bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Characteristics of Ion Transport in Kidney Cortex of Mammalian Hibernators
Authors: WILLIS J. S.
Published: February 2012

Slices of kidney cortex of two species of hibernating mammals (hamsters and ground squirrels) have been leached of K, and their subsequent ability to reaccumulate K in vitro has been determined at temperatures between 38° and 0°C. At 5°C (body temperature of a hibernating mammal) uptake is appreciable in kidney cortex of both species. In the kidney cortex of hamsters, for example, the tissue K of slices incubated at 5°C reaches the same steady-state concentration after 2 hours that is observed in slices at 38°C after 20 minutes. At 0°C there is also a measurable uptake. This K transport is blocked by metabolic inhibitors and, in ground squirrel kidneys, by ouabain. In kidney cortex slices from guinea pigs net K accumulation is slight at 5°C and absent at 0°C. The initial rapid uptake of K at 38°C occurs at the same rate in kidney cortex slices of hamsters as in those of rabbits. Lowering the temperature of incubation decreases this initial rate of uptake in hamster kidney slices with a Q10 of 1.8 between 38° and 15° and of 5.7 between 15° and 0°C. In hamsters this uptake of K has been shown to require the outward extrusion of Na. Conversely, about half of the outward extrusion of Na requires K in the medium, while the remainder appears to be independent of K. The conclusions warranted are that kidney cells of hibernators possess an unusual ability to transport ions at low temperature, that this ability does not depend upon a more rapid rate at higher temperatures, and that the characteristics of transport at low temperature are qualitatively similar to those at 38°C in cells of nonhibernators.
The Influence of High Potassium Depolarization and Acetylcholine on Calcium Exchange in the Rat Uterus
Authors: van BREEMEN CASEY , DANIEL E. E.
Published: February 2012

Net and radioactive calcium movements were studied in the rat uterus during stimulation with acetylcholine and high potassium solutions. High potassium did not affect the efflux of intracellular Ca45, but was able to release Ca45 from a small parallel Ca fraction which was believed to be located in the cell membranes. High potassium did markedly slow the influx of Ca45 and caused a net calcium efflux. Acetylcholine had no effect on calcium movements in polarized myometrium, but it increased the Ca45 influx in depolarized uteri. Ca45 taken up during contraction exchanged more slowly during subsequent efflux than Ca45 taken up at rest. The results were interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that myometrial contraction is induced by a release of calcium from the inside of the cell membrane and the endoplasmic reticulum, and relaxation follows the removal of ionic cytoplasmic calcium by these same structures.
The Membrane Components of Crustacean Neuromuscular Systems
Authors: OZEKI MASAHIRO , FREEMAN ALAN R. , GRUNDFEST HARRY
Published: February 2012

Axon spikes in crayfish and lobster neuromuscular preparations were blocked by tetrodotoxin or saxitoxin (concentration 10−9 to 10−8 g/ml). Responses evoked in the excitatory synaptic membrane by ionophoretically applied glutamate, or in the inhibitory by GABA were unaffected by concentrations of the poisons up to 10−5 g/ml. These confirm other findings that the poisons do not affect electrically inexcitable membrane components. “Miniature” p.s.p.’s, which indicate local secretory activity in the presynaptic terminals were unaffected by the poisons. Electrical stimuli applied to the axon terminals elicited localized p.s.p.’s after spike electrogenesis of the axons was blocked. Thus, persistence of secretory activity may be linked to persistence of depolarizing K activation in the axons. Spikes induced in the muscle fibers by procaine were not affected by the poisons. In correlation with other data this finding indicates that the depolarizing electrogenic element, which does not depend upon Na activation in the normally gradedly responsive muscles, differs chemically from the Na activation component which is present in the conductile membrane of various cells. Three other varieties of electrically excitable response which are present in crayfish muscle fibers (hyperpolarizing Cl activation, depolarizing K inactivation, and K activation) were, likewise, immune to the toxin.
Toward community standards in the quest for orthologs
Authors: Dessimoz Christophe , Gabaldón Toni , Roos David S. , Sonnhammer Erik L. L. , Herrero Javier ,   the Quest for Orthologs Consortium
Published: February 2012

The identification of orthologs—genes pairs descended from a common ancestor through speciation, rather than duplication—has emerged as an essential component of many bioinformatics applications, ranging from the annotation of new genomes to experimental target prioritization. Yet, the development and application of orthology inference methods is hampered by the lack of consensus on source proteomes, file formats and benchmarks. The second ‘Quest for Orthologs’ meeting brought together stakeholders from various communities to address these challenges. We report on achievements and outcomes of this meeting, focusing on topics of particular relevance to the research community at large. The Quest for Orthologs consortium is an open community that welcomes contributions from all researchers interested in orthology research and applications.

