The 1990 Budget Package: Redefining the Debate

The debate of budgeting issues in the 1980s culminated in a dramatic change in 1990—the passage of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. The negotiations leading to this agreement considered the status of the deficit and the philosophical shift from "no new taxes" to "fair taxes." It led to changes in direct spending, enforcement of budget targets, timing of the budget, sequesters usage, tax increases, and entitlement reforms.     

Disabled SSI recipients who work.

A substantial working history is not a characteristic normally associated with recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments. Yet nearly 80 percent of all SSI disabled recipients have worked before applying for SSI and 20 percent work after they start receiving SSI payments. This study takes a look at various facets of the work histories of disabled SSI recipients, including the amount and types of work done, and the types of recipients who seem most likely to work. Information on these histories was obtained from a 1-percent sample file cross-matched to SSI administrative records and other agency files containing data on employment histories and industry codes. Also discussed are the implications that these work histories have for efforts by the Social Security Administration to encourage SSI disabled recipients to begin or resume work.     

Environmental Commitment among the States: Integrating Alternative Approaches to State Environmental Policy

This article examines variation in state commitment to protectingthe natural environment. We contribute to theoretical and empiricalresearch in this area in two primary ways. First, our dependentvariable consists of a general measure of state commitment tothe environment. Second, we develop a causal model that integratessix major explanatory approaches to state environmental policy.Our results show that stales with liberal public opinion, strongenvironmental interest groups, liberal legislatures, and professionalizedlegislatures are the most committed to environmental protection.States' manufacturing interests and economic resources playa relatively minor role, and slates' environmental conditionsand the influence of the federal government play virtually norole in explaining variation in general state commitment toenvironmental protection.     

Human nature,freedom and political community: An interview with Noam Chomsky

For Noam Chomsky ‘human nature’ is a clearly defined concept, biologically endowed and largely independent of social and historical conditions. Because its deepest properties are genetically determined, for Chomsky the study of human nature ought to proceed in much the same way the functions of other bodily organs are examined. His ground‐breaking research into the language faculty, which he claims is one of the more accessible attributes of human nature, revolutionised the study of linguistics and cognitive science generally in the 1950s and 1960s. However, this approach has put him at odds with those, such as behavioural scientists and existentialist philosophers, who have long argued that physical and mental development should be understood as separate processes because of the overwhelming influence of environmental conditions on the latter. It also sets him apart from some recent post‐modern thinkers who deny the existence of an intrinsic human nature, arguing that our moral and political values are socially and historically determined. For his part, Chomsky still finds it odd that what we take for granted in explaining physical growth becomes so ‘controversial’ in a discussion of the psychological aspects of human nature.

Noam Chomsky's understanding of human nature underwrites his conception of desirable social and political arrangements. A good society, according to Chomsky, is one ‘that leads to [the] satisfaction of intrinsic human needs, insofar as material conditions allow’ (Peck, 1988, p. 195). It should give expression to an ‘instinct for freedom, the consciousness of which gives us ‘the opportunity to create social conditions and social forms to maximize the possibilities of freedom, diversity, and individual self‐realization (Chomsky, 1973, pp. 395–6). Libertarian socialists and anarchists like Chomsky believe complex industrial societies can be organised within a framework of free institutions and structures leading to, in Rocker's words, a federation of free communities which shall be bound to one another by their common economic and social interests and arrange their affairs by mutual agreement and free contract’ (Peck, 1988, pp. 191–2). An appreciation of Chomsky's understanding of human nature provides some important clues to his political values, specifically his attitudes towards human rights, the nation‐state and alternative form of political community. These topics are explored in the interview below which is divided into two parts: human nature and moral behaviour; and political community and globalisation.     

Negotiating Difference Across Time: The Temporal Meanings of the Sydney Mardi Gras in Lesbian and Gay Life Narratives

This paper examines the temporal meanings of the annual LGBTI pride event, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Drawing on findings from a large-scale oral history project, the paper explores ways in which Australian lesbians and gay men place Mardi Gras within life narratives. Three temporal frameworks were commonly used by our interviewees. First, Mardi Gras acted as an annual temporal marker through which to plan a year. Second, changing personal understandings of Mardi Gras were used by interviewees to position themselves within the life course. Third, the shifting meanings of Mardi Gras were deployed as a means of narrating broader historical changes in the LGBTI community. We argue that, although lesbian and gay identities might now be considered increasingly mainstream and even “ordinary”, each of these temporal frameworks represents the continued differing experiences of time and space between homosexual and heterosexual lives.     

Paranoia with a purpose: conspiracy theory and political coalitions in Kyrgyzstan

This article considers the political uses of conspiracy theories (CTs). It is widely accepted that post-Soviet citizens are prone to believe CTs, but there has been little research about the conditions under which politicians endorse conspiracy narratives and why those narratives sometimes become hegemonic. I argue that in times of high uncertainty, CTs have properties that are useful in providing political elites with a focal point for coordination in the absence of other bases for coalition formation. I demonstrate this logic by analyzing the politics surrounding the construction and spread of a conspiracy narrative following violence in Kyrgyzstan in 2010. Politicians with different interpretations of the event coalesced around a contrived conspiratorial narrative, and used it to paper over differences as they formed a ruling coalition. This argument has implications for how to understand the appearance and durability of conspiracy claims in states where political formations are fluid.