Party Politics and Governance in Grenada: An Analysis of the New National Party (1984–2012)

Abstract

This article examines party politics and governance in post-revolutionary Grenada, using the case of the New National Party (NNP). The central question is what does the evolution of the NNP suggests about governance and democracy in post-invasion Grenada? The article traces four phases of the NNP since its formation in 1984: (1) externally imposed marriage of convenience; (2) intra-party conflict and splintering; (3) rebranding, consolidation and dominance; and (4) electoral defeat. The article contends that Grenada has transitioned to formal democracy and the NNP is a significant actor. Yet, despite this transition, Grenada has not become the showcase of democracy that the US said it would in 1984.     

The Burglar Alarm That Just Keeps Ringing: A Response to Zaller

American journalists filter the world of politics through a set of presuppositions about what politics is and should be. Listing seven presuppositions that undergird political reporting, this article illustrates the “Progressive Era” framework through which U.S. journalists understand politics. The article concludes by identifying several alternative visions of politics and suggests that in practice journalism is sometimes broader in its understanding of politics than a Progressive Era vision would anticipate.     

Legacies Versus Politics: Herbert Hoover, Partisan Conflict, and the Symbolic Appeal of Associationalism in the 1920s

The concept of a policy legacy has come into widespread use among scholars in history and the social sciences, yet the concept has not been subject to close scrutiny. We suggest that policy legacies tend to underexplain outcomes and minimize conventional politics and historical contingencies. These tendencies are evident in the revisionist literature on American politics in the aftermath of the First World War. That work stresses continuities between wartime mobilization and postwar policy, especially under the auspices of Herbert Hoover and the Commerce Department. We maintain that a rupture marks the transition between the war and the Republican era that followed and that the emphasis on wartime legacies distorts the political realities of the Harding–Coolidge era. We conclude by noting the risks of policy legacy approaches in historical analysis.     

Virtue Unrestrained: Herbert Butterfield and the Problem of American Power

In the late 1950s, the British historian Sir Herbert Butterfield observed that we should not welcome the prospect of even a virtuous hegemon but should seek, rather, a balance of power. He did so because his understanding of history suggested that aspirant hegemons succeed principally in precipitating costly wars against them, while his sense of Christian ethics suggested that even a successful virtuous hegemon would become self-righteous and, by imposing its values on others, would curtail the scope of human freedom. I argue that current United States (U.S.) policy and the world's response to it to date confirm Butterfield's position, but that this presents a new set of practical and moral questions centered on the problem of advocating a balance against a country that one regards as broadly virtuous, and certainly more virtuous than many of the other powers in the world, but that no longer wants to pursue its interests through the post-Cold War concert of putative great powers. The best answer to these problems, I conclude, lies not in a crude balance, but the re-institutionalization of the idea of the balance of power. This requires advocating restraint and self-restraint, the first practical manifestation of which being that the U.S. should not attack either of the surviving members of the "Axis of Evil."     

Investigators and Prosecutors or, Desperately Seeking Scotland: Re-formulation of the 'Philips Principle'

Prosecution in England and Wales, traditionally private, was captured by the 'new police', creating an 'English tradition' unlike those of the rest of the United Kingdom. To overcome consequent problems, the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure recommended the 'Philips principle', whereby investigator and prosecutor were separate, but co-ordinate, on which basis the Crown Prosecution Service was set up. However, the principle was in fact compromised by the 'English tradition', most obviously by permitting continued police prosecution. Moreover, the Serious Fraud Office, set up shortly thereafter, contradicted the principle. Yet, HM Customs and Excise addressed its serious problems by applying the principle. The CPS itself encountered difficulties flowing from the compromises. Reports (Runciman, Narey, Glidewell) recommended various devices, straining the principle, until the Auld Report recognised that reformulation was necessary, along the lines adopted elsewhere in the United Kingdom, that is, by recognising that there should be investigator subordination to prosecutor.     

受限理性:H.西蒙社会科学哲学的基点

作为西蒙的标志性理论,受限理性(Bounded Rationality)是其社会科学哲学的基点。西蒙在行政管理研究中发现受限理性,在对经济学传统理论的批判中提出受限理性理论,并在政治学、心理学以及人工科学等领域演进中发展受限理性的内涵。受限理性在众多研究领域中产生变革性影响,促进社会科学中理性研究的成就,延展并拓深社会科学哲学的论域。     

Nazi archaeology abroad: German prehistorians and the international dynamics of collaboration

Examining the work of German prehistoric archaeologists during the Third Reich reveals the importance of international scholarship in understanding how and why professional academics collaborated with the Nazi regime. Hare's article focuses on a specific cohort of German prehistorians at the University of Kiel and the Schleswig-Holstein Museum of Antiquities whose work was especially valued by Nazi ideologues. Through a study of their correspondence with colleagues at home and abroad, it identifies four key ways in which the international academic sphere informed collaboration at home, including the demands of foreign networks, the politics of cross-border projects and conferences, concerns about the reputation of German academia and the involvement of German archaeologists in occupied countries during the Second World War. Ultimately, this case study of Kiel archaeologists working during the 1930s and 1940s shows that engagement on the international level led both German and foreign scholars to make accommodations with the regime, but also at times led away from Nazi goals and provided a foundation for rebuilding the discipline after 1945.     

SOMATOTYPING,ANTIMODERNISM, AND THE PRODUCTION OF CRIMINOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE*

This study analyzes the work of William H. Sheldon, the psychologist, physician, and advocate of the study of body types. It investigates how he arrived at his much‐repeated finding that a correlation exists between mesomorphy (a stocky, muscular body build) and delinquency and how his ideas were validated and perpetuated. It reviews what Sheldon actually said about the causes of crime; identifies his goals in searching for a relationship between body shape and criminality; explains how he found audiences for his biological theory at a time when sociological approaches dominated criminology; and attempts to understand the current criminological ambivalence about the scientific status of Sheldon's work, despite its discreditation decades ago. I argue that the tripartite structure of Sheldon's thought attracted three different audiences–methodologists, social scientists, and supporters–and that it encouraged the supporters to fund his research without reference to the critiques of the social scientists. I also argue that somatotyping was part of a broader antimodernist reaction within international scientific communities against the dislocations of twentieth‐century life. To understand the origins, acceptance, and maintenance of criminological ideas, we need a historical perspective on figures of the past. Positivism may inform us about what is true and false, but we also need to know how truth and falsity have been constructed over time and how the ideas of earlier criminologists were shaped by their personal and social contexts.