bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Agrarian Politics and Revolution
Authors: Anderson Leslie
Published: March 2007

This essay uses three crucial cases to test predictions made in Jeffery Paige's Agrarian Revolution. Relying upon structure to explain political outcome, Paige predicts that peasants will be political conservatives who engage in reformist politics but never radical action, much less revolution. The cases illustrate however, that peasant political behavior varies considerably, being reformist, radical, or revolutionary depending upon the perspectives of the actors and upon the role of the state. The data draw on information from cases in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Colombia. In each of these, respectively, peasants were reformist, revolutionary, or radical. Economic structure, recognizably similar across different political circumstances, determines the broad outlines of rural social relations but does not determine either political action or outcome. The former is more accurately determined by micro perspectives while the latter results from the interaction of political actors with the state.
8. Self-Interest and Environmental Management
Authors: Oye Kenneth A. , Maxwell James H.
Published: March 2007

Based upon an empirical analysis of environmental cases, we argue that regulations work most effectively when they confer tangible benefits on the regulated. In what could be termed Stiglerian situations, the convergence of self-interest and the public's desire to improve the environment occurs almost naturally. Because those who are regulated lobby for and benefit from regulation and the costs are widely dispersed, these situations tend to be characterized by regulatory stability.

In what could be termed Olsonian situations, regulatory benefits are diffused across the many, while regulatory costs are concentrated on the few. In these situations the relatively few clear losers will tend to mobilize against regulation with greater effectiveness than the many weakly motivated beneficiaries, resulting in a high degree of regulatory instability. Compensation can be used in Olsonian situations to create incentives that approximate those that occur naturally in Stiglerian situations.
The Normative Force of Electoral Promises
Authors: Schedler Andreas
Published: March 2007

At elections, voters choose among substantive programs and correspondingly, endow winning parties with determinate policy mandates. The article inquires into a neglected side of this `mandate theory' of elections: it explores the normative foundations of democratic mandates. The general norm, which demands that parties honor their campaign promises, is quite uncontroversial. The essay therefore reconstructs the controversial logic of norm application: it argues that different kinds of promises create different kinds of commitments; it explains `rules of transgression' which specify improper promises and `rules of exception' which allow parties to abandon their campaign pledges; and it looks at structural uncertainties electoral mandates are associated with. As the article concludes, electoral accountability is a complex and `essentially contested' task. It provokes (and presupposes) public controversies which in the last instance can be settled only by the supreme judge, the voter.
Norbert Elias and Walter Benjamin: an exchange of letters and its context
Authors: Schöttker Detlev
Published: March 2007

This article discusses the background to Walter Benjamin's famous 'letter to an unknown correspondent', which was part of a series of letters between Benjamin and Norbert Elias. Elias had just finished writing the first volume of The Civilizing Process, and he wrote to Ben jamin asking him to review it, but Benjamin declined. The reasons for his reluctance are discussed. The letters themselves are reproduced at the end of the article.
The media as a cultural problem: Max Weber's sociology of the press
Authors: Hennis Wilhelm
Published: March 2007

During 1909 and 1910, Max Weber planned a major study of the con temporary newspaper business. Although the project eventually col lapsed, he did draft an outline proposal which is here translated into English for the first time.
Land invasions and grassroots organization: the Quilmes settlements in Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina
Authors: Cuenya Beatriz , Armus Diego , Di Loreto Maria , Pefialva Susana
Published: March 2007

Land Invasions and Grassroots Organization: the Quilmes Settlements in Greater Buenos Aires, Argentia focuses on the first organized mass invasion of private land in the recent history of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It describes the social, economic and political background to the invasion, the invasion itself and how the invaders organized to stop the government's attempts to halt it. The concluding sections describe changes in grassroots organizations in the context of the rapid political and social changes taking place between 1980 and 1984 in Argentina.
New perspectives on African urban management
Authors: Lee-Smith Diana , Stren Richard E.
Published: March 2007

New perspectives on African urban management recommends that more attention be paid to how society and the indigenous economy organizes itself within each African city so that attempts to improve urban management are more firmly rooted in local circumstances. It describes certain dimensions which conventional urban management tends to ignore the importance of rural-urban relationships, the scale of the informal economy, the scale and importance of community based organizations, self-help groups and NGOs in service provision, and the extent to which municipal policies, provision of services and regulation ill-serve the needs of women.
Garbage: exploring non-conventional options in Asian cities
Authors: Furedy Christine
Published: March 2007

