bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
St. Homobonus Leads the CEOs
Authors: Kane Paula M.
Published: August 2017

Wealthy American Catholics have created foundations, institutes, and research centers to endorse and defend neoliberal capitalism. Since the 1980s, a network of rich Catholics have supported their class privilege by defending strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade on the economic front, and by favoring antiabortion and anti-gay-marriage positions in social debates. The chapter contextualizes Catholic establishment of elective affinities with capitalism through several organizations, including Legatus and the Napa Institute; through connections between elites and Catholic higher education, such as Ave Maria University; and by Catholic CEOs whose business practices flout Catholic social teaching. Since the 2013 election of Pope Francis, who has explicitly attacked greed and neoliberal economics for leaving the poor and vulnerable undefended, these top Catholic entrepreneurs, together with allied clergy and apologists, have mobilized in ways that seemingly disregard the immigrant roots of most Catholics as well as the papal call to care for the nation’s neediest.
Afterword
Authors: Hudnut-Beumler James
Published: August 2017

The essays in this volume present the case for attending to the business aspects of religious activities in American religious history. Individual essays model useful approaches for pursuing these dimensions of religious organizations without neglecting their religious dimensions. Some of the essays are also models for critical inquiry into the sometimes self-serving compromises religious individuals and groups make with market capitalism in contemporary American life. The essay considers why previous theologically inclined scholars have neglected the kind of inquiry represented by the volume and celebrates the Business Turn as a “Big Idea” in the historiography of American religion worthy of emulation by other scholars interested in pursuing the nature of the American religious enterprise. By following flows of funds and bodies, watching who is raising money for what philanthropy, and how religious businessman and philanthropists justify themselves, the volume’s authors upset common assumptions about American religion.
Who Should Rule?
Authors: Ricketts Monica
Published: August 2017

This book examines the rise of men of letters and military officers as new and competing political actors in two central areas of the Spanish world: the viceroyalty of Peru and Spain. This was a disruptive, dynamic, and long process of common imperial origins. In 1700, two dynastic lines, the Spanish Habsburgs and the French Bourbons, disputed the succession to the Spanish throne. After more than a decade of war, the latter prevailed. Suspicious of the old Spanish court circles, the new Bourbon Crown sought meritorious subjects for its ministries: men of letters and well-trained military officers among the provincial elites. Writers and lawyers were to produce new legislation to radically transform the Spanish world. They would reform the educational system and propagate useful knowledge. Military officers would defend the monarchy in this new era of imperial competition. Additionally, they would govern. From the start, the rise of these political actors in the Spanish world was an uneven process. Military officers came to being as a new and somewhat solid corps. In contrast, the rise of men of letters confronted constant opposition. Rooted elites in both Spain and Peru resisted any attempts at curtailing their power and prerogatives and undermined the reform of education and traditions. As a consequence, men of letters found limited spaces in which to exercise their new authority, but they aimed for more. A succession of wars and insurgencies in America fueled the struggles for power between these two groups, thus paving the way for decades of unrest.
Introduction
Authors: Ricketts Mónica
Published: August 2017

After stabbing Princess Micomicona’s giant enemy, Don Quijote fell asleep in the shabby room of a venta (inn), while the owner, his family, and the barber were listening to the priest read a novel aloud. The old knight came back for supper all dressed up with his armor, helmet, shield, and sword. A Moor woman and a former captive, who had just arrived, joined the group. They were all happily chatting when Don Quijote stopped eating and began a ...
Merit and Its Subversive New Roles
Authors: Ricketts Mónica
Published: August 2017

This chapter analyzes “merit” as one of the organizing concepts of the Bourbon program of reform. Merit was no longer understood as a condition or status resulting from someone’s ancestry and pure blood but rather as talent, skill, and good training. The text examines the many writings that propagated this idea in state-sponsored publications, the press, academies and salons, and in policies. It reflects on the contradictions the crown faced when promoting a meritocracy in places organized around differences of birth and race. Subversive interpretations arose from the expectations the application of this concept awoke and the frustration of its often weak implementation.
Liberalism and War, 1805–1814
Authors: Ricketts Mónica
Published: August 2017

The French invasion offered unprecedented opportunities for men of letters. Napoleon held the Spanish monarch in France thus creating an unprecedented vaccum of power in Spain. While people rose and guerrillas formed to fight the French forces, men of letters took the lead, organized local assemblies or juntas to rule in the absence of the king, and tried to rapidly create a new, liberal, and constitutional monarchy for the Spanish world. This chapter focuses on the writings, actions, and challenges that men of letters of the Spanish Peninsula faced in these attempts, the role that Spanish America took in their stances, and their constant clashes with military power.
Pens, Politics, and Swords
Authors: Ricketts Mónica
Published: August 2017

