A Personal Eulogy

Two specialists on Russian society and politics analyze how Russians view human rights and the conflict in Chechnya, as well as factors shaping views on these issues within Russia, based on a survey conducted in October 2001. The authors discuss how their results diverge from the findings of other studies of Russian public opinion on issues relating to democracy, consider several explanations for the patterns they observe, and propose some appropriate policy measures.     

A Prodigal Son (Through the Eyes of a Father)

Contemporary music is a category of cultural capital that is employed by symphonies and opera especially inefficiently. Considering its quantity, presumed relevance to social needs, and programming, this is surprising. The authors present a model of the programming decision for an ensemble that indicates that increasing the use of contemporary music's capital stock (i.e., increasing on-stage performances of contemporary music and thus listeners' exposure to and appreciation of it) is more difficult than in other artistic fields. Since redirecting audience attention to this cultural endowment will require retiring many resources from common use, standard recommendations for subsidies should be reassessed.     

Basic Directions of Perestroyka

Three basic directions of the economy's perestroyka (social orientation, uskoreniye of technological readjustment, and restructuring of management in enterprises) are outlined by its leading architect and advisor to General Secretary Gorbachev. The presentation, commencing the first joint Soviet Economy round-table, is followed by questions and comments by American participants relating to sequence, momentum, transition, anticipated consequences and contradictions in the reform. A rejoinder covering such issues as priorities, price formation, adaptation to change, allocation of resources and comparison with the Hungarian and other models, is followed by a concluding exchange of views on competition. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 027, 052, 124.     

5.7 Environmental health service

Independent Local Politics in England and Wales,. W. P. Grant,. Farnborough: Saxon House, 1977, pp. 112. + vi, £7.50.

Organisation: A Guide to Problems and Practice, John Child, Harper and Row, 1977, pp. 243, £4.95 (hardback), £2.95 (paperback).

Emergency Employment—A Study in Federalism, Howard W. Hallman, University of Alabama Press, 1977, pp. 207, $11.50.

Commission for Local Administration in England — A Preliminary Appraisal, N. Lewis and B. Gateshill, R.I.P.A., 1978, pp. 68, £2.20.

Neighbourhoods and the Urban Economy, Benjamin Goldstein and Ross Davis (eds.), Lexington Books, 1977, pp. 160, £8.50.

Fiscal Management and Planning in Local Government, James C. Snyder, Lexington Books, 1977, pp. 306, £8.75.

Productivity in Local Government, Frederick O'R. Hayes, Lexington Books, 1977, pp. 295, £13.75.

Organisation and Staff Resources for Area Improvement, Part 1: General Approach, by The National Building Agency, November 1977, pp. 24, £1.00.     

Democratic Theory and the Public Sphere Project: Rethinking Knowledge,Authority, and Identity

This paper is concerned with the problem of academic acquiescence in the decline of public discourse in the United States. Noting current tendencies for the university to operate as another transnational corporation, the argument targets and probes post-communal professionalism which as a sub-ideology is linked to the dualistic social imaginary of the corporate state. Discussing works by Rieff and Lasch, the critique situates this ideology in the liberal-progressivist middle-class culture that is much more bound to the transnational corporate state's consumer culture than many academics wish to acknowledge. A theoretical critique of the subjectivization of postmodern "resistance" is presented as one way of facilitating democratic Left intellectual interest in pursuing a true "border politics" between academic and general cultures. Disembodied, placeless visions of professionalism must be replaced with perspectives and projects foregrounding agency rather than "identity" and political action rather than "self-fulfillment." Scholars critical of the university's role in corporate globalization should take a lesson from John Dewey's "civic professionalism" and envision a post-professional politics projecting democratic public spheres that connect with recent political forms of grassroots globalization aiming at more sustainable ways of life.     

Electoral Democracy during Wartime: The 2004 U.S. Election

The U.S. election of 2004 affords an opportunity to investigate how wartime affects presidential voting. The conventional wisdom is that wartime presidents always get reelected, but previous studies have not examined how citizens' attitudes on the war affect their voting. The papers in this special issue investigate this process, looking at how attitudes on the Iraq War, the larger War on Terrorism, and the so-called cultural war affected attitudes toward the presidential candidates and voting. The studies use a wide variety of datasets and survey questions, showing that the different aspects of the war resonate with different voters and that some of the effects of wartime are indirect through increasing the salience of leadership in the election. Wartime presidents do not get reelected automatically; they have had success in reelection because of how they use the war to build an image that can get them reelected.

A Bittersweet Appraisal of Progressive Education

After solidifying its role as a powerful innovative educational force reinforced by its alignment with mid-century concerns with preventive mental health, the progressive education movement responded to the call to improve the public education of disadvantaged children mandated by civil rights legislation. Although the ideas and tools of progressive education are relevant to this task, this challenge has been only partially met because its scope and complexity have been seriously underestimated. Further complicating the goals and agendas of education today are the massive social and technological changes, thus far insufficiently identified and understood, that affect all children.