THE EARLY STATE MODULE: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT

The Early State Module model predicts specific, archaeologically testable, spatial attributes for early states. Further, it suggests that social complexity develops as a result of interaction between equal-sized polities, and that degree of complexity and territorial size are related. The spatial patterns of some early states presented to support the ESM model are tested statistically and are found not to satisfy the predictions of the model. Case studies of non-state and state societies indicate that the spatial attributes of ESMs are not unique to early states, that interaction does not always lead to state formation, and that territorial size and complexity are not necessarily directly related.     

VALUES DUALISM AND SOCIAL POLICY AFFECTING THE ELDERLY*

The impact of American values on social policy for and affecting older people is a little explored and complex area. A conceptual framework is developed which reveals the dual and often contradictory nature of the American value system. This framework sets forth the interrelationships of fundamental value-laden issues such as adequacy/equity, work/leisure and religious/secular.     

CRITICAL THEORY AND PUBLIC POLICY

In the confines of the study of politics, public policy analysis involves a shift from pure to applied research, a shift which intensifies the problem of the fact-value split inherited from positivist behavioralism. While early public policy literature concentrated on empirical policy-making processes bypassing moral criteria, some recent writings have elaborated on policymaking and policy evaluation as a type of normative inquiry; significant steps in this direction have been undertaken by Duncan MacRae and especially by Jurgen Habermas in the context of “critical theory.” According to Habermas, policy evaluation requires a critically reflective “practical discourse” open not only to experts or policy analysts but to the public at large. The paper argues that such discourse is a valuable remedy against the technical-instrumental bent of applied science, but that recovery of a fully non-instrumental “practical” judgement presupposes an evaluation not only of concrete policies but of the status of “policy” itself.     

ECONOMIC RIGHTS AND THE WELFARE STATE: THE QUEST FOR POLICY INTEGRITY

Leslie Dunbar. 1988. The Common Interest: How Our Social Welfare Policies Don't Work and What We Can Do About Them
Charles Lockhart. 1989. Gaining Ground: Tailoring Social Programs to American Values     

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.     

NATIONAL IDENTITY IN THE VANQUISHED STATE: GERMAN AND JAPANESE POSTWAR HISTORIOGRAPHY FROM A TRANSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

The defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945 required historians in both countries to reevaluate the past to make sense of national catastrophe. Sebastian Conrad's The Quest for the Lost Nation analyzes this process comparatively in the context of allied military occupation and the Cold War to reveal how historians in both countries coped with a discredited national history and gradually salvaged a national identity. He pays special attention to the role of social, discursive, and transnational contexts that shaped this process to highlight the different courses that the politics of the past took in postwar Germany and Japan. The picture that emerges of German and Japanese historiography and the respective attempts to come to terms with the past is at odds with the conventional narrative that usually praises West German historians and society for having come to terms with their dark past, as opposed to postwar Japan, which is usually regarded as having fallen short by comparison. There was in fact far more critical historiographical engagement with the past in Japan than in West Germany in the 1950s. Reasons for the divergent evolution of the politics of the past in Germany and Japan should not be sought in the peculiarities of postwar national history but rather in an entangled transnational context of defeat, occupation, and the Cold War, whose effects played out differently in each country. These conclusions and others reveal some of the opportunities and special challenges of comparative transnational history.     

AMERICAN POLICY FOR HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: A COMPARATIVE EXAMINATION

The United States and the major northern European countries all have developed a variety of strategies for governmental intervention in housing and urban development. These include rent supplements, subsidized mortgages, incentives to homeownership, land clearance, and construction and management of housing by public authorities. Despite similarities in the types of programs offered, the countries vary markedly in levels of public expenditure, consistency of policy, and institutional structure of the housing market. Differences in housing policies and institutions produce different outcomes. Settlement patterns, housing costs, level of home-ownership, and availability of housing for different income groups can be traced to these varying contexts for housing investment. Explanation of national differences lies in the differing organization of economic interests through the respective political systems.