Garbage: exploring non-conventional options in Asian cities describes community based waste management projects in Bangalore, Manila, Madras, Jakarta and Kathmandu and assesses their potential as alternatives to the increasingly ineffective conventional organization of residential solid waste services in Asian cities. Two case studies are attached: the first on street pickers in Calcutta slums, the second on a programme to support the renovation and sale of second-hand shoes in Delhi.
Margery Kempe, a new theory: the inadequacy of hysteria and postpartum psychosis as diagnostic categories
Authors: Freeman Phyllis R. , Bogarad Carley Rees , Sholomskas Diane E.
Published: March 2007

Margery Kempe (c. 1373-1439), author of the first spiritual autobiography in English, wrote the only personal account of madness by a woman in the Middle Ages. Conventional sources define her mental state as hysteria or as postpartum psychosis, a diagnosis which helps to explain her first recorded disorder. By placing The Book of Margery Kempe in the context of medieval theories of mental illness, this paper challenges contemporary views and reveals that she reported a disorder in which episodes of mania and melancholia culminated in mystical visions. These cycles determined the direction of her life. She transformed illness and health into adventure, devotion, and belief in a direct relationship with God.
Inverted Appellation and Discursive Gender Insubordination: An Austrian Case Study in Gay Male Conversation
Authors: BUNZL MATTI
Published: March 2007

In this article, Matti Bunzl draws on ongoing ethnographic research on the social organization and cultural articulation of same-sex sexuality in contemporary Austria to ground a reading of the socio-discursive dimensions of `inverted appellation' - the use of feminine references for `male' persons (and vice versa). He presents his interpretation in the context of Judith Butler's work on the subversive potential of drag. As he argues, inverted appellation among gay men carries the possibility of a disruptive critique of the heterosexist reproduction of normative gender through the parodic exposure of its naturalizing strategies. In this manner, gay men can at once appropriate and resist their abject positioning in the larger socio-sexual field, contributing, in the process, to a resistive rearticulation and creative reimagination of the performative construction of gender and sexuality.
Egg Seeks Sperm. End of Story...? Articulating Gay Parenting in Small Ads for Reproductive Partners
Authors: HOGBEN SUSAN , COUPLAND JUSTINE
Published: March 2007

Gay men and lesbians place small advertisements in the gay press to find reproductive partners. Analyses of over 200 such `mating ads' reveal that advertisers use a range of discursive methods to manage the potential gay parenting identities. We examine how gay male and lesbian advertisers adapt the formulaic format of the classified ad by exploiting the intertextual resonance of the job ad and the dating ad in order to construe reproductive identities and child-rearing roles. In addition, we discuss how the apparent contradiction of gay parenting is articulated through the use of dual discursive strategies which construe the advertiser and/or target both in identifying terms of lexical categorization (as for example, donor, dad or parent) and by delineation of a child-rearing role by degrees of involvement. Our analyses suggest that gay parenting roles need not correlate one-to-one with the discrete categories chosen to identify reproductive partner. The potential gay parent is personalized across both typological and topological models of meaning-making preventing him/her from becoming a contradiction in terms. We discuss the emergent identity of `co-parent'.
Language and Public Memorial: `America's Concentration Camps'
Authors: SCHIFFRIN DEBORAH
Published: March 2007

Museums and exhibits that present `history' offer largely visual versions of collective narratives to a broad audience. Yet language can play a critical role in these versions of the past and, like the histories themselves, the language can become controversial. For example, the title of an exhibit on the Japanese-American internment in World War II-`America's Concentration Camps' - was disturbing to American Jews who associated `concentration camps' with their experience in the Holocaust. This article shows how linguists can assist in resolving such controversies: after becoming familiar with what actually happened to those involved in the controversy, they can offer discourse analyses (a) of the conflictual language itself; (b) of its resolution (in this case, a footnote on the brochure accompanying the exhibit); and (c) of the role of referring terms in collective narratives and public memorial.
Formulating Rape: The Discursive Construction of Victims and Villains
Authors: Wood Linda A. , Rennie Heather
Published: March 2007

Previous psychological research involving women who have been raped is criticized for its focus on psychopathology, its use of traditional methodologies, its limited conception of the person, and its reliance on dichotomous categories. A social constructionist, discourse analytic approach is offered as an alternative. Eight women who had been raped by dates or acquaintances volunteered for open-ended, unstructured interviews. Their accounts had two major features: the difficulty of naming the experience rape and the importance of the men's accounts in the women's efforts to make sense of their experience. Our analyses identify the complex discourse strategies that are actively used to formulate experience and to negotiate victim/non-victim identities for the women themselves and villain/non-villain identities for the men who raped them. We discuss the importance of formulating rape and the connections among the discourse used by women who are raped, by rapists and by researchers.
Accusations and Defences in Courtroom Interaction
Authors: Komter Martha L.
Published: March 2007

This paper examines the management of accusations and defences, and the interplay between legal requirements and everyday conversational mechanisms in Dutch courtroom interaction. Two kinds of accusations are distinguished: those brought forward by the public prosecutor in the official charges, and those that are implied in the questions of the judges. The official charges foreclose or anticipate a number of possible defences, although defendants do not have the opportunity to respond immediately. The blame implied in the judges' questions generate various kinds of defences, depending on whether the questions are oriented to facts or to morals.

