The Dynamics and Interactions Between the President's and the Public's Civil Rights Agendas: A Study in Presidential Leadership and Representation

Past research views presidents as reactive and minor actors in the civilrights policy process. However, that research has focused solely on the latter stages of the policy process. This report views the president's role from an agendasetting perspective. A content analysis reveals that presidents lead public opinion on civil rights, but that the public has little impact on the president's civil rights agenda. The distinction between discretionary and required agenda items explains this asymmetry between the president and the public in civil rights policymaking. A fuller notion of policymaking that includes all stages of the process, from agendasetting to implementation and evaluation, is required to understand the role of the president in civil rights policymaking and leads us to revise the perception that presidents play reactive and minor roles in civil rights policy.     

When Firms Take the Lead in Facilitating Clusters

This paper focuses on the role of lead firms and their efforts to facilitate the development of clusters. Several clusters are known for the location of the lead firms that create and shape them, for example, by increasing their skill base, attracting suppliers and creating entrepreneurial activity. However, the literature suffers from insufficient dialogue on the role of lead firms as facilitators of clusters and on how the developmental differences in clusters affect the facilitation performed, and thus the benefits delivered, by lead firms. A key question then is how does the facilitation by lead firms differ in a top-down cluster from that in a bottom-up cluster? The paper is based on a comparative case study investigating the facilitating role of a lead firm within two clusters: Medicon Valley (top-down) and Mechatronics Cluster Denmark (bottom-up). The main conclusion reached is that lead firms in top-down clusters and in bottom-up clusters contribute with quite similar and overlapping cluster benefits, but the way in which these benefits are delivered differs greatly.     

The Structure and Context of the Urban Growth Coalition

This article examines the perception of local chambers of commerce regarding the urban growth coalition, and compares their observations with those of contemporary urban theorists. The chambers perceive the developmental community as dominated by business groups associated with land-use intensification and by elected officials. The chambers see manufacturing, retail, and service-sector firms as part of a less prominent constellation of developmental actors, and perceive virtually no developmental role for neighborhood or environmental groups.     

FLAGSHIP DEVELOPMENTS AND THE PHYSICAL UPGRADING OF THE POST-SOCIALIST INNER CITY: THE GOLDEN ANGEL PROJECT IN PRAGUE

Over the past few decades many urban leaders have searched for an appropriate policy response to tackle urban decay. Various kinds of flagship projects emerged in many cities as the products of a property‐led approach to the regeneration strategies adopted by local governments in North American and European cities. It was expected that the creation of high‐profile milieux would launch chain reactions which would eventually lead to the regeneration of declining neighbourhoods. The focus of this study lies in the anatomy of physical transformation in an inner city neighbourhood within the context of post‐socialist transition. In particular, the paper discusses the flagship role of the Golden Angel commercial centre in the physical upgrading of the Smíchov district in Prague. The case study contributes to the understanding of complex circumstances and mechanisms of revitalization in the post‐socialist inner city. The empirical material is based on field observations, expert opinions and existing documents. The paper shows that a high‐profile project can be one of the driving forces in physical revitalization through the provision of symbolic power, credibility and appeal to a declining neighbourhood. At the same time, it is emphasize that physical transformation is a multi‐conditional and context‐related process rather than an automatic and straightforward outcome of flagship developments. Successful revitalization depends on a favourable constellation of various factors. On the local level, the key factors include the development potential of the location, the attitude of the local authorities and the commitment of all involved actors.     

L'impérialisme institutionnel et la question de la race chez Aristote

In the wake of the current revival of the historiography of racism, this article focuses on the claim that Aristotle is the progenitor of the concept in the West. If a purely textual analysis of Aristotelian political writings can lead to such a conclusion, the historicising of these writings leads to a different result. Rejecting the idea that the normative function of the work of Aristotle is limited to the Athenian polis, this article demonstrates that the imperial context should serve as an ‘available light’ by which the meaning of certain Aristotelian key concepts, including nature, the ‘divine man’ and the natural slave. In doing so, the central role of prohairesis in Aristotle's conception of human nature is highlighted.     

An der Schwelle zum Atomzeitalter. Die Vorgeschichte der Entdeckung der Kernspaltung im Dezember 1938

On the Threshold of the Atomic Age: The History of the Discovery of Nuclear Fission in December 1938: - Fifty years ago in mid-December 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Chemistry discovered nuclear fission by demonstrating, using chemical methods, the presence of barium in the decay products of neutron-irradiated uranium. This essay points out the constellation of conditions and prerequisites (Historischer Erfahrungsraum/“historical field of experience”) which led to the discovery of nuclear fission, and was constituted by specific components (“presentabilia”) both internal and external to science in general and to atomic research in particular. A decisive role was played by the constellation of the three members of the Berlin team and their personal situations under the political conditions of the 1930s. Further “presentabilia” were the institutional, instrumental and disciplinary conditions under which the team worked and the methods available to the individual members of the team. It was very important that some of the “presentabilia” were “not-present” to the members of the team. In particular, after Meitner's departure from Berlin Hahn and Strassmann had no access to methods and tools for proving the presence of alpha rays; nothing was known of the existence of actinides; no cyclotron or other source of neutrons more productive than those already in use in Berlin, Paris and Rome was available; it was very important that Strassmann and Hahn were not convinced of the strong validity of the resonance process induced by thermal neutrons; etc.     

