Politics and Public Policy

Abstract

Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others has been widely praised as the first German film to confront the horrors of the East German communist regime. But the film's politics may be ambiguous. As critical as it is of East Germany, it does not offer a ringing endorsement of West Germany. For example, the film's playwright-hero seems to have artistic problems in the West, just as he did in the East. The film's equivocal attitude toward communism is epitomized by its apparently positive view of the Marxist author Bertolt Brecht. This essay compares The Lives of Others with Brecht's play The Good Person of Szechwan in an effort to understand Donnersmarck's attitude toward his East German predecessor and what it means for his larger view of communism and its relation to art.     

Politics and Public Policy

Abstract

In the figure of Judge Holden, Cormac McCarthy has crafted perhaps the most haunting character in all of American literature. The antagonist of McCarthy's Blood Meridian, Holden is a richly composed portrait of human evil responsible for a litany of wicked deeds. This essay attempts to expound the character of judge Holden, to the end of clarifying McCarthy's definition of evil. It argues that McCarthy, with the judge, lays bare the contours of soul of the evil man, focusing especially on the tension between his ambitious repudiation of justice, on the one hand, and his steadfast, if unwitting, adherence to it, on the other. It is the evil man's conception of the purpose of knowledge, together with his desire to acquire boundless knowledge, that is the key to this tension in his soul.     

论法国大革命时期英国政治的保守化

法国大革命是英国政治史上的分水岭,它造成18世纪末英国政治的保守化。大革命前夕,小皮特领导下的英国政府,为消除光荣革命后"旧制度"的积弊而走上渐进改革道路。随着法国大革命的爆发及其日益激进化,英国国内激进主义与保守主义两大派别在思想与实践层面的交锋也日趋激烈。英法战争爆发后,英国在政治上日趋保守,革命前的渐进改革戛然而止,政府转而采取高压政策,严厉打压国内激进主义运动,由此在政治上进入到1688年光荣革命后最为保守的时代。     

James A. Smith's The Idea Brokers: Think Tanks and the Rise of the New Policy Elite

Abstract

This brief essay provides a few particulars about Michael Polanyi's life, showing how his philosophical interests and ideas are deeply grounded in his own experience as a European who lived through much of the twentieth century. It introduces the four essays on Polanyi's political thought that follow.     

威尼斯城市共和国的公共空间与贵族政治

文艺复兴时期,威尼斯以其社会的繁荣稳定在欧洲享有盛誉。它独特的地理环境,以及发展成熟、高度集中的城市公共空间是其贵族政府实施社会管理的良好舞台。本文从威尼斯城市公共空间的形成历史和现状入手,以广场、街道以及剧院为具体事例,分析贵族政府管理城市公共空间的方式,指出在文艺复兴时期,威尼斯公共空间的主要作用为:1.培养民众的城市认同感;2.宣传贵族政治思想,树立和维护共和国独立、稳定、和谐的形象;3.抑制私人势力膨胀,缓解社会危机。这些手段成功地使威尼斯的城市社会生活不断公共化,城市的公共空间的发展凌驾于私人空间之上。     

Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa

Public authority does not always fall within the exclusive realm of government institutions; in some contexts, institutional competition is intense and a range of ostensibly a‐political situations become actively politicized. Africa has no shortage of institutions which attempt to exercise public authority: not only are multiple layers and branches of government institutions present and active to various degrees, but so‐called traditional institutions bolstered by government recognition also vie for public authority, and new emerging institutions and organizations also enter the field. The practices of these institutions make concepts such as public authority, legitimacy, belonging, citizenship and territory highly relevant. This article proposes an analytical strategy for the understanding of public authority in such contexts. It draws on research from anthropologists, geographers, political scientists and social scientists working on Africa, in an attempt to explore a set of questions related to a variety of political practices and their institutional ramifications.     

Paying Attention to Politics: Public Responsiveness and Welfare Policy Change

In order for the democratic process to work properly, it is vital that the public pays attention to politics and signals its opinions and preferences back to its representatives; if this is not the case, representatives have less incentive to represent. This article deals with the question of whether and how the public responds to welfare policy change. The thermostatic model departs from the assumption that the public responds to policy change with negative feedback, in relation to its preferred level of policy. The empirical analysis tests this model on public responses following the implementation of a consumer's choice model in Swedish primary health care. Did the reform trigger a thermostatic response from the public, and how should this be interpreted? A contribution in relation to previous research is the inclusion of ideological orientation and proximity, variables which, I argue, condition the nature and direction of public responsiveness. The study was designed as a natural experiment in which preferences of privatization of health care were measured before and after the health care reform of 2009/2010. The results provide partial support for the thermostatic model: preferences for further privatization decrease after the reform, but primarily within one subgroup. Additionally, public responses are demonstrated to vary according to ideological orientation, where the right‐oriented react thermostatically and the left‐oriented do not. The article contributes to a further understanding of the relation between policymaking and public opinion and to the expansion of thermostatic theory.     

Public School Search Policies and the "Politics of Sin"

In recent years, high school students have been subjected to greater levels of drug searching and surveillance on school grounds. The effect of such searching is potentially wide-ranging, because public schools "play an important role in socializing students according to the norms and mores of society" ( Vergari, 2000 ). Using the "morality politics" framework, this study reports and analyzes the presence of random, suspicionless drug searches in the Nebraska public schools. Whereas most studies of morality policy have focused on the state as the unit of analysis, we consider the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of principals in regards to drug policies in schools. Our findings, based on a survey of 181 high school principals, reflect several features of morality policy. There has been a significant rise in the number of random drug searches, despite the principals' observation that these measures neither lessen drug use nor catch perpetrators. The most important predictors of drug policy are pressure from local sources, perception of the problem within the community (but not the schools), and the racial composition of schools. Principals articulate limited concern for student rights, and students largely accept searches without resistance. In the discussion, we consider these findings in light of recent court rulings and introduce the potential ramifications of waging the drug war in our nation's classrooms and hallways.     

The Dynamics of Incrementalism: Subsystems, Politics, and Public Lands

A host of research has been produced in the decade since Baumgartner and Jones' theory of punctuated equilibrium first drew attention to the dynamics of policy change over time. Much of this research follows a topic across time, highlighting the shift from negative to positive feedback as challengers push an issue from subsystem to institutional level. Far less attention has been paid to the periods between major punctuations, neglecting key questions about whether incremental periods reflect an absence of challengers or the successful defense of established subsystem interests.
This research is a comparison of policy change across two segments of environmental policy. The breakup of the timber subsystem was a clear victory for environmentalists, yet these same actors have been largely unsuccessful at dislodging established grazing interests. These findings highlight the strategic value of venue shifting for bypassing entrenched interests and illustrate the potential for successful challenges to occur in judicial venues.