The judges' factual questions generate partial admissions or qualified versions, by which defendants tone down or disguise the more harmful elements of the alleged offence. Questions asking for a moral evaluation are followed by moral affirmation of the defendants, after which they try to mitigate their moral responsibility by way of excuses and justifications. The excuses and justifications brought forward by the defendants can be seen as everyday versions of legal grounds for immunity.
Anomalous Language in Sexual Assault Trial Judgments
Authors: Coates Linda , Bavelas Janet Beavin , Gibson James
Published: March 2007

We analyzed the language in a random sample of recent Western Canadian trial judgments in cases of sexual assault. We discovered five anomalous themes: erotic/affectionate characterization of sexual assault; sexual assault as distinct from violence; appropriate resistance by the victim; the good character of the offender; and grammatically omitting the agent of the assault. These themes are illustrated in context by a detailed analysis of one of the judgments. We propose that such themes may occur because, while there are interpretative repertoires for stranger rape and consensual sex, there is virtually no accurate vocabulary or narrative structure for the more common cases in which the assailant is not a stranger to the victim. The language currently used springs from—but also contributes to—establishing a false dichotomy between stereotypical stranger rape and consensual sexual contact; that is, either the sexual assault meets all of the characteristics of a stereotypical stranger rape or it is described as sexual contact and not as a sexual assault.
The Infotainment Quotient in Routine Television News: A Director's Perspective
Authors: Graber Doris A.
Published: March 2007

To what extent does routine television news supply citizens with essential political information? To what extent are routine stories sensationalized so that their informational content is diluted or obscured? How do television news directors frame routine news stories and rationalize the mix of factual reporting and dramatization that they present? To answer these questions, television news producers were presented with hypothetical routine news events and asked to construct news presentations and explain their framing rationales. The content of actual routine news stories was also analyzed for comparisons with the hypothetical accounts. The data indicate that both actual and hypothetical routine television news stories are designed and executed to answer the who, what, where and when questions that provide essential information to citizens. But they slight the why and how questions that would assist viewers in placing the facts into a more meaningful perspective. Framing is deliberately dramatic so that the policy-relevant aspects of news are often overshadowed by entertainment features.
Dating Advertisements: Discourses of the Commodified Self
Authors: Coupland Justine
Published: March 2007

Dating advertisements are the textual products of a discourse of commodification and marketization. They are certainly a prime site for witnessing the textual construction of self- and other-identities in the service of developing new relationships. Furthermore, close examination of a corpus of written and spoken dating advertisements reveals advertisers' resources for resisting full-blown self-commodification. Individuals can, to some extent, extricate themselves from the constraints of the media in which they operate. The analyses suggest that the moral case against `pernicious commodification', as a recurrent contemporary discursive formation and as a threat to late-modern self-identities and relationships, is overstated.
Just Say No? The Use of Conversation Analysis in Developing a Feminist Perspective on Sexual Refusal
Authors: KITZINGER CELIA , FRITH HANNAH
Published: March 2007

This article aims to show the value of conversation analysis for feminist theory and practice around refusal skills training and date rape prevention. Conversation analysis shows that refusals are complex conversational interactions, incorporating delays, prefaces, palliatives, and accounts. Refusal skills training often ignores and overrides these with its simplistic prescription to `just say no'. It should not in fact be necessary for a woman to say `no' in order for her to be understood as refusing sex. We draw on our own data to suggest that young women are able explicitly to articulate a sophisticated awareness of these culturally normative ways of indicating refusal, and we suggest that insistence upon `just say no' may be counterproductive insofar as it implies that other ways of doing refusals (e.g. with silences, compliments, or even weak acceptances) are open to reasonable doubt. Finally we discuss the implications of our use of conversation analysis for feminist psychology, both in relation to date rape and more generally.
Scientific Models, Connectionist Networks, and Cognitive Science
Authors: Green Christopher D.
Published: March 2007

