Campaign Finance Reform and the 1994 Congressional Elections

Based on partisan arguments regarding the likely effect of campaign finance reform on electoral competition, one might suspect that, had spending limits been in place prior to the 1994 midterm elections, Republicans would not have been able to gain control of the House of Representatives. To examine this proposition, we first create a regression model designed to explain the Democratic percentage of the vote as a function of candidate spending, incumbency, nonincumbent candidate quality, and the underlying partisan leanings of the congressional districts. We then use this regression model to simulate the likely effects of campaign finance reform on the outcome of the 1994 midterm elections. Our results indicate that while spending limits would have limited the number of seats gained by the Republican party, Republicans likely would have gained control of the House of Representatives even if spending limits had been in place prior to the 1994 elections. In addition, our results indicate that campaign finance reform that includes some form of public subsidy in addition to spending limits actually may have enhanced rather than diminished the Republican "earthquake" in 1994.     

Relegating Nazism to the Past: Expressions of German Guilt in 1945 and Beyond

This article builds on a research thesis that confronting moralfeelings is essential to an understanding of the catastrophicpolitical success of Nazism in Germany and the way Germany developedafter its defeat in 1945. This research into a ‘moralhistory’ of Nazi Germany and its postwar echoes is carriedout through an interdisciplinary approach that, in essence,combines historical with philosophical analysis. In the immediatepostwar period, Germany continued to be stamped by discussionscentred on moral guilt arising from its Nazi past and from theHolocaust in particular. The article analyses the differentways this guilt was discussed in 1945 and how these discussionsechoed what can be described as a form of Nazi morality. Thearticle uses three main sources to explore these issues: first,the writings and interrogations with the Nazi lawyer and Governor-Generalof Nazi-occupied Poland, Hans Frank; second, the memoirs ofHitler's secretary Traudl Junge; and third, the essay The Questionof German Guilt by Karl Jaspers.     

“Loyalty” in National Socialism: A contribution to the moral history of the National Socialist period

This article is based on the assumption that core concepts of National Socialism—different from Marxism—turn not on economic, but on moral concepts, or categories heavily related to such concepts as honour, loyalty, decency and comradeship. The article investigates National Socialism from the standpoint of moral judgments, and turns this investigation into part of a moral history. It further is concerned with the continuing impact of National Socialism beyond the military, political and ideological defeat of 1945; the moral historical approach can show how this influence continues at a level hitherto relatively unexamined. The moral history of National Socialism involves more than a shift of perspective. It opens up a specific, barely explored, field of research. This draws upon a variety of sources, especially films (Hotel Sacher—1939 and Downfall—2004 are discussed). The examination is directed to the concept of loyalty within this framework; it is a concept of virtue, which is moreover suited to illuminate some aspects of the functioning of Nazi morality, and its subsequent influence.     

The Discovery of Motor Cortex and its Background

In 1870 Gustav Fritsch and Edvard Hitzig showed that electrical stimulation of the cerebral cortex of a dog produced movements. This was a crucial event in the development of modern neuroscience because it was the first good experimental evidence for a) cerebral cortex involvement in motor function, b) the electrical excitability of the cortex, c) topographic representation in the brain, and d) localization of function in different regions of the cerebral cortex. This paper discusses their experiment and some developments in the previous two centuries that led to it including the ideas of Thomas Willis and Emanuel Swedenborg, the widespread interest in electricity and the localizations of function of Franz Joseph Gall, John Hughlings Jackson, and Paul Broca. We also consider the subsequent study of the motor cortex by David Ferrier and others.     

Dialectics in the forest

Janet Siskind. To Hunt in the Morning. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. 214 pp. Figures, tables, appendix, and index. $6.95.