On the difficulties of speaking out against security

Abstract: This article outlines an approach to security that explains its phenomenal growth by examining a peculiarity of its semantic field. In contrast to notions like ‘war’ and ‘violence’, whose antonyms, ‘peace’ and ‘non‐violence’, have positive connotations and are therefore well suited to discursively opposing ‘war’ and ‘violence’, the antonym of ‘security’ ‘ namely ‘insecurity’ ‘ does not achieve the same effect. I suggest that this peculiarity leads to situations in which those in the political field who oppose ‘security’ find themselves in the predicament of having to come up with alternative antonymic constructions such as ‘security vs freedom’ or ‘security vs human rights’ to argue their case. Yet, this produces an asymmetric constellation: while ‘security’ tends to be presented as a self‐evident category, most of its opposites require more explication and substantiation when they are used to denaturalize security. Thus, my argument is that it is difficult to speak out against security without becoming enmeshed in complex questions of what a desirable social life should look like.     

The morphology of dayside Birkeland currents

Intense (10⁵ A) electric currents flow into and from the Earth's two polar ionospheres near magnetic noon. These currents, called Birkeland or magnetic field-aligned currents, are the agent by which momentum couples from the flowing solar wind plasma to drive plasma motions in the high latitude ionosphere. Coupling is strongest when the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) has a southward component and when this occurs there exist two principal regions of Birkeland current near magnetic noon called the region 1 and the cusp systems. We present a simple model bringing theoretical order to the many patterns proposed previously for the morphology of these dayside Birkeland currents as observed by orbiting satellites in the topside polar ionosphere. Specifically we show that the cusp Birkeland current system is not a latitudinally separate region but is instead the extension in longitude of the region 1 Birkeland current from either dawn or dusk; which particular one depends on the sign of the east-west (Y) component of the IMF. The presence of an IMF Y-component therefore leads to two region 1 current systems near magnetic noon, with the poleward one being that previously called the ‘cusp’ system.     

The rise and fall of the NPT: an opportunity for Britain

Long seen as an unexpectedly successful example of international cooperation, the NPT is now like a wisdom tooth that is rotten at its root and the abscess is poisoning the international body politic. The price for agreement to the substance of the treaty was the inclusion of Article 6, which committed the Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons. With the strategic arms race underway, in 1968 the NWS saw Article 6 as an empty aspiration; 25 years later it had acquired a whole new significance. The first half of the 1990s was a period of constructive optimism as non-signatories hastened to sign the treaty and the non-nuclear weapon states were persuaded to agree to its indefinite extension. The second half brought disillusionment as it became increasingly clear that the NWS had no intention of meeting their Article 6 obligations or the promises made at the five-yearly review conferences (1995, 2000, 2005), and that Washington was set on developing useable nukes for pre-emptive prevention. The bad faith and double standards fuelled wide-spread resentment (particularly in the Non-Aligned Movement) and contributed to the post-9/11 image of the 'The West against the Rest', a corrosive concept that is reinforced by US rhetoric. Rather than 'cooperative security', America is explicitly set on global military supremacy, which will evoke countervailing power and inevitably lead to nuclear arms racing and the renewed danger of inadvertent nuclear war. The likely long- and short-term consequences of the present situation require a fundamental response involving a major policy initiative. Only Britain is in a position to take such an initiative, but it will require us to withdraw from our self-appointed role of 'loyal vassal' to America and to adopt a role that has the potential of being not only more important and influential, but also more appropriate to our history, capabilities and talents.     

蒙元时期的酿酒锅与蒸馏乳酒技术

一2004年春夏之交,北京中华世纪坛艺术馆与内蒙古自治区博物馆联合举办成吉思汗——中国古代北方草原游牧文化大展,其中的一件展品铜酿酒锅(图一)引起了笔者的兴趣。后来有机会在内蒙古博物馆同仁的帮助下,仔细观察了这件酿酒锅。     

TO THE PLANETARIUM—THERE IS STILL TIME!

This review essay examines James McFarland's Constellation: Friedrich Nietzsche and Walter Benjamin in the Now‐Time of History, which stages a comparative reading of the two thinkers’ works and argues that they shared a resistance to the conventions of nineteenth‐century historicism as well as a desire to attend not to causation as a force in history but rather to the importance of each individual “present.” Benjamin's term “dialectics at a standstill” is a formulation only a reader of Nietzsche could have produced, as McFarland ably demonstrates. This review essay also delves into Benjamin's own use of the “constellation” motif, identifying complexities McFarland leaves out of his account. Influenced by Nietzsche's own uses of astronomical and astrological motifs, Benjamin employed the image of the constellation as a symbol not only for temporality (say, of the time it takes for starlight to reach our planet). He also used it to examine our transforming relationship with the cosmos and with nature most broadly, and, in the famous “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” he used it as a figure for the proper relationship historians should establish between their own period and the past; this is what yields an understanding of the present moment as the Jetztzeit, the “time of the now” enjoying its own dignity beyond any causal relationship with the future it may have. However, and as this review essay suggests, Benjamin's uses of the constellation image, and of images of stars, telescopes, and planetariums more generally, were highly ambivalent. They can serve as indices of his shifting views of modernity and of his desire that modern experience, seemingly condemned to alienation, might be redeemed.     

