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Standard methodological advice in the social sciences tells us to base our measurement decisions on observations, not judgments. It presupposes that we divide the process of measurement into two phases. In a first judgmental stage, we reach all the judgments necessary to build our theories, form our concepts, delineate our objects of observation, and devise our coding rules. In a second observational stage, by contrast, we suspend our judgmental faculties in order to apply our formal rules of measurement in a quasibureaucratic fashion. However, does the full bureaucratic regulation of observation and measurement represent a feasible ideal in the comparative study of politics? In the present paper, I explore the limits to "pure" observation in three steps. In the first section, I describe the "bureaucratic ideal" of social measurement. In the second section, I review four conditions that may compel scholars to incorporate elements of judgment into their measurement processes: unobservable realities, unobserved realities, unexpected realities, and complex concepts. In the third section, I offer some thoughts about methodological standards that may guide judgmental modes of comparative measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary realism, with its enduring vision of conflicting states in anarchy, emphasizes the forces of continuity and the limits of ethical possibility in world politics. My dissertation argues that contemporary formulations of realism can neither account for politics nor guide political action. I engage in a genealogical reconstruction of the two most influential and primary exponents of 20th century realism (Hans Morgenthau and E.H. Carr) to retrieve an ethically robust, historically attentive realism capable of informing contemporary politics and scholarship. The project proceeds in two parts. The first part, "Systematic Normativity in Scientific Realism," traces the collapse of contemporary realism as a scientific project and ethical framework. Through immanent critique, I show that that the two progenitors of scientific realism, Kenneth Waltz and John Mearsheimer, fail to meet their own standards of value-neutral causal theory. Through genealogical reconstruction, I demonstrate how the conceptual and analytical components of scientific realism originate in, and work to buttress, an ultimately untenable normative Realpolitk. The second part of the project, "Critical Realism: Diagnosing Crises and Transforming Society," maps out the constellation of Morgenthau's and Carr's political philosophy, retrieving what I call their "critical realism". Apprehending a world beset by economic, social, and political crises, their political inquiry sought to illuminate the radical conceptual and concrete changes required to renew political and moral life. In addition to showing the necessary trade-off between robust ethics and politics to be illusory, I contend that critical realism offers astute warnings and constructive insights for methodological controversies and substantive research in political science and political theory. This paper, entitled "To Abate, Not to Abet: Modes of Inquiry in Times of Crisis," is excerpted from the second part of the project and examines Morgenthau's and Carr's views on scientific and historical knowledge in the context of their diagnosis of crises in 20th century political, social, and economic life. I argue that their particular understanding of crisis explains 1. why they rejected dominant modes of positivist science/history and 2. why they embraced two alternatives: ideology critique and prophetic historical inquiry. I discuss how Morgenthau's and Carr's diagnosis of crisis led them to insist on radical change in political thought and practice and how their political inquiry sought to aid this task by illuminating the necessity and nature of transformation to be undertaken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the paper "Global Climate Disruption: From Mitigation to Adaptation to Recovery," which was presented at the American Political Science Association Conference on September 4, 2009. The modern systems theory emphasizes that the global system is not some sort of collective organ. The modern world society is not an ordered collective, but a divided and fragmented system and so lacks the ability for collectively binding decision-making and action.

The article reports that the paper "Policy Certainty and the CNN Effect," will be presented at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 3-6, 2009 in Toronto, Ontario. The CNN effect is relevant only in a limited number of cases and is a far weaker phenomenon than its enthusiasts suggest. When there is no policy or an inconsistent, undecided or wavering policy between these sub-systems on an issue, then it is assumed that policy uncertainty exists.