Contact:  dessimoz@ebi.ac.uk
Positional correlation analysis improves reconstruction of full-length transcripts and alternative isoforms from noisy array signals or short reads
Authors: Kawaguchi Shuji , Iida Kei , Harada Erimi , Hanada Kousuke , Matsui Akihiro , Okamoto Masanori , Shinozaki Kazuo , Seki Motoaki , Toyoda Tetsuro
Published: February 2012

Motivation: A reconstruction of full-length transcripts observed by next-generation sequencer or tiling arrays is an essential technique to know all phenomena of transcriptomes. Several techniques of the reconstruction have been developed. However, problems of high-level noises and biases still remain and interrupt the reconstruction. A method is required that is robust against noise and bias and correctly reconstructs transcripts regardless of equipment used.

Results: We propose a completely new statistical method that reconstructs full-length transcripts and can be applied on both next-generation sequencers and tiling arrays. The method called ARTADE2 analyzes ‘positional correlation’, meaning correlations of expression values for every combination on genomic positions of multiple transcriptional data. ARTADE2 then reconstructs full-length transcripts using a logistic model based on the positional correlation and the Markov model. ARTADE2 elucidated 17 591 full-length transcripts from 55 transcriptome datasets and showed notable performance compared with other recent prediction methods. Moreover, 1489 novel transcripts were discovered. We experimentally tested 16 novel transcripts, among which 14 were confirmed by reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction and sequence mapping. The method also showed notable performance for reconstructing of mRNA observed by a next-generation sequencer. Moreover, the positional correlation and factor analysis embedded in ARTADE2 successfully detected regions at which alternative isoforms may exist, and thus are expected to be applied for discovering transcript biomarkers for a wide range of disciplines including preemptive medicine.

Availability:  http://matome.base.riken.jp

Contact:  toyoda@base.riken.jp

Supplementary information:  Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Good ethics or political and cultural censoring in science?
Authors: Torrissen Ole , Glover Kevin Alan , Haug Tore , Misund Ole Arve , Skaug Hans Julius , Kaiser Matthias
Published: February 2012

Torrissen, O., Glover, K. A., Haug, T., Misund, O. A., Skaug, H. J., and Kaiser, M. 2012. Good ethics or political and cultural censoring in science? – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 69: 493–497. Peer-reviewed journals are the cornerstones to communicating scientific results. They play a crucial role in quality assurance through the review process, but they also create opportunities for discussions in the scientific community on the implications of the results or validation of methods and data. This requires that journals adhere to commonly accepted scientific standards and are open about their editorial policy. Norwegian scientists experience problems in getting research on minke whales accepted for publication where the data have been collected in association with commercial whaling. The journal Biology Letters refuses to publish papers based on data from the Norwegian whale register while publically claiming a sole focus on scientific quality. Although there are good arguments for claiming that clearly unethical research should not be rewarded with scientific publications, one also has to realize that some fields of research are beset with unresolved ethical and cultural debates. In these cases, it is to the benefit of the progress of science, and indeed society, to be open about the issues and support arguments through scientific studies. Political or cultural censoring of scientific information will in any case jeopardize the role of journals in quality assurance of scientific research and undermine the credibility of science as a supplier of objective and reliable knowledge.
Genetic structure of the Atlantic wolffish (Anarhichas lupus L.) at Icelandic fishing grounds: another evidence of panmixia in Iceland?
Authors: Pampoulie Christophe , Skirnisdóttir Sigurlaug , Daníelsdóttir Anna Kristín , Gunnarsson Ásgeir
Published: February 2012

Pampoulie, C., Skirnisdóttir, S., Daníelsdóttir, A. K., and Gunnarsson, Á. 2012. Genetic structure of the Atlantic wolffish (Anarhichas lupus L.) at Icelandic fishing grounds: another evidence of panmixia in Iceland? – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 69: 508–515. The stock structure of the Atlantic wolffish was investigated at Icelandic fishing grounds, using 16 microsatellite loci. Despite the potential of the Atlantic wolffish to exhibit genetic structure (lack of eggs/larval dispersal and adults are sedentary), none of the genetic tests applied in this study detected significant genetic differentiation among the contemporary samples as well as among the contemporary and archived samples. The results of this study therefore suggested a lack of genetic structure among the populations of Atlantic wolffish in Icelandic waters and temporal stability over a period of ∼10 years. These results are discussed in terms of biological characteristics of Atlantic wolffish, recent isolation of populations, and their application to sustainable fisheries management issues.
Roman Architecture
Authors: DeLaine Janet
Published: February 2012

