Jürgen Habermas's Theory of Cosmopolitanism

In this paper we explore the sustained and multifaceted attempt of Jürgen Habermas to reconstruct Kant's theory of cosmopolitan right for our own times. In a series of articles written in the post‐1989 period, Habermas has argued that the challenge posed both by the catastrophes of the twentieth century, and by social forces of globalization, has given new impetus to the idea of cosmopolitan justice that Kant first expressed. He recognizes that today we cannot simply repeat Kant's eighteenth‐century vision: that if we are to grapple with the complexities of present‐day problems, it is necessary to iron out certain inconsistencies in Kant's thinking, radicalize it where its break from the old order of nation‐states is incomplete, socialize it so as to draw out the connections between perpetual peace and social justice, and modernize it so as to comprehend the “differences both in global situation and conceptual framework that now separate us from him.” ¹ 1 Karl‐Otto Apel, “Kant's Toward Perpetual Peace as historical prognosis from the point of view of moral duty,” in James Bohman and Matthias Lutz‐Bachmann, eds., Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant's Cosmopolitan Ideal (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1997), 87. Jürgen Habermas, “Kant's Idea of Perpetual Peace, with the Benefit of Two Hundred Years Hindsight,” ibid., 113–53; and in Jürgen Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), 165–202. His basic intuition, however, is that Kant's idea of cosmopolitan right is as relevant to our times as it was to Kant's own. If it was Kant's achievement to formulate the idea of cosmopolitanism in a modern philosophical form, Habermas takes up the challenge posed by Karl‐Otto Apel: to “think with Kant against Kant” in reconstructing this idea. What follows is a critical assessment of Habermas's response to this challenge. We focus here on the dilemmas he faces in grounding his normative commitment to cosmopolitan politics and in reconciling his cosmopolitanism with the national framework in which he developed his ideas of constitutional patriotism and deliberative democracy.     

The district and support for primary health care: The management experience from large-scale projects

With the implementation of primary health care policies the need for more effective management support at the intermediate or district level has become apparent, but experience is poorly documented. This article reviews the management experience of large-scale district-level projects in Ghana, India, Iran, Korea, Philippines, Thailand and Zaïre. The lessons point to a strong need to strengthen district-level management and for greater decentralization. These in turn will require a review of the present organizational health structures and the strengthening of national-level planning and management capacity.     

A. Reviews: general

JOURNAL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES, Vol. 1. Edited by ATHANASIUS TH. PHOTOPOULOS. Athens, 1989. viii, 245 pp.

RELIGION AND SOCIETY IN ARAB SIND. By BERRYL N. MACLEAN. (Monographs and Theoretical Studies in Sociology and Anthropology in Honour of Nels Anderson, 25.) Leiden, Brill, 1989. x, 191pp. Hf1.75‐/$37.50.

AN ARAB‐SYRIAN GENTLEMAN AND WARRIOR IN THE PERIOD OF THE CRUSADES: MEMOIRS OF USAMAH IBN‐MUNQIDH. Translated by PHILIP K. HITTI. Columbia University Press, 1929; reissued by Princeton University Press 1987. x, 265pp. 3 illustrations, 1 map. US$9.95.

THE ASSASSINS. By BERNARD LEWIS. London, al‐Saqi Books, repr. 1985. £4.95.

ECONOMIC LIFE IN OTTOMAN JERUSALEM. By AMNON COHEN. (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization.) Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989. 179pp., 6 photographs, 1 map. £27.50.

SUMMON UP REMEMBRANCE. By MARZIEH GAIL. Oxford, George Ronald, 1987. 295pp. £14.95 (H/B); £7.50 (P/B).

AFRICANISMO Y ORIENTALISMO ESPAÑOL EN EL SIGLO XIX. By VICTOR MORALES LEZCANO. Madrid, Universidad Nacional de Education a Distancia, 1989. 175pp.

ORIENT AND OCCIDENT. By AHMAD AMIN, translated by WOLFGANG H. BEHN. Berlin, Adiyok 1984. 76 pp. DM19.50.

ISLAM, THE PEOPLE AND THE STATE; ESSAYS ON POLITICAL IDEAS AND MOVEMENTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST. By SAMI ZUBAIDA. London and New York, Routledge, 1989. xi, 192pp. £27.95

POWER AND STABILITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST. Edited by BERCH BERBEROGLU. London, Zed Books, 1989. 206pp., tables, index.

THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF JUSTICE: LAW AS CULTURE IN ISLAMIC SOCIETY. By LAWRENCE ROSEN. (Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures, 1985.) Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 1989. 101pp. Plates. £22.50/$34.50 (h/b), £7.50/$12.95 (p/b)

THE DRUZE. By ROBERT BRENTON BETTS. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1988. xiv, 161pp. 5 maps, 22 black & white plates.

PUBLIC OPINION AND THE QUESTION OF PALESTINE. Edited by ELIA ZUREIK and FOUAD MUGHRABI. London, Croom Helm, 1987. 206pp.

PALESTINE AND ISRAEL: THE UPRISING AND BEYOND. By DAVID MCDOWALL. London, Tauris, 1989. 322 pp.

THE PLO UNDER ‘ARAFAT: BETWEEN GUN AND OLIVE BRANCH. By SHAUL MISHAL. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1986. 178pp.

THE MIDDLE EAST: TEN YEARS AFTER CAMP DAVID. Edited by WILLIAM B. QUANDT. Washington DC, Brookings Institution. £28.75

RADICAL ISLAM: THE IRANIAN MOJAHEDIN. By ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN, London, I.B. Tauris, 1989. 320pp. £29.50 (hardback), £9.50 (paperback).