The employment of a particular class of computer programs known as `connectionist networks' to model mental processes is a wide-spread approach to research in cognitive science these days. Little has been written, however, on the precise connection that is thought to hold between such programs and actual in vivo cognitive processes such that the former can be said to `model' the latter in a scientific sense. What is more, this relation can be shown to be problematic. In this paper I give a brief overview of the use of connectionist models in cognitive science, and then explore some of the statements connectionists have made about the nature of the `modeling relation' thought to hold between them and cognitive processes. Finally, I show that these accounts are inadequate and that more work is necessary if connectionist networks are to be seriously regarded as scientific models of cognitive processes.
Discourse, Knowledge, Materiality, History
Authors: Hook Derek
Published: March 2007

Discourse analysis has come to represent something of a `growth industry' in both research and critical psychology. Despite the apparent indebtedness of many such methods of discourse analysis to Foucault, there exists no strictly Foucauldian method of analysing discourse. Through a close reading of Foucault's `The Order of Discourse' (1981a), this paper re-characterizes the concept of discourse from a firmly Foucauldian perspective. Whilst not arguing against discourse analysis per se, the author indirectly takes issue with erroneous applications of Foucault's conceptualization by clarifying his perspective on what discourse is, and on what `discursive analysis' should entail. This critical presentation of the Foucauldian notion of the discursive will be contrasted with two prominent approaches to discourse analysis in psychology, namely those of Parker (1992) and Potter and Wetherell (1987). Key issues in this regard revolve around the themes of knowledge, materiality and history. By outlining the core components of what Foucault (1981a) terms `the order of discourse', and through the exposition of a four-step `method' of discursive critique, the author propounds an image of what a Foucauldian discursive analytic method may have looked like, should it have ever existed, before specifying exactly why one never did.
Kohlberg and Freud
Authors: Tellings Agnes , van Haaften Wouter
Published: March 2007

In this contribution we propose a comparative reconstruction of Kohlberg's and Freud's theories of moral development. We concentrate not on the developmental processes and their driving forces, but on the emerging conceptions of morality according to both theories. Each of the developmental stages is characterized in terms of the different sets of criteria typically constituting the changing (implicit) rationale for moral judgement and action. These criteria are represented according to the `logic of development' published earlier in this journal (van Haaften, 1998), which makes it possible precisely to describe the relations between the criteria within and through the successive stages in both theories. We also make some suggestions about stages preceding and following those that Freud explicitly mentions. Our reconstruction may serve as a first step towards a more exact comparison, and eventually perhaps partial integration, of different theories of moral development.
The One or the Other? Textual Analysis of Masculine Power and Feminist Empowerment
Authors: Morawski J. G. , Steele R. S.
Published: March 2007

Psychological writing, both theoretical and empirical, is assumed to exist free of the social dynamics of the psychologist who produced it. If anything like social power or control is contained within psychological writings, it is presumed to be an acknowledged feature of the experimental design or a manipulated attribute of the subject-participants. However, close analysis of these writings reveals a rarely acknowledged yet elaborate system of power relations. In the present study, discourses of power and empowerment are defined and compared in two different forms of psychological writing. The first form stresses the perspective of the observer, employs the male gaze, is relatively unreflexive, embraces the experimental method and attempts to centralize knowledge among a few while marginalizing a mass of unknowing others. The second form is grounded in women's attempts to voice their own and other women's concerns. It is watchful of men, advocates a decentralization of power, and tries to achieve understanding through dialogue.
Conceptual Rigor
Authors: Rozeboom William W.
Published: March 2007

Conceptual rigor is indeed a desideratum worth dedicated pursuit; in fact, one might wish that Chow had pursued it somewhat more diligently in his present essay. I suggest that the approach to data interpretation he advocates here is an etch-a-sketch draft whose prospect for refinement into an operational logic of inference that professional scientists can live by appears minuscule.
The Minimal Group Paradigm and its Minimal Psychology
Authors: Schiffmann Rudolf , Wicklund Robert A.
Published: March 2007

Tajfel and Turner's (1979, 1986) social identity theory, the minimal group paradigm with which the theory is associated and two core findings stemming from that paradigm are the focus of this paper. The development of the social identity concept is reviewed, and particular detail is devoted to the empirical basis of the theory, given that the theory was constructed to account for these data. It is found that the data are replete with weaknesses-confounds and susceptibility to alternative explanations-and that these weaknesses have gone largely unheeded. A careful inspection of the theory reveals that it is a reductionistic approach to individual identity or self: the theory specifies in no manner the psychological state of the individual prior to entry into the `ingroup', and in turn the individual's social identity is then equated with physical presence in a group, whereby membership is brought about not by psychological forces, but by arbitrary assignment. Two alternative, social-psychological theories are reviewed that serve as riper candidates for the generating of psychological hypotheses regarding the individual's approach towards and avoidance of, identification with and distancing from, other individuals and groups. It is concluded that social identity theory is little more than its own minimal paradigm, and is superfluous as an account of systematic social-psychological phenomena.
Rethinking Psychopathy
Authors: Levenson Michael R.
Published: March 2007