The final chapter discusses in parallel the political histories of Spain and Peru in the final years of imperial rule in South America. Peru did not experience a long national struggle and lacked large elites committed to independence. As in the old metropolis, a constant and violent struggle between men of letters and military officers dominated. After decades of military reform and war, army officers with experience in command and government felt entitled to rule. Old subjects and new citizens were also accustomed to seeing them lead. Men of letters, on the other hand, found limited opportunities to exercise their new authority despite their ambitions. Additionally, both in Spain and Peru, liberal men of letters failed to create a new institutional order in which the military would be subjected to civilian rule. It would take decades for both parts of the former Spanish monarchy to accomplish that goal and allow for peace.
A Generous Vision
Authors: Curtis Cathy
Published: August 2017

Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989) was a noted art critic and artist, and a prime mover in the New York art world. She was a vivacious social catalyst. Her sparkling wit enlivened meetings of the Club, nights at the Cedar Tavern, and chance conversations on the street. Her droll sense of humor, generosity of spirit, and freewheeling spending were as legendary as her ever-present cigarette. An incisive writer, she pinpointed the essence of artists as diverse as Franz Kline and August Renoir, and deftly refuted pompous critical rhetoric. As a painter, she melded Abstract Expressionism with her lifelong interest in bodily movement to capture the characteristic postures of portrait sitters ranging from artist and writer friends to President John F. Kennedy. Driven to focus on a single theme for years at a stretch, she produced multiple paintings reflecting her fascination with people and animals in motion; her subjects include bullfighting, basketball, Paleolithic cave paintings, and a multi-figure sculpture in the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. Married to Willem de Kooning from 1943 until her death, she credited him as her greatest influence. Although the couple separated in 1957, after episodes of unfaithfulness on both sides, nearly two decades later she bought a house near his to rescue him from severe alcoholism. Rather than being overshadowed by his fame, she said, she worked “in his light.”
Black Mountain, Provincetown, and the Woman Paintings
Authors: Curtis Cathy
Published: August 2017

In 1948, Willem de Kooning taught at the Black Mountain College summer session in Asheville, North Carolina. Elaine thrived in this experimental ambience. She worked on Buckminster Fuller’s first geodesic dome, studied with Josef Albers, and played the ingénue in The Ruse of Medusa, choreographed by Merce Cunningham, with music by Erik Satie played by John Cage. While Bill labored over his breakthrough painting Asheville, Elaine produced rhythmic abstractions on wrapping paper. That fall, he painted Woman, the first of his grotesque female figures. It is impossible to fully parse the real-life and artistic influences that led to these paintings, but his deepening rift with Elaine was surely among them. The following summer, in Provincetown, Massachusetts, she studied with Hans Hofmann and socialized with friends. One of her self-portraits was included in a group exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery that fall; portraiture would change the course of her creative
Enchantment
Authors: Curtis Cathy
Published: August 2017

Elaine arrived in Albuquerque in autumn 1958 as a guest instructor at the University of New Mexico, the first of many such positions she held over the years. The big-sky southwestern landscape had a powerful effect on her paintings, which became boldly colored and expansive in a new, horizontal orientation. Elaine made life-long friends—painter Connie Fox and poet Margaret Randall—and began a long-running affair with artist Robert Mallary; her portrait of him was reproduced on the April 1963 cover of ARTnews. As a teacher, she combined art-world stories with a down-to-earth approach that urged greater freedom on the canvas. Watching bullfights in Mexico led to a series of paintings utilizing the Abstract Expressionist brushstroke to evoke the whirling action of the corrida. A night observing a Zuni winter solstice ceremony sparked a fascination with ancient ritual that culminated in her Paleolithic-era cave painting series nearly thirty years later.
Loft Life, Speaking Out, and European Vistas
Authors: Curtis Cathy
Published: August 2017

During the 1960s, Elaine lived in a succession of New York lofts, where she painted, wrote, and entertained large groups of friends—including artists, writers, and athletes. She became caught up in the Death Row case of Caryl Chessman, one of several causes she vigorously pursued. Feminism was not among them. She was equally hostile to Pop Art, scorning it as simply “a way of making money.” The mid-sixties were a troubled time for Elaine: her mother died; Bill tried to divorce her. Her drinking escalated, leading to several car accidents and embarrassing scenes. (She stopped drinking in the mid-seventies.) Elaine spent summers in Paris as a teacher at the New York Studio School, bringing a family member or student along for city excursions. A Jules Dalou sculpture in the Jardin du Luxembourg prompted her Bacchus painting series, which captured the play of dappled light and foliage on the bronze figures.
Portraits as Moments and Memory
Authors: Curtis Cathy
Published: August 2017