HISTORY AND KAIRÓS

The recent wave of interest in the “theological‐political” has focused scholarly attention on the constellation of ideas associated with “messianic time.” The term kairós belongs to this constellation, and Giacomo Marramao's brief but ambitious text of the same name both proposes and performs a “kairological” reconfiguration of the close relationship between philosophy and time. Marramao's argument for the productive potential of “cosmic disorientation” and contingency will merit the attention of historians interested in Benjamin's blend of messianism and historical materialism, and of anyone who is intrigued by the prospect of a messianism without apocalypticism.     

Bringing hegemony back in: the United States and international order

Hegemony suffers from a bad press. It is currently used to refer simply to United States primacy. Thus presented, the US is considered to have been hegemonic since 1945, or at least since 1990. Instead, hegemony is presented here as a legitimate institution of international society in which special rights and responsibilities are conferred on the hegemon. No such hegemony exists at present. However, given today's constellation of power, a circumscribed US hegemony potentially has a distinctive contribution to make to contemporary international order. To map out such a hegemonic institution, this article reviews some historical precedents. It finds that, rather than uniform, these have taken a variety of forms, especially with respect to the scope of the legitimacy and constituency within which they have operated. A scheme of hegemonies—singular, collective and coalitional—is set out as a more realistic way of thinking about hegemony's present potential.     

Explaining Governance in Five Mega-City Regions: Rethinking the Role of Hierarchy and Government

With the fundamental rescaling of socio-economic relationships, the mega-city region (MCR) has emerged as an important geographical space for governance. At the same time it is highly fragmented institutionally, making it difficult to overcome collective action problems such as providing regional public transport and protecting open spaces. In practice, different arrangements are employed to address these problems, including hierarchical approaches, competitive self-coordination and joint decision-making. Drawing on experiences in five MCRs in Europe and the US, the relative use and success of these approaches was investigated. The analysis suggests that the composition of the actor constellation (e.g. the number and kind of parties involved) and local political support proved to be important factors in explaining the performance of a particular governance approach. In addition, the findings provide a new appreciation for the role of the state, particularly the national government, in governing MCRs.     

PARALLELS AND DIVERGENCES BETWEEN WARLPIRI SIGN LANGUAGE AND SPOKEN WARLPIRI: ANALYSES OF SIGNED AND SPOKEN DISCOURSES

Among the Warlpiri, as among other central Australian Aborigines, older women use a complex sign language as an alternative to speech when, for ritual reasons, as in mourning, silence must be observed. As part of a study of the relationship between this sign language and spoken Warlpiri, a comparison is undertaken between a signed version and a spoken version of two traditional narratives, each told by the same woman out recorded on separate occasions. It is found that signs are ordered in the same way within signed discourse as are words in spoken discourse and a comparison between discourse units in the two versions dealing with the same content shows a close correspondence between the words and signs used; complex lexical items, such as preverb-verb formations in the spoken language are commonly matched by compound signs that correspond to the morphological structure of the spoken form. However, only lexical morphemes are represented in sign. Markers of case relations, tense, and cliticized pronouns are not signed. The findings are interpreted as supporting the view that these alternate sign languages, unlike sign language of the deaf, are not fully autonomous systems but are built up as gestural representations of the semantic units provided by the spoken language.     

The behaviour of lead as a corrosion resistant medium undersea and in soils

Lead is a highly corrosion resistant metal in some environments and an attempt has been made to show its strength and weakness under long-term corrosion in land and marine conditions by means of examples taken from archaeological contexts. Some analyses and thicknesses are given of the corrosion films found on them. The importance of fine grain size and the role of certain impurities in obtaining this may be one reason why the older leads are often more resistant than modern leads.     

Langage et géométrie

A semantic study of the use of French spatial prepositions (dans, sur, sous, etc.) leads to the two following results: it is not possible, in a referentialist approach, to simply characterize the meanings of these prepositions as geometrical relations in physical space; on the other hand, it is possible to characterize their meanings as simple topological relations on a «verbal scene» built by language itself. It can be concluded that topology plays an essential structuring role in the cognitive mechanisms operating in language activity.     

Metamorphoses of the early medieval signum of a ruler in the Carolingian world

This article uses the approach of diplomatic semiotics to explore early medieval signs of authority in charters and on coins, especially the monogram and the sign of the cross used as an individual ‘signature’. Coins and charters used these signs communicating royal or imperial authority differently, addressing diverse regional and social audiences. From the fifth through the ninth centuries, the early medieval signum of a ruler gradually transformed from the individualizing sign of a particular monarch, designed to differentiate him symbolically from other rulers, to the generalizing sign of the king by the grace of God, which as a visual attribute of authority could be shared by several rulers. This transformation signified the inauguration of a new ‘medieval’ tradition in the communication of authority in late Carolingian times.