It is well-known that voters use cues such as a politician's race, gender, or party to infer the politician's positions on various issues, but relatively little is known about what factors in uence the use of such cues. Furthermore, what we do know emphasizes individual citizens' traits or features of a given election. In this paper I develop a formal information-processing model based on categorization psychology to investigate the impact of environmental factors such as the balance of male vs. female politicians on the organization of voters' belief systems. There are two central predictions. First, intuitively, people rely more on cues such as gender or party the more correlated they are with policy positions. Second, increased balance between genders, races, or even political parties reduces voters' reliance on these cues. These predictions are borne out by data on House elections from the American National Election Studies Cumulative Data File. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experimentation is a powerful methodology that enables scientists to empirically establish causal claims. Even in social sciences where traditionally observational studies were dominant, experiments are becoming increasingly common. However, one general criticism of experimental methodology is that experiments merely provide a black-box view of causality -although experiments can identify an average causal effect, they cannot explain how such an effect comes about. If true, this represents a serious limitation of experimentation, especially for social science research whose main goal is to identify causal mechanisms. In this paper, we first establish that two existing approaches commonly employed by social scientists to address this critique suffer from serious methodological problems. To overcome this limitation, we consider alternative experimental designs that can be used to help identify causal mechanisms. Finally, we discuss the situations in which these experimental designs are applicable and illustrate their use by applying them to a behavioral neuroscience experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explain change in comparative political economy, a 'discursive institutionalist' approach focused on ideas and discourse is a necessary complement to older 'new institutionalist' approaches. Historical institutionalist approaches have difficulty explaining change, tend to be static and equilibrium-focused; and even where they get beyond this through accounts of incremental change, they are more descriptive than they are explanatory of change. The turn to rational choice institutionalist approaches for agency, for 'micro-foundations' to historical institutionalist 'macro-patterns,' also does not solve the problems of historical institutionalism. A turn to discursive institutionalism could. Using examples of reforms in national political economies and welfare states, the paper illustrates how ideas and discourse help explain the dynamics of change (and continuity). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a reading of Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon. Perhaps no other novel so vividly sets out to probe the depths of the subservience of politics to means-ends rationality. Only by taking the dangers of reason through to the end does Koestler begin to develop an account of the opposing measure of decency and dignity. He does so, I argue, by developing the importance of the infinite in politics. Political action, he suggests, must be informed by a non-rational and non-religious appeal to the infinite that is the one true guarantee of a human politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The object of this paper is, first, to investigate the changing patterns, if any, of broad sets of attitudes and of judgements of Koreans about society and, second, to analyze the relationship between these social values and their effects on mass political orientations. This project is particularly interested in addressing such questions as: Are peoples' values changing?; what kinds of value cleavages do exist and how do they affect political orientations?; how are values measured? In doing so, we will first review the theoretical literature on a discussion of the value change process -- why and when it occurs, the form it takes, and its empirical relationship to growing levels of cynicism and noncompliant behaviors and attitudes. The empirical analysis is based on the first, second, and fourth waves of the World Values Surveys (WVS) conducted in 1982, 1990, and 2002 in Korea (roughly from the authoritarian rule to the democratic transition and then to the period of consolidation). We will identify and analyze systematically to what extent these social values persist and/or are changing and their influence upon Koreans' political orientations, particularly protest potential. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on labor politics explains welfare policies as a function of alliances between politically influential unions and left governments. This paper introduces an original dataset of labor agreements in new democracies (1994-2004). Using Boolean analysis, it shows that while left governments are typically associated with more labor market regulation, they are not sufficient for de-commodifying labor agreements to emerge in new democracies. Instead, protective labor market regulations explain most instances of labor de-commodification in new democracies. Further analysis reveals this to be the case for all types of agreements analyzed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mind—the centre of reflection and decision-making in every individual—is decisive for the formation of collective will that we associate with legitimate democratic governance and socially transformative action in modern societies. A democratic society is one in which, ideally, the citizens collectively govern themselves—they give the laws to themselves and control their own history, which, among other things, requires communication, deliberation, the achievement of some consensus, as well as effective action. Democratic freedom (political autonomy) exists when the laws that bind citizens are the product of their will in accordance with insights they have acquired intersubjectively. Such 'intersubjective' communication, however, ought to refer not just to discursive discussion, which is what it means in most of the deliberative democracy literature, but also to aesthetic communication, which can take a great many forms that influence and entwine with deliberation. The theory of democracy ideally clarifies the conditions under which democratic freedom obtains. Hence a full understanding of cognition will aid the theory of democracy by clarifying the ways people comprehend, come to understandings with one another, and embody the relationship between knowledge and social action. It is my contention that the mind must be understood as a social not an individual phenomenon that relies on communicative interactions of significant complexity