Rereading the Public: Isolationism and Internationalism Revisited

This is the first installment in what we hope will be a recurring series of Forums in ISP. In each segment we intend to provide an outlet for peer-reviewed dialogue and debate on important topics in the field and to allow our readers to discuss material previously printed in the pages of ISP. Below are two comments on "Challenging U.S. Policymakers' Image of an Isolationist Public" by Steven Kull and Clay Ramsay published in ISP 1:1. Both comments raise a number of important issues pertaining to the relationship of public opinion and foreign policy, and also address more general questions of domestic impact on foreign policy outputs and several significant methodological questions about approaches to polling. The Forum begins first with comments by Richard Clark and Kenneth Dautrich, is followed by comments from Shoon Murray, and concludes with a response from Kull and Ramsay.     

A Monument for our Times? Commemorating Victims of Repression in Putin’s Russia

Abstract

Three decades ago, a civic movement arose in the USSR around commemorating Stalin’s victims. Yet only in 2017, following President Vladimir Putin’s approbation, was a central monument to victims of repression constructed. Analysis of the genesis and results of the design process for the new monument shows that memory discourses in Russia have been harnessed to a form that allows civic activists and state officials to express a limited consensus. The truncated nature of the competition and the jury’s safe choice, however, produced a monument unlikely to become a locus for popular or official remembrance.     

Musci preferences as data in assessing and treating offenders and victims

Contemporary music has been criticized for promoting violence, hatred, misogyny, sexual excess, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide, narcissism, and self-pity. The authors, a criminologist licensed as a mental health counselor and a clinical psychologist, have found that exploring individuals' music preferences can often provide invaluable assistance in understanding how offenders and victims fulfill existential needs common to both of them. These insights can be useful in setting appropriate therapeutic goals, assessing violence potential toward self and others, and making recommendations regarding the need for placement in a secure facility. Notes Paper delivered at the 1998 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, Albuquerque, New Mexico, March.     

“THE PLACE OF JUSTICE IS AN HALLOWED PLACE”1

This article discusses the concept of justice and differentiates between restorative and retributive justice. The Judeo-Christian roots of justice are explored in the context of a need to reform the adversarial nature of the process of family law.     

Environmental management and street-level regulators: A cultural trap?

It has been argued that environmental management is in an administrative trap. Numerous factors leading to this trapped situation have already been identified in the literature: institutional rigidity, lack of co-ordination, formalization, non-accountability and political interference. This study focusses on the organizational, cultural dimension of the administrative trap and argues that in order to reform administrative structures, the organizational culture must also be reformed. On the basis of several face-to-face interviews with street-level environmental regulators in Hong Kong, the study claims that a role-oriented, hierarchical culture exists. While such an organizational culture is in perfect agreement with existing administrative arrangements, it may, in the end, hamper the effectiveness of environmental management.     

Public opinion and presidential responsibility for the economy: Understanding personalization

The general mechanisms which underlie the psychological phenomenon ofpersonalizing (cognitive simplification and defensive attribution) would seem to have great utility in explaining attributions of presidential control over the economy. Yet previous research has generated inconsistent and inconclusive empirical results. This study identifies several sources of inconsistency and then attempts to clarify the approach by focusing separately on the object and the subject of personalizing. Our findings suggest that the determinants of personalizing to the president are different from the factors that explain personalizing to the incumbent. In addition, we find that the impact of the two psychological mechanisms differs substantially within economic subject areas.Paper prepared for delivery at the 1984 Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Political Science Association, Fort Worth, Texas.