Morality, Identity and "Constitutional Patriotism"

In a modern, plural society, there can be no settled agreement on the concrete legal content of a country's constitution. The idea of the constitution is nonetheless pivotal in contemporary, liberal-minded theories of political justification, such as the ones advanced by Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls. Justification in these theories depends finally on "constitutional patriotism," a consciously shared sentiment arising from an ethical assessment of their country by the country's people, according to which the country credibly pursues a certain regulative political ideal for which the constitution stands.     

Opinion Backlash and Public Attitudes: Are Political Advances in Gay Rights Counterproductive?

One long‐recognized consequence of the tension between popular sovereignty and democratic values like liberty and equality is public opinion backlash, which occurs when individuals recoil in response to some salient event. For decades, scholars have suggested that opinion backlash impedes policy gains by marginalized groups. Public opinion research, however, suggests that widespread attitude change that backlash proponents theorize is likely to be rare. Examining backlash against gays and lesbians using a series of online and natural experiments about marriage equality, and large‐sample survey data, we find no evidence of opinion backlash among the general public, by members of groups predisposed to dislike gays and lesbians, or from those with psychological traits that may predispose them to lash back. The important implication is that groups pursuing rights should not be dissuaded by threats of backlash that will set their movement back in the court of public opinion.     

Bargaining Styles and Negotiation: The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument in Negotiation Training

Many negotiation courses and executive training programs cover the subject of bargaining styles. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) is a commonly used psychological assessment tool that helps students and teachers probe this topic. The TKI measures the five conflict management facets proposed by the Dual Concerns Model: competing, collaborating, compromising, accommodating, and avoiding. The author has used the TKI extensively in teaching executives about bargaining styles, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of it as a teaching aid. He also presents research on the frequency with which various TKI scores are reported in business programs. Finally, he provides thumbnail sketches of typical bargaining behavior exhibited by people with very strong and very weak predispositions for each of the five conflict modes. Some implications of these behaviors for specific professional audiences are explored.     

Farm tractorisation,productivity and labour employment: A case study of Indian Punjab

The objective of this paper is to determine the effects of farm tractorisation on output and human labour employment on Punjab farms in India. The residts seem to suggest that, this far, the use of tractors has resulted in higher output and more employment. The authors believe that the threat from farm tractorisation is not all that great; the use of tractors is likely to be confined to certain areas only, and there too, any displacement of labour should be possible to control through appropriate public policies.     

Boxers,Christians and the culture of violence in north China

History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth, by Paul A. Cohen. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Pp.xviii + 249. £27.95/US$34.50 (hardback); US$18.50 (paperback). ISBN 0 231 10650 5 and 10651 3

On the one hand, the Boxers have been condemned as a product of uncivilised, irrational, superstitious anti‐foreignism among the common people. On the other, the Boxers are praised as patriotic anti‐imperialists. This latter characterisation remains the prevailing view not only in current Chinese writings but also in some recent Western accounts. While not denying the unsettling impact of certain aspects of foreign imperialism at the end of the nineteenth century, it is argued here that greater emphasis must be placed on the endogenous factors that gave rise to the Boxer Movement. In its broadest sense, the movement was a multi‐stranded and complex response to mounting internal and external pressures. A careful analysis of this conjuncture of factors will provide a more satisfactory explanation for the fateful events of 1898–1900.     

A note on crop mixtures under indigenous conditions in Northern Nigeria

This note contends that crop mixtures are employed by farmers primarily as risk precautions and that the immediate objective of farmers is not only one of profit maximisation but also of stability of income. The results of an income stability model employed to verify this hypothesis seem to agree relatively well with existing information in parts of Northern Nigeria.     

The natural sampling of airborne trace signals from explosives concealed upon the human body.

An experimental study of the natural sampling of trace signals from explosives concealed upon the human body was performed by taking proper account of the thermal behavior of the air surrounding the human body and the particles therein. Experiments were conducted in a dispersal chamber to identify variables affecting the detectibility of concealed RDX and TNT patches. Movement by human volunteers was found to enhance the available explosive trace signal above a baseline level. Clothing blocked some of this movement-generated trace signal. The detected signal levels were also found to vary significantly from volunteer to volunteer, indicating that human variability is an issue in explosive trace detection. Further, under the conditions studied here, the detectibility of RDX and TNT was dependent upon the efficient sampling of contaminated particulate matter, not the vapor phase. The present results are now being applied to the design of a practical, nonintrusive trace detection portal for aviation security screening and related applications.