along multiple axes of mind and body, body and environment, as well as that of the intersubjective relations of mind and other minds that are the products of society and politics. It is precisely because the processes of the mind occur in communicative (i.e., cultural and political) contexts and are not simply the product of physiological processes in the brain or the nervous system that the study of cognition is necessarily the study of social cognition (or socio-political cognition). I want to argue that as a result an 'aesthetics of democracy' is required for confluence with deliberation in the public sphere.This paper seeks to pose a set of questions that I consider important for such an aesthetics of democracy but which demand further research. Nevertheless, I wish to suggest some tentative responses to these questions in what follows. Specifically, along with Jameson, I wish to affirm the distinctiveness of postmodern consumer culture but also the dialectic still required by contemporary cultural politics.I begin with a reflection on the ideas of communicative freedom and communicative power by way of a critique of the cognitive theory of mass art. Next I consider the idea of social cognition in recent cognitive science. I would like to indicate how marxiological critical theory is consistent with recent social cognition research and how the changes in postmodern media culture demonstrate this affinity. I conclude with a consideration of the confluence of politics and cognition via a contemporary example that demonstrates the dialectic of an aesthetics of democracy in music technology in the public sphere. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea that policy makers in different states or countries may learn from one another has fascinated scholars of policy diffusion for a long time, but little systematic evidence has been produced so far. This paper improves our understanding of this elusive argument by distinguishing between the policy and political consequences of reforms and by emphasizing the conditional nature of learning processes. Using a directed dyadic approach and multilevel methods, the analysis of unemployment benefits retrenchment in OECD countries demonstrates that policy makers learn selectively from the experience of others, and that information on the electoral consequences of reforms is taken into account more consistently than information on policy effects. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies on legislators' party switching argue that in electoral systems that foster candidate reputation, legislators are more likely to switch their party affiliation. In this paper, I provide an interactive and comparative perspective for studying the influence of electoral systems over party-legislator relations in elections. A defection game that investigates party-legislator interaction in an electoral process derives that the degree of candidate-centered elections has a nonlinear relationship with legislators' switches and that a decrease in the cost-benefit ratio of legislative seats has a positive influence on legislators switching parties. To test these hypotheses, I incorporate a cross-national defection dataset with a generalized linear mixed-effect model. Statistical results support the hypotheses derived from the defection game and show that in contrast with candidate-centered and party-centered electoral systems, electoral systems that not only cultivate candidate reputation but also support party leaders' ballot control have more switches. Moreover, political corruption that might influence the cost-benefit ratio of legislative seats also significantly impact legislators' party switching. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 25 years, the basic orientation of economic policy has shifted from attempting to direct or steer the market to supporting and expanding the market. What does this shift mean for the role of the state? The conventional debate tends to focus on the challenges that economic liberalization and other developments, including globalization and rapid technological change, pose to existing state policies, on whether state authorities can continue as before or must retreat. While valuable, this debate is incomplete. What is missing is a discussion of new state economic and social activities that may accompany economic liberalization and globalization. Seeking to fill the gap, this paper presents an overview of four new state missions related to the move to the market: 1) repairing the three main varieties of capitalism (liberal, corporatist, and statist); 2) making labor markets and systems of social protection more employment-friendly; 3) recasting regulatory frameworks to permit countries to cross major economic and technological divides (from Fordism to post-Fordism, from the mechanical era to the digital era, from managerial capitalism to shareholder or finance capitalism); 4) expanding market competition in industry and services, at home and abroad. The first two missions are of an essentially corrective nature, addressing dysfunctions that have emerged over the years, whereas the latter two are constructive in character, laying the foundations for future growth. All of these missions depend critically on the state's innovative capacity - on the forging of new state policies and regulations for a new competitive environment. Thus, even in an era of triumphant neo-liberalism, economic development and state development are -- and for the foreseeable future will continue to be -- inextricably intertwined. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decades theories and practice of public policy have been concerned with the reinvention of the idea of public policy from hierarchy to network, from government to governance. While various authors employed their own labels, the thrust of the argument is that not the hierarchically-given authority of policy makers cum experts should be decisive but that legitimacy and quality should derive from the particular way in which policy makers operated in the network of officeholders, stakeholders and ordinary citizens. These new practices, whether they were labelled as communicative, collaborative or deliberative, might have been vehicles to create more intelligent solutions, but were weak in linking up to the well institutionalised logic of the nested institutions of representative government. This paper argues that it makes sense to examine the shift from hierarchy to network in terms of the spaces in which the policy making is conducted. Following a performance theory of governance, we argue that political space is not geometrical but always enacted, i.e. gets defined through political discourse and performance practices. Based on that analysis, our argument is that the theory of deliberative planning is strong on discourse but weak where it overlooks the dramaturgical dimension of politics. Our argument will be that it is only through an appreciation of the need to perform politics that a theory of deliberative governance can over time deliver on its promise. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organized interests are such an essential part of the process by which policy makers in a democracy learn about the preferences and needs of citizens that barriers to entry into the political fray have potential consequences for the representation -- and, in particular, for the equal representation -- of citizen interests. Using a massive new data set that enumerates and categorizes the organized interests active in Washington politics in the quarter century between 1981 and 2006, this paper takes an empirical look at the shape of the organized interest system in contemporary national politics. While the range of politically active organizations contained in the data base is nothing short of astonishing, both the free rider problem and the resource-constraint problem have profound effects on whose voices are heard through the medium of collective representation. Longitudinal data show a great deal of continuity over the period in the kinds of organizations and a substantial increase in the number of organizations active in Washington politics. With the expansion of the pressure system, the proportion of organizations representing such traditional interests as corporations, unions, trade associations, and professional associations, while still substantial, has diminished somewhat. However, the share of organizations representing such traditionally underrepresented interests as broad publics and the economically disadvantaged continues to be very limited and has not grown. Instead, the proportion of active organizations representing state and local governments and the education and health sectors has increased markedly. In short, as the heavenly chorus has gotten bigger, neither its accent nor the mix of voices has been transformed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we begin to discuss the importance of expecting the unexpected in social science research. We start by laying out a number of hypotheses about the circumstances under which the probability of model failure increases. We suggest that the study of politics would benefit from discussion of how political phenomenon's susceptibility to exogenous shocks and anomalous events makes important and complex topics of study often resistant to accepted modes of social scientific inquiry. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite substantial differences in many aspects, modern history of Korea and Poland share a significant level of similarities mainly thanks to their geographic locations between two great powers: Korea between China and Japan, and Poland between Germany and Russia. The unfavorable locations have constantly forced the two nations to adjust and accommodate to changing external environment beyond their control, while desperately trying to preserve their sovereignty. The two unfortunates had to go through partition, occupation, or colonization for a significant period of time in their modern history. The asymmetric relationships also pressured the two to build a clientele relationship with much powerful neighbor(s), especially during the Cold War. However, the end of the Cold War and domestic success of the two, both political and economic, have allowed these nations position themselves in much confident and assertive manners in both regional and global politics. The paper seeks to explain a non-major power's foreign policy behavior by historically comparing Korea and Poland. Through thorough investigation of modern history of two nations, their hedging strategy, the entrapment-abandonment dilemma, the special relationships with the US (The War on Iraq and missile defense system to name a few), and aspiration of independent foreign policy will be fully explained. This study will contribute to the development of non-major power's foreign policy and the debates in IR theory (such as balancing and bandwagoning) and provide policy implications for future security challenges of these countries. The study will also contribute to build bridges between the two disciplines of political science and history. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American law and politics are and always have been intimately related. The Court's primary function has always been to say what the government can and what it can not do. But starting in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Court's brass doors slowly opened a different path - the Court began to consider pleas that they say what the Constitution demands the government must do. Three sets of cases - involving desegregation, political districting and criminal procedure - from the Warren Court era opened a new path for policy advocates, lobbyists and legislators alike to accomplish their policy goals, offering the possibility of a more efficient, more complete and less costly end-run around serious political and institutional barriers. These new paths generated significant costs that were ignored or very poorly understood - costs that have only escalated in the ensuing decades since those cases were decided. Understanding these changes, and the misleading signals they have sent to policy entrepreneurs, politicians and political science alike is the focus of this paper. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the current relationship between the study of human rights and the political science sub-field of comparative politics. While comparative politics is usually defined as any scholarship that engages in the comparative method (Mackie and Marsh 1995; Sartori 1994), we concentrate here mainly on work by scholars who analyze politics at the sub-national level of various countries, drawing - in the process -- key insights from area studies and other social sciences. More specifically, we seek to evaluate comparativists' forays into the field of human rights, paying particular attention to research that cuts across traditional academic disciplines. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1967, the burgeoning discontent of many political scientists culminated in the establishment of the Caucus for a New Political Science. The Caucus included political scientists of many diverse viewpoints, but it was united methodologically by a critique of behavioralism and by the idea that political science should abandon the myth of a value-free science. In 2000 these discontents resurfaced in the perestroika rebellion. This paper reviews the intellectual origins of New Political Science. It concludes that new political science offers a methodological critique of behaviorialism and a sociological critique of the relationship between political science and political power, but there is no consensus on what constitutes a new political science beyond its critical stance toward the existing discipline. