Ronald Reagan,the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign and the Nuclear scare of the 1980s

This article examines the Reagan's administration response to the nuclear scare and the ensuing antinuclear mobilization of the early 1980s. Specifically, it analyses the interaction between the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign (NWFC) and the Administration's Nuclear Arms Control Information Policy Group (NACIPIG), the ad hoc interdepartmental group created in order to counter the NWFC's influence on public opinion and regain control of the debate on nuclear arms negotiations. By looking simultaneously at the NACIPIG's records and the nuclear freeze campaign documents, the article analyses the interplay between the movement and the executive branch, aiming at understand how the White House responded to the domestic antinuclear challenge and in which way the movement influenced public opinion and affected in the end policy-making. The purpose is to offer a nuanced understanding of the role played by the antinuclear movement that, through its pressure on the U.S. public opinion and Congress, induced Reagan first to temper his bellicose rhetoric and then to alter his negotiating strategy with the Soviets.     

Discourse, Party, and Policy: The Case of Abortion, 1965–1972

The parameters of the contemporary abortion debate were established in the pre-Roe period between 1965 and 1972, when groups and forces on the state and manual level competed to redefine the issue in order to pass new policies regulating it. This article traces the abortion politics of New York and Pennsylvania, the two states that led the nation in creating abortion policies before Roe, by looking at the relationship between the discourses created by various groups, the agree of party support they received, and the disparate policies that each state pawed as a result.     

Dreams of the old country: A room of one's own

This article reports the findings of a study concerning the politicization of abortion in Finland in the first half of the 20th century. The focus is on discussions and debates in the legal and medical professions, 1900?1950, showing the historical transformation of abortion from a criminal act to a medical issue, legalized by the 1950 abortion law. The argument throughout is that the strongest motivation for legalization of abortion in Finland was the perceived negative effect of criminal abortions on the population growth. The article also shows that the abortion debate was linked to the formation of a maternity care system and the development of the medical promotion of birth control. Thus the context for the line of argumentation is the formation of the Finnish welfare state and the medicalization of maternity.     

Sounding Presidential: Frame Creation in the Obama Administration

Among the often-cited powers of the presidency is the power of the pulpit. Presidents attempt to influence Congress directly and indirectly through their rhetoric and its influence on national policy debates. This includes the power to shape debates through the use of frames. While much is known about framing, no past study has attempted to document all frames utilized by a policy entrepreneur in his attempt to shape the policy debate. Comprehensive understanding of frame creation is necessary to understand what frames persist and how frames are used in policymaking. This study identifies how one president, Barack Obama, framed domestic policy issues in speeches early in his administration. Identifying frames the president uses provides insights into this president's attempts to set the public agenda. The findings of this study suggest that Obama's use of specific frames is highly idiosyncratic, but that these idiosyncratic frames coalesce around identifiable policy areas, particularly macroeconomic policy. This study provides insight into how one president attempts to both frame and set his domestic policy agenda.     

评陶希圣的中国社会史研究

大革命失败后中国革命向何处去的问题,引出了长达10年的中国社会性质、社会史问题的大论战。论战中陶希圣写下了大量的著作,其深度是当时绝大多数人不能比的,提出的看法直到今天仍能给人以启示。20世纪80年代以来,大陆学术界对本次社会史论战开展评论,不少人从陶希圣反对共产党的政治主张出发,认为他的社会史观点经常改变,所论也不符合中国历史的实际。我们认为这种评价政治倾向重于学术研究,又缺少对于陶氏社会史研究的具体分析,其做法是有违实事求是地看待历史问题的马克思主义史学观点的。     

Karl Polanyi and the Modernity-versus-Postmodernity Debate

The originality of Karl Polanyi's work in the interwar period has gained increasing recognition in recent years, during which time the major debate on modernity has erupted. In order to link Polanyi's work with this debate, I will first discuss his legacy on the controversial concept of progress, and then relate his position to this debate. It is my contention that Polanyi's position combines the better aspects of the two rival approaches to modernity. I will then re-link Polanyi's thought to the intellectual figures, movements and climate of his time and thereby disclose a curious affinity between his thought and the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. This affinity can best be understood within the parameters of the historical context that they once shared.     

