Barack Obama Meets Celebrity Metaphor

Common knowledge suggests that elections are won or lost based on demographics, finances, and other structural elements. Whether candidates win or lose, however, is a matter of action. Symbolic identification, metaphor, and an unfolding narrative—and how they are managed and interpreted in the flow of events—determine who will emerge victorious from the democratic struggle for power. The McCain campaign’s effort to cast Obama as a celebrity, with the hollow trivialities and self-aggrandizement of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, proves to be one of the most dangerous episodes for the Obama campaign. In response, the Democrats must adjust the staging of Obama’s Thursday night acceptance speech in Denver as a performance of purpose and gravitas, rather than glitz and adoration.     

China and global development: towards a Global-Asian Era?

The rise of China as an economic and political ‘driver’ of the global economy may presage a new phase of globalization. This paper postulates the emergence of this new phase – a ‘Global-Asian Era’ (GAE) – as a ‘working hypothesis’. It suggests that such an era is likely to be distinct from any of the earlier phases of globalization, and China's global footprint, in terms of its business, economic and political actions and their geopolitical implications, is likely to be markedly different from what has gone before. The paper sketches the reasons for these differences before turning to a discussion of the nature and dynamics of a possible future GAE. Paying particular attention to the developing world, the paper then explores some of the evidence that could be marshalled in support of the hypothesis. It outlines a series of vectors (trade, aid and energy security) along which it is possible to discern some of the ways in which an emergent GAE could be seen as impacting on the developing world. The paper argues that, at least for these vectors, a China-driven GAE is likely to provide dangers as well as opportunities for national development projects.     

Exemplary Lives and the Normative Theory of Culture

This article defends an essentialist account of culture against the recent turn toward nonessentialism in contemporary liberal multiculturalism. It does so by drawing on Friedrich Nietzsche's early period and argues that Nietzsche provides an alternative to the dominant tradition of Volk conceptions of culture that derive from J. G. Herder. Nietzsche's alternative—what I call the “Exemplar Account” of culture—defines culture in terms of the patterns of human excellence that constitute it. This alternative overcomes standard concerns about essentialism by embracing the nonessentialist insight into the fluidity and variability of any culture's beliefs, values, and practices, yet holds that exemplary lives transcend the flux of culture and individuate one culture from another. I suggest in conclusion a practical benefit of this conception of culture for contemporary multiculturalism—namely, it fares better than other conceptions in fostering integration among diverse cultures, a pressing worry facing the current project of multiculturalism.     

社会记忆研究:从“集体记忆”到记忆实践的历史社会学

尽管有多个学科和不同背景的学术研究领域做了大量的工作,社会记忆研究仍然是一个缺乏固定范式的、没有中心的、跨学科的事业。要纠正这种相对混乱的局面,我们有必要推进多项工作,将社会记忆视为一个有用的传统和一个可加工的范围,为将来的工作奠定基础。我们需要追溯这项事业的家世,回顾围绕社会记忆之基本定义产生的争论,勾勒出历史的视角,并评价与社会记忆静力学和动力学有关的社会学理论。     

Lessons learnt from two decades of international environmental agreements: law

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - As Patricia Birnie cautiously and prophetically put it in the inaugural issue of this journal (INEA 1, January 2001, p. 74),...     

Social capital and labor politics in Japan: Cooperation or cooptation?

Policy Sciences - Social capital, derived from voluntary cooperative relationships and memberships, is thought to enhance a group's capacity to attain a common good. Japan enjoys plentiful...