A Review of “Congressional Parties,Institutional Ambition,and the Financing of Majority Control”

Abstract

Presidential libraries hold a bounty of archival records, which is why National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) responses to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests constitute a vital data source. However, standard protocols impose an inferential dilemma: researchers get the released sample without much information about the broader population, making it impossible to appraise the former relative to the latter. Drawing on a large FOIA request (and successful appeal) from the George W. Bush Presidential Library, this study affords such a test. Results show NARA archivists typically withheld outwardly unimportant records—e.g., weekends, holidays, and other uneventful days—though “response set” may have occasionally affected their redact-or-withhold decisions. After demonstrating how even seemingly innocuous omissions can bias estimates of presidential behavior, the study concludes with practical advice for researchers submitting FOIA requests to presidential libraries.     

Comment

Abstract

This article examines the attempt to modernize the Italian system of education which is being made by the present government. This policy should be seen in the framework of the general attempt to meet the requirements imposed by the European Union on its members (the Maastricht treaty), and more generally to meet the European need for homogeneity among systems of education, matching the Europe‐wide labour market already in place. In the past, the Italian system of education missed a number of opportunities to keep up with the changing experiments in other European countries (especially at post‐secondary and university levels); therefore the amount of change required is now substantial. The measures taken by the Minister of Education (who is also Minister of Universities and Scientific Research) attempt to decentralize the decision‐making process, give more autonomy to individual institutes, and leave the central public administration (the ministries) the roles of coordination and evaluation. This model has been followed by the majority of European countries. Its impact on the not so dynamic Italian system of education will produce interesting debates and confrontations.     

Articulating national identity in Turkmenistan: inventing tradition through myth,cult and language

A study of myth, cult, and language as tools of state power, this paper analyzes ways national identity was constructed and articulated in one state. When Türkmenistan became independent in 1991 its first president, Saparmyrat Nyýazow, promoted himself as the ‘savior’ of the nation by reconceptualising what it meant to be Türkmen. Myth, public texts and language policy were used to construct this identity. While they were the targets of the state's cultural products, Türkmen citizens contributed to the processes of cultural production. Nyýazow legitimised his authoritarian leadership, first by co‐opting Türkmen citizens to support his regime, and then by coercing them as participants in his personality cult. The paper concludes that Nyýazow used the production of culture, ‘invented tradition’ in Hobsbawm's sense, to bolster his agenda and further his own power. It also argues that the exaggerated cult of personality Nyýazow cultivated limited his achievements, rather than solidifying them.