Teaching Political Science in China: Observations and Suggestions from a Foreign Visitor

Abstract

In responding to the other participants in the Symposium on Plato's Philosophers I attempt to clarify the reasons for, and the results of, my attempt to bring out the interrelations among the dialogues in order to determine what Plato thought. Recognizing that the indications of the dramatic dates of some the dialogues are controversial, I argue that the dates point to an over-arching narrative–the story of the rise, development, and limitations of Socratic philosophy. Plato uses his other philosophers—the Athenian Stranger, Parmenides, Timaeus, and the Eleatic Stranger—to bring out the problems that gave rise to Socratic philosophy and the limitations of his responses. Plato makes Socrates his “hero,” because Socrates provides the best account of the human beings who engage in the search for wisdom. By contrasting him with the other philosophers, Plato dramatizes the insoluble problems that make philosophy always a search for wisdom.     

Political theory in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

The place of political theory in AJPS has historically been a fairly marginal one, partly because Australia does not seem to have a strong national tradition of political theorizing. This is thought to be a function of living in a nation that never produced a great political theorist and was born neither in revolution or utopianism. Yet, although there has been a marked absence of high theory or exegetically-inclined history of ideas over the life of the journal, theorists have responded by contributing work that usefully illuminates applied problems with theoretical insight. Further, it may be the case that there is a peculiarly Australian style of political theory that is pragmatic and self-consciously embedded within our institutions and political culture. The paper explores this and other means by which Australian theorists have adapted in order to retain a presence within the journal.     

Beyond the Coastalscapes: Preindustrial Social and Political Networks in East Africa

The archaeological community worldwide now readily recognizes the role and significance of interregional interaction in the development and sustenance of urban societies (e.g., Marcus and Sabloff 2008; Sinclair et al. 2010; Trigger 2003). Over the past two decades, we have carried out a systematic, problem-oriented research program on the Kenyan coast and its hinterland in an effort to understand the ecological and cultural milieu that enabled towns and city-states to develop along the East African coast beginning in the late first millennium CE. Archaeological research complemented with historical sources of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries shows that different scales of analysis can be used to understand the long-term history of the development of urbanism along this Swahili coast: local, regional, and trans-continental frames of reference each show that Swahili communities were part of numerous networks of interactions. An emerging picture of preindustrial urbanism shows that local, regional, and trans-continental interaction spheres tied coastal towns to the hinterland and to wider Indian Ocean commercial and social networks. Not all of the theorized links between the coastal towns and their local and regional trade and interaction partners will be visible archaeologically. We address the still poorly known elements of preindustrial regional networks of alliance and interaction spheres between urban and rural polities and argue that an integrative approach is necessary to understand the context of coastal urban society.     

Reproducing Political Subjects: Feminist Scholarship and the Political Science Curriculum

In this article we analyse 16 politics textbooks that feature in introductory courses in politics, political theory or political thought taught in Australian universities. Our concern was to investigate how commonly used first-yearintroductory texts position feminist political theory (and its underlying scholarship) within political theory, and by extension within the discipline of political science. Our findings suggest that the scholarship of feminist theorists remains only occasionally visible to students of political science. It is mostly confined to the safety of managed enclaves, occasionally acknowledged, but certainly not integrated into what counts as the real knowledge of political theory.     

Ceaser's American Political Science

Abstract

The transition and subsequent consolidation of countries that move from an authoritarian to a democratic regime have been widely explained by factors such as the international environment, economic conditions, political culture, institutions, and most prominently, elite behavior.¹ But although elites can make decisions about the institutional, political, and economic future of a country in transition, they cannot guarantee that those decisions will be implemented or supported by the populace, or that the incipient democratic system will stabilize. What is frequently neglected in these elite-centered accounts of democratic transitions, then, is civil society and its links to elites.     

Public administration in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

This article reviews publications on public administration in the Australian Journal of Political Science (AJPS). A distinction needs to be drawn between public administration as a discipline and as a field of inquiry that engages specialists from several areas. The latter has been more significant in Australia in contrast to Europe and the United States. The questions discussed in the AJPS cover changes in the field and practice of public administration; the state and government; the structures of local government, public organisation and federalism; interfaces between public administration and other sectors and institutions; and issues with public sector reform and accountability. Despite the emphasis on governance in discourse and practice, the role of government continues to be central, and what emerges from experiments in new governance is that the authority of government and the significance of hierarchy (compared to markets and networks) very often remains pivotal.     

