Civil Society,Populism and Liberalism

This paper considers the threats that various kinds of populism might be said to pose to the ideal of a civil society that mediates between ‘private’ and family life and the state. Although it is difficult to generalise about populisms, just about all—whether on left or right—share a hostility to ‘intermediate’ powers. Of course civil society is exactly what could be called a forum for intermediate powers. In contrast, populists often tend to emphasise a vision of immediate power in the sense of the possibility of the direct expression of the people’s will in political institutions. Populists, of whatever pitch, often tend to invoke a partisan state that will be on the side of the people (however defined) rather than a putatively neutral ‘liberal’ state that stands over and against civil society. These factors make most populisms more or less generically hostile to liberalism, understood not in ideological terms but more as a doctrine which emphasises the necessity of mediating power through institutions. Very often, populism is a threat to the idea of civil society understood as a concept integral to liberal political theory, as a means of balancing the state and its wider interlocutors. In this paper, various means, largely inspired by the writings of Tocqueville on the one hand and Paul Hirst on the other, are suggested for addressing aspects of this predicament.

     

Stuck in the Middle: Taiwan's Semiconductor Industry,the U.S.-China Tech Fight,and Cross-Strait Stability

The Trump administration has worked to restrict the People's Republic of China's ability to manufacture and acquire semiconductor chips since 2018. Caught in the crossfire of this burgeoning tech war is Taiwan, which is home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer. With the United States banning companies that use U.S. technology in their chip manufacturing process from doing business with Huawei, TSMC can no longer do business with the Chinese tech company, one of its most important clients. Until the Trump administration announced the license restriction on Huawei, TSMC had managed to walk the fine line of doing business with both China and the United States, without riling either. This article argues that the TSMC example is indicative of how great power competition between the two countries will play out for the foreseeable future. TSMC has announced that it will build a new factory in Arizona as it faces Chinese firms poaching its employees and Chinese actors hacking its systems and code for trade secrets—all actions demonstrating how great power competition will play out for tech dominance. Avoiding direct live-fire conflict, China and the United States will work to restrict the other's actions and development by forcing important tech companies, such as TSMC, into picking a side.     

On evaluating mediators

Conclusion Evaluating mediators is a complex process, but not an impossible one. While no single solution is likely to be found, a set of options is emerging. Any new refinement, admittedly, brings with it new difficulties, and the options laid out here are themselves complex to administer. An adroit program management may be able to put together relatively quickly a workable, efficient, and fair approach to evaluation that is tailored to its own circumstances. But most likely, the process of developing evaluation tools will require sustained effort, justified partly by recognition that only trial and error will eventually produce a result keyed to the program's, the parties', and the mediators' diverse needs.Nevertheless, it should be apparent that avoidance of the problems is no longer an acceptable strategy. In an era when rational standards for judging the elements of mediators' effectiveness are becoming more refined, and when mediation itself is becoming an increasingly common option for resolving all kinds of disputes, retaining public confidence in any program will demand that the program devote time and effort to evaluating and strengthening its most important resources. Christopher Honeyman has played a variety of dispute resolution roles including mediator, arbitrator, and administrative law judge in cases involving labor and environmental issues, for the State of Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (P.O. Box 7870, Madison, Wis. 53707-7870) and for other programs.An earlier version of this article was presented under the title Problems in Evaluating Mediators, at the North American Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution, Montreal, Quebec, March, 1989.Christina Sickles Merchant, Byron Yaffe, Stephen Goldberg, Jeanne Brett and Martha Askins offered detailed and helpful critiques of earlier drafts of this work. I am particularly grateful to the mediators of Maine's Court Mediation Service and to its directors, Jane Orbeton and the late Lincoln Clark, for their willingness to take the risks of applying an untried theory and their help in developing it. And once again, my colleagues at the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission provided numerous and significant comments and criticisms which have corrected my thinking on a number of points. However, the opinions expressed here are the author's, and do not necessarily reflect the policy of the WERC.     

Underlying patterns in a current economic development model

Public officials may subjectively use a variety of elements, including economic characteristics and political considerations, in their selection of locations and allocation of resources for economic development. Policy capture is a method that determines the impartial weighting of a broad number of elements which influence these decision makers as they operationalize programs. Non-political criteria that may influence the selection of sites for local economic development provide the basis of the analysis conducted in this paper. Public officials at various levels of responsibility assessed the chances of creating jobs for disadvantaged residents (employment success) for a variety of hypothetical areas chosen as an enterprise zone. Their responses give insight into policy decisions. There is a comparison of both individual responses and groups of respondents to the hypothetical data as well as to actual zones that were recently selected. Concluding remarks will discuss these results and the application of this method for enterprise zones and other policy analyses.We wish to acknowledge the extensive helpful suggestions of the editor and two anonymous reviewers.     

Prudential Assurance Co. Ltd. v. London Residuary Body — The end of pragmatism or the beginning of reason?

Conclusion Whilst Lord Templeman seemed satisfied with the result of the decision in thePrudential case, Lord Browne-Wilkinson did not share his view. He said that the outcome of the case was unsatisfactory and did not accord with the agreement of the parties. He said No one has produced any satisfactory rationale for the genesis of this rule. No one has been able to point to any useful purpose that it serves at the present day and he urged the Law Commission to examine whether the rule should continue to operate in English law.The genesis of the rule was, it seems, satisfactorily described by Lord Templeman and its usefulness lies in the fact that it imposes a degree of certainty and reliability on the parties. Each knows from the outset what they have contracted for. Its failing lies in the fact that its operation, as Russell L.J. rightly pointed out, leads to a freely negotiated bargain being defeated. If the Law Commission does examine the rule then clearly the central issue will be the balancing of these two principles and which is to be given effect to. If the law wishes to see certainty and reliability in this area, then Lord Templeman's decision is undoubtedly welcome since the law was clearly in a state of flux and confusion before the case.     

The courts,interest groups,and public opinion about abortion

Public preferences about the availability of abortion under various circumstances have remained fairly stable over time. Yet a standard CBS/New York Times abortion question indicates that a significant shift in opinion occurred during the 1980s, whereby the public became increasingly supportive of legalized abortion as it is now. These very different patterns of public opinion about abortion suggest that the public perceived a shift in the abortion status quo, toward more restricted access, over time, and became more supportive of current abortion policy.A model of support for legalized abortion as it is now is developed that incorporates the influences of court activities and interest-group behavior. The analysis indicates that the public reacted directly to the activities of the courts, becoming more supportive of current abortion policy in response to media coverage of court cases that challenged the abortion status quo and Supreme Court nominations and confirmations. Although absolute preferences remained largely unchanged, it appears the public perceived an increasing threat to the status quo and became correspondingly less enamored with further restrictions on the availability of abortion.     

Reviews

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