History Commons^™

The Political And Legal Uses Of Scripture, James W. Watts

James Watts

No abstract provided.

The Reactionary Road To Free Love: How Doma, State Marriage Amendments And Social Conservatives Undermine Traditional Marriage, Scott Titshaw

Scott Titshaw

Much has been written about the possible effects on different-sex marriage of legally recognizing same-sex marriage. This article looks at the defense of marriage from a different angle: It shows how rejecting same-sex marriage results in political compromise and the proliferation of “marriage light” alternatives (e.g., civil unions, domestic partnerships, or reciprocal beneficiaries) that undermine the unique status of marriage for everyone. In the process, it examines several aspects of the marriage debate in detail. After describing the flexibility of marriage as it has evolved over time, the article focuses on recent state constitutional amendments attempting to stop further development. …

В Номере 19 Газеты «Академия» (26.05. 2012) Опубликован Документальный Очерк Доктора Истори- Ческих Наук, Профессора Ргэу (Ринх) Л.Г. Берлявского О Малоизвестных Страницах Истории Отечественной Науки «Эрнест Кольман: Мы Не Должны Были Так Жить». В Редакцию Продолжают Поступать Отклики На Эту Публикацию, Leonid G. Berlyavskiy

Leonid G. Berlyavskiy

Comments by experts as for person and activities of E.Kolman

Beyond Anti-Semitism, Rebecca Gould

Rebecca Gould

Focusing on internal contradictions within the Israeli left, this essay considers the impact of the historical legacy of anti-Semitism on everyday thinking about Israel and the Palestinian territories. Contesting the view that to criticize Israel is to engage in anti-Semitic defamation, it offers an historical account of how Israel's actions in the West Bank have come to be immunized from conscientious criticism. It also documents how progressive media outlets in contemporary Israel have silenced or otherwise marginalized Israel's most active critics.

Revolution In Political Affairs, Dylan Kissane

Dylan Kissane

Extract:

"Recognising the marked impact of the internet on both practical politics and the practices of political scientists, it is not too large a step to paraphrase the US Department of Defence and decree the internet a Revolution in Political Affairs. Akin to its military phrase mate, the internet is effecting all areas of political discourse, exchange and public policy while, at the same time, forcing those who study and theorise politics to change their existing ways of thinking, working and imagining their chosen field..."

Politics And Conflicts In Ebiraland, Nigeria: The Need For A Centralised Leadership Since 1917, Mohammed S. Audu (Phd)

Mohammed S Audu (PhD)

The Term Ebira is synonymous with behaviour and character. It may either be good or bad. The Latent and manifest meaning of Ebira is good behavior, according to Yaqub (1999), the Ebira person was known to be hospitable, loving, caring, responsible, lawful, resourceful etc. The decay in the people’s social, political behaviour in recent time has put them at a crossroad, thus, demeaning its name Ebira (good character). The legacies of ideal virtues bequeathed to the people by their forefathers have been eroded by lack of dedication, commitment and centralized command structure which is the crux of the paper.

The Incredible Shrinking Pancasila: Nationalist Propaganda And The Missing Ideological Legacy Of Suharto, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Although President Suharto dominated Indonesian politics for more than three decades, and although Indonesians spent millions of hours under his regime mastering the principles of the national ideology, Pancasila, remarkable little remains of his ideological legacy.

Endless Night, Ashok Agrwaal

Ashok Agrwaal

A provocative take on the Palestine-Israel conundrum. I argue that while one's heart reaches out to the Palestinians, both they and the Jews are victims of Christianity-Europe. I also argue that notwithstanding Martin Neimuller, if one rejects globalisation one should consciously refrain from taking emotional sides/ positions in this conflict.

Remapping A Nation Without States: Personalized Full Representation For California’S 21st Century, Mark Paul, Micah Weinberg

Mark Paul

California is a state of many distinct regions. To give citizens a voice on regional issues and to reinvigorate California’s Legislature, the state’s central institution of self-government, we propose Personalized Full Representation for the 21st Century (PFR21), a system of representation by means of regionally based legislative elections that will allow the state’s citizens to set the agenda for their regions and for the state as a whole. By reshaping the stage on which legisla- tive politics is played out, California can make state govern- ment more attentive to regional issues and give its citizens a means of holding elected …

Circles Of Esteem, Standard Works, And Euphoric Couplets: Dynamics Of Academic Life In Indonesian Studies, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Indonesian Studies as a field is strongly influenced by its own social character as a community of competing and cooperating scholars. Outside individual universities, the dominant social form is not the powerful professor, but rather the “circle of esteem,” a cluster of scholars who respect each other, cite each other’s work, push each other’s ideas into the academic marketplace, and, occasionally, rise to each other’s defense. Circles of esteem arise because academic work has less to do with the industrial production of knowledge than with a constant search for novelty, which may arise from new sources or new uses of …

Environmentalism In Indonesian Politics, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Environmential politics emerged in Indonesia during the autheoritarian Suharto era. Rather than being a reaction to Suharto's predatory approach to the environment, many environmental policies were closely tied to the managerial, technocratic and campaign-oriented approach of the New Order.

