bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Availability of Experimental Therapy Outside Oncology Randomized Clinical Trials in the United States
Authors: Hamilton Erika P. , Lyman Gary H. , Peppercorn Jeffrey
Published: October 2010

Purpose

Investigational cancer therapies may be available outside trials as “off-protocol therapy” (OPRx), with implications for patient safety, trial accrual, and access to care. We conducted a literature-based analysis of recent randomized trials to evaluate the potential scope and impact of OPRx in the United States.

Methods

A MEDLINE search identified all English-language phase III medical oncology randomized clinical trials (RCTs) published over a 2-year period ending April 17, 2008. Determination of OPRx availability was based on US Food and Drug Administration approval for any indication. We limited assessment of accrual to studies with US sites. Data from articles were extracted independently by two investigators.

Results

Among 172 eligible RCTs, the majority (108; 63%) evaluated drugs that were available OPRx in the United States at trial initiation, while an additional 19 (11%) evaluated interventions that became available during the trial. Among trials with US sites, time to accrual was slower (41 vs 22 months; P = .002) and less efficient (8.8 v 22.7 patients per month; P = .001) when OPRx was available. Sixty-six percent of RCTs reported at least one increased grade 3 to 4 toxicity in the experimental arm, 47% reported superior efficacy for at least one major clinical outcome in the experimental arm, and 27% reported improvement in overall survival. These outcomes did not vary on the basis of OPRx availability.

Conclusion

The majority of recent oncology RCTs involve experimental interventions that are available outside trials in the United States with potential impact on trial accrual. The safety and efficacy of novel interventions must be determined by clinical trials.
Book Reviews
Authors: Pearson Kimberly H.
Published: October 2010

The treatment of eating disorders: A clinical handbook Grilo Carlos Mitchell James New York: The Guilford Press, 2010. $75.00. ISBN 978‐1‐60623‐446‐4
Death of Moses Revisited: Repetition and Creative Memory in Freud and the Rabbis
Authors: Kolbrener William
Published: October 2010

This article provides a Freudian reading of rabbinic representations of the death of Moses, but without the etiological baggage of Freud's own meditations in Moses and Monotheism . For the rabbis, the death of Moses was not the "murder" Freud constructed, and it led not to guilt and repression but rather to anxiety over the loss of the absolute certainty grounded in Moses' unique prophecy. Whereas for Freud Jewish guilt and the obsessive neurosis of ritual life find an antecedent in the repetitious enactment of the killing of Moses as the primal father, in the rabbinic view Moses' death constitutes a Judaism based not on repetition but on creative remembrance. Thus, the rabbinical response to the death of Moses forms a precursor to psychoanalysis, entailing a "hermeneutics of mourning" that highlights the need for remembrance and creative differentiation in the face of loss.
"Your Nose Has Again Smelled Right": Reflections on the Disputed Origin of Freud's Concept of Sublimation
Authors: Capps Donald
Published: October 2010

In "Of Snips . . . and Puppy Dog Tails": Freud's Sublimation of Judentum ," Jay Geller discusses Freud's claim that he conceived his idea of sublimation while reading about the youthful dog-tail-cutting adventures of the future surgeon J. F. Dieffenbach in Heinrich Heine's The Harz Journey . Geller shows that the episode actually occurs in Heine's memorial to Ludwig Borne, a baptized Jewish critic and liberal publicist, and argues that Freud's error (together with a "canine caudal caesura" in the work of Georg Christophe Lichtenberg) is entwined with an irony that undermines the general approbation given to his concept of sublimation, namely, that the concept itself sublimates the correlation between psychoanalytic discourse and Freud's own Jewish identifications. In this article, I endorse but also extend Geller's argument by drawing attention to implications for his argument of the fact that Dieffenbach was a nose surgeon.
Jacob's Ambivalent Legacy
Authors: Whitebook Joel
Published: October 2010

This paper elucidates Freud's ambivalent and complex relation to Judaism, tracing it to the "break with tradition" that ran through the center of his father's life. Jacob Freud was a conflicted and transitional figure, with one foot planted in the parochial world of Jewish traditionalism and the other in the cosmopolitan world of European modernity. And he wanted his son to partake of these two legacies in equal degree. But Sigmund found the conflict untenable and chose in favor of science, secularism, and the Enlightenment. The point to be appreciated, however, is that he did not see his choice of the Aufklärung as a simple rejection of the Jewish tradition. Rather, by construing Moses as an Aufklärer , he was able to define his project as an inner transformation of the Jewish tradition so that he could thus be "a godless Jew," thereby confirming both his atheism and his cultural heritage.
Moses in Moravia
Authors: O'Donoghue Diane
Published: October 2010