Architecture is the quintessential Roman art, and the well-preserved remains of Roman buildings dominate our vision of the Roman Empire. Alongside the temples and houses common to many societies, the Romans developed a wide range of new forms to meet the increasingly sophisticated and diverse needs of their society, such as baths, amphitheaters, and basilicas. Roman architecture is famous above all for its technological innovations and achievements, which found their greatest expression in wide-span buildings such as the Pantheon. They used arches and vaults widely from an early period, were highly skilled in timber construction, and developed concrete as a basic building material of wide-ranging application. The main evidence is the buildings themselves, many thousands of which survive to some degree, but ancient texts, especially the On Architecture of Vitruvius, and inscriptions provide much of the interpretative framework. Excavations and standing building surveys are constantly increasing our knowledge and understanding, sometimes confirming earlier hypotheses but also often requiring major reevaluations of established theories. Although Roman architecture has been studied since the Renaissance, it is only since the middle of the 20th century that it has come to be appreciated for the developments in concrete construction, which led to a revolution in the treatment of interior space. More recently, the emphasis has shifted to the processes of design and construction rather than the finished effect, and the role of architecture in society. Regional studies are also increasing, often tied to wider historical debates on identity and acculturation in the Roman Empire.
Emptiness (Śūnyatā)
Authors: Newland Guy
Published: February 2012

Emptiness literally translates the Sanskrit śūnyatā. While variously interpreted, it always points to the absence of some ontological feature of substance or essence that living beings mistakenly superimpose upon phenomena. Many but not all types of Buddhism teach that the ultimate nature of all things is in fact just this absence. The path to liberation from cyclic rebirth involves encountering this ultimate nature in meditation, thereby ending the delusion that is the root of needless misery. Emptiness appears but is infrequently mentioned in the Pali suttas that are the core scriptures of non-Mahayana forms of Buddhism, including the Theravada tradition and the historically important Sautrāntika and Vaibhāṣika systems. However, emptiness is directly linked to Buddhist teachings on the lack of self (anātman/anatta). The “self” that things lack is not mere personality or personhood but precisely the exaggerated nature that living beings, in delusion, habitually superimpose. Many non-Mahayana sources hold that there are analytically irreducible factors of existence. It is to collections of such factors, such as the collection of personal mental and physical elements, that living beings erroneously attribute a sense of substantial reality. The term and concept appear much more frequently in the Mahayana scriptures (sutras). In Mahayana Buddhism, Madhyamaka sources argue that all phenomena are devoid of any ultimately determinable or essential character. At the same time, emptiness is differentiated from nothingness through being linked to the teaching of dependent arising (pratītya-samutpāda). Insofar as things are empty of some substantial or essential nature, they arise interdependently, contingent upon other equally contingent phenomena. Other highly influential Mahayana teachings known as Yogācāra or Cittamātra (Mind Only) take emptiness as the lack of any substantial difference between consciousnesses and their objects of apprehension. One particularly important set of Mahayana texts takes the ultimate as a primordially pure buddha-nature (tathāgata-garbha) rather than sheer emptiness. Emptiness is significant in a very wide range of Buddhist literatures throughout the world. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries dozens of writers have argued for deep connections between Buddhist concepts of emptiness and a diverse array of non-Buddhist discourses.
Monasticism in East Asia
Authors: Meeks Lori
Published: February 2012

Early Buddhologists, who tended to focus on the texts and doctrines of particular schools of Buddhism, showed little interest in the study of monasticism as a set of social and religious practices. Historians and scholars of art undertook most of the foundational work in the study of Buddhist monasticism. Social and institutional historians studied monasteries as political and economic entities, while art historians examined monasteries as sites that cultivated great art and architecture. Over the past twenty-five years or so, this division of labor has slowly dissolved. As the field of religious studies has come to emphasize the importance of both social history and interdisciplinarity, scholars of Buddhism have begun to take a closer look at the social and religious lives of monastic institutions. Their studies have considered monasteries not only as political, economic, and religious bodies, but also as sacred sites and as social sites. Recent research in the field has shown that Buddhist monasteries in East Asia, as places that attracted pilgrims, tourists, scholars, and devotees, allowed diverse social groups to interact in multiple and complex ways. Despite recent growth in this subfield, however, the field still lacks single-authored studies that address Buddhist monasticism in a holistic fashion.
Roman Archaeology
Authors: McDonnell Kathryn J.
Published: February 2012