Leading conceptions of psychopathy originated from a clinical perspective, which assumed abnormality and sought to explain it. This perspective has led to three related potential explanations of psychopathy: the sociological (i.e. the psychopath as nonconformist); the physiological (i.e. the psychopath as characterized by a deficiency in the behavioral inhibition system); and the developmental (i.e. the psychopath as a product of poor early socialization). These three models are examined in this paper, and all are found to be deficient in explanatory power, even when combined. An alternative approach to psychopathy is suggested, which begins with the assumption that psychopathy is not a mental disorder, but rather reflects a philosophy of life centering around the trivialization of others. It is further suggested that such a philosophy of life may be far more pervasive than is generally recognized.
Process vs Structure and Levels of Analysis in Psychology
Authors: Munro Don
Published: March 2007

This paper proposes the development and formalization of a model, already implicit in much philosophy of science, as a vehicle for moving to the unification of theories in psychology and the social sciences. Its two essential foundations are (i) an emphasis on process rather than structure (or actions rather than things) and (ii) the analysis of phenomena of interest to psychology on an indeterminate number of levels. Processes on each level provide a description of the phenomena, and are related to processes at lower and higher levels, such that at each level they provide structure for levels above. It is proposed that existing scientific theories are legitimate at their own levels, but should be articulated into a complete model of reality on the basis of processes rather than reduced to the neural or any other level on the basis of structure.
What Kind of Approach to Language Fits Gibson's Approach to Perception?
Authors: Noble William
Published: March 2007

Gibson's theorizing about perception represents a potent case against cognitivist constructions of that capacity. Primarily it is seen to apply in contexts not dependent upon language. Gibson's own position on language is argued to contain some unexamined characteristics which could create contradictions for his ecological (hence evolutionary) theorizing about perception. Subsequent attempts, by Verbrugge and by Reed, to come to grips with the issue of language within an ecological framework are argued against. The model proposed by Buhler of language as Iorganon', or tool, is seen as best fitting the Gibsonian approach. Furthermore, the account of language's evolutionary emergence developed by Davidson and Noble is argued as congenial to Gibson's treatment of perception.
Constructivism, Direct Realism and the Nature of Error
Authors: Rantzen Andy J.
Published: March 2007

Many theorists have argued that the existence of error refutes the direct realist thesis that cognition is a relation between an organism and an external state of affairs. The constructivist view, widely preferred in contemporary-psychology, is that knowledge is pieced together by the mind from inadequate data (commonly termed `symbols', `representations' or `appearances'). Error occurs where these constructed cognitions fail to correspond to what is really the case. It is argued that constructivism fails on its own terms, since each one of its distinguishing characteristics is logically incoherent. It is only under a direct realist programme that the distinction between error and cognition becomes meaningful: error is not a variety of cognition `gone wrong', but occurs only in the absence of cognition. Realist attempts to accommodate error without due regard to this stricture fall prey to the same logical difficulties encountered by constructivism. A failure of cognition, it is proposed, occurs where either (i) the organism lacks the requisite cognitive capacity to cognize some situation (organismic inability to cognize); (ii) the situation is not accessible to the organism (lack of opportunity for cognition); or (iii) the situation acts upon the organism so as to block the organism's cognition of some fact (inhibition of cognition). Errors of omission, or first-order errors, occur where the organism fails to cognize some fact; errors of commission, or second-order errors, occur where the organism fails to cognize that it has failed to cognize some fact. Omission theories of error such as the hierarchical model proposed hold important implications for psychological theory and research.
Of Rats and Psychologists
Authors: Wertz Frederick J.
Published: March 2007

The relationship between psychology and rats is explored in connection with the pre-scientific lifeworld, where important motivational roots, historically changing cultural practices and far-reaching societal consequences of rat psychology are found. The pre-theoretical meanings of the rat entail its inimical Otherness opposing humanity, its unrelenting parasitic cohabitation with people, and its reflection of the inhumanity of the person. A historical analysis shows how, in coming to terms with the rat-induced Black Plague, humanity developed the practices of surveillance, analysis and control that culminated in the modern scientific transformation of the rat from a threat into a docile servant. The triumph over the rat-like in the human and in the rat itself aimed at by psycho-analysis and experimental psychology reveals humanity's attempt to overthrow its own evil by means of modem disciplinary structures. The societal ramifications of this psychology of one-way surveillance, analysis and control are found to contain a dehumanization in which the psychologist's hidden rat-likeness threatens to destroy human subjectivity and freedom. In order to curtail the alienating trends in the historical trajectory of modern psychology, a science entailing reciprocity and mutual recognition between the scientist and humanity, leading to an owning of the rat-like as a part of existence, is suggested.
Positivism and the Promise of the Social Sciences
Authors: Bailey James R. , Eastman Wayne N.
Published: March 2007

