Tenderness,for Lynda Hart

Pedro Almodóvar and Judith Butler's respective projects have long shared an interest in the performativity of gender. More recently, Butler has turned her attention to thinking of rupture as constitutive of identity. Talk to Her reveals a similar turn in the director's work. This essay argues that Talk to Her employs the figure of a comatose woman who awakens in order to investigate the condition of wakefulness as a newly achieved consciousness. In doing so, the director also investigates the parameters of his own authorial condition: alternately embodied and disembodied, he reveals it to be effectively dispossessed. This essay rotates around the opening five minutes of the film, which introduce, in parallel, the space of the theater and that of the hospital–one a space of silence and the other a space for ‘talk,’ a place where the impetus of narrative cures. I argue that these two spaces underscore our condition of existing as bodies. I furthermore consider the role that melodrama–a genre described by its inclination toward embodiment, muteness, and excess–plays in articulating these themes.     

Imperialism and the Middle Kingdom: the Xi Jinping administration’s peripheral diplomacy with developing states

This article applies the Nexon/Wright concept of ideal-type empire to the study of China’s post-2012 peripheral relations to demonstrate that the Xi administration is engaged in a concerted imperialist policy towards its developing neighbour states. Using the Nexon/Wright framework, the article demonstrates how the establishment of a China-centric regional network structure undergirds the Xi administration’s key foreign policy concepts and how these concepts, in turn, inform China’s bilateral relations with its peripheral states. To demonstrate how China employs imperialist tactics to its pursuit of a regionally based order, the article examines China’s bilateral relations with the developing states on its periphery: Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam.     

The Public Cost of Unilateral Action

Scholarship on democratic responsiveness focuses on whether political outcomes reflect public opinion but overlooks attitudes toward how power is used to achieve those policies. We argue that public attitudes toward unilateral action lead to negative evaluations of presidents who exercise unilateral powers and policies achieved through their use. Evidence from two studies supports our argument. In three nationally representative survey experiments conducted across a range of policy domains, we find that the public reacts negatively when policies are achieved through unilateral powers instead of through legislation passed by Congress. We further show these costs are greatest among respondents who support the president's policy goals. In an observational study, we show that attitudes toward unilateral action in the abstract affect how respondents evaluate policies achieved through unilateral action by presidents from Lincoln to Obama. Our results suggest that public opinion may constrain presidents' use of unilateral powers.     

The Nature of Contracting Hazards in Public–Private Partnerships—Evidence from Ireland

The use of public–private partnerships (PPP) for the procurement of infrastructure and related services can be a complex and challenging process. This article adopts a transaction cost regulation perspective to examine two PPP cases from Ireland that encountered significant obstacles to successful procurement. It finds that both procurements met hazards including uncertainty about the viability of the bids and opportunistic behavior by preferred bidders that held quasi-monopoly positions. The public nature of both cases provided a fertile ground for opportunistic behavior by political opponents and other “interested” parties. The analysis shows how the governance of PPPs is shaped by the attributes of the transactions and the interaction of economic and political hazards that create transaction costs.     

An Investigation of Moral Suasion and Vertical Equity Arguments on Intended Taxpayer Noncompliance

A statewide telephone survey was used to obtain data on self‐reports of hypothetical prize income. One‐third of the subjects were read a moral argument, one‐third were read information on the level of taxes paid by the "wealthy," and one‐third of the subjects were treated as the control group. Both the moral and the wealthy‐pay arguments increased compliance for some of the subjects. There was no apparent backlash effect from the moral argument as suggested by Tittle and Rowe (1973). The wealthy‐pay strategy was effective for taxpayers with tax balances due rather than for those receiving tax refunds. The study also provides evidence on how college education moderates the effects of tax balances due as well as evidence on how a moral argument can negate the noncompliance effects of tax balances due.