In its broadest sense, Roman archaeology encompasses all forms of study of the material remains of the Roman world, beginning in the 8th century bce and ending with the fall of the Roman Empire. In practice, research in Roman archaeology is typically divided into specializations by material type, geographic location, or chronological era, and often artificially separated into “art history” and “archaeology,” a division frequently reflected in the literature below. Subfields within Roman archaeology include, for example, architecture, field excavation in Rome, Italy, or any of the provinces, pottery studies, sculpture, painting, and mosaics. The purpose of this entry is to acquaint the reader with major subdisciplines within Roman archaeology. Subdisciplines and sites discussed in separate bibliography entries are noted below.
British Idealism
Authors: Brooks Thom
Published: February 2012

British idealism flourished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was a movement with a lasting influence on the social and political thought of its time in particular. British idealists helped popularize the work of Immanuel Kant and G. W. F. Hegel in the anglophone world, but they also sought to use insights from the philosophies of Kant and Hegel to help create a new idealism to address the many pressing issues of the Victorian period in Britain and its aftermath. These contributions related to theories of freedom, the common good, political obligation, the state, and punishment. The British idealists also made important contributions in areas other than Hegelian scholarship and ethics, including logic, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion. The movement declined by the start of World War I. This entry will highlight the most important work by British idealists themselves and by their best interpreters. Thus this entry will be grouped by individuals rather than by theme.
Confirmation
Authors: Dallmann Justin , Huber Franz
Published: February 2012

The term confirmation is used in epistemology and the philosophy of science whenever observational data and other information that is taken for granted speak in favor of or support scientific theories and everyday hypotheses. Historically, confirmation has been closely related to the problem of induction, the question of what to believe regarding the future given information that is restricted to the past and present. One relation between confirmation and induction is that the conclusion H of an inductively strong argument with premise E is confirmed by E. If inductive strength comes in degrees and the inductive strength of the argument with premise E and conclusion H is equal to r, then the degree of confirmation of H by E is likewise said to be equal to r.
Metaphilosophy
Authors: Cath Yuri
Published: February 2012

Often philosophers have reason to ask fundamental questions about the aims, methods, nature, or value of their own discipline. When philosophers systematically examine such questions, the resulting work is sometimes referred to as “metaphilosophy.” Metaphilosophy, it should be said, is not a well-established, or clearly demarcated, field of philosophical inquiry like epistemology or the philosophy of art. However, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries there has been a great deal of metaphilosophical work on issues concerning the methodology of philosophy in the analytic tradition. This article focuses on that work.
Normative Ethics
Authors: Thomas Alan
Published: February 2012

Normative ethics is the branch of philosophy that theorizes the content of our moral judgments or, as a limiting case, denies that any such theories are possible (the position of the so-called anti-theorists). While meta-ethics focuses on foundational issues concerning the semantics of moral utterance and how our moral views fit more broadly into a general conception of reality, normative ethics focuses on the major theoretical approaches to the content of moral reflection. It is shaped by the historical inheritance of the tradition of moral philosophy in the West in its focus on deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics as the major forms of normative ethical theory. These standard theories have been more recently complemented by the new field of feminist ethics, and innovations in ethical theory have added hybrid theory and contractualism to the list. All of these views continue to be the subject of intense debate and further refinement.
Political Philosophy
Authors: Hyams Keith , Shoikhedbrod Igor
Published: February 2012

Political philosophy is that branch of philosophy concerned with political morality and associated concepts. Dominant themes include justice, equality, liberty, democracy, rights, the distribution of resources, and political authority. This entry focuses on contemporary discussions and debates in political philosophy.
Punishment
Authors: Brooks Thom
Published: February 2012

The punishment of criminals is a topic of long-standing philosophical interest since the ancient Greeks. This interest has focused on several considerations, including the justification of punishment, who should be permitted to punish, and how we might best set punishments for crimes. This entry focuses on the most important contributions in this field. The focus will be on specific theoretical approaches to punishment including both traditional theories of punishment (retributivism, deterrence, rehabilitation) and more contemporary alternatives (expressivism, restorative justice, hybrid theories, unified theories) with an additional section on capital punishment, perhaps the particular form of punishment that has received the most sustained philosophical attention. These theories of punishment address two important questions: first, who should be permitted to punish and, second, who should be permitted to be punished. These questions then concern the justification of punishment and its distribution. While the majority today often identifies their theories as retributivist, there is a great diversity of theories defended. This article will highlight the leading work for each view.
Qualia
Authors: Batty Clare
Published: February 2012