A closed country in the open seas: Engelbert Kaempfer's Japanese solution for European modernity's predicament

By offering an apology of Japan's closed country policy, Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716) was contributing not so much to the literature of exotic journey record, but rather to the field of European political and moral theory, and importantly to the debate over the relative merits of ancient and modern societies and effects of international commerce. There is a marked lack of scholarly attention given to Kaempfer as a modestly interesting political theorist, compared to a substantial body of research praising his record as a scientifically minded observer of remote cultures. As a deceptively straightforward specimen of the genre of travelogue, and also because it has tended to be treated mostly as a pioneering attempt in western Japanese studies, Kaempfer's work has not generally been considered in its relation to the debate on Europe's own moral and political predicament. When it has, the emphasis tended to be on the influence his work exercised on the enlightened European mind and its awareness of alien cultures, rather than on the extent to which the moral and political questions he sought to answer regarding Japan's situation were in fact standard questions formulated within the wider European debate on commerce and government. This paper hopes to correct the imbalance by placing Kaempfer's argument into the context of such contrasting contemporaneous positions as those represented, respectively, by Joseph Addison's view of global commerce in The Spectator and by François Fénelon's vision of the ideal commonwealth of Salente in his Aventures de Télemaque.     

Hans Morgenthau and the Tragedy of the Nation-State

The cardinal role of tragedy in Morgenthau's theory of international politics has hardly gone unnoticed. Indeed there is now a considerable corpus of literature that established the importance of tragedy as a central concept around which Morgenthau's theory revolved. This paper builds upon this already developed framework and employs tragedy not as an analytical category but as a metaphor employed by Morgenthau to approach the nation-state. It is claimed that the idea of tragedy underpinned his notion of the nation-state inasmuch as it did his view of individual human beings. As such the notion of tragedy informed consistently Morgenthau's analyses of national tragedies that were like the self-defeating nationalism of Germany. It also informed his efforts to avert potential national tragedies from materialising as his attempts to influence US foreign policy demonstrated. It is finally claimed, that far from a descent into despair, Morgenthau's realism signified a conscious effort to go beyond the tragedy of the nation-state.     

The death of the right‐to‐die campaigners (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The ‘right‐to‐die’ or assisted suicide debate in the UK has recently been dominated by high‐profile litigation which has brought to public attention stories of individual suffering. The most recent case is that of Tony Nicklinson who, as a result of his permanent and total paralysis which he said made his life ‘intolerable’, wanted the courts to allow a doctor to end his life. Only six days after a Judicial Review refused his request, Tony died of ‘natural’ causes. This article compares the presentation by the media of Tony's requested death with his actual death and discusses what this reveals more generally about the way in which the right‐to‐die debate is presented to the public. It argues that in a politicised debate in which the personal stories of the disabled‐dying are given airtime because of their didactic or symbolic potential, actual death becomes less important than the rights‐rhetoric surrounding death.     

Michael Oakeshott’s Skepticism

In the debate about Michael Oakeshott’s philosophy there is very little agreement on the theoretical and historical meaning of his skepticism. Starting from the assumption that skepticism is not a fixed theory but a tradition of ideas, this article draws on both published texts and archival materials to contend that Oakeshott developed his thought by confronting himself with, and even merging, different strands of skepticism: the ancient, the modern, as represented by Hobbes and Montaigne, and the idealist, as conceived by F. H. Bradley. The article firstly shows Oakeshott’s awareness of ancient skepticism, even though its impact on his thought is contested and controversial. With regard to modern skepticism, it looks at how Oakeshott defines Hobbes’s skepticism in his “Introduction to Leviathan.” It also examines the relevance of Montaigne to Oakeshott’s image of conversation, his idea of human agency and conception of politics. Finally, the article illustrates the influence of Bradley’s skepticism on Oakeshott’s conception of philosophy and reveals the consistency between Oakeshott’s skepticism and idealism. What emerges is a complex picture, in which Oakeshott’s skepticism is a constellation of elements taken from a variety of sources.     

Dominion of the Spirit over the Flesh: Religion,Gender and Sexual Morality in the German Women's Movement before World War I

This article examines the place of religious values in the thinking of leading figures in the mainstream German women's movement in the period before World War I. Focusing on the debate of sexual morality and abortion within the German League of Women's Associations, it argues that the position taken by these women is best understood as a product of their religious commitments, rather than their political ideas. The article seeks to place these women in the historical context of a particular liberal, Protestant, social and intellectual milieu that flourished in the period before 1914.     