ARAB WOMEN IN THE FIELD: STUDYING YOUR OWN SOCIETY. Edited by SORAYA ALTORKI and CAMILLIA FAWZI EL‐SOLH. Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 1988. xii, 184pp.

KHUL‐KHAAL: FIVE EGYPTIAN WOMEN TELL THEIR STORIES. By NAYRA ATIYA. London, Virago Press, 1988. xxii, 182pp.

WE SHALL RETURN: WOMEN OF PALESTINE. By INGELA BENDT and JAMES DOWNING. London, Zed Press, 1982. iii, 129pp.

THREE WOMEN OF HERAT. By VERONICA DOUBLEDAY. London, Jonathan Cape, 1988. xi, 222pp. £12.95.

DOING DAILY BATTLE: INTERVIEWS WITH MOROCCAN WOMEN. By FATIMA MERNISSI, translated by JO LAKELAND. London, The Women's Press, 1988. 224pp. £5.95.

BOTH RIGHT AND LEFT HANDED: ARAB WOMEN TALK ABOUT THEIR LIVES. By BOUTHAINA SHAABAN. London, The Women's Press, 1988. vii, 242pp. £5.95.

THE PRESS IN THE MIDDLE EAST: CONSTRAINT, CONSENSUS, CENSORSHIP. By BARBARA KOEPPEL. Washington, Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), [c.1989]. 14pp. US$2.00.

INFORMATION AND THE MUSLIM WORLD: A STRATEGY FOR THE TWENTY‐FIRST CENTURY. By ZIAUDDIN SARDAR. London, Mansell, 1988. x, 186pp. £24.75

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF SERVICES IN THE ARAB GULF STATES: COMPANY AND INDUSTRY CASES. By M. SAMI KASSEM and GHAZI M. HABIB. Berlin and New York, de Gruyter, 1989. xxi, 480pp.

THE MODERN ARABIC SHORT STORY: SHAHRAZAD RETURNS. By MUHAMMAD SHAHEEN. London, Macmillan, 1989. 158 pp.

MUSIC OF AFGHANISTAN. By JOHN BAILY. (Cambridge Studies in Ethnomusicology.) Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988. 183pp., cassette. £32.50.

WOMEN'S COSTUME OF THE NEAR AND MIDDLE EAST. By JENNIFER SCARCE. London and Sydney, Unwin Hyman, 1987. £40.00.

A SHORT ACCOUNT OF EARLY MUSLIM ARCHITECTURE. By K.A.C. CRESWELL, revised and supplemented by J.W. ALLAN. Aldershot, Scolar Press, 1989. 435pp. 273 illustrations, 3 maps. £47.50

THE HISTORICAL MOSQUES OF SAUDI ARABIA. By G.R.D. KING. London and New York, 1986. 208pp.

YEMEN: 3000 YEARS OF ART AND CIVILISATION IN ARABIA FELIX. Edited by WERNER DAUM. Innsbruck, Pinguin‐Verlag and Frankfurt/Main, Umschau‐Verlag, 1987. 483pp.

MANDA: EXCAVATIONS AT AN ISLAND PORT ON THE KENYA COAST. By NEVILLE CHITTICK. (Memoirs, 9.) Nairobi, British Institute in Eastern Africa, 1984. xvi, 258pp. £25.00     

The feasibility and utility of pretrial instruction in the substantive law

Jurors are traditionally instructed in the governing law after trial, just prior to deliberation. Several legal scholars have proposed that instructing jurorsprior to trial would better equip them to evaluate the evidence and integrate it with the law. The most controversial aspect of this position is preinstruction in thesubstantive law. Critics warn that substantive preinstruction may impair jurors' performance and that it poses unreasonable administrative problems. This research surveys the opinions of California Superior Court judges on the advantages and disadvantages of substantive preinstruction to understand the reasons that judges either do or do not preinstruct on substantive issues. The most important advantage to emerge was the potential for a substantive precharge to improve jurors' integration of facts and law. The most critical disadvantages were administrative ones: The judge does not know before trial what substantive instructions are appropriate, and the procedure may cause burdensome delays.     

Rights,goals, and hard cases

Rights have two properties which prima facie appear to be inconsistent. The first is that they are conditional in the sense that one some occasions it is always justifiable for someone to act in a way which appears to be inconsistent with someone else's rights, such as when the defence of necessity applies. The second is that rights are indefeasible in the sense that they are not subject to being defeated our outweighed by utilitarian or policy considerations. If we view rules and the rights which they establish as being subject to a ceteris paribus clause, the form of which generates out the exceptions, the conditionality of rights becomes reconcilable with their nondefeasibility. Such a view of rules and rights would entail that the goals of the law and their orderings be considered as a part of the law. When so viewed, propositions about goals and their orderings become legitimate premises for legal reasoning, furnishing solutions to hard cases in the law of torts, without resort to balancing of interests or judicial discretion.     

PUBLIC POLICY AND POLITICAL CHOICE: A REVIEW ARTICLE

Abstract: In reviewing the literature on policy studies, as in studying policy making itself, what you see depends on where you look. Studies of public policy vary widely in forms, methods and rationale. This paper does not try to categorize and capture the spirit of all aspects of a diverse and burgeoning literature. Its focus is on a number of recent books that straddle broadly the categories of process and administrative studies. The questions addressed in the volumes discussed are about how institutions handle issues in public policy, their relevance to the actual content of policy, and the ways in which individuals and groups within them see and respond to opportunities for choice. Each book is concerned with questions of theory but the books do not, either singly or together, suggest a single compelling theory of institutions and policy processes. Indeed, considering their theoretical sophistication, one may doubt whether such a goal is practicable. The better the work done on policy studies the more open-ended theoretically the field seems to be.