You wake up to the sounds of the birds chirping. You open up the curtains and take in the colors of the flowering trees outside. Walking downstairs you are greeted by the smell of the coffee brewing. In each case, you undergo an experience with a distinctive phenomenal “feel.” That is to say, there is something that it is like to hear the birds chirping, smell the coffee, and see the colors of the flowers outside. Each, we say, is an experience with qualia. In neutral terms, qualia are those features, whatever they are, that account for the phenomenal character of experience. Tradition has it that perceptual experiences have qualia, as do bodily sensations, felt moods, and felt emotions. This entry focuses on philosophical issues and questions of qualia.
Rights
Authors: Cruft Rowan
Published: February 2012

The concept of a right is central to contemporary moral, political, and legal debates. It is therefore perhaps surprising that there is no consensus either on what rights are or on whether, and if so, how, their existence is morally justified. Recent work encompasses a wide range of positions on the nature of rights (e.g., as essentially protectors of people’s interests, as essentially protectors of people’s choices, or as fulfilling more complex functions), on their moral justification (e.g., as instrumentally or noninstrumentally grounded), and on the relationship between their nature and their justification. Much good work on particular types of rights—such as human rights, property rights, animal rights—bypasses these general issues, assuming a particular conception of rights without arguing for it. The initial sections of this bibliography focus on rights in general; specific forms of rights are examined under Notable Classes of Rights in this bibliography.
War
Authors: Lazar Seth , Parry Jonathan
Published: February 2012

Wars are large-scale armed conflicts between two or more organized groups. The basic problem of warfare is that it involves inflicting death and suffering on people, who, in ordinary circumstances, would have fundamental rights that protect them against being treated in these ways. Of course, everyone recognizes that wars are problematic in other respects: they corrupt and destroy institutions and relationships, they waste vast sums of wealth that could be used to remedy entrenched vulnerability, and they cause irreversible and massive damage to the natural environment. These are by no means negligible costs. And yet when considering the ethics of war, most start with the killing and the suffering, because if the killing cannot be justified, then the rest is irrelevant: our only choice is to affirm pacifism. However, justifying the killing is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition of justifying wars as a whole. There remain important questions to be asked about how and why the killing may be done. While the permissibility of killing per se provides the philosophical foundations of any theory of just war, the superstructure requires attention to specific questions governing the practice of warfare. In particular, for what reasons may conflict be permissibly initiated? How can we fight permissibly? How can we end wars, and deal with their aftermath, permissibly? The first two—justified resort and justified conduct—correspond to jus ad bellum and jus in bello in historical just war theory. The third is a more novel, less-discussed contribution, coined as jus post bellum by recent scholars. Only a war in which the killing is justified, and which is started, fought, and ended justifiably, can properly be called a just war.
Continental Aesthetics
Authors: Cazeaux Clive
Published: February 2012

Aesthetics in the Continental tradition of philosophy offers some of the most stimulating and influential ideas about art, sensory experience, and culture in modern thought. Whereas analytic aesthetics approaches questions about art by formulating clear and precise statements that can go on to become the basis for logical analysis, Continental inquiry pays greater heed to thought and language as things that are lived and performed and that have a history. As a result, aesthetics in the Continental tradition is less about art subject to strict philosophical questioning (with philosophical method taken as a given and not itself in question) and more about the following: (1) philosophy attending to the particular conditions in which it and thinking in general take place and where these conditions might be sensory, embodied, artistic, linguistic, historical, cultural, or metaphysical; (2) art’s role in exploring, extending, or making manifest these conditions; and (3) the new, emancipatory ways of living that might be created once the plastic, contingent, and generative nature of thought is grasped. In short, Continental aesthetics is the rethinking of art, philosophy, human being, and metaphysics. The Continental aesthetic tradition has its origins in Immanuel Kant, German idealism, and romanticism, and this article focuses on the principal schools, authors, and themes from Kant to the present.
China-Taiwan Relations
Authors: Goldstein Steven
Published: February 2012

