I,Diarist: Examining Australian Politics from the “Inside”

Political diaries can claim literary, political and intellectual significance, yet they have rarely been subject to serious or extended enquiry. In this article we offer the first comprehensive survey of the Australian political diary. We also analyse these writings in some depth, suggesting that, taken as a whole, the diaries reveal three Weberian “ideal types” of the politician: the “patrician”, the “professional”, and the “radical”. These ideal types are used to shed a new light on the functioning and limitations of parliamentary democracy in Australia.     

What Levels of Racial Diversity Can Be Achieved with Socioeconomic‐Based Affirmative Action? Evidence from a Simulation Model

This paper investigates to what extent socioeconomic status (SES)‐based affirmative action in college admissions can produce racial diversity. Using simulation models, we investigate the racial and socioeconomic distribution of students among colleges under the use of race‐ or SES‐based affirmative action policies, or targeted, race‐based recruitment policies. We find, first, that neither SES‐based affirmative action nor race‐targeted recruiting on their own produce levels of racial diversity achieved by race‐based affirmative action. However, the two policies in combination, although likely expensive, may yield racial diversity comparable to race‐based affirmative action. Second, the use of affirmative action policies by some colleges reduces the diversity of similar‐quality colleges without such policies. Third, the combination of SES‐based affirmative action and race recruiting results in fewer academically‐overmatched Black and Hispanic students than under race‐based affirmative action, but the schools that use both also see a reduction in the academic achievement of enrolled students.     

What is the Canon in American Politics? Analyses of Core Graduate Syllabi

Many core graduate-level seminars claim to expose students to their discipline’s “canon.” The contents of this canon, however, can and do differ across departments and instructors. This project employs a survey of core American politics PhD seminar syllabi at highly ranked universities to construct a systematic account of the American politics canon. Our results offer valuable insights into the topics and literature that political scientists consider important and on which future scholars base their work. Our article breaks down the literature into a comprehensive list of topics and subtopics, which allows us to identify both an overall field canon and one for each topic, to assess whether some topics receive more attention than others, and to identify which topics are most clearly defined. We explore the extent to which diverse perspectives and methods are (or are not) taught to young scholars, and, although we identify sets of frequently assigned readings and authors within each topic, we also find considerable variation between seminars.     

People with disabilities working in the disability sector in Timor Leste: a study of ‘lived experience’ using PhotoVoice

Perspectives on disability originating from non-Western cultures are beginning to appear in disability literature, however discussions may become lost in rhetoric unless grounded in experiences of people with disabilities themselves. The purpose of this study was to investigate the lived experience of physical disability in Timor Leste with the assistance of a group of Timorese participants with disabilities who were employed in the disability sector. These participants recounted experiences of disability from their own lives together with their observations of people with disabilities living in remote parts of Timor Leste who often lived with stigma or deprivation. The participants thus described their own lived experiences against a backdrop of a non-Western culture. A picture emerged of a stigmatising culture where acceptance of disability is uncommon yet where significant attempts are being made to change attitudes to disability within the culture of Timor Leste.     

A political ecology of socio-economic differentiation: debt,inputs and liberalization reforms in southwestern Burkina Faso

This paper builds on work from the agrarian change and political ecology literatures to analyze the process of agrarian change among smallholder cotton farmers in southwestern Burkina Faso. Specifically, we use a rural survey of 72 heads of household in three villages to examine whether and how (1) access to agricultural inputs, (2) debt and (3) liberalization reforms combine to produce rural socio-economic differentiation based on wealth. We find that wealthier farmers use more mineral fertilizer and manure inputs than their poorer counterparts. Wealthier farmers are also better able to remain debt-free as cotton prices drop and input prices rise. Moreover, they are able to take advantage of the neo-liberal restructuring of cotton cooperatives to change polices on debt repayment and input provisioning to their favor. This growing divide has large implications for rural food security, particularly as land becomes scarcer, fallows disappear and the need to intensify production grows. This research addresses two gaps in the agrarian change literature in relating how liberalization reforms and biophysical elements drive rural socio-economic differentiation. This work also shows that merging the concerns of political ecology with the agrarian change literature allows for a deeper examination of rural socio-economic differentiation.     

Anthropological stranger: the intellectual trajectory of Hortense Powdermaker

This article investigates the life and works of Hortense Powdermaker (1896-1970). In contradistinction to the intellectual climate of her times, Powdermaker's intellectual trajectory can be characterised as eclectic, dynamic and forward thinking. Spanning nearly four decades, Powdermaker's academic career was dedicated to developing a distinct ‘anthropological vision’. Yet, although she conducted studies of culture and society that transcended structures of orthodoxy and charted alternative theoretical and methodological terrain, in turn establishing herself as a pioneer of contemporary anthropological thought, Powdermaker's work has failed to gain incorporation into wider disciplinary research agendas. Set within a sociology-of-intellectuals framework, it is argued that Powdermaker occupies a peripheral position in the history of anthropology – a position which does not adequately reflect the significance of her work – and that Powdermaker's greatest intellectual contribution was her innovative epistemology and sophisticated ‘anthropological vision’. Nonetheless, as a result of the powerful traditions and orthodox schools of thought which reigned supreme in mid-century anthropology and sociology, she was unable to exert any enduring influence on British or American social thought.