1840-1850年天主教爱尔兰移民及其在美国的政治参与

天主教爱尔兰移民是美国历史上第一支大规模的非新教移民团体。他们进入美国社会后,不仅引发了美国人宗教生活的长期震荡,而且对这个国家的政治生活产生了持续影响。通过建立自己的组织,他们发明了一套与主流群体打交道的方式,从而克服了从他们踏上这块土地第一天起就遇到的宗教、伦理方面的障碍。美国历史上最大的爱尔兰移民潮发生于19世纪40至50年代,其间爱尔兰天主教移民与美国早期新教移民的矛盾和冲突也最为突出,他们所遇到的问题以及解决这些问题的方式足以为我们了解美国移民史和美国文化特征提供借鉴。     

Researching African Statehood Dynamics: Negotiability and its Limits

A focus on ‘negotiating statehood’ offers an alternative set of lenses on evolving transitions and transformations in African state–society relations to other more teleological perspectives. Notions of ‘negotiation’ and the ‘negotiability’ of authority structures allow recognition of the pliability of emerging state forms and may help in focusing on the dynamic processes through which statehood may be refounded and rationalized. This article presents a preliminary assessment of the analytical and empirical scope for employing the notion of ‘negotiating statehood’. The main argument is that although one can conceive of many processes as being negotiated, in (empirical) reality these particular lenses will be more appropriate for some situations than for others. The article therefore seeks to explore the limits of the conceptual framework associated with the idea of ‘negotiated’ statehood. It will do so through a review of selected historical and empirical contexts within which one might expect such particular dimensions to be highlighted, in contrast to situations where for one reason or another no such interactions (can) take place. In this connection the article also highlights the limitations the broader context places on the scope for realizing various state‐building designs.     

Deterrence Theory and the Implementation of Speed Limits in the American States

Despite the ubiquitous nature of these policies, there is disagreement in the literature regarding the direction and size of the impact that speed limits have on traffic‐related fatalities. We argue in this paper that the mixed results in previous work may arise because these studies have missed an important component of the implementation of speed limit laws. More explicitly, they have failed to adequately control for the deterrent effect of enforcement and sanctions. We develop the argument that the observed impacts of speed limits will be overly large when the certainty and severity of punishment are not accounted for. We test this assertion in a cross‐sectional time series analysis of state‐level traffic fatalities from the years 1990–2006 and find that lower speeds do save a significant number of lives. Interestingly, we find that the impact is significantly overestimated for 65‐mph limits and significantly underestimated for 70‐mph limits when enforcement, penalties, and the interaction of the two are excluded. The results also suggest that fines have a rather modest impact on fatalities unless states employ a sufficient number of troopers to enforce posted limits. In addition to clarifying previous findings related to speed limit policy, therefore, the findings contribute to the general application of deterrence theory by empirically confirming that the importance of sanction severity is dependent on the perceived certainty of punishment.     

美国对菲律宾的殖民统治及其影响

美国和菲律宾的关系是一个相对复杂的问题。19世纪末美国以武力颠覆了菲律宾共和国,在菲律宾建立了殖民统治。政治上,美国在菲律宾建立起一套完整的统治秩序,经济上将不平等条约强加给菲律宾,垄断菲律宾主要经济命脉,文化上大力输出美国式的价值观念和意识形态。美国的统治政策侵犯了菲律宾的主权和民族独立,造成了菲律宾经济的畸形发展和人民的贫困,阻碍了菲律宾民族文化的传承。     

The Limits of Science and Trans-Science

Abstract

Many different limits to science have been identified, the most common being those between science and religion, or more generally between fact and value; between science and art; as well as the sociological limits imposed on science because it is becoming too large and unwieldy to be encompassed by a single mind. Here another realm is explored, lying beyond science: we call trans-science those questions which epistemologically are matters of fact, yet are beyond the proficiency of science. Trans-scientific questions consist of very rare occurrences and 'catastrophes' in the Thomian sense. It has been pointed out that unanswerable, trans-scientific questions are usually asked of science by policy makers. Consequently the scientist must concede that his proficiency is limited by this trans-scientific limit to science.