While emphasizing a sympathetic view of her sitters’ individuality, Elaine often revealed personality-shaping forces of turmoil and discontent. Her subjects included Bill, Harold Rosenberg, Thomas Hess, Merce Cunningham, Edwin Denby, Donald Barthelme, Alex Katz, Frank O’Hara, Pelé, and, most famously, John F. Kennedy. She based her “gyroscope men” on a book by psychologist Rollo May about repressed men unable to change. Her “faceless” sitters included O’Hara, easily identifiable by his characteristic posture. Other portraits with missing facial features, all of men she knew well, may have been prompted by her unresolved feelings about them. While most of her sitters were male—she was intrigued by abstract elements of men’s suits and by men’s habitual seated postures—Elaine also painted sensitive portraits of women, including the daughters of friends. Her group portraits notably included The Burghers of Amsterdam Avenue, a group of young men undergoing treatment for drug addiction.
Painting the President
Authors: Curtis Cathy
Published: August 2017

Elaine’s dealer, Robert Graham, had offered to donate a portrait of President Kennedy to the Harry S. Truman Library. Agreement to this plan was based on her ability to work very quickly. In late December 1962, Elaine arrived at the Winter White House in Palm Springs, California. She was dazzled by JFK. But he was constantly in motion, sitting casually, and likely to show up in sports clothes. Back in New York, Elaine painted dozens of canvases that dissatisfied her. A presidential advisor complained about JFK’s pose. She finally produced a suitable portrait; two months later, Kennedy was assassinated. Grieving, Elaine was unable to paint for a year. A Life magazine story about the portrait ran on May 8, 1964. The Truman Library finally accepted one of the paintings in February 1965, but the portrait now in the National Portrait Gallery is her triumph, a blaze of light and energy.
Caretaking and Cave Paintings
Authors: Curtis Cathy
Published: August 2017

In late 1975, Elaine bought a house in East Hampton, giving up her New York studio. She had come to rescue Bill from alcohol addiction. But she also traveled abroad, including trips to the Paleolithic caves in France and Spain, which provided subject matter for her last major painting series and a suite of prints. At home, she looked after Bill, worked in her studio, and roamed the beach with artist Connie Fox. Courtney Ross produced a documentary about Bill with commentary by Elaine, who served as his spokesperson as his dementia worsened. A partial lobectomy failed to stop the recurrence of Elaine’s lung cancer, yet she remained in high spirits, trying to work on her memoir. But immediately after the opening of her cave painting show at Fischbach Gallery, she was hospitalized. Elaine died on February 1, 1989; tributes at her New York memorial service lasted nearly three hours.
Hedge Fund Governance
Authors: Chourou Lamia , Hossain Ashrafee T. , Saadi Samir
Published: August 2017

Hedge fund governance has attracted much interest since the financial crisis of 2007–2008 resulting in a dramatic shift in hedge funds’ shareholder composition, from high-net-worth individual investors to active institutional investors. The crisis, coupled with some major scandals, including Bernard Madoff’s multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme and the Weavering Capital fraud, uncovered poor governance practices in the hedge fund industry. Fund managers now face serious governance challenges that tend to focus on governance arrangements and independence of fund boards. Maintaining quality governance rules in hedge funds is critical for the industry. Evidence suggests that having sound and transparent governance practices is in the best interests of hedge fund managers. This chapter first addresses the development of corporate governance, followed by an analysis of hedge fund governance. Next the chapter explores the ongoing governance debates facing the industry. The chapter ends by discussing the changing nature of hedge fund governance.
The Tax Framework of Hedge Funds
Authors: Lhabitant François-Serge , Brocard Michel
Published: August 2017

Hedge funds have grown in size, number, and complexity, but continue to operate largely outside the scope of government regulation and with limited disclosure requirements. This provides them with several advantages over institutional investors such as traditional investment funds. Hedge funds also often reap substantial benefits from special tax provisions that are increasingly criticized and deemed no longer appropriate. This chapter reviews the legal and operational structures typically used by hedge funds and their managers, sponsors, and investors to optimize their tax setup. In particular, it discusses the case of U.S. domestic hedge funds set up as a limited partnership as well as the case of offshore funds based in the Cayman Islands. It also analyzes the specificities of U.S. taxable and U.S. tax-exempt investors as well as foreign investors.
Event-Driven Hedge Fund Strategies
Authors: Farrelly Caroline , Lhabitant François-Serge
Published: August 2017

This chapter explores some of the strategies used by event-driven hedge funds, namely merger arbitrage, trading distressed securities, special situations, and activism. This broad category within the hedge fund space attracts about a quarter of the capital deployed to this part of the alternatives world. Investors are drawn to the idea of uncorrelated returns that can act as a source of diversification for their portfolios as well as the ability to follow the news flow related to their investments. In essence, such trades should have identifiable catalysts and time frames. The chapter offers illustrative examples of historical trades, providing some context of the types of positions funds may take and time frames involved. Various skill sets should be sought in an event-driven manager. Managers dealing in distressed securities are likely to benefit from a legal expertise, whereas activists need to be able to influence management and campaign publically.
Risk Measurement and Management for Hedge Funds
Authors: Weisang Guillaume
Published: August 2017

