Beyond reparations: Justice as indigenism

For the peoples who have inhabited, since time immemorial, the lands within the external borders of the U.S., remediation of genocide, land theft, and ethnocide is a pressing issue. However, monetary reparations would frustrate the reacquisition of the American Indian capacity to self-determine on ancestral lands. Because the injustice at the core of U.S. history is neither broadly acknowledged nor deeply understood, Part I provides historical foundation and sketches the factual predicate to the American Indian claim for redress. Part II presents and evaluates theories of justice with respect to this claim. Part III counters the shortcomings of these theories with a theory, Justice as Indigenism, that propounds a program of land restoration and legislative reform that will accord the full measure of relief to American Indians consistent with the requirements of justice for all peoples. Chiricahua Apache and Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law, Indianapolis, Indiana.     

On the Nature of Tolerance: Dichotomous or Continuous?*

The purpose of this article is to reconsider the claim made recently by Mondak and Sanders that political tolerance ought to be thought to be a dichotomous rather than continuous variable. Using data from both Russia and the United States, I demonstrate that those Mondak and Sanders regard as uniquely tolerant are most likely no more than people who were given insufficient opportunity to express their intolerance. Even if such a phenomenon of “absolute tolerance” exists (all ideas expressed in all ways are to be tolerated), it is sufficiently rare that few practical implications are indicated for those doing empirical work on political tolerance and intolerance. * I appreciate the valuable comments of Jeffcry Mondak on an earlier version of this paper.     

Who are the Darfurians? Arab and African identities, violence and external engagement

This article examines processes of identity formation in Darfur,now part of the Republic of Sudan, over the last four centuries.The basic story is of four overlapping processes of identityformation, each of them primarily associated with a differentperiod in the region's history: namely, the ‘Sudanic identities’associated with the Dar Fur sultanate, Islamic identities, theadministrative tribalism associated with the twentieth-centurySudanese state, and the recent polarization of ‘Arab’and ‘African’ identities, associated with new formsof external intrusion and internal violence. It is a story thatemphasizes the much-neglected east-west axis of Sudanese identity,arguably as important as the north-south axis, and redeems theneglect of Darfur as a separate and important locus for stateformation in northern Sudan, paralleling and competing withthe Nile Valley states. It focuses on the incapacity of boththe modern Sudanese state and international actors to comprehendthe singularities of Darfur, accusing much Sudanese historiographyof ‘Nilocentrism’, namely, the use of analyticalterms derived from the experience of the Nile Valley to applyto Darfur.     

Introduction: China,Ltd

The study of Chinese nationalism is very popular—both in China and the West. This article introduces a special section of seven articles (four of which are in this issue) on ‘The Limits of Chinese Nationalism’, arguing that our understanding of nationalism in China is problematic. This special section aims to explore the limits of many of the statements about Chinese nationalism that have now become ‘common sense’: the rise of Chinese nationalism, nationalism filling an ideological vacuum, elites manipulating nationalism to gain legitimacy, and so on. Using critical IR theory this Introduction explores the concept of limits to argue that borders in China are not just territorial, but cultural, economic and thus political. It seeks to change the objective of our discussion of Chinese nationalism from seeking an Answer—either as a measure of the objective nature of Chinese nationalism or as a moral judgment of it as good or evil—to seeing ‘nationalism’ as a provocation which pushes us to think about China and identity in a host of different and productive ways.     

Economic Threats or Societal Turmoil? Understanding Preferences for Authoritarian Political Systems

Why do some individuals prefer to be governed in an authoritarian political system? One intuitive answer is that citizens prefer authoritarian rule when the economy and society are in turmoil. These are common explanations for democratic backsliding, and the emergence and success of authoritarian leaders in the twentieth century. Which of these explanations better explains preferences for authoritarian rule? Both types of threat coincide in small samples and high-profile cases, creating inferential problems. I address this by using three waves of World Values Survey data to look at individual-level preferences for different forms of authoritarian government. Using multiple macroeconomic and societal indicators, I find that economic threats, especially increasing income inequality, better explain preferences for authoritarian government. I conclude with implications for understanding the emergence of support for authoritarianism in fledgling democracies.     

Robert Tollison and operationalizing public choice

In this tribute to Robert Tollison, I will outline his contributions to the development of public choice. I focus on Tollison’s work on rent-seeking, the political economy of reform, and the rules level of analysis in sports economics. Throughout his career, Tollison brilliantly figured out ways to take insights from price theory and public choice theory and operationalize them using multiple methods of empirical analysis, including historical interpretation and statistical testing.