Technoscience,Neuroscience, and the Subject of Politics

Although narrative models have been employed for quite some time in historiography, in sociology, and in certain psychoanalytic theories, the tendency towards narrativization has also become more dominant in reference to the positive sciences. This article presents two postmodern versions of the narrative dissolution of certain modern scientific-metaphysical concepts in the wake of the establishment of technoscience and neuroscience: Vattimo's Heideggerian account of technoscience as immanent pluralization of worlds, and Dennett's cognitivist account of the emergence of the plural self. Both claim not only that former central agencies like the Cartesian cogito can be dismissed as metaphysical but that narrative pluralization entails an (at least implicit) endorsement of liberal democracy as the only viable political model today. Employing arguments put forth by ?i?ek and Malabou, some of the deficiencies of this affirmative short circuit of technoscience/neuroscience with liberal-democratic politics will be examined.     

“Brain Drain” or “Brain Gain”? Students’ Loyalty to their Student Town: Field Evidence from Norway

In the global economy regions fight a two-front “war” to attract young people. On the one hand, they compete against more urban areas because young people leave home to study and do not return to their home region (“brain drain”). On the other hand, they struggle to attract new residents, students and entrepreneurs to their local region (“brain gain”). The context is a student town of a strong industrial region characterized by a net export of young people and an increasing demand for highly qualified labour. The purpose is to gain insight into how student loyalty to a student town may be enhanced. A partial least square path modelling approach is used to estimate a structural equation model of student town loyalty. One finding is that the creation of student town satisfaction has more influence on student town loyalty than reputation building. “Social activity” is the most important loyalty driver. This antecedent is mediated through student town satisfaction and reputation, as well as university college reputation. The town municipalities and the university college should thus be coordinated in their effort to increase student town loyalty to bring down the “brain drain” and increase the “brain gain” in the region.     

The emergence of agropastoralism: Accelerated ecocultural change on the Andean altiplano, ∼3540–3120 cal BP

In the fourth millennium BP, there were major environmental and cultural changes on the Andean altiplano of South America, but the chronology remains vague. A recent synthesis describes a slow, gradual transition from hunting and gathering to agropastoralism. This proposal is tested by refining the date of the onset of more humid and stable conditions, around 3550 cal BP, based on a Bayesian model of 26 dates from Lake Wiñaymarka and an updated calculation of the lacustrine offset. This is compared to Bayesian models of 191 dates from 20 archaeological sites, which incorporate a number of recently processed radiocarbon dates. A synthesis is presented of 15 full coverage surveys, a summed probability distribution, and a Bayesian model of the transition to ceramics, which together support a scenario of a very rapid demographic increase. Fourteen models from archaeological sites are cross-referenced in a composite model, which identifies a brief, altiplano-wide emergence of agropastoralism with starting and ending boundaries of 3540 and 3120 cal BP, respectively. This starting boundary correlates strongly with the onset of improving environmental conditions, indicating synchronous cultural and environmental change. The suite of accelerating cultural changes included a marked reduction in mobility, a demographic surge, increased subsistence diversity, the adoption of ceramics, farming and the integration of camelid herding into a remarkably resilient economic strategy still in use today. This is a highly relevant but yet to be used comparative case study for the variable tempos of ‘big histories’, and ecocultural interactions that generate rapid, emergent episodes of wide-spread and enduring cultural change.     

Congress and Back Seat Driving

Few pieces of legislation in the realm of foreign policy decisionmaking have greater potential effect or are more controversial than the War Powers Resolution. The Resolution was intended originally to create greater leverage for Congress over executive use of military force. In this effort, it is widely believed that the Resolution has been ineffective. This paper uses an information theoretic model to examine the War Powers Resolution. Results of the modeling process allow for two general assertions. First, the model suggests that the Resolution is an optimal choice of procedure by the legislature. In other words, the War Powers Resolution is better for Congress than its alternatives. Second, the information theoretic approach used here seems to coincide with an anecdotal history of the war powers debate better than do alternative explanations. Indeed, the analysis helps to explain why war powers legislation was not considered seriously sooner. Though criticism of the War Powers Resolution has its merits, claims for a variety of alternative procedural systems may be open to challenge. Those wishing to establish mechanisms for curtailing executive adventurism abroad may find it more rewarding to focus efforts on the budgeting process or on the reduction of military force structures.