ERNST CASSIRER,MARTIN HEIDEGGER,AND THE LEGACY OF DAVOS

In 1929 Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger participated in a momentous debate in Davos, Switzerland, which is widely held to have marked an important division in twentieth‐century European thought. Peter E. Gordon's recent book, Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos, centers on this debate between these two philosophical adversaries. In his book Gordon examines the background of the debate, the issues that distinguished the respective positions of Cassirer and Heidegger, and the legacy of the debate for later decades. Throughout the work, Gordon concisely portrays the source of disagreement between the two adversaries in terms of a difference between Cassirer's philosophy of spontaneity and Heidegger's philosophy of receptivity, or of “thrownness” (Geworfenheit), into a situation that finite human beings can never hope to master. Although it recognizes that this work provides an important contribution to our understanding of the Davos debate and to twentieth‐century European thought, this review essay subjects Gordon's manner of interpreting the distinction between Cassirer and Heidegger to critical scrutiny. Its purpose is to examine the possibility that important aspects of the debate, which do not conform to the grid imposed by Gordon's interpretation, might have been set aside in the context of his analysis.     

"Sound law and undoubtedly good policy": Roe v. Wade in comparative perspective

This article traces the abortion reform processes in the US, the UK, and Australia to reveal the underlying rhetoric and policy rationales which served to fuel abortion reform. The early abortion legislation in Great Britain, Australia, and Texas is described to lay the groundwork for a discussion on the widespread modification the laws were subject to through medical practice and judicial interpretation. In 1938, a trial judge in Britain carved out a legal loophole to sway a jury to acquit a physician who openly performed an abortion on a 14-year-old rape victim. The judge found that the law neither prohibited abortion absolutely nor permitted unrestricted medical discretion, but rather lay within the two extremes. Before the 1960s, psychiatric subterfuges were used by physicians as justification for performing abortions for "social" reasons, but reform was spearheaded by concerns about rape, incest, and fetal damage (especially after exposure to rubella or thalidomide). Reformers also argued that abortion would reduce poverty, and it soon became clear that all but the poor could obtain safe abortions. Claims were also made that abortion had historically been allowed before quickening. A new consensus grew and was encouraged by physicians who accepted abortion because it furthered social justice. The law struggled to keep up. In Britain a major reform bill was enacted by Parliament. In Australia, the police gave up trying to prosecute doctors as judges interpreted the law in such a way as to render the doctors innocent of wrongdoing, and, in the US, some states adopted liberal laws. The Roe vs. Wade decision in the US, therefore, may have made abortion a constitutional issue through use of the doctrine of privacy, but the other elements of the decision reflected the situation in the UK and Australia. For example, the Row decision relies on the physician-patient relationship to regulate abortion on demand. Also, the decision acknowledges that conflicting rights exist which allow the law to neither prohibit abortion nor leave it entirely unrestricted. In each country, the legislation is centered on the professional competence of the practitioner and on the provision of abortion before quickening. This reliance on a medical decision imbues the abortion debate with a certain ambiguity which is shared by all three countries.     

毛奇龄《古文尚书冤词》探微

《古文尚书》辨伪是清代学术史上的重要课题。清初学者阎若璩作《尚书古文疏证》,判定今本《古文尚书》为伪书,而同时代的学者毛奇龄则作《古文尚书冤词》,极力为《古文尚书》辩护,从而引发了一：场学术公案。《古文尚书》之伪,今日已成定论。《冤词》成为毛氏学术生涯中的败笔,其结论本身已无价值可言。但是他在论辨当中崇实黜虚,纠正了不少辨伪者的错误,从学术史的角度讲,这部表面看起来与辨伪针锋相对的《冤词》,恰恰对《古文尚书》辨伪的深入产生了重要影响。     

Phaedrus’ Cicadas: Patrizi's Dialoghi and vernacular rhetoric

ABSTRACT

In his Dieci dialoghi della retorica (Venice, 1562), Francesco Patrizi analyses the nature of language and the historical developments of oratory, taking part in the debate on this art reinforced by the spread of the Aristotelian Rhetoric. This gave him the opportunity to consider the origins of human social life and explain the traditional rhetorical teaching in an anthropological perspective. He also argued against the civic use of oratory as presented in some contemporary treatises on it, written in the vernacular.     