Risk measurement and management is an important and complex subject for hedge fund stakeholders, managers, and investors. Given that hedge funds dynamically trade a wide range of financial instruments, their returns show tail risk and nonlinear characteristics with respect to many financial markets that require advanced downside risk measures, such as value-at-risk, expected shortfall, and tail risk, to capture risk adequately. This chapter reviews the nature of these risks and presents the measurement tools needed, focusing on fixed-income instruments, derivative securities, and equity risk measurement, and stressing the importance of frequent assessment to capture the possibly rapidly changing risk profiles of hedge funds. This chapter also provides an overview of the linear factor models that investors often use to measure hedge fund risk exposures along many risk factors.
Operational Risk Management for Hedge Funds
Authors: Huber Claus , Imfeld Daniel
Published: August 2017

This chapter focuses on operational risk management for hedge funds. It takes a practitioner’s view of how to implement an operational risk framework as part of an enterprise-wide risk and control system in a “hands-on” approach. The focus of the contribution is on practical implementation with simple tools, such as Excel, rather than trying to quantify operational risk with complex mathematical formulas. The chapter outlines how a midsize hedge fund can develop systematically an integrated perspective on its main risks and set priorities on how to mitigate and control these risks. It illustrates the proposed process framework and solutions by using an example of the operational risk of “unauthorized trading.” Hints to avoid pitfalls when implementing an operational risk management framework, based on the authors’ experience as practitioners, are also provided.
Financial Crises and Evaporating Diversification Benefits of Hedge Funds
Authors: Billio Monica , Sherman Mila Getmansky , Pelizzon Loriana
Published: August 2017

Diversification of risk is a potential benefit of investing in hedge funds. Using CSFB/Tremont hedge fund indices, this chapter shows that hedge fund strategies have different returns, volatility, and exposures to various systematic risk factors during tranquil times. This relation has led to the growth of the hedge industry and in particular funds of hedge funds, which provide diversification benefits by investing across different hedge fund styles. However, during financial crises, different hedge fund strategies are exposed to similar systematic risk factors. Most of the strategies become exposed to market liquidity and credit risk factors. Moreover, during the financial crises of 1998 and 2007–2008, all strategies were loading positively on the latent factor that induced positive correlation among hedge fund strategy residuals. As a result, diversification benefits incurred due to investing in different hedge fund strategies evaporated during these financial crises.
Hedge Funds and Performance Persistence
Authors: Qin Nan , Wang Ying
Published: August 2017

Despite the exponential growth of global hedge fund assets since the 1990s, the high attrition rates in the industry have raised an important issue about hedge fund return persistence. This chapter discusses the various statistical methodologies in measuring performance persistence and provides a comprehensive review of the empirical literature on short- and long-term performance persistence. In particular, the literature suggests that fund strategies and characteristics are related to performance persistence. The chapter also discusses three important issues: return smoothing, the use of option-like strategies, and data biases. The chapter provides additional empirical evidence on performance persistence, using a portfolio approach and a hedge fund sample from the Trading Advisor Selection System (TASS) database between 1994 and 2015.
Style Analysis and Consistency
Authors: McCumber William R. , Parajuli Jyotsaana
Published: August 2017

This chapter explores the degree to which hedge funds’ performance is attributable to a self-declared style that broadly describes managers’ primary investment focus. Hedge funds’ self-declared styles and strategies are meant to be descriptive and to attract investor capital seeking exposure to that strategy and opportunity. Hedge fund strategies have evolved as managers uncover and exploit new opportunities. In practice, even when a majority of investor capital is dedicated to a primary strategy, managers complement a primary strategy with other positions in an attempt to earn positive returns. The freedom with which managers can operate regarding regulation and the breadth of financial instruments available make long-term and clear categorization of hedge fund styles difficult. Although research shows that many funds consistently deliver superior returns in a given style, many also deliver alpha, a positive return that is not attributable to any style or risk factor.
Before Beauvoir, Before Butler
Authors: Offen Karen
Published: August 2017

This chapter reveals and documents a centuries-old but long forgotten history of pioneering French thought about “genre masculin/genre féminin” (which we refer to in English as gender) that alludes not strictly to grammar but specifically to the social construction of sex. The recuperation of this history antedates the publications of Simone de Beauvoir and, later, Judith Butler. It suggests that Beauvoir’s famous sentence in Le deuxième sexe, whose interpretation is the subject of this book’s essays, fits into a venerable French tradition of acknowledging the social construction of masculinity and femininity, or the male/female dichotomy. Nevertheless, it was received by Anglophone intellectuals, especially feminist intellectuals of the 1960s–1970s, as a startling innovation. Indeed, it may well be that the notion of “gender/genre” is not an unwelcome American invention, as the French have stated in recent years, but Anglophone writers initially appropriated the notion from this older French usage.
Beauvoir Against Objectivism
Authors: Mann Bonnie
Published: August 2017

