The Participant Perspective

Law and Philosophy -     

Federalists in the Attic: Original Intent, the Heritage Movement, and Democratic Theory

Although the United States is often criticized for its lack of historical consciousness, historicity provides a compelling rhetorical trump in constitutional argument, particularly according to advocates of original under-standing jurisprudence or "originalism." Originalism has also proven to be quite popular as a constitutional position, especially in public discourse outside academe and the courts. I argue that originalism's appeal derives from Americans'interest in heritage. Using the literature on public history, memory, and cultural studies to distinguish the cultural phenomenon of heritage from history proper, I argue that originalism, like heritage, offers the possibility of an immediate and authentic encounter with the past tied to a critique of modernism as both antidemocratic and inauthentic. Originalism portrays the federal period as a special moment of civic unity, whose virtues have been preserved by the larger public, but have been eroded among elites by modernity.     

The Rhetoric of Educational Reform

This article is an examination of the language of recent large-scale education reform in England, New Zealand, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Manitoba. In each jurisdiction, we review both the official documents and the parliamentary debate around a set of major educational reforms, looking at both the similarities and differences between jurisdictions and at the overall nature of official discourse. Although some similar rhetoric was used in all four settings, we conclude that the differences in justifications were more significant than the commonalities. Our analysis supports a view of official rhetoric as being primarily symbolic and intended to create or support particular definitions of problems and solutions, but also as shaped by the historical context, institutional structure, and political culture of each setting.     

Intergroup Biases as a Function of Reflected Status Appraisals and Support for Legitimizing Ideologies: Evidence from the USA and Israel

Theory and research suggest that members of high-status groups feel more positively about their own group than members of low-status groups feel about their group. The studies presented here test two hypotheses derived from this general idea (1) that members of high-status groups will show greater bias in favor of the in-group when they believe that others perceive the status difference between their group and relevant low-status groups to be larger; and (2) that this relationship will be stronger when high-status group members also endorse ideologies legitimizing their privileged status. However, because low group status may have self-protective properties, it was hypothesized that imputed status differences would not relate to out-group bias among low-status group members, regardless of ideology endorsement. Two studies—using samples from the United States and Israel, respectively—provided clear support for these hypotheses. Implications for the study of both intergroup biases and legitimizing ideologies are discussed.     

Too soon to panic

Health Care: The small-business lobby says Clinton's mandatory plan will kill off jobs. But Mom and Pop may end up breathing easier.     

The agrarian question and class contradictions in South Africa: Some theoretical considerations

The article first considers two dominant approaches to black rural social formations in South Africa, those of neo‐classical populism and radical political economy, examining their ideology and politics as well as their theoretical inadequacies. The major part of the article then provides a general interpretation of the theory and politics of the agrarian question in Marxism, which has strategic implications for the current phase of national democratic struggle in South Africa, as for democratic and socialist struggles elsewhere. This discussion concentrates on issues concerning the land question, the agriculture/industry contradiction and the worker‐peasant alliance, petty commodity production and class differentiation vs. a homogenised rural mass ('the people'), and the centrality of the agrarian question to national democratic struggles and those for socialist transformation.