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do Political Theorists belong in political science departments? It is not immediately obvious that they do. Their work is marginalized by their colleagues and has an "odd man out" feeling in the major disciplinary journals. As important, theorists themselves often deride normal science approaches to political phenomenon as meaningless, trivial or impossible. Those theorists who care about being "political scientists" have defend their inclusion on the basis of the added value they bring to empirical work, to the historical place of political theory in the discipline, and to the intrinsic value of their enterprise. These claims may be true, but they fail to justify the inclusion of theory within the discipline. In this paper I argue for an offensive approach that explains why, and what kind of, theory is properly categorized as "political science." Such an approach means acknowledging and valuing the inderdisciplinarity of political theory but arguing that humanistic approaches belong in a different discipline. The stakes of the argument involve distributive justice and the accumulation of knowledge and proper understanding. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All explanations are "efforts to deprive puzzles, mysteries, and blockages of their force, and hence, existence" (Brown, 1963: 41). In everyday usage many kinds of statements may serve as explanations. While the search for explanations is also at the heart of social science, most social scientists would agree that scientific explanations must meet higher standards than those of everyday life or of magical systems, for example. A scientific explanation, it is widely believed, removes the puzzling character of a phenomenon by giving its cause. Some mechanism is found, the phenomenon is shown to be a specific case of some law-like generalization, or a gap in initial conditions is discovered and filled. But there is a different genre of explanation that is usually overlooked in accounts of scientific explanation. This is explanation by conceptual breakthrough. A conceptual breakthrough removes the problematic character of a phenomenon by inventing some new way of looking at the phenomenon that breaks through a blockage in thought. It accomplishes this, not by finding previously unknown facts or law-like generalizations or mechanisms, but by seeing things in a new way. New knowledge in science often consists of such imaginative breakthroughs. The problematic character of a puzzling phenomenon is often rooted in assumptions that have been taken to be self-evident, or held unconsciously. Such assumptions are often provided by some conceptual framework, theory, paradigm, or commonsense way of looking at reality. Scientific discovery often consists of such a wrenching away from taken-for-granted ways of thinking. Known facts or data are seen in a new way, a new vision is invented. To be sure, an explanation by conceptual breakthrough must work. The phenomenon to be explained (the explicandum) must be deducible from the explicans that is, from initial conditions and law like generalizations, or mechanisms. Yet it is the removal of a blockage in thought, a new imaginative construction, or some new way of looking at the facts that solves the problem that gave rise to inquiry. It is thus the conceptual breakthrough, not new facts, mechanisms, or law-like generalizations that actually do the explaining. The new vision represented by a conceptual breakthrough may include as signal some of what had been excluded as noise by the vision it replaced. Or, it may exclude as noise information that figured as signal in the replaced explanatory account. In this paper, a view of explanation as problem-solving is provided, which integrates various kinds of causal and stochastic explanation with conceptual breakthrough. I argue that there can be genuine growth of or improvement of knowledge which, rather than giving a cause, consists in breaking out of old, established ways of thinking, and inventing new ways of interpreting or constructing the facts. It is the new vision or discovery, not new facts or laws that solves the problem. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Active learning is a strategy of growing importance in teaching of political science, including research methods. Active learning, especially the techniques of project and problem-based learning, has been central to the structure of teaching research methods at Principia College. Without being consciously aware of what we were doing when we agreed to recreate and deliver the research methods course, the Political Science Department designed a course imbedded in active learning concepts. The course, Social Science Research Methods, is required of two majors—political science and sociology, and was the bane for previous instructors. Since its recreation over a decade ago, the course has routinely been credited by students as the most useful course they took at college. Furthermore, the instructors report that they, as well as their students, are invested in the course. This paper documents some of the strategies that make the course so successful—strategies that are easily replicable (and are used by research methods instructors at other institutions). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political science literature on the impact of capital mobility depicts an automatic and unproblematic link between the constraint of capital mobility and action on the part of dependent policy-makers. Capital mobility is understood as a brute fact like a volcano, and the response to it is thought to be similarly rational and unproblematic, once the facts are known. Science can tell us about volcanoes and how they behave in different circumstances. Social science can tell us about capital mobility and its variance, it is suggested in this literature. If we understand it better for what it is, we can respond to capital mobility more effectively, and retain a measure of control, this work suggests. While the findings of this rationalist research have effectively challenged simple intuitive models of structure and agency in a world order of footloose capital, less attention has been focused on institutions where variation in perception of, and response to, capital mobility actually occurs. This concern with institutions is relevant both in terms of regulatory organizations which can be thought to enforce the interests of mobile capital, and institutions dependent on capital mobility for resources (such as governments). The current paper focuses on enforcement, while future work will address the construction of understandings in dependent institutions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defends classical liberalism using evolutionary psychology and other disciplines within the biological sciences. I specifically argue that classical liberal institutions like rule of law, private property, and the private sphere are all more natural for humans due to our nature as individualistic, social, and therefore complex animals. I use Smith and Hayek's understandings of classical liberalism to elucidate some of the key liberal institutions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses issues related to scope in case-study research. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central feature of political thinking is the expression and attempted transmission of power (whether deliberate or unintentional) in speech and writing. Power devices are embedded in language in the form of the intensification of the substantive messages conveyed through utterances and texts. Instead of addressing the conventional issues of what people think about power, or the power impact of language on social relations, the paper investigates what makes thinking political thinking; that is to say, which normal properties of speech and texts are power attributes. Four categories of power intensification are identified as fundamental in articulating political thinking: persuasion through rational argument, rhetorical attractiveness, emotional appeal, and threatening. Their production and their modes of consumption provide frameworks through which their efficacy as intensifiers can be assessed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social science has not been very effective in improving practice. Despite much effort, our professional contribution to governance, policy, and reform, especially in education, falls short. While lowering expectations might be wise, improving practice is central to science as a progressive (self-correcting) institution. Hence, our focus is on modifying method -- which, more than anything else, defines science as an institution. We argue for a restructuring of applied social science in a way that would make more difference to practitioners in governance, to those who make policy and other decisions as members of governing bodies. This entails different forms of research, reporting, involvement, implementation, and learning. Our approach is to examine applied social research in both theory (epistemology) and practice (including critical analysis of some prominent examples), promote the perspective of practitioners (on school boards and other local legislatures), suggest a different concept of confidence (as seen by public officials rather than scientists), argue that good action research and qualitative methodology are more effective for communicating with practitioners, and link those to the enhancement of reflective practice, i.e., to concepts of organizational learning and inquiring system. Local governing bodies, including school boards, make many decisions with significant consequences for community, culture, and citizens, for governing processes and practices, and for the organization itself. To the degree that the quality of knowledge inputs to governance processes and hence to decisions is a major determinant of successful leadership (of school districts and municipalities), the quality of research which produces that knowledge becomes important. We argue that traditional criteria defining quality of research and knowledge have proven inadequate to real-world policy and practice. Part of the failing is due to the near-exclusion of practitioners from research design and implementation and of practitioner perspective from problem definition and conclusion formulation and presentation (form and language). To a public policy-maker, confidence (in research conclusions) means something quite different from what it means in science. A scientist determining confidence interval or level of a statistic does not face the personal risk or emotional wrenching that a politician does who must make a decision betting the well-being and dollars of constituents/citizens, hurting some while helping others. At the local level, especially in smaller communities or school districts, those who suffer sometimes include friends and neighbors. Researchers who take such a perspective more seriously will become more effective with practitioners. Traditions of Action Research and Qualitative Research place higher value on insider understanding of organizational culture and practice and tend to increase participant involvement and learning and to frame findings in more compelling ways. Of course, these approaches also have limitations, especially when poorly implemented or ideologically prejudicial. So how to mitigate against weaknesses and combine the best from multiple methods? This paper will offer propositions, detailed argument, and examples. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the principle of competition--that all things of value should be provided by numerous suppliers in rivalry with each other--has many attractive features for judging the desirability of public policies and government organization. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, the study of elections has taken on an applied component. Works from scholars like Shea, Faucheux, Herrnson, Thurber, and others, are developing a set of "best practices" that are used by successful campaigns. Their work is not only being used to study campaigns, but to teach students how to successful manage campaigns. This paper looks at three school board elections in three very different communities in Ohio to determine when and how these "best practices" succeed. The research uses journals kept by each candidate and a voter mail survey to identify and analyze the strategies and tactics which were effective across contexts. It demonstrates the power of social science in applied politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper about the origins of the concept of critical mass, as well as its uses and misuses in the literature on critical mass theory is presented. It examines the origins of the concept in the contributions of professors Rosabeth Moss Kanter, who outlined three expectations regarding the impact of increased proportions of women on group life, and Drude Dahlerup, who popularized the term in the study of women and politics.

I aim to explore the relationship between autonomy and having choices. I do so primarily because I think the picture of that relationship is clear in broad outline but rather murky in the particulars. Having choices is a necessary condition of autonomy. On this all defenders of autonomy are agreed. But how many choices, what kind of choice, and when is choice important? Can these questions be answered with any precision? The essay proceeds in four sections. In the first section, I examine two views with implications for the quantity of choice that is important to autonomy. In the second section I take up considerations of the quality and significance of choices. Moving away from an examination of the properties of choice necessary to autonomy, the third section examines the relationship between choice and the autonomous agency and endorsement. I discuss here how the mark of an autonomous person is not that she enjoys a wide array of choices but is found, rather, in the manner in which she cleaves to or endorses her ends. I also discuss the role of choice in the formation of autonomy and the exercise of a mature or fully-formed autonomous character. The final section offers some brief reflections on the implications of the paper for debates in political theory, discussing how over-emphasizing the role of choice can distort the picture of autonomy and its value in liberal theory. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the 'extension' of market liberalism into the private sphere, with special attention to the sexual domain. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evolutionary theory, in conjunction with empirical biological work driven by that theory, is making rapid inroads in the social sciences. This theory and these empirical findings pose a substantial challenge for the standard social science model. This standard model includes traditional behavioralism and rational choice, which are both based on the belief that social behavior is a response to environmental stimuli, whether these stimuli are provided by active parental socialization, television commercials, or the choices of an opposing player. Evolutionary theory, on the other hand, recognizes that behavior is only partly influenced by the environment with a significant remaining part attributable to genes and therefore to the process of natural selection that shaped existing human genotypes. In this paper, we articulate the challenge evolutionary theory poses for rational choice. Though for the most part this challenge also applies to behavioralism, the tenets of rational choice have been more formally developed and therefore are easier to compare to evolutionary biology. Our conclusion is that the existence and applicability of an actual theory of the origin of social preferences and social behavior lays bare the theoretical vacuity and empirical inadequacies of rational choice. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a structural pragmatic approach to the analysis of political discourse. After a brief comment on more traditional political science view of discourse, a typology of four kinds of discourse is presented. Each type is defined in terms of its orienting aims, its formal structural qualities, the dynamics whereby it unfolds and the kind of intersubjective meaning it constructs. Following the presentation of the typology, there is a brief discussion of some of the methodological issues raised by this approach to the study of political discourse. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upon examining several theories of constitutional interpretation, this paper asks whether it is possible to integrate theories of judicial liberalism and judicial originalism. Specifically, it asks whether it is possible to combine certain constitutional structures with the protection of social rights. It argues that synthesis is both possible to some degree, as well as desirable-- and, given practical, observable consequences, certain constitutional structures may actually promote the realization of social justice. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When people make decisions, what do they believe about what did not happen and how are these beliefs important in determining what did happen? These off the equilibrium track beliefs serve a crucial role in game theoretic analyses. As an alternative to the prevailing family of Nash equilibrium concepts, a self-confirming equilibrium (SCE) allows interacting people to have different beliefs about things that did not happen as long as everyone has identical beliefs about what does happen. While suggesting interesting hypotheses in economics and politics, the SCE concept is yet to receive a sustained analysis using important findings from psychology and cognitive science. This paper reviews the experimental psychology literature on counterfactual belief generation and the conceptual integration approach used in cognitive science to help explain the formation of beliefs and meaning. These literatures provide a strong case for using the SCE concept. I then argue that explanatory status of the self-confirming equilibrium concept is potentially weak compared to Nash based approaches because of the ad hoc manner that beliefs can be assigned to players. This can be resolved if a SCE analysis explicitly incorporates the role of affect (emotion) in decision-making. I conclude by suggesting a sketch of experiments that may help clarify when a SCE concept is appropriate. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A draft of a conference paper about the connection between courts, constitutional rights and the nature of democracy is presented. It presents a systematic social science analysis of the decisions made by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). It discusses when and how courts may provide a more responsive institutional form for democracy than traditional representative institutions. It presents a conceptual framework showing how rights and access to legal institutions can alter democratic participation opportunities.

In the first section we briefly review different approaches to studying capital liberalization and discuss why they may not be applicable to explaining the process in Latin America. In the second section, we offer our argument to account for the nonlinear political dynamics of capital account liberalization in Latin America. Next, we discuss the research design for our empirical analysis, and then present our empirical findings for 15 Latin America countries from 1975 to 1984 and then from 1985 to 2003. Finally we conclude our paper. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

none ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars from different social science disciplines are increasingly acknowledging the long shadow that a disturbing past may project over a democracy?s future. In effect, there is growing consensus that ?unresolved problems of transitional justice have a lasting implication over a state?s lifetime .? Nevertheless, the question of the specific impact of post-conflict/post-authoritarian countries? transitional justice choices on their long-term democratization outcomes is still far from being settled. Joining in this lively debate, this study concurs with the claim that transitional justice -- defined as the historical process through which a country deals with past collective traumas of civil war and/or state-sponsored atrocities ? critically affects democratic outcomes. To be precise, I argue that post-conflict/post-authoritarian countries? transitional justice processes constitutes path-dependent sequences of causally linked events that shape key aspects of the ?quality ? of their democracy over time. Chiefly among them: public confidence in state institutions (such as the justice system or the police ); respect for the rights of opposing or ?alternative? groups; readiness to accept rivals? electoral victory; eagerness to exercise one?s civic rights and to stand up for them when threatened; public expectations of equal treatment before the law; political violence; incidence of the past in political discourse; and political civility . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the position of fallibilist arguments in utilitarian thought has been widely explored through the work of J.S. Mill, the role of fallibilism in Bentham?s work has been neglected, likely due in part to H.L.A. Hart?s view that it was in this context that Bentham?s ?limitations as a philosopher? became clear. Yet fallibilism occupies a foundational position in Bentham?s thought: it derives from his theory of logic and language and it shapes both his religious and political thought. Moreover, the critique of infallibility in his political works, particularly in his linkage of infallibility with immutability, is a manifestation of the anti-absolutist character of Bentham?s radicalism. The appeal to fallibilism in Bentham?s legal writings provides evidence for the claim that Bentham desired a relatively flexible legal system and was skeptical about the potential of a legal code to achieve perfection. In this way, it contributes to a view of Bentham that does not rely on an omniscient legislator, which in turn supports the ?democratic,? as opposed to the ?authoritarian,? interpretive tradition of Bentham?s work. Attention to fallibilism also suggests the potential for a new line of inquiry into the connections between the work of Bentham and J.S. Mill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most contested questions in the social sciences is whether people behave rationally. A large body of work assumes that individuals do in fact make rational economic, political, and social decisions. Yet, hundreds of experiments suggest that this is not the case. Framing effects constitute one of the most stunning and influential demonstrations of irrationality. The effects not only challenge the foundational assumptions of much of the social sciences (e.g., the existence of coherent preferences or stable attitudes), but they also lead many scholars to adopt alternative approaches (e.g., prospect theory). Surprisingly, virtually no work has sought to specify the political conditions under which framing effects occur. I fill this gap by offering a theory and experimental test. I show how contextual forces (e.g., elite competition, deliberation) and individual attributes (e.g., expertise) affect the success of framing. The results provide insight into when rationality assumptions apply, and also have broad implications for political psychology and experimental methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Articulates the relationship between social science and critical theory in a problem-oriented approach and how that approach can best promote the end of racial democratization in the case of the U.S. Role of social science in identifying and constituting the publics to which critique is addressed; Relation of both dominant and subordinate racial groups to the possibility of racial democratization; Racial Hierarchy and a problem-centered approach.

For Brownson, the genius of what we call ?federalism? is its perfection of the implicitly ?dialectical? character of human and political existence, an existence articulated in the space between the universal and the particular. American federalism is a figure or image of a federalism linking nature and history, a covenant between reason and givenness. The difference with Tocqueville’s statesmanship is clear, yet it may yet be asked whether the two approaches are not in some fundamental way complementary, whether they may not be seen to share a deep and barely articulated ground. This ground would come to light in considering, on the one hand, Brownson?s theological politics as a kind of statesmanship in which the necessity of mediation is projected upon ultimate reality, and, on the other, Tocqueville?s statesmanship as finally dependent upon some ontology that would allow for its possibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign policy analysts have developed several conceptual frameworks for understanding decision making, focusing upon the unit of decision, intra-governmental conflict, characteristics of leaders, and decisional pathologies such as groupthink and poor quality decision making more generally. The substantive focus of these studies has generally fallen upon American foreign policy, and the methodological approach has commonly involved comparative case studies. Relatively few studies have applied these frameworks; 1) Simultaneously to a sample of decision making episodes; 2) Done so using non-US foreign policy cases; 3) Employed multivariate analysis to estimate relationships between the variables involved. This study analyzes decision making in the British government during the Korea, Suez, and Falklands crises. Variables derived from the foreign policy analysis frameworks are operationalized so as to be dichotomous. This allows for both the charting of frequencies of behaviors associated with these frameworks and, through logistic regression, the exploration of some intriguing causal linkages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emmanuel Levinas, the great apostle of the other, has some surprising and shocking things to say about Asians. I wonder why. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pressures of the early 20th century?industrialization, the loss of the frontier, and increasing technological efficiency?worried progressive thinkers. Their response was to attempt to harness individual desires and obligations for ?the social?. Willa Cather was concerned about these same pressures, but she offered a radically different solution. Instead of beginning with a vision for society, she portrayed how an individual could reclaim the imagination in order to preserve what is human. Cather?s The Professor?s House shows a thoughtful individual who eventually finds social obligation debilitating. His best hope to cope with the pressures of modernity is to sublimate his pre-social desires into wonder and the imagination, which form the basis for art, invention, and the best friendships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on his experience in teaching theory, philosophy of inquiry, modeling, data analysis and methodology courses as part of a unified yet pluralistic Ph.D curriculum, the author suggests and illustrates seven principles of pedagogical pluralism: 1)Reflexively teach a discipline?s multiple research practices as emulatable and criticizable objects of sociohistorical inquiry, including their epistemological/methodological aspects. 2-3) Sociologically historicize and internationally contextualize the development of a discipline?s core theories and methodologies. 4)Recognize and teach a plurality of knowledge interests such as the Habermas-Radnitzky distinction among positive, practical-hermeneutic, critical-emancipatory and cosmological knowledge interests. 5)Give equal attention to the variety and richness of nomothetic and ideographic historical research. 6)Expose students to a variety of research paradigms, agendas, programs and discourses. Finally, 7)consider reconceptualizing Political Science, and the Social Sciences more generally, as bridging disciplines between the humanities and the natural sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]