What is Beauvoir’s relation to contemporary feminist commitments to poststructuralist and/or social constructionist understandings of sexual difference? How does understanding this relation help us negotiate the contemporary controversy over the translation of Beauvoir’s famous sentence as “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman,” (1953) and “One is not born, but rather becomes, woman” (2010)? To answer this question, the author retraces Beauvoir’s critical stance toward realism/objectivism. Beauvoir’s antiobjectivism has implications for how she would respond to now widely accepted versions of social construction (the idea that women are “produced” by and through power). A comparative reading of Beauvoir’s account of gender as justificatory and Butler’s account of gender as performative reveals that Beauvoir addresses normative domination and subordination while Butler focuses on normative exclusion and inclusion—with ramifications for their respective conceptions of “liberation,” “liveability” and “intelligibility.”
The Silencing of Simone de Beauvoir
Authors: Simons Margaret A.
Published: August 2017

This chapter, first published in 1983, initially breaks the news of the scandal of the first English translation of Le deuxième sexe to the English speaking world. Through a painstaking comparative reading of the Parshley translation, published by Knopf, alongside the original French, the chapter reveals the abridgment and editing of the original text with no indication of specific cuts in the text. It shows that Parshley’s version of The Second Sex exhibits a sexist pattern of selection that reduces the impact of Beauvoir’s discussions of women’s history; drastically reduces the number of references to women writers, poets, politicians, military figures, etc.; curtails discussions of women’s oppression; and obscures Beauvoir’s philosophical commitments. This text was the first of those that ignited the flood of contemporary Beauvoir scholarship in the English-speaking world. It was because of Margaret Simon’s work that Beauvoir became aware of the flawed translation shortly before her death in 1986, and expressed her ardent wish for a new translation.
While We Wait
Authors: Moi Toril
Published: August 2017

Nearly twenty years after Margaret Simons broke the news of the scandal of the English translation of Le deuxième sexe, Toril Moi’s 2002 essay deepened feminist claims in relation to Parshley’s translation. This reprint chronicles the long and at that time unsuccessful struggle with Alfred Knopf for a new translation/scholarly edition. Moi showed that “the philosophical incompetence” of the translation damaged both de Beauvoir’s reputation and that of feminist philosophy by detailing Parshley’s silent deletions of sentences and parts of sentences, his tendency to turn “existence” into “essence,” misreading of philosophical references to “subjectivity,” botched references to Hegel, misunderstanding of Beauvoir’s account of alienation, and elimination of nuance from key discussions of themes like motherhood. Since de Beauvoir’s works will not enter public domain until 2056, the refusal of the publisher to commission a new translation meant that essays like this one were essential to teaching Beauvoir’s Second Sex to English-speaking students.
The Floating “a”
Authors: Bergoffen Debra
Published: August 2017

This chapter argues that both the H.M. Parshley and the Borde and Malovany-Chevallier translations of: “On ne naît pas femme: on le devient” lead to dead ends. By omitting the “a,” the new translation erases the diversity of women and negates their capacity for liberation. By inserting it, the older translation obscures the ways the material realities produced by the myth of woman subvert the emergence of a woman and haunts the lives of women who challenge the myth. For the nuances of the French to cross the language divide we need to let the “a” float between these English translations. Read as “One is not born but becomes (a) woman” the sentence speaks to the phenomenological ambiguities, and current political realities of being (a) woman—the subject of Beauvoir’s The Second Sex and of this particular sentence.
Becoming A Woman
Authors: Burke Megan M.
Published: August 2017

The author argues that the exclusion of the indefinite article in Borde and Malovany-Chevallier’s translation of “the famous sentence” in The Second Sex obscures Beauvoir’s phenomenological account of feminine existence. While it is best to understand the recent translation as an informed, interpretative reading of Beauvoir, this essay suggests that reading the end of the sentence as “becoming a woman” undoes the common Anglo-American reading of Simone de Beauvoir as a social constructionist (for example, in the work of Judith Butler). This undoing is important for the way readers become oriented to Beauvoir’s phenomenological commitments. Thus the inclusion of the “a” gestures to a phenomenological sensibility. There is a sphere within the lived experience of femininity that the exclusion cannot capture.
French Women Become, German Women Are Made?
Authors: Baumeister Anna-Lisa
Published: August 2017

“On ne naît pas femme: on le devient” is the sentence most commonly associated with Simone de Beauvoir. This chapter discusses some of the peculiarities that have emerged in the translation and quotation of the sentence in the German-speaking world. Comparing the translation of Beauvoir’s sentence in the hands of German feminist and activist Alice Schwarzer with the version that appears in both existing full text translations of The Second Sex into German, the author argues that the latter version aligns with Beauvoir’s phenomenological account of womanhood, whereas Schwarzer’s translation elides the statement’s philosophical basis. Schwarzer’s rendering of the sentence made a significant contribution to 20th-century German feminism in its own right. Yet Beauvoir’s authorship of Schwarzer’s version of the translation, which is taken for granted, must be questioned.
Becoming Woman
Authors: Bogić Anna
Published: August 2017

