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This paper argues that metropolitan political theories and institutions grounded in popular sovereignty help to produce decolonization. Radical distinctions between metropolis and dependency only arise when communities, and not rulers, are the theoretical source of political authority. Metropoles organized around popular sovereignty tend to legitimate peripheral claims to autonomy, and to construct political institutions (most importantly colonial legislatures) that voice such claims. An analysis of Western empires shows that, where political models were based on popular sovereignty (Great Britain, the United States, and France), decolonization resulted from internal tensions between theory and practice. Where empire was organized around dynastic principles (Spain and Portugal), empires dissolved as a result of external pressures. Dominant global models have additional effects, blurring differences between empires when popular sovereignty is widely accepted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the 1976 graduate conference of the British Political Studies Association. Theme of the conference; Program for the conference; Proposal to establish a British and Irish Development Studies Association; Attendees of the conference.

This article notes the systemic lack of conceptual clarity in the social sciences and attempts to illustrate the adverse consequences by closer examination of the particular example of the interest group field. It indicates the significant ambiguities implicit in the term. Not all policy-influencing organisations are interest groups as normally understood, but because there is a lack of an appropriate label the term interest group is used by default. The article seeks to distinguish between interest groups and other policy relevant bodies—often corporations or institutions. It finds disadvantages in adopting a functional interpretation of the interest group term (i.e. any organisation trying to influence public policy). While the wider range of organisations are crucial in understanding the making of public policy, it is confusing to assume that this wider population are all interest groups. The article instead advances the complementary notions of pressure participant, policy participant and interest group. This slightly expanded repertoire of terms avoids conflating important distinctions, and, in Sartori's term permits ‘disambiguation’. The core assumption is that the search for comparative data and exploration of normative questions implies some harmonisation in the interest group currency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent legislative and executive orders that mandate preferred methods for evaluating the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 signal a much larger movement in the social sciences. Attacks stemming from the "culture wars" of the 1990s have spread to forms of research labeled "unscientific," including postmodern research and qualitative research. Examination of the sources of the attacks reveals a wide network of new and recent foundations with decidedly right-wing political views, the establishment and growing power of the National Association of Scholars, and other well-funded efforts to discredit research that uncovers and exposes deep inequities in social life and schooling on gender, race, social class, religion, and/or sexual orientation. Each of these well-funded sources of attack is discussed and the agenda of each is dissected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]