Australian politics in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

This article examines how contributors to the Australian Journal of Political Science (AJPS) have conceptualised Australian politics over 50 years. It undertakes this task by examining key events in Australian politics that prompted vigorous debate. These include the election of the Whitlam government in 1972, its dismissal in 1975, and how this in turn generated discussion about the nature of responsible government in Australia. The republican debate of the 1990s shifted the focus. Since 2000, however, a few contributors to the journal have attempted to find a central focus for Australian politics in the controversy over the idea of the Australian settlement. Much recent discussion about Australian politics has been influenced by the ‘cultural turn’, and become particularistic. It is argued that despite their diversity, articles in the AJPS generally do not usually contribute to a narrative that sheds light on the larger, longstanding, structural issues of Australian politics.     

Public policy in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

This paper surveys the contribution that articles on public policy have made to this journal in its first half-century. To help organise those contributions, the paper makes a rough distinction between works of a primarily explanatory nature and those that can be thought of as having a substantive focus on analysing particular policy areas or issues. It observes the paucity of policy studies in the 1960s and 1970; the rapid rise in the 1980s; and a plateauing and even perhaps decline after that. It notes the desultory interest in theoretical questions and welcome attempts to employ the comparative method.     

Electoral politics in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

Australia’s constant experimentation with electoral system design, and its effects on voter behaviour, have been consistent themes in the Australian Journal of Political Science and its predecessor, Politics, for half a century. This article examines this research in the context of three areas: electoral institutions; election campaigns; and voter behaviour. Three distinct stages in the research are identified, starting with basic fact-gathering, then progressing to the application of rigorous methods and evidence to real-world questions. In the third stage, scholarly attention has been devoted to placing Australia within a comparative framework. An underlying theme in the research is Australian exceptionalism in electoral politics.     

Indigenous politics in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

This article reviews the slow emergence of writing on Indigenous issues and power in the journal over its first fifty years. It notes that most of this writing is by non Indigenous authors about issues that are thought to effect Indigenous lives. More contributions by Indigenous authors would be useful and will hopefully occur with growing numbers of Indigenous post-graduate students.     

Political Correctness and Political Science: An Exploratory Study of New York State

Abstract

The term political correctness identifies a controversy that has gained wide coverage in the press over the last several years concerning academic policy in higher education in the United States. In an effort to obtain some preliminary indication of how widespread perceptions of political correctness are among political scientists, a survey of political scientists in New York State was conducted in December 1991. The survey revealed that at least in New York, political scientists are likely to perceive political correctness as an issue on their college campus and in the discipline but generally not in their departments.     

Beyond Mainstream Approaches to Political Participation: A Response to Aaron Martin

Aaron Martin's (2012) recent article is the first to use survey data to compare the political participation of young people with that of older age groups in Australia. As such, it adds to our empirical knowledge of political participation, particularly by emphasising the changing focus of young people's engagement. Yet, like most mainstream, and especially quantitative, political participation researchers, Martin does not engage adequately with the growing, more critical literature). This response raises some of the issues emphasised in this literature, relating them directly to Martin's contribution. It has four sections: firstly, a brief consideration of Martin's main conclusions; secondly, a discussion of putative reasons for the change in forms of participation; thirdly, a consideration of broader forms of political participation; and finally, a consideration of the relationship between identity and political participation, which is at the core of most broader discussions of the latter.

阿隆·马丁（2012）在最近的文章中首先使用调查资料对澳大利亚年轻人和更年长者的政治参与做了比较。他的研究,特别是关于年轻人参与焦点的转移那部分,丰富了关于政治参与的实证知识。但与从事政治参与的主流尤其是定量研究的学者一样,马丁对于正在出现的、批判性的文献缺乏足够的关注。本文根据这些文献提出跟马丁研究相关的问题。本文包括四个部分：1）简要评述马丁的主要结论;2）讨论参与形式变化的推定原因;3）思考更为宽广的政治参与形式;4）思考身份与政治参与之间的关系,那是在更大范围内讨论政治参与的核心问题。     

Renewing the Political Perspective: Reflections on James Ceaser,Political Science,and Liberal Democracy

Abstract

This is a response to the contributions to the symposium on David Walsh's trilogy on modernity: After Ideology (1990), The Growth of the Liberal Soul (1997), and The Modern Philosophical Revolution (2008). After expressing appreciation for the careful reading the work has received, it enters into a reflection on the underlying unity of the studies. This is intended to address the common concerns that center on the issue of how the modern world is to be understood. It emphasizes the impossibility of separating the attempt to understand modernity from the need to take responsibility for it. This is the perspective that has illuminated the totalitarian catharsis, the durability of liberal political regimes, and the existential turn within modern philosophy. In the latter part of the essay, a response is offered to specific objections and characterizations that individual symposiasts raise.