Simone de Beauvoir’s famous dictum (“One is not born, but rather becomes, woman”) and The Second Sex appeared in Serbo-Croatian translation (Drugi pol translated by Zorica Milosavljević and Mirjana Vukmirović) in 1982 in Yugoslavia. Socialist Yugoslavia and Yugoslav feminists at the time were an important exception to the trends and ideologies of both the Cold War East and West. In Yugoslav socialism, the meaning of “woman” was shaped by the Yugoslav government’s pursuit of the “women’s emancipation” project assigning women the triple role of mother, worker, and comrade. Despite this socialist project, Beauvoir’s Drugi pol was welcomed by Yugoslav feminists who denounced the continued patriarchal treatment of women under Yugoslav socialism. For these Yugoslav feminists, Beauvoir’s writing exposed the social construction of “nature” as the foundation for women’s subordination. The shifting meaning of “woman” and renewed women’s subordination in a post-socialist society only served to confirm the continued relevance of Beauvoir’s dictum.
Transcendence and Immanence
Authors: Azzouni Jody
Published: August 2017

Current metaphysical debates (between, e.g., Hirsch, Sider, Hawthorne, and others) are historically centered in an earlier debate between Carnap and Quine. This was a debate over whether formal languages can function as replacements for natural language or whether instead they offer techniques that can be used to modify natural languages. This debate continues to be relevant to contemporary debates between Hirsch and his opponents. Hirsch presupposes the natural-language-centered Quinean position; many of his opponents take Ontologese to be a cogent alternative for metaphysical discourse. In addition, it’s shown that Hirsch’s attempts to demarcate substantial from purely verbal debates derail because of the technical failure to show that finitely specified sentence-to-sentence mappings between disputant claims are available. It’s shown further that quantifier-variant views make no sense of ontological debate. Participants in ontological debate need to share an existence concept if they are to argue successfully with one another.
Focusing in on (Some of) the Real
Authors: Azzouni Jody
Published: August 2017

The ways that we project objects—specifically their contours—for different purposes, scientific and otherwise, are described. Scientific domains are contoured the way they are because of specific aims of study. Our ways of changing the contours of objects give rise to sorities-style puzzles. These are described and analyzed. Vagueness is given a description in featural terms. The notion of “empty” space is probed. A metaphor-free characterization of exactly how we change the contours of objects for various purposes (change the “focus”) is given. Features are “mind-independent” and “objective.” This earlier criterion for what exists is modified to apply to features.
The Romance of Democratic Transitions
Authors: Varol Ozan O.
Published: August 2017

This chapter more broadly analyzes the universe of democratic transitions. It explains why we tend to romanticize democratic transitions like most romantic comedies glamorize love: The people gather in a central square, start protesting, topple the dictatorship, hold elections, and live happily ever after. It further discusses why the on-the-ground facts often fail to live up to this simple ideal, why history is littered with failed attempts to democratize, and why even successful democratic transitions are often painfully long and violent. Ideally, of course, it would be enlightened civilians—not military leaders—who would depose an authoritarian government and promote, in concert with civil society, the conditions necessary for democratic development. But in many cases, civilian institutions are unable or unwilling to enable democracy, leaving the military to take charge.
In the Land of the Blind
Authors: Varol Ozan O.
Published: August 2017

This chapter explains why the military plays a decisive role in almost all revolutions and why, in some cases, the military may be the only actor available to ignite democratic regime change. An authoritarian regime extinguishes or significantly stifles the press, political opposition, civil society, and other reformist institutions, but it often leaves the military intact. The armed forces, after all, are necessary for the survival of most nations. As a result the military may be the one-eyed man in the land of the blind: the only available institution relatively independent of the dictatorship and capable of cracking its edifice.
Hogan’s Heroes
Authors: Varol Ozan O.
Published: August 2017

This chapter defines the key terms used throughout the book: military, military coup, and popular revolution. The military, also known as the armed forces, is the state institution responsible for defending a nation’s borders. Importantly, the military is a separate institution from the state’s security forces. Although journalistic and historical accounts often conflate the military with the security forces, they serve distinct functions. Although most nations employ various measures to keep the military subservient to the civilian government, those measures are effective only if the military chooses to follow them. When the military disregards those measures and unleashes its coercive power against the sitting head of state, the result is a coup d’état. The definition of a coup ordinarily requires that its perpetrators come from a state institution such as the domestic military. Although many features of coups are also present in revolutions and popular movements, the definition of a military coup excludes these events because they are perpetrated by the masses, not members of the military.
Friends with Benefits
Authors: Varol Ozan O.
Published: August 2017