The complex relationship between the Republic of China (ROC) on the island of Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the mainland is rooted in the Chinese civil war of 1946–1949, which ended when the defeated ROC government fled to Taiwan, where it remains. Initially the conflict concerned which side was the legitimate government of China. However, by the end of the 20th century Taiwan’s insistence on maintaining its sovereign status conflicted with the mainland’s insistence that the island was an inseparable part of China. Despite the steady growth of economic and cultural relations in the early 21st century, this central political dispute remains. Given the growing military power of the mainland as well as its refusal to abjure force to achieve its objectives, the dispute constitutes a potential flashpoint for armed conflict. However, there are other actors in this long-running drama. Since the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, the United States has supported the ROC. Official relations and a mutual defense treaty with the ROC were terminated after Washington established relations with the PRC in 1979. However, the Taiwan Relations Act passed in the same year provides the basis for a robust relationship with the island, arms sales, and the possibility of American intervention to resist coercive actions by the PRC. Finally, the people of Taiwan have played an important role. For most of the first half of the 20th century the ethnic Chinese population on Taiwan was not a part of the historic changes occurring on the mainland. They were a colonial people ruled by the Japanese, who sought—half-heartedly, to be sure—to assimilate them. The Chinese population was forced to take Japanese names and served in the Japanese army. They initially greeted the mainland forces that occupied the island after the Japanese surrender; but soon the distrust of what seemed to be a collaborationist population by the newly arrived Chinese mainlanders and the disgust of the local population with the corrupt, dictatorial control of the ruling Kuomintang (Nationalist Party or KMT) erupted in violence that was followed by institutionalized authoritarian rule by the Party and “White Terror” aimed at the native population. In the decades that followed, a movement and later a party (the Democratic Progressive Party or DPP) made up largely of native Taiwanese pressed for democratization as well as for the affirmation of an identity apart from the mainland and, eventually, independence. As democratization proceeded, their demands increasingly became an important consideration shaping the management of cross-strait relations.
Comparative Politics of Australia and New Zealand
Authors: Sawer Marian , McLaren Kirsty , Kelly Norm
Published: February 2012

Australia and New Zealand have many commonalities, apart from both having national flags featuring the Union Jack and the Southern Cross. As British settlements in the South Pacific, or settler societies, the Australasian colonies inherited Westminster political institutions and a tendency to believe in the superiority of the British race. When the federation process began in Australia in the last decade of the 19th century, it was thought that New Zealand might become the seventh state, but this was not to be. While this period was characterized by a significant amount of policy transfer between policy innovators on both sides of the Tasman Sea, New Zealanders prided themselves on better policy in relation to their Indigenous population, the Maori, and did not wish to put this at risk. For this and other reasons, New Zealand did not become part of the Commonwealth of Australia, although both Australia and New Zealand are now members of the Commonwealth of Nations based on the former British Empire. Policy transfer speeded up again in the 1980s with the institutional and cultural similarities of the two countries facilitating the adoption of successful policy experiments tested in one or another of the Australasian jurisdictions and the rejection of less successful ones. This brief history indicates some of the features that make Australia and New Zealand good candidates for comparative studies based on a “most similar systems” design. This approach seeks to compare cases that are similar in as many respects as possible, to simplify the task of identifying the source of difference. The two countries also differ in interesting ways in terms of political architecture and the treaty framework for Indigenous relations in New Zealand. A brief note on terminology may be helpful. Outsiders often find the different meanings of the term Commonwealth confusing—it is both the official name of the federal government of Australia as well as shorthand for the Commonwealth of Nations, of which both Australia and New Zealand are members. The term Australasia is also a source of confusion. The term was invented in the 18th century by a French explorer to mean “south of Asia.” It most often refers simply to Australia and New Zealand, although sometimes to the island of New Guinea as well. Another bugbear for comparative research is that the Australian Labor Party dropped the “u” from labour after its 1905 federal conference, but the New Zealand Labour Party has retained it. This article uses the Australian and New Zealand spelling of “labour”; here as in other works the “u” is retained where both parties are being referred to but otherwise the parties’ own spelling is used.
Democratization
Authors: Samuels David
Published: February 2012

Democratization is defined as a change in political regime within a sovereign state from nondemocracy to democracy. The question of the optimal political regime for governing human communities has been core to Western political philosophy since Antiquity (Plato’s Republic), as has been the question of the causes of change between political regime (Aristotle’s Politics). The spread of Enlightenment ideas of individual rights, the advent of the modern state system starting in the 17th century, and the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century in western Europe and North America all contributed to the erosion of traditional religious and monarchical traditions of political rule. Since that time, scholars have continually returned to the classic questions of the sources of regime change. The roots of contemporary social science research can be found in modern political philosophers. Rousseau argued that participation was essential to popular sovereignty, while James Madison’s contributions to the Federalist Papers urged the creation of institutional brakes on popular sovereignty, to balance the will of the majority against the rights of minorities. Likewise, Montesquieu (The Spirit of the Laws) and Tocqueville (Democracy in America) both suggested, in different ways, that a connection exists between a country’s political culture and its political regime. Also, Karl Marx’s and Max Weber’s works continue to influence scholarship, particularly in terms of the question of the political consequences of economic and social modernization.
Post-Communist Democratization
Authors: Tucker Joshua
Published: February 2012

