THE POLICY LEGACY OF RONALD REAGAN

Charles O. Jones, ed. 1988. The Reagan Legacy: Promise and Performance B.B. Kymlicka and Jean V. Matthews, eds. 1988. The Reagan Revolution? J.D. Lees and Michael Turner, eds. 1988. Reagan's First Four Years: A New Beginning?     

THE PAST IS EVIL/EVIL IS PAST: ON RETROSPECTIVE POLITICS,PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY,AND TEMPORAL MANICHAEISM

One of the most remarkable phenomena in current international politics is the increasing attention paid to “historical injustice.” Opinions on this phenomenon strongly differ. For some it stands for a new and noble type of politics based on raised moral standards and helping the cause of peace and democracy. Others are more critical and claim that retrospective politics comes at the cost of present‐ or future‐oriented politics and tends to be anti‐utopian. The warnings about the perils of a retrospective politics outweighing politics directed at contemporary injustices, or strivings for a more just future, should be taken seriously. Yet the alternative of a politics disregarding all historical injustice is not desirable either. We should refuse to choose between restitution for historical injustices and struggle for justice in the present or the future. Rather, we should look for types of retrospective politics that do not oppose but complement or reinforce the emancipatory and utopian elements in present‐ and future‐directed politics. I argue that retrospective politics can indeed have negative effects. Most notably it can lead to a “temporal Manichaeism” that not only posits that the past is evil, but also tends to treat evil as anachronistic or as belonging to the past. Yet I claim that ethical Manichaeism and anti‐utopianism and are not inherent features of all retrospective politics but rather result from an underlying philosophy of history that treats the relation between past, present, and future in antinomic terms and prevents us from understanding “transtemporal” injustices and responsibilities. In order to pinpoint the problem of certain types of retrospective politics and point toward some alternatives, I start out from a criticism formulated by the German philosopher Odo Marquard and originally directed primarily at progressivist philosophies of history.     

GUNGARAKAYN WOMEN SPEAK: REPRODUCTION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF TRADITION

This paper analyses the instrumental purposes served by representations of female spirituality deployed by Gungaraakayn claimants in the course of the Finniss River Land Claim. I address the problem of how gender is shaped by configurations of power within and between groups and how, in turn, it shapes those configurations. The paper is thus a critique that seeks to understand the political significance of ‘tradition’ in the present, demonstrating how social formations may be transformed by the operations of practice.     

THE SOURCES OF PUBLIC POLICY: WELFARE POLICY IN THE AMERICAN STATES

The conceptualization of political and economic determinants of public policy as interactive rather than sufficient causes is subjected here to a comparative state analysis. An examination of interactive effects of culture, wealth, and gubernatorial power on AFDC grants and Medicaid benefits offers empirical illustration of Stonecash's reconceptualization of the classic politics-process-policy model. The results indicate that political dispositions become more potent in combination with increasing concentrations of wealth and executive power.     

THE MOSAIC OF DISCRETION: CRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY

Martin A. Levin, Urban Politics and the Criminal Courts Lynn RI. Mather. Plea Bargaining or Trial? Ralph A. Rossum. Thr Politics of the Criminal Justice Process Thomas M. Uhlman. Racial Justice Lexington, Mass.     

INNOVATION IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE, 1969-1981: AN OVERVIEW

Innovation in judicial administration has proceeded slowly for many reasons. The attitudes of judges not-inclined by training toward management, the tradition of Judicial independence, and the separation of powers are examined as contributing factors inhibiting judicial modernization. Federal Judicial reform has defended historically upon the leadership of a Chief Justine of the United State? willing to use the office to dramatize and promote the issues. The most recent period of dramatic change in judicial administration, from 1969-1981, is reviewed with a focus upon the strategies for change employed by Chief Justice Warren E, Burger.