This chapter argues that militaries will tend to support dictatorships when their interests are aligned. Even when the military doesn’t share the dictator’s ideology, military officers may support him if the dictator is willing to protect their interests. Support can be active or passive. The military can actively support an authoritarian government by taking affirmative steps to fend off domestic and foreign threats. Support can also be passive, as when the military merely tolerates the dictatorship and refrains from toppling the regime even though the opportunity presents itself. The military’s loyalty can be purchased. The dictator may shower the armed forces with social and financial perks, such as salary increases, better training, modern equipment, and promotions. Some dictators go beyond simply providing financial and social perks to the military and engage in active social engineering to ensure its loyalty. The military may also remain loyal to a dictatorship where the regime is strong and stable. Militaries rarely stage coups against stable governments. Only when a dictatorship begins to wobble does a coup become a possibility.
Meritocracy and Nepotism
Authors: Varol Ozan O.
Published: August 2017

Some militaries value merit over accidents of birth. Advancement in these militaries is based largely on accomplishment, not nepotism. In a dictatorship, a merit-based system of military advancement can stand in stark contrast to corrupt state institutions surrounding the military. The military’s meritocracy may provide a rare opportunity for advancement to people from humble backgrounds who may join the military to escape the frustrations of elitism in civilian institutions. These soldiers enjoy a healthy distance from the authoritarian establishment. To a soldier who grows accustomed to merit-based advancement in the military, the corrupt authoritarian state can appear anachronistic and out of touch. Ever so subtly, the military may emerge in the minds of soldiers as an alternate universe where merit trumps nepotism. As an outgrowth of this dissatisfaction, these soldiers may have a lesser stake in the existing authoritarian structures and stand ready to transform them into democratic ones.
A New Order
Authors: Varol Ozan O.
Published: August 2017

Most military officers make abysmal politicians. Military leaders are accustomed to commanding a disciplined group of soldiers who have been trained to toe the line. So they face significant adjustment problems in attempting to govern a much larger, unwieldy, and opinionated group of people with no inherent obligation to do as they say. Fed up with social disunity and chaos, the military leaders may take matters into their own hands by attempting to impose a new order from the top down. Although repression also occurs during civilian-led transitions to democracy, repression can be exacerbated at the hands of an armed military accustomed to discipline and ill-trained for governance. What’s more, there are often no legal mechanisms or institutions for holding the military leaders accountable, which can provide more room for misconduct.
Golden Parachutes
Authors: Varol Ozan O.
Published: August 2017

After the military topples a dictator in a democratic coup, the coup makers supervise a transition process to democracy during which they remain in charge for a temporary period. After they transfer power to civilians, the coup makers’ bargaining powers are greatly reduced and their future is subject to the whims of fickle civilian politicians. Coup makers may therefore use the window of opportunity their temporary rule presents to protect their interests in the future democratic state. Militaries attempt to protect their interests using three primary methods: direct, institutional, and procedural. This chapter discusses these methods and analyzes their consequences.
Cincinnatus
Authors: Varol Ozan O.
Published: August 2017

This chapter concludes the book. To summarize, in a democratic coup, militaries topple a dictator, assume absolute power during a temporary period, provide a steady hand during a turbulent transition, establish democratic procedures, and hand over power to elected leaders. Democratic does not mean unproblematic. All transitions to democracy, whether led by civilians or the military, are turbulent events and require a rethinking of our idealistic notions of success in moments of regime change. Ideally, of course, civilian, not military, leaders would spearhead democratic regime change. But civilian leaders are often unable to shoulder the momentous task of overthrowing an entrenched dictator without the help of the domestic military. Often the only hope for democracy is to turn the domestic military against the very dictatorship it’s tasked to defend. In our imperfect world, the second best may be the best we can do.
Acts, Arenas and Actors
Authors: Volpi Frédéric
Published: August 2017

This chapter considers the debates about authoritarianism and democratization, and political stability and change, in an “exceptional” Middle East. It outlines how accounts of Middle East politics presented stalled transition processes and authoritarian “upgrading” as structural features of regional stability. The chapter then introduces the notion of mobilization in relation to the construction of protest events, arenas and actors. A distinction is drawn between political causality and causal explanations during periods of rapid de-institutionalization, and during periods of routine (authoritarian) governance. Institutional and extra-institutional changes are presented in terms of the (re)production of specific set of social interactions. The chapter uses interactionist perspectives in social movement theory to counter-balance the more structural and rational-choice accounts of protests and revolutions. The framework proposed departs from conventional notions of political opportunity structures by proposing an explanatory narrative of protest episodes grounded on the interactions between acts, arenas, and agents of contention (in that specific order).
Routine Authoritarian Governance Before the Arab Uprisings
Authors: Volpi Frédéric
Published: August 2017