In addition to forever changing the lives of hundreds of millions of people, the collapse of communism presented a unique opportunity to social scientists, especially to political scientists. Almost thirty countries suddenly found themselves in the midst of a “transition” at approximately the same time and with at least one very strikingly similar precondition: decades of communist rule. For people who study comparative politics, it is harder to think of a better research background. This review focuses on five areas of scholarship that are related to the emergence of democracy in eastern Europe. The first examines the actual process of democratization, from the literature on the collapse of communism to the emergence of what followed it. The second then looks at the opinions held by citizens in these newly democratic states—toward democracy itself, economic and social policies, their new political institutions, and what would become the future for most of the region: membership in the European Union (EU). The next section covers the activity that distinguishes new democracies most clearly from their predemocratic regime types: elections and voting. The fourth section examines the other ways that citizens in post-communist countries have made their views heard, through social movements in protests. The final section concludes with what has been perhaps the most pressing policy issue faced in the post-communist political space since the 1990s, which is the question of post-communist economic reform.
Development of Survey Research
Authors: Johnston Richard
Published: February 2012

Survey research and empirical political science grew up together. Although the bills for commercial survey fieldwork are mainly paid for nonpolitical purposes, early surveys were justified publicly for their contribution to a deepened understanding of the electorate. Even today, polls on political questions are the loss leader for many high-profile firms. On the academic side, systematic quantitative investigation of political phenomena began with the Erie County Study (Lazarsfeld, et al. 1968, cited under Based on Purpose-Built Academic Data Sets), and academic and commercial practices intersected with controversies over quota versus probability sampling in the 1940s (Converse 1987). Survey research on public opinion and elections was the central force in shaping empirical methods for the discipline as a whole. Whereas survey research was initially a path along which insights from sociology and psychology were imported into political science, in time political scientists came to dominate the trade. Also with time, survey analysts were forced to acknowledge the limitations of their own method, for causal inference in general but also for historical and institutional nuance. As an expression of a scientific temperament, survey research thus yielded ground to other techniques, most notably statistical analysis of archival data on one hand and experimentation on the other. But these challenges arguably have forced the sample survey to reveal its versatility. Cross-level analyses are increasingly common—all the more so as our understanding of the statistical foundations of multilevel modeling has grown. In addition, surveys are serving increasingly as vehicles for experimentation, a way of recruiting subjects outside the laboratory and off-campus and of linking random selection of subjects to random assignment to experimental treatment or control. The current period is one of massive flux and, possibly, rapid obsolescence. On the one hand, target populations are growing less compliant with surveys, even as the bases for survey coverage become more uncertain. On the other hand, new techniques have emerged, often linked to new funding models. Most critical is the World Wide Web. Ironically, the emergence of the web as a survey platform has revived controversies, seemingly settled in the 1940s, over the requirement for probability samples. Through all of this, concern has grown about the very meaning of survey response and its relation to public opinion—indeed, if such a thing as public opinion exists.
Electoral System Reform in Advanced Democracies
Authors: Shugart Matthew , Reeves Justin
Published: February 2012

The electoral system is the set of rules and procedures used to translate votes cast for specific candidates or political parties into seats in a legislative body; some scholars also include presidential or other executive elections under the rubric of electoral systems. Electoral system reform, often called simply electoral reform, is the adoption of some fundamental changes in these rules and procedures. Although no clear agreement exists on how much change is required in order to qualify as electoral system reform, the term is generally understood to mean more than incremental changes in specific features of an electoral system. Thus, electoral system reform typically means a shift in the main principle by which allocation of seats takes place, such as a move from majority allocation to proportional representation or from candidate-based to party-list allocation (or vice versa). By this standard, electoral system reform is a relatively rare event. Major reforms of electoral systems have taken place in the late 20th and early 21st centuries in several key countries, including France (twice), Italy (twice), Japan, and New Zealand. In addition, in the latter part of the 20th century, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have adopted for their own parliaments new electoral systems that are fundamentally different from those used for the UK House of Commons. Serious discussions of reform, in the sense of wholesale change in the principle of representation, have occurred in Canada (including some its provinces) and the United Kingdom. However, as of the early 21st century, reforms of the electoral system for the UK and Canadian House of Commons and Canadian provincial legislatures have not occurred. Some researchers increase the number of relevant cases by including more-incremental modifications to electoral systems rather than only wholesale changes. Within the family of proportional representation, incremental changes include alterations of the threshold (the minimum vote share needed to win a seat) or in the rules applying to the role of preference votes for individual candidates in the ordering of party lists. Such changes are much more common than wholesale changes between proportional and majority principles of representation. Most researchers do not consider changes in district boundaries (or the criteria to be used in such boundary drawing) in plurality/majority systems to be reform, since they are more-routine procedures periodically required by the laws of most countries using such systems.
Judicial Supremacy and National Judicial Review
Authors: Kersch Ken I.
Published: February 2012