Moyes,Menzies, and the Vietnam War: New Insights Into the Public Correspondence Between the Prime Minister and the Bishops

In March 1965 a group of Anglican bishops signed an open letter to the prime minister of Australia, Sir Robert Menzies, expressing its concerns about the rapid deterioration of the situation in Vietnam. The letter had been composed by the retired Bishop of Armidale, John Stoward Moyes. The bishops urged Menzies to use his influence with the United States Government to ensure that the possibility of a negotiated settlement of the conflict could be explored to the full. The letter, and the prime minister's public response, thrust John Moyes and his episcopal co‐signatories into the centre of a national debate on Vietnam. Following Menzies's brusque reply, Moyes composed a second and more critical open letter. The prime minister then issued a more detailed response one week before he committed Australian combat troops to the Vietnam War. The initiative taken by Bishop Moyes constituted the first major instance of public debate in Australia concerning the wisdom and morality of the government's policy on Vietnam.     

The Riddle of Paul de Man

The discovery in 1987 of Paul de Man’s pro‐Nazi literary activities in wartime Belgium prompted a debate over the fact that de Man neither publicly declared his collaboration, nor clarified the relationship between his wartime experience and his post‐war work. De Man’s detractors argued that he insidiously hid his past. The evidence of his concealment, they maintained, was his silence and unwavering conviction in his mature work that the meaning of every text contains its opposite. De Man guaranteed the impossibility of knowing the original meanings of his wartime articles. In contrast, de Man’s supporters argued that what appeared to be de Man’s silence masked his life‐long critique of his wartime errors. His heroic analysis, they maintained, was expressed in his post‐war work. In contrast to these interpretations, it is argued that de Man’s silence and post‐war work resulted from his rejection of his former self and the influence of its unacknowledged presence. The unintentional presence of his past caused de Man’s inability to speak openly about his coll aboration and shaped the content of his late work.     

Hidden footnotes: J.A. Smith,R.G. Collingwood and Croce’s conception of history

This article examines the role J.A. Smith played in introducing Croce’s conception of history into British philosophy. In particular, it examines his influence on R.G. Collingwood’s incorporation of the Italian idealist conception of history into his own philosophy. The contentions that Smith was a key popularizer of Italian idealist ideas into Britain and that he helped to shape Collingwood’s intellectual developed is not new. Yet these interrelated topics have not been explored in any great depth. Collingwood’s own reticence over his intellectual debt to Smith, a lack of interest in Smith and an unfamiliarity with his philosophy have all contributed to this neglect. This article seeks to redress this neglect through analysing how Smith nurtured Collingwood’s adoption of a Crocean conception of history. To achieve its aim, this article first analyses Smith’s own reception of Croce’s conception of history. From this, it presents a contextualist analysis of Collingwood’s development of a Crocean conception of history and the role Smith played in its adoption. Finally, this article examines why, despite Smith’s influence over his intellectual development, Collingwood failed to acknowledge the intellectual debt he owed to Smith.     

NAZISM AS A SECULAR RELIGION1

This article examines the implications of Richard Steigmann‐Gall's recent revisionist representation of Nazism as a Christian (Protestant) movement for the increasingly fashionable accounts of Nazism as a secular or political religion. Contrary to Steigmann‐Gall's contention that Protestant Nazism undermines these accounts, I suggest that his portrayal of Nazism as a variant of Protestant millennialism is not necessarily inconsistent with the secular religion approach. A closer look at the so‐called löwith‐Blumenberg debate on secularization indeed reveals that modern utopianisms containing elements of Protestant millennialism are the best candidates for the label of secularized eschatology. That Steigmann‐gall has reached exactly the opposite conclusion is primarily because his conceptual understanding of secular religion is uninformed by the secularization debate. Insofar as Steigmann‐Gall extracts his model of secular religion from contemporary political religion historiography on Nazism, this article points to a larger problem: a disjunction between historians utilizing the concept, on the one hand, and philosophers and social theorists who have shaped it, on the other.     

The Preemptive Power of State Supreme Courts: Adoption of Abortion and Death Penalty Legislation

We offer a theory about public policy adoption that depicts a game between state supreme courts and state policymakers. We hypothesize that court ideological hostility or friendliness operates to discourage or encourage policy enactment, with the likelihood of subsequent court intervention magnifying the relationship. To test the argument we examine the influence of court ideology on the enactment of state abortion and death penalty laws since the 1970s. Empirical analyses provide strong support for our theory, indicating that court ideological hostility or friendliness significantly influenced state abortion and death penalty policy enactments. In addition, the likelihood of court intervention conditioned this relationship, with the most pronounced effect occurring where subsequent court review was mandatory. The findings reveal courts exert important preemptive influence on law without hearing a case. This facet of judicial influence expands the traditional view of actors involved in the policymaking process.