Modernity without Prometheus: on re-reading Marshall Berman's All that is Solid Melts into Air

This essay revisits Marshall Berman's extremely influential book, All that is Solid Melts into Air, some thirty years after its first publication. Berman provided an analysis of modernity as something including, but not limited to, capitalism, and as something which encompassed not just `social processes' but also new subjectivities, not just new world(s) but new ways of inhabiting them. He also offered a passionate defense of modernity an its possibilities, and of modernism as a mode of engaging and affirming these possibilities. In asking how well this analysis reads 30 years later, this essay provides a sympathetic critique, in the course of which it provides elements of an alternative, postcolonial reading of modernity.     

Fighting Networked Terrorist Groups: Lessons from Israel

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States faced “networked” adversaries: insurgent groups that communicated and coordinated their political and military campaigns without a central command. The rise of networked groups is a direct result of the preponderance of U.S. military power. Consequently, this article asks: What strategies have been most effective in defeating networked groups? To answer this question, the article examines Israeli operations against Palestinian groups during Operation Defense Shield in 2002. It argues that the most effective strategy to defeat networked adversaries is to use networked strategies. In Israel, this meant establishing multiple units to penetrate Palestinian urban areas, swarm together from several directions, and kill or capture militants.     

Public Managers' Perceptions of Organizational Goal Ambiguity: Analyzing Alternative Models

Much organizational theory, research, and practice emphasizes the value of organizational members having clear perceptions of the organization's goals. For years, authors have asserted that public organizations have particularly vague goals, goals more vague than those of business firms. Yet, researchers have not devoted a lot of attention to ways of measuring perceptions about organizational goal clarity in public organizations and analyzing these perceptions. Many authors claim that the external political context increases goal ambiguity in public organizations. Some survey evidence, however, suggests that other factors, such as individual dispositions and attitudes, and internal organizational structures and processes, have greater effects. We analyze three alternative models of goal ambiguity—a political model, an organizational model, and an individual model—using data collected in Phase II of the National Administrative Studies Project (NASP-II), and then a composite model. Although political context acts as a significant determinant of goal ambiguity, both organizational and individual models have better explanatory power. Implications of these findings for theory and managerial practice are discussed.     

Triple jeopardy for HIV: substance using Severely Mentally Ill Adults

Severely Mentally Ill (SMI) adults have disproportionately high HIV seroprevalence rates. Abuse of alcohol and other substances (AOD) and lifetime exposure to trauma by others are particularly potent risk factors, which, in combination with psychiatric disabilities, create triple jeopardy for HIV infection. This study examined the predictive utility of demographic characteristics; history of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; extent of drug and alcohol abuse; knowledge about HIV/AIDS; sexual self-efficacy; and condom attitudes toward explaining the variance in a composite of HIV high-risk behavior among 188 SMI women and 158 SMI men. History of sexual abuse, engaging in sexual activities while high on substances, and lower cannabis use were the most significant predictors of HIV sexual risk behaviors. Given the triple jeopardy for HIV risk in this population, a triple barreled approach that simultaneously addresses multiple health risks within an integrated treatment setting is warranted.     

Language Games: Dialogical Analysis of INF Negotiations

This essay proposes dialogical analysis as a method of modeling political interactions. The method combines the formal theory of dialogical disputation, a family of theories drawn from linguistic pragmatics, and formal proof procedures. By analyzing models of their explicit and implicit contents in context, the method identifies the argumentative thrust of negotiation dialogues and shows systematically how the parties signal intent and commitment to one another. The paper illustrates the method by applying it to superpower interactions in the 1980s INF negotiations. The analysis indicates that American force deployments did not motivate the Soviet retreat from their early insistence on compensation for European missiles. The change in the Soviet position is better attributed to their strategic reconceptualization of the Cold War insecurity dilemma.