This paper contends that Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx, though politically disparate, were all vigorous proponents of a scientific approach to human phenomena, and in that way were harbingers of modem social and behavioral science. We show how for these three thinkers social science was inextricably linked to a notion of human betterment embodied in a specific moral and political vision, and argue that a dilemma emerged from their belief that such a science would lead to objective prescriptions. We then analyze how each resolved this dilemma, and review major disciplinary developments to illustrate how the modem professionalized version of social science is a response to this same dilemma. Knowledge of the historical conditions and intentions that surrounded the extension of scientific principles from physical to human arenas may better enable modem practitioners to understand why the promise the early positivists saw in social science has gone unfulfilled.
Backing Footing
Authors: Leudar Ivan , Antaki Charles
Published: March 2007

Potter (1996) makes many interesting comments on our paper. Unfortunately we cannot address them all in detail and we therefore focus on four points which we consider focal and of interest to the readers. According to Potter, we are too swift in our dismissal of the treatment of footing in discourse-analytic work; we hold a naively realist account of footing; we adopt too finicky a notion of context; and finally we are halfhearted in our appreciation of reflexivity. We provide a brief set of comments on these sympathetic misgivings, drawing on the relevant controversies in studies of talk.
Sexuality and Power
Authors: Meyer Joan
Published: March 2007

There is a complicated relation between sexuality and power. Extreme manifestations of the abuse of power can deflect attention from the structural characteristics of this relation. In an unequal power relation the dominant group influences the culture's overall outlook-its philosophy, morality, even its science. This paper poses the question of `normal' sexuality as a function of power differentials: what kind of sexuality is assigned to less powerful groups? A broad cultural influence is attributed to both Freud and Kinsey. The scope these views leave for a subjectivity of the less powerful is explored. A constructionist approach could be meaningful if the issue of power is dealt with explicitly.
The Perceiving Brain
Authors: Shapiro Yanina
Published: March 2007

According to the standard model of perception, the brain is a Turing Machine; its software matches `mental representations' of the outside world with its reflections on the retina. According to more recent computational models, the brain computes retinal images; `mental representations' are superfluous. According to the new biological theory of perception (Calvin, 1989; Edelman, 1989, 1992), the brain needs neither `mental representations' nor retinal images; it is a different digital computer, or Darwin Machine, which unconsciously perceives objects as they are -three-dimensional, colored and moving-because during the process of ontogenesis neuronal populations are selected by the environment to respond to the lines of different orientation, movement and color, and thereafter continue to do so habitually. The destructive part of this paper traces theoretical foundations of computational models of perception and demonstrates why they cannot explain human perception. The constructive part sketches a theory of human perception which utilizes the ontogenetic selection to explain recognition as the multimodal perception and only form of consciousness common to the mammalian brain. Contrary to common opinion, recognition is fully accounted for by the brain's analogues of gestalts; what needs to be explained is how the human brain shifts to unimodal perception and then to perceiving a single aspect/feature.
Meta Matters: A Comment on Agatti's Proposal on the Identity of Theoretical Psychology
Authors: van Rappard J. F. Hans
Published: March 2007

In a recent paper, Agatti (1993) proposed an identity for theoretical psychology. The present comment argues, first, that Agatti's concept of theory is too narrow to accommodate theoretical psychology in the sense of theory building. It is then pointed out that metapsychology is neglected. In this connection it is finally contended that in psychology, being a so-called `high-level' science, metapsychology is essential and, hence, that Agatti's concept of theoretical psychology in general is also too narrow.
Does Postmodernism Mean the End of Science in the Behavioral Sciences, and Does it Matter Anyway?
Authors: Ryan Bruce A.
Published: March 2007

At the root of the epistemological implications of modernity and postmodernity is the question of the nature of reality. In modernity the presumption is that reality is external, fully defined, and subject to discovery through science. In the emerging epistemology of postmodernism, science itself creates reality in the course of its practice. In order to assess the relative impact of these two positions on scientific scholarship within the social and behavioral sciences, their respective epistemologies are explored. It is suggested that while the practice of the natural sciences may be little affected by postmodernism, the social sciences in general, and most especially psychology, may be deeply changed by the new epistemology.
Statistical Significance Tests, Effect Size Reporting and the Vain Pursuit of Pseudo-Objectivity
Authors: Thompson Bruce
Published: March 2007