This chapter presents the longer-term factors that have been known to shape routine authoritarian governance prior to the Arab uprisings. The notion of routine authoritarian governance emphasizes the ideological and material patterns of interactions between government and opposition over time. Among these interactions the chapter focuses particularly on the role that legitimacy, coercion, and economic and political cooptation played in the entrenchment of specific political behaviors (e.g. authoritarian bargains). As a counter-weight to this narrative, the chapter indicates how ‘protest costs’ have been repeatedly overcome at different historical junctures, and how regimes have had to adapt in response to these (mainly unsuccessful) challenges from below and/or from counter-elites. Authoritarianism in the pre-Arab uprisings period is thus presented as an ever-changing combination of identities and practices that has been maintained at equilibrium by ruling elites for several decades.
Redrawing Contention and Authoritarian Practices
Authors: Volpi Frédéric
Published: August 2017

This chapter focuses on the routinization of the interpretations and behaviors initiated by the protest episodes. It details the new dynamics of protest mobilization and their implications for preexisting practices of governance. The analysis illustrates how the self-reflective construction of “revolutionary” practices fundamentally reframed government and opposition interactions. The modalities of mobilization and the role played by violence are flagged up as the factors that shaped most decisively the strategic choices of the protesters and the regimes at that stage of the uprisings. Growing protest momentum is only one of the possible outcomes of the protests. The chapter also outlines how the routinization of protest can lead instead to the entrenchment of non-system-challenging forms of mobilization. In those cases, the interactions between pro- and anti-regime actors progressively reaffirm the repertoires of contention and techniques of governance already established in the polities.
The Effects of Political Inclusion
Authors: Jensenius Francesca R.
Published: August 2017

Since 1950, SCs in India have been guaranteed a proportional presence in the country’s legislative assemblies. These quotas were designed with the explicit goal of integrating SCs into mainstream society by making SC legislators accountable to voters from all caste groups. What has happened after more than 65 years? Chapter 1 discusses the main outcomes studied in the book and introduces an institutional argument for the expected effects expect from differently designed policies of group inclusion, drawing a distinction between policies that incentivize group representation and policies that promote group integration. It presents the data and empirical strategy used throughout the book, and provides an overview of the chapters.
Quotas and Political Participation
Authors: Jensenius Francesca R.
Published: August 2017

Chapter 6 examines changes in political participation among voters, focusing on a key indicator in the study of democracies: electoral turnout. Data on state election outcomes between 1974 and 2007 show that turnout plummeted in the first election after constituencies became reserved in the 1970s. Gradually, there was a narrowing gap in voter turnout between SC-reserved and nonreserved constituencies, but after more than 30 years there was still a difference of several percentage points. Exploring the reasons, the chapter shows that this variation in political participation it was not mainly due to caste bias, or feelings of being disempowered, but rather because of the weaker networks and mobilizational capacity of SC politicians. As the political experience and mobilizational capacity of SC politicians has increased, so has voter turnout.
Status and Recognition
Authors: Jensenius Francesca R.
Published: August 2017

Chapter 7 inquires into the status and recognition of India’s new SC elite: the socioeconomic profile of SC politicians compared to other politicians, and their relationship to other elites and to their voters. SC politicians used to have significantly less formal education than other politicians, but that is no longer the case. However, SCs tend to be less wealthy than other politicians, less likely to have a criminal record, and seem to be perceived as less “glamorous.” Interview evidence indicates that while SC politicians still face some discrimination, factors like power, education, and money have served to reduce this caste bias. Further, voters generally seem to evaluate SC politicians similarly to other politicians; and voters who had lived in a reserved constituency for a long time were slightly more likely to evaluate SC politicians positively.
Chipping Away at the Caste Hierarchy
Authors: Jensenius Francesca R.
Published: August 2017

Chapter 8 is about recognition for SCs in Indian society, and how quotas have affected caste-based discrimination. After summarizing key findings in the literature on intragroup and intergroup relations, and the ritual practices of SCs in India today, the chapter presents evidence from two surveys that provide indications of a lessening in caste-based discrimination in SC-reserved areas. The patterns are not robust and the surveys do not have samples that are representative of large areas, so the findings should be treated as tentative. Nonetheless, in both cases the evidence points toward potentially wide-ranging social changes resulting from implementation of the quota system. These patterns are further corroborated by findings from studies of village-level quotas for SCs.
Introduction
Authors: de Regt Henk W.
Published: August 2017

This chapter introduces the theme of the book: scientific understanding. Science is arguably the most successful product of the human desire for understanding. Reflection on the nature of scientific understanding is an important and exciting project for philosophers of science, as well as for scientists and interested laypeople. As a first illustration of this, the chapter sketches an episode from the history of science in which discussions about understanding played a crucial role: the genesis of quantum mechanics in the 1920s, and the heated debates about the intelligibility of this theory and the related question of whether it can provide understanding. This case shows that standards of intelligibility of scientists can vary strongly. Furthermore, the chapter outlines and defends the way in which this study approaches its subject, differing essentially from mainstream philosophical discussions of explanatory understanding. It concludes with an overview of the contents of the book.