever, The Limits of Destalinization in the Soviet Union. Translated by Frans Hijkoop. London: Croom Helm, 1986, viii + 276 pp., £25.00.

Donald Filtzer, Soviet Workers and Stalinist Industrialization: the Formation of Modern Soviet Production Relations, 1928–1941, London: Pluto Press, 1986, vi + 338 pp., £25.00.

William Chase, Workers, Society, and the Soviet State. Labor and Life in Moscow, 1918–1929. Urbana, Il.: University of Illinois Press, 1987, xviii + 344 pp., $29.90.

Catherine Andreyev, Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Movement: Soviet Reality and Emigre Theories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, xiv + 251 pp., h/b £25.00, $34.50.

Olimpiad S. Ioffe and Mark W. Janis, eds. Soviet Law and Economy. Law in Eastern Europe Series, no. 32. Dordrecht, Holland: Martinus Nijhoff, 1986, xii + 335 pp., £58.75.

A. Hewett, ed., Energy Economics and Foreign Policy in the Soviet Union. Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 1984, xi + 228 pp., £12.85 p/b, £34–00 h/b.

George W. Hoffman (with contributions by Leslie Dienes), The European Energy Challenge: East and West. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1985, xvi + 207 pp., £34.75.

Carl H. McMillan, Multinationals from the Second World. London: Macmillan, 1987, xvi + 220pp., £29.50.

Sergio Alessandrini and Bruno Dallago, eds., The Unofficial Economy: Consequences and Perspectives in Different Economic Systems. Aldershot: Gower, 1987, 345 pp., £22.50.

A. James McAdams, East Germany and Detente: Building Authority after the Wall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, xi + 233 pp., £25.00, $34.00.

Karel Kaplan, The Short March, The Communist Takeover in Czechoslovakia 1945–1948. London: C. Hurst & Company, 1987. xvi + 207 pp., £16.50.

D. Turnock, The Romanian Economy in the Twentieth Century, Basingstoke, Kent: Croom Helm, 1986, xx + 296 pp., £27.95.

John Hiden, The Baltic states and Weimar Ostpolitik. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, xi + 276 pp., £25.00.

Jan F. Triska, ed., Dominant Powers and Subordinate States: the United States in Latin America and the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, Duke University Press, 1986, 504 pp. £48.90 h/b, £14.40 p/b.

Rasul B. Rais, The Indian Ocean and the Superpowers. Economic, Political and Strategic Perspectives, London: Croom Helm, 1986, 215 pp., £25.00.

Vera Broido, Lenin and the Mensheviks. The Persecution of Socialists Under Bolshevism, Hants: Gower/Maurice Temple Smith, 1987, 224 pp. £17.50.

J. P. Roos and Andrzej Sicinski. Ways of Life in Finland and Poland. Gower, Aldershot and Vermont: 1987, viii + 203 pp., £18.50.     

La réforme administrative au gouvernement du Québec: étude du processus de changement sur la culture organisationneIIe

Sommaire: Plusieurs gouvernements ont mis en place des processus de réformes qui se traduisent par un processus de changement visant la modernisation de l'État. Ces processus cornportent une dimension axiologique influencée par la Nouvelle gestion publique. Considérant la réforme comme un phénomène psychosocial et culturel, cet article expose la perception d'acteurs clés vis‐à‐vis des processus de changement qu'implique la modernisation de la fonction publique quebecoise (Loi sur l'administration publique). Cette recherche, basée sur vingt entrevues réalisées auprès de direc‐teurs des ressources humaines de ministères et organismes, démontre que les perceptions de la réforme sont diverses et que l'influence de la politique dans les réformes se situe davantage dans les objectifs que dans le design. En plus de faire ressortir les principales initiatives et quelques obstacles au changement, la recherche illustre que la perception qu'ont les drh sur la nature réelle des changements est variable, et permet de les regrouper sous trois catégories. Enfin, cette recherche présente différents types de cultures témoignant de l'importance d'ajuster les modes d'implémentation pour le succès des réformes. Elle illustre l'importance de soigner la mise en cruvre des réformes plutôt que d'essayer de définir un modèle idéal. Un regard sur l'avenir vient enfin compléter cette étude. Abstract: Many governments have implemented reform processes that lead to modernizing the state. These experiences involve a value dimension influenced by new public management. Stating administrative reform as a cultural and psychosocial phenomenon, this article exposes the perception that key actors have of the change processes entailed by the Quebec public administration's modernization (Loi sur l'administration publique). This research, based on twenty interviews of human resources directors from ministries and public organizations, shows that the perceptions of the reform are diverse and that the political influence of the reforms appears more in the objectives than in the design. In addition to showing the principal facilitating initiatives and a few obstacles to change, the research illustrates that the human resources directors' perception of the changes' actual nature is variable and permits grouping them into three categories. Finally, this research presents different types of cultures, showing the importance of adjusting implementation modes for the reforms' success. It illustrates the importance of taking care of the implementation rather than trying to define an ideal model. A look at the future completes the study.     

Boundaries: The Balkans,the Law,and the Sacred

The recent Balkan Wars are a phenomenon of violence across psychicboundaries, the value-based cosmological Worlds that humans necessarilycreate as the substantive content of consciousness. This violenceresults from the human tendency to consider alien values perceivedacross a psychic boundary as a threat. This violence cannot beeliminated by eliminating these boundaries because these boundariesthemselves cannot be eliminated. Instead, the problem can be addressedonly in terms of establishing public institutions that honor a pluralismof values, thereby attenuating the threat that alien values pose.