Two themes are argued in this comment on the use of statistical significance tests. First, effect sizes are an important aspect of results that should be reported. However, 10 empirical studies (some of several different journals) of articles in various disciplines demonstrate that effect sizes are still not usually being reported, notwithstanding the admonitions of the 1994 American Psychological Association (APA) Publication Manual. Second, using statistical significance tests does not (and cannot) make scientists (or their science) objective.
Trade Union Bargaining Horizons in Comparative Perspective: The Effects of Encompassing Organization, Unemployment and the Monetary Regime on Wage-Pushfulness
Authors: Kittel Bernhard
Published: March 2007

Before wage-pushfulness can be empirically related to the organizational structure of trade unions, the framework conditions that determine their perceived set of options must be adequately conceptualized. Although rising union density tends to increase wage pressure, the greater `encompassingness' of labour movements has a moderating effect. In addition, unemployment and the policy choices of the political authorities create incentives and constraints which shape union responses. The counteracting forces of density and concentration are presented in an interactive model based on data from 20 OECD countries for 1970-96. The article presents statistical evidence suggesting that wage-pushfulness depends on the specific constellation of density, concentration and the extent to which the political authorities are prepared to accommodate wage pressure.
Industrial Relations in Europe: Theory and Practice
Authors: Hyman Richard
Published: March 2007

Industrial relations as a distinctive field of study has been principally a feature of the English-speaking countries. In most of continental Europe, aspects of employment and its regulation have normally been studied as subsidiary themes within the various social-science disciplines. In the past decade, radical changes in the practice of industrial relations in Britain and the United States have led some to question the continued viability of the subject. Yet paradoxically, in continental Europe there has been a vigorous growth of interest in developing an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to the topic. The author welcomes this trend and calls for the construction of a genuinely European field of industrial relations.
Time, Information and Communication Technologies and the Household
Authors: Silverstone Roger
Published: March 2007

This paper, which draws on ongoing empirical work in the UK, considers the particular dynamics of time within domestic settings. It situates those dynamics within arguments that have drawn attention to the power of the new information and communication technologies to transform our perceptions of, and relations to, time (and space). It suggests that an understanding of the patterns of everyday life, both inside and outside the home, provides a basis for a more sensitive awareness of the complex patterns of temporality which emerge around the consumption of new media technologies.
The Gender of Paid and Unpaid Work Time
Authors: Hantrais Linda , Letablier Marie-Thérèse
Published: March 2007

European Union legislation reflects the consensus reached by the governments of member states. Yet laws have to be implemented in widely differing national contexts and may not therefore achieve the same objectives or have the same effects. Proposals for regulating working conditions, promoting equality of opportunity and reconciling paid and unpaid work are often driven by the need to avoid competitive disadvantage, with little regard for their possible impact on the everyday lives of individuals. This paper examines the temporal dimension of European legislation from a gendered perspective, and its implications for the patterning of women's employment and family life.
Leisure and the Modularization of Daily Life
Authors: van der Poel Hugo
Published: March 2007

The modularization of daily life refers to the growing exchangeability of forms of spending time in the unwinding of daily life (daily paths and life paths) due to increases in the scale of the supply of standardized time-units - filled with more or less predictable, calculable and re-combinable activities - and the simultaneous growth in the opportunities for individual actors to choose from this supply and reflexively organize their daily lives. After having introduced this concept, its relation to leisure is discussed. A distinction is made between having leisure and ways of spending it. In the first case, it is argued that there is no monolithic leisure area, where everybody can do whatever he or she likes. Rather, there exist different leisure-scapes, designating differences in the freedoms people are entitled to, depending on the differences in sources of income. In the second case, the discussion focuses on the relation between leisure and consumption. Particular attention is given to how the search for moral satisfaction shapes the ways people assemble time-modules in their daily life paths.
Poor Illiterate Reason: History, Nationalism and Common Law
Authors: Goodrich Peter
Published: March 2007

By long use and custom men, especially that are aged and have been long educated in the profession and practice of the law, contract a kind of superstitious veneration of it beyond what is just and reasonable. (Hale, 1787: 264)
Constitutionalizing the Culture-Ideology of Consumerism
Authors: Schneiderman David
Published: March 2007