"What's In A Name? Aryans, Dravidians, And Other Myths Of Sri Lankan Identity", Arjun Guneratne

Arjun Guneratne

Reprinted in Kamala Visweswaran, ed., Perspectives on modern South Asia: a reader in culture, history, and representation. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011

Rights Of Inequality: Rawlsian Justice, Equal Opportunity, And The Status Of The Family, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Is the family subject to principles of justice? In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls includes the (monogamous) family along with the market and the government as among the "basic institutions of society" to which principles of justice apply. Justice, he famously insists, is primary in politics as truth is in science: the only excuse for tolerating injustice is that no lesser injustice is possible. The point of the present paper is that Rawls doesn't actually mean this. When it comes to the family, and in particular its impact on fair equal opportunity (the first part of the the Difference …

Political Structures And Chinese Business Connections In The Malay World: A Historical Perspective, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

The prominence of ethnic Chinese among successful business owners in Southeast Asia is intriguing. Many have sought the secret of Chinese success in Chinese characteristics. This chapter suggests that Chinese success rests rather on the specific historical circumstances in Southeast Asia during the colonial period and after. A series of crony-like arrangements has been possible because political conditions permitted them,

The New Cambridge History Of India: Iv: 3 By Susan Bayly: Review For The South Asia Newsletter, Ananya Vajpeyi

Ananya Vajpeyi

No abstract provided.

More Smoke Than Fire: The 1997 'Haze' Crisis And Other Environmental Issues In Indonesia', Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Reports on the 1987 haze crisis, analyses the four explanations put forward for the crisis and speculates on political consequences for the Suharto government.

Relativism, Reflective Equilibrium, And Justice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS.

The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is overwhelming: there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into …

What's Wrong With Exploitation?, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Abstract: Marx thinks that capitalism is exploitative, and that is a major basis for his objections to it. But what's wrong with exploitation, as Marx sees it? (The paper is exegetical in character: my object is to understand what Marx believed,) The received view, held by Norman Geras, G.A. Cohen, and others, is that Marx thought that capitalism was unjust, because in the crudest sense, capitalists robbed labor of property that was rightfully the workers' because the workers and not the capitalists produced it. This view depends on a Labor Theory of Property (LTP), that property rights are based ultimately …

In Defence Of Exploitation, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

The concept of exploitation is thought to be central to Marx's Critique of capitalism. John Roemer, an analytical (then-) Marxist economist now at Yale, attacked this idea in a series of papers and books in the 1970s-1990s, arguing that Marxists should be concerned with inequality rather than exploitation -- with distribution rather than production, precisely the opposite of what Marx urged in The Critique of the Gotha Progam.

This paper expounds and criticizes Roemer's objections and his alternative inequality based theory of exploitation, while accepting some of his criticisms. It may be viewed as a companion paper to my What's …

The Paradox Of Ideology, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A standard problem with the objectivity of social scientific theory in particular is that it is either self-referential, in which case it seems to undermine itself as ideology, or self-excepting, which seem pragmatically self-refuting. Using the example of Marx and his theory of ideology, I show how self-referential theories that include themselves in their scope of explanation can be objective. Ideology may be roughly defined as belief distorted by class interest. I show how Marx thought that natural science was informed by class interest but not therefore necessarily ideology. Capitalists have an interest in understanding the natural world (to a …

Functional Explanation And Metaphysical Individualism, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A number of (present or former) analytical Marxists, such as Jon Elster, have argued that functional explanation has almost no place in the social sciences. (Although the discussion is framed in terms of a debate among analytical Marxists, the point is quite general, and Marxism is used for illustrative purposes.) Functional explanation accounts for what is to be explained by reference to its function; thus, sighted organism have eyes because eyes enable them to see. Elster and other critics of functional explanation argue that this pattern of explanation is inconsistent with "methodological individualism," the idea, as they understand it, that …

A Future For Socialism In The Ussr?, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

This paper was written before the Fall, and when the fate of the former Soviet Union and Marxism in it was still in question. At the time many people interested in Soviet politics had high expectations for Gorbachev's reform program, with some expectation that it would rescue "actually existing socialism" from its crisis. The paper took a more pessimistic view, correctly identifying, in retrospect, the factors that lead to the internal loss of faith in socialism in the Soviet ruling elite, the basic nature and trajectory of perestroika and itys centrifugal effects on the USSR itself., and the ultimate rise …

Indonesian Political Developments, 1989-1990, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Reviews the years 1989-90 in Indonesian politics, focussing on the politics of secession and the extent to which Indonesia was waiting for the departure of Suharto.