Judicial review is the power of a court to assess the constitutionality of legislation, and to hold null and void any legislation it finds to contravene the Constitution. Although not mentioned anywhere in the US Constitution, the power was exercised by both state and federal courts from the nation’s inception, most prominently by the US Supreme Court in Marbury v. Madison (1803). In Marbury, borrowing from arguments advanced earlier by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist #78, and more general common law and colonial understandings, Chief Justice John Marshall set out a theoretical justification for the practice anchored in a court’s duty to decide cases according to law. In so doing, where a court finds a conflict between the fundamental law of the Constitution (adopted by “We the People,” acting in their sovereign capacity), and ordinary law (passed by legislatures), the court is obliged to give precedence to the former over the latter. Although this has been widely accepted as a legitimate practice arising out of a judge’s broader duty to decide cases according to law, there were always those who objected to judicial review as implicitly instituting “judicial supremacy,” where, by virtue of the exercise of the judicial review power, a judge’s interpretation of the Constitution was held to take precedence over that of any other. But why should the judge’s interpretation be understood as supreme, when elected members of Congress and the president—like judges—also takes oaths to uphold the Constitution and may have their own, perhaps more sensible, interpretation? Debates over these matters recur throughout American history, particularly in periods when, on matters of unusual political salience, the court’s interpretation of the Constitution is consistently at odds with that of other elected officials, or of the people (what, in recent years, has come to be called “extra-judicial constitutional interpretation”). For over a century now—beginning with the contestation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries between traditionalist judges wielding their judicial review powers versus the progressive innovations of the newly emerging American regulatory and social welfare state—the nature, theory, and practice of judicial review have been at the center of academic and popular discussion of US constitutional law. The subject has thus been approached from many angles, by scholars from different academic disciplines, with a diversity of questions in mind. Those researching judicial review will usually have in mind a particular angle rather than the whole subject.
Politics of East Africa
Authors: Nyabuga George
Published: February 2012

The focus of this article is Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, although countries including Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and to some extent Southern Sudan can be considered to be part of the larger East Africa. The former three countries have followed different but somewhat similar political trajectories, experimenting at some point with one-party, centralized political systems. Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania also share a common colonial background, their people straddle common borders, and they shared common services from the colonial period until 1977, when the East African Economic Community collapsed. The countries in 1999 revived the East African Community and expanded it to include Burundi and Rwanda. A political federation is expected to be established in 2017. Although Uganda has had a troubled political trajectory, with coups and a military dictatorship (especially under Idi Amin Dada between 1971 and 1979), Kenya and Tanzania have been relatively stable, albeit of course with political problems of their own. Poor and despotic leadership, corruption, and electoral malpractice, among other political problems, have been common maladies in the three countries. Accordingly, issues of constitutionalism, political developments and democracy, and conflict seem to dominate the literature on East African politics. The intrigues, fluidity, and unpredictability of politics in the three countries attracts not only East Africanist scholars but also general readers interested in African or indeed other politics.
Politics of the European Union
Authors: McCormick John
Published: February 2012

The European Union (EU) has become a critical new actor on the global stage, containing twenty-seven member states (with more considering membership) and nearly 500 million people. With its origins in postwar efforts to promote peace, security, and economic reconstruction in Europe, the EU constitutes a new level of authority above that of the member states and has overseen the building of a European single market, the launch of the euro, and the development of common (or coordinated) policies on agriculture, the environment, trade, regional development, external relations, immigration, and a wide variety of other issues. But the jury is still out on the personality of the EU and the wisdom of European integration, some praising its achievements but others regarding it as undemocratic and a threat to the sovereignty of its member states. The literature on the EU has grown exponentially since the late 1980s, as scholars and other analysts struggle to understand both the dynamics and the implications of European integration. This entry offers a taste of the range of topics within the literature, with sections on the theory and principles of integration, the history of the EU, its major institutions, political processes, and key areas of policy activity.
Public Opinion in Affluent Democracies
Authors: Dalton Russell J.
Published: February 2012

Public-opinion research ranges from political attitudes to understanding family life in sociology to consumer confidence surveys in economics. This article covers some of the major resources for studying and understanding opinions on political topics in the United States and other affluent democracies. It describes the major books on the content and methodology of public-opinion research as a guide to current scholarship. In addition, the article includes information on primary resources and journals emphasizing research on political attitudes. Many of the large-scale US and international public-opinion projects also provide the survey data and additional information on their research topics, and these projects are listed in the various sections of the article.