Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Institution
Articles 1 - 8 of 8
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Contract Law And The Liberalism Of Fear, Nathan B. Oman
Contract Law And The Liberalism Of Fear, Nathan B. Oman
Faculty Publications
Liberalism’s concern with human freedom seems related to contractual freedom and thus contract law. There are, however, many strands of liberal thought and which of them best justifies contract is a difficult question. In The Choice Theory of Contracts, Hanoch Dagan and Michael Heller offer a vision of contract based on autonomy. Drawing on the work of Joseph Raz, they argue that extending autonomy should be the law’s primary concern, which requires that we extend the range of contractual choices available. While there is much to admire in their work, I argue that autonomy as conceived by Dagan and Heller …
Byzantine Spirit Of The Undead And Its Legacy In The Sick Man Of Europe, Joan Davison
Byzantine Spirit Of The Undead And Its Legacy In The Sick Man Of Europe, Joan Davison
Faculty Publications
What is the character and extent of the Byzantine political-legal legacy? The contemporary discourse on political institutions uses new language to describe old mechanisms for accommodation and decentralization phenomena: millet systems, internal diasporas, population displacement of enclaves, consociation, asymmetric federalism, and even democracy as a part of modern institutionalized network systems. Employing Michel Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical method, we tap into the undead body of Byzantine political legacy in order to show and extract the legacy of a specific ‘spirit.’ In other words, we identify the existence of a very specific sites which emerges from within a non-Being (in Plato’s …
Kennan And The Neglected Variable In Post-Socialist Societies: The Loss Of Honest Dialogue And The Need For Empathy, Joan Davison
Kennan And The Neglected Variable In Post-Socialist Societies: The Loss Of Honest Dialogue And The Need For Empathy, Joan Davison
Faculty Publications
This paper analyzes the symbolism of George Kennan’s famous “X” article relative to the challenges of contemporary post transitions. It unpacks recent political discourse, discussing the critical application of practices such as thinking with your heart, parrhesis of the significance of uncertainty and reflection for question is: What would Kennan write in an X Article to states in transition paper employs both the definition suggested by Michel Foucault who understood it as “fearless speech” and Eric Voegelin who closely follows Plato’s meaning linking it with “heart” (dis)order of representatives of a society.
Improving Student Assessments Of Elections: The Use Of Information Literacy And A Course-Embedded Librarian, Todd J. Wiebe, Paula Booke
Improving Student Assessments Of Elections: The Use Of Information Literacy And A Course-Embedded Librarian, Todd J. Wiebe, Paula Booke
Faculty Publications
The study of U.S. elections as a part of introductory political science courses has become an increasingly difficult endeavour as students encounter the ever-changing landscape of electoral politics. Instructors seeking to equip students with the skills needed to navigate this complex terrain may look for partnerships with library faculty and staff as a means of bridging the research gap faced by students in these courses. This article examines the efficacy of a course-embedded librarian and information literacy training as a means of increasing student research confidence and competence. The findings of our quasi-experiment suggest that students participating in a course …
Is Hong Kong Democratizing, Dexter S. Boniface, Ilan Alon
Is Hong Kong Democratizing, Dexter S. Boniface, Ilan Alon
Faculty Publications
We argue that the transition to Chinese authority has not undermined democratic governance in Hong Kong and that voice and accountability have improved since the handover. We seek to explain this surprising result and conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for China, Taiwan, and cross-strait relations.
Opportunity, Willingness, And The Diffusion Of War, Randolph M. Siverson, Harvey Starr
Opportunity, Willingness, And The Diffusion Of War, Randolph M. Siverson, Harvey Starr
Faculty Publications
Using borders and alliances as indicators of opportunity and willingness, respectively, we test the relationship between the sea and the diffusion of war during the 1816-1965 period. The impact of borders and alliances, individually and in combination, on the growth of ongoing war through "infectious" diffusion is shown through the comparison of baseline cases to cases where states at peace were exposed to various "treatments" comprised of warring border nations or warring alliance partners. The findings indicate that the probability of war diffusion is substantially increased as opportunities and willingness increase, particularly when such geographic and political factors are combined. …
International Relations Theory, Foreign Policy Substitutability, And "Nice" Laws, Benjamin A. Most, Harvey Starr
International Relations Theory, Foreign Policy Substitutability, And "Nice" Laws, Benjamin A. Most, Harvey Starr
Faculty Publications
Two logical problems appear to have impeded the development of an integrative understanding of international and foreign policy phenomena. The first has to do with the potential for foreign policy substitutability: through time and across space, similar factors could plausibly be expected to trigger different foreign policy acts. The second concerns the potential existence of “sometimes true,” domain-specific laws. It is the logical opposite of the substitution problem, suggesting that different processes could plausibly be expected to lead to similar results. Neither problem appears to be well understood in the current literature; if anything, both are ignored. Nevertheless, they are …
Diffusion, Reinforcement, Geopolitics, And The Spread Of War, Benjamin A. Most, Harvey Starr
Diffusion, Reinforcement, Geopolitics, And The Spread Of War, Benjamin A. Most, Harvey Starr
Faculty Publications
The discussion reports the results of an examination of the possible diffusion of new war participations during the 1946-65 era. A theoretical argument is developed to yield more precise expectations about when, where, why, and how diffusion processs might operate. Four diffusion-related processes (positive spatial diffusion, positive reinforcement, negative spatial diffusion, and negative reinforcement) are discussed and analyzed. A series of simple turnover tables and a focus on nations' borders are used to go beyond the authors' previous stochastic modeling efforts. The results provide strong evidence that is consistent with both the authors' theoretical argument and the general war diffusion …