State Sciences and Development Histories: Encoding Local Forestry Knowledge in Bengal

Informed by debates on development discourse, local knowledge, and the history of colonial conservation, this article argues for a careful historical investigation of the manner in which scientific managerial knowledge emerges in the field of forestry. It makes its case by focusing on the specific period in the history of Bengal (1893–1937) when scientific forestry was formalized and institutionalized. The processes and conflicts through which local knowledge gets encoded as scientific canon have to be understood to generate effective managerial devolution in participatory projects. This requires an engagement with public understandings of science as practice that arises from a dynamic critique of static, and undifferentiated, notions of development discourse or local knowledge.     

The State of American Political Science

Ada W. Finifter (ed.), Political Science: The State of the Discipline, Washington D.C.: American Political Science Assocaition, 1983.     

The Political Economy of State Subsidies in Europe

In this article, I examine the reasons behind public aid to industry in 12 European countries during the period 199–93. 1 build a model based on societal demands for producer subsidies and the wiliingness and constraints of national governments to provide them. The main contribution of this study is the attention to the institutional context within which demand for and supply of public policy takes place. Institutions not only help shape actor preferences to extract "rents" but also fundamentally condition the level and distribution of subsidies.     

State Political Culture and Welfare Reform

I investigate the link between the general features of state governments and their ability to reform welfare. The best indicator of governments' characteristics is Elazar's political cultures. I define what successful welfare reform means, drawing on implementation research and experience. My criteria stress process, the avoidance of political and administrative problems. I then test the link between the Elazar cultures and successful reform using recent case studies of state implementation of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Elazar's "moralistic" states perform best, and the association holds, even controlling for other influences. Results depend, however, on how welfare reform is defined.     

"跨区域研究"的区域社会史--"区域社会史比较研究"中青年学者学术讨论会综述

2004年8月16日至18日,由中国人民大学清史研究所、山西大学中国社会史研究中心共同举办的“区域社会史比较研究”中青年学者学术讨论会在山西大学召开。包括中国、英国、加拿大以及香港和台湾地区的20余名学者参加了会议,共提交论文26篇。会议期间与会学者进行了广泛的学科对话,展开了热烈的学术讨论与争鸣。20世纪90年代,区域社会史逐渐成为中国社会史研究的一个潮流,形成了“百花齐放,百家争鸣”的局面。如何跨越各自研究的区域,进行比较研究,开展研究理论、方法的对话与交流,并在此基础上进行深刻的理论反思,从而进一步推进中国社会史研…     

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.     

明代州县官吏设置与州县政治体制

明代州县官吏的设置在典章制度中有明确的规定。但详上略下、言尊弃卑的缺陷．对州县官多是语焉不详．州县官以下的官吏．更是不屑一顾的。州县政治体制中,州县官及州县官以下的吏也是不容忽视的。这些官吏按职权利责．可分为六个等级．这个等级不但与州县行政体系有关,还关系到州县政治的运营机制。     

Cunning Histories: Privileging Narratives in the Present

Examining contemporary British witchcraft necessitates representing its historical context, currently a highly contested arena. Both magical practitioners and scholars have heavily critiqued the “orthodox” histories of unbroken lines of tradition reaching back to the distant past that were prevalent in the early to mid‐twentieth century. However, continuities of knowledge and skills based on the practices of rural cunning folk and folk magic continue to be mobilized by some practitioners as a way of connecting to ideas about the past, a narrative that is also critiqued by others. What is at stake is not only the conflicting foundational histories for contemporary witchcraft, but the ways in which the same textual and material evidence is deployed to substantiate competing accounts: they hinge on the ways evidence is contextualized. Interrogating “context” is not limited to the histories we aim to represent, but is embedded within anthropological writing and knowledge.     

Contemporary Histories of the Conflict in Solomon Islands

Happy Isles in Crisis. The historical causes for a failing state in Solomon Islands 1998–2004. Australian National University, Canberra: Asia Pacific Press 2004. Pp: xi + 265. By Clive Moore . Price A$35 The Manipulation of Custom. From Uprising to Intervention in the Solomon Islands Australian National University, Canberra: Pandanus Books RSPAS 2004. Pp: 262. By Jon Fraenkel . Price: $34.95     

Political Economies of Predynastic Egypt and the Formation of the Early State

Considered one of the world’s earliest examples of a pristine state, the ancient Egyptian state arose by ca. 3000 BC. State formation in Egypt became a focus of much research in the 1970s and 1980s, as investigations of the Predynastic period in Egypt, when complex society arose there, began to uncover new evidence of the indigenous roots of this phenomenon. More recently, archaeological investigations in the Delta as well as continued work in southern Egypt have provided new evidence for the changes that took place in the fourth millennium BC. But the specific events and processes involved in this major sociopolitical and economic transformation and the resultant state still remain incompletely understood. To better understand the problem in Egypt, this study looks at the contrasting polities in fourth millennium BC Egypt and Nubia from the perspective of the political economy and the strategies to power proposed by the dual-processual theory, which also helps elucidate processes of state formation and the type of early state that developed there. The territorial expansionist model helps explain where and when this state first emerged.     

Political and Socioeconomic Indicators of State Restrictiveness Toward Abortion

We compare the relative impacts of political and socioeconomic factors on state restrictiveness toward abortion during the pre-Roe, pre-Webster and post-Webster time frames. This analysis tests the value of cycle theory, where shifting epochs dominated by liberalism and conservatism enhance the role of political variables in shaping policy formation. It also tests the explanatory value of public opinion theory which holds that bimodal issues which cut across party lines accentuate the role of socioeconomic variables in shaping issue evolution. The results of this analysis lend support to cycle theory and public opinion theory, although public opinion theory receives stronger support. When socioeconomic independent variables are regressed against our dichotomous measures of state restrictiveness toward abortion, they explain more variance than political independent variables. Political variables were more important in the conservative era (1989) than in the liberal era (1972).     

The State of Research on Gender and Political Participation

Woodrow Wilson declared the early Gilded Age to be a time of Congressional Government, when the legislature “reigned supreme” and was the federal polity's “motivating force.” Yet that same Congress, and era, have been immortalized pejoratively as bastions of corruption; of politicos, spoils–and, most especially, of omnipotently evil lobbyists. This essay argues that both lobbying and the notoriety it aroused in the Grant years were essentially by-products of systemic change. Corruption did exist, but much of what contemporaries saw as illicit was merely new; neither Washington nor the polity as a whole had yet devised mechanisms, or even language, appropriate to emerging conditions. In fact, lobbying was a necessary and even beneficial force in post-Civil War America, one that actually helped officials and citizens to function as the scope, procedures, and agenda of governance underwent dramatic transformation.     

明朝公祭文文本的政治文化内涵

祭文是祭祀仪式过程中使用的祝祷性文字。明代史籍中保存了大量国家公祭文,按内容可分为常规性祭文与临时性祭文两类。祭文在公祭仪式中被宣读、呈案、焚烧或掩埋,此为祭祀过程的重要环节之一。公祭文文本传递出重要的文化内涵：首先,它以言辞形式传达出祭祀主体之意图,沟通了人神关系;其次,对祭祀主体之身份和统治之正统合法性进行反复强化;再次,表达祈福弥灾,规约官民,震慑鬼类的意图。此外,祭祀文中的各种对象关系展现出时人复杂而微妙的天、神,君、臣、人、鬼观。在祭祀仪式上使用祭文使上述内涵得到彰显,进而增强了群体意识中的“神圣”体悟。