This paper is an inquiry into the structuration of the culture-ideology of consumerism in the field of constitutional law. Consumerism is a strategy of transnational forces of production that inculcates the values of western consumer lifestyle on a global scale, a strategy used to good effect particularly by the producers of American cultural products. It is argued that domestic constitutional courts, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, are complicit in the process of advancing consumerism through their interpretations of the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression. The paper begins with a discussion of state theory in order to better understand the role of state agencies, such as courts, in constraining and enabling particular sets of actors. The paper then moves through the debate, primarily within cultural studies, between structural-determining and agency-enabling accounts of consumerism. The Supreme Court of Canada's jurisprudence regarding freedom of expression is then canvassed and contrasted with the judicial record regarding secondary picketing in the context of consumer boycotts. The judicial approach to consumerism is revealed to be partial and strategically selective so as to favour expression that facilitates, rather than impedes, the forces of production.
The Trans-Cyberian Mail Way
Authors: Whittle Stephen
Published: March 2007

Certain features of cyberspace have allowed new forms of minority activism in many spheres of influence. This paper looks at how those features have been particularly appropriate to the life experiences of the transsexual and cross-dressing communities. They have enabled a new community identification category, transgender. This new category has enabled transgender people to acknowledge the transgender self as having an experience outside of the conventional binary dichotomies of sex and gender. Through the experience of the virtual self in cyberspace they have been able to acknowledge an experiential self - an actual self, and become aware of the inade quacies of the self they experience in the real world. This has changed the transgender community's understanding of the legal problems they face and their use of law to tackle those problems. This paper looks at two particular areas in which this new understanding has enabled new forms of activism, and considers how the under standing of the actual self has arisen.
Towards the 'Decivilizing' of Punishment?
Authors: Pratt John
Published: March 2007

This article examines the cultural significance of some new 'signs and symbols' of punishment that are to be found taking place (albeit in uneven measure) across English-based jurisdictions at the present time. What I want to suggest is that these developments may be pointers to the emergence of a new penal culture, which makes possible a set of arrangements and strategies that are different from those which had been in the forefront of the modernist penal framework. Some of the values on which this structure had been founded, particularly during the welfare era of the 20th century, bear correspondence to trends seen by Norbert Elias (1939; 1982) as central to the 'civilizing' of modern Western societies. For him, the 'civilizing' process was not a naturally occurring phenomenon, but a social construction based on contingent historical developments - which at any time could be thrown into a 'decivilizing' reverse by such phenomena as war, natural disaster and economic collapse (Garland, 1990). Under such circumstances, there is likely to be a resurrection of practices and behaviour from different cultural eras (Mennell, 1990). This theoretical framework will be used here to analyse current penal trends and their implications.
Twelve Theses on the Impact of Humanitarian Intervention
Authors: MALEY WILLIAM
Published: March 2007

Armed external intervention may sometimes be required to halt barbaric attacks on the vulnerable, but rebuilding political, economic and social order in the aftermath of an intervention is fraught with difficulty. Post-intervention problems may include coping with new and fractious actors, managing complex processes of change, addressing fundamental questions of political philosophy, coping with `spoilers' and low levels of trust, and avoiding inadvertent damage to the intervention's beneficiaries - all in situations where resources may be scarce and intervening powers at odds with each other. Interveners should strive to absorb the lessons of past interventions and master the complexities of the territory on which they propose to act. Patience and humility are sterling qualities in an intervening force, even where robust action is required. Adapting Montesquieu's advice, if one must intervene, one should do so with a trembling hand.
Suburbanization and the Clash of Urban Regimes
Authors: Franz Peter
Published: March 2007

Since 1990, the date of German reunification, urban development, and especially the recovery of inner cities in East Germany, has been delayed by several factors including real estate restitution claims, inflexible preservation codes for historic buildings, and the shortage of stores for retailers. This blockade situation has resulted in the quick and intensified development of shopping centres as ‘inner city substitutes’ on the urban periphery. The combined effect of the factors preventing revitalization strategies and the newly realized and practised potential for autonomous action by the authorities of smaller municipalities has been to severely restrict the governing capacities of the authorities of the larger cities. In regaining their capability city governments are dependent on urban groups joining and supporting public developmental strategies. Such groups can be described as urban regimes. In Germany three types of regime can be differentiated. The cities differ with respect to the political strength and the forms of coalition and conflict between different urban regimes. Specific conditions in East Germany have led to a special regime constellation with a powerful ‘conservation regime’ on the one hand and a vivid ‘globalization regime’ on the other. This conflicting constellation results in a developmental blockade. The hypothesis is that a third regime type, the ‘local alliance’, is missing and still has to be created by practices such as city marketing and city management. Only when this regime-building process has advanced will new constellations of political coalitions and compromise become possible and be able to reduce governance problems of city government in the long run.