Approaching eighty, Freud, in a letter to Lou Andreas-Salomé, described his engagement with the story of Moses as enduring "throughout the whole of my life." The origins of this relationship, usually traced to Freud's experiences with the narratives of his childhood Bible, may have included early encounters, in the company of his Czech caretaker, with sculptural images as well. The first three years of Freud's life were spent in Moravia, where a reverence for Moses was deeply woven into the Catholic identity of its population and the region's visual culture. A statue of this biblical figure in one of the churches in Freud's birthplace provides us with an opportunity to investigate the amalgam of meanings invested in Mosaic representation, and its extension in an important local saint, Methodius. Moses' Jewish identity was incorporated into discourses of local hagiology, perhaps complicating his significance for Freud from the start.
Moses Lactans: Evidence in Support of the Latent Mythic Value of Freud's 1914 "Moses of Michelangelo"
Authors: Spero Moshe Halevi
Published: October 2010

It has become impossible to ignore the fact that Freud's landmark essay "The Moses of Michelangelo," however intriguing, is disproportionately flawed and methodologically problematic. Among the list of troubles, recent research emphasizes Freud's apparent misidentification of the actual biblical episode portrayed by Michelangelo, his one-sided emphasis on the harsh, paternal dimension implied by the biblical lawgiver's classical role, and the missed opportunity to develop a theory of aesthetic sublimation. And yet the 1914 text seems powerfully imbued with some sort of hidden, unnamed quality that compels writers to decipher the riddles. As such, it functions like a myth. I confront the latent "breast" or "nursing" thesis that has been suggested by me and other authors recently, and reconsider the evidence for a painful internal maternal representation in Michelangelo's earliest work to his last, crossing from Madonna to Moses, and perhaps perceived by Freud. The transformation of Moses into a Madonna may be hypothetical, yet the image is in fact anticipated in two important biblical passages, not brought into previous discussions.
Facilitating longer working lives: International evidence on why and how
Authors: Wise David A.
Published: October 2010

The article advances the view that social and economic choices in societies can reasonably adjust as the age structure of the population changes; in particular, some of the bounty of longer lives can reasonably be allocated to prolonging the labor force participation of older workers. Data on reductions in mortality and, in some countries, declines in disability are presented in ways that help to clarify that prolonged working lives may be a natural concomitant of living longer. The article reviews the problems inherent in the combination of living longer and reducing labor force participation at older ages. It discusses two ways to facilitate longer working lives: (1) eliminating penalties on work at older ages—inherent in the provisions of the social security programs in many countries—that induce older persons to leave the labor force at younger ages; and (2) correcting a false rationale—the “boxed economy” view of the labor market—that is often used to support retention of the provisions that induce older persons to leave the labor force.
Key themes in research on the demography of aging
Authors: Schoeni Robert F. , Ofstedal Mary Beth
Published: October 2010

Conclusion

For years, researchers and policymakers have attempted to focus attention on population aging by discussing the likely implications to individuals, governments, and society of the baby boom generation reaching old age. No longer can researchers and policymakers say that these are issues that will arise far into the future; the leading edge of the baby boom cohort—born in 1946—will turn age 65 next year. The future is upon us.

The implications of this change in age structure are tremendous, although we may not fully understand the impact for years to come. However, an incredibly rich research infrastructure is now in place that did not exist just 20 years ago. Drawing on this infrastructure, scientists of today and tomorrow will generate new knowledge that will allow us to more intelligently address the most pressing social and economic issues facing society, issues such as the ones examined in this special issue.
Some macroeconomic aspects of global population aging
Authors: Lee Ronald , Mason Andrew
Published: October 2010

Across the demographic transition, declining mortality followed by declining fertility produces decades of rising support ratios as child dependency falls. These improving support ratios raise per capita consumption, other things equal, but eventually deteriorate as the population ages. Population aging and the forces leading to it can produce not only frightening declines in support ratios but also very substantial increases in productivity and per capita income by raising investment in physical and human capital. Longer life, lower fertility, and population aging all raise the demand for wealth needed to provide for old-age consumption. This leads to increased capital per worker even as aggregate saving rates fall. However, capital per worker may not rise if the increased demand for wealth is satisfied by increased familial or public pension transfers to the elderly. Thus, institutions and policies matter for the consequences of population aging. The accumulation of human capital also varies across the transition. Lower fertility and mortality are associated with higher human capital investment per child, also raising labor productivity. Together, the positive changes due to human and physical capital accumulation will likely outweigh the problems of declining support ratios. We draw on estimates and analyses from the National Transfer Accounts project to illustrate and quantify these points.
Trends in health of older adults in the United States: Past, present, future
Authors: Martin Linda G. , Schoeni Robert F. , Andreski Patricia M.
Published: October 2010

The decline in late-life disability prevalence in the United States was one of the most important developments in the well-being of older Americans in the 1980s and 1990s, but there is no guarantee that it will continue into the future. We review the past literature on trends in disability and other health indicators and then estimate the most recent trends in biomarkers and limitations for both the population aged 65 and older and those aged 40 to 64, the future elderly. We then investigate the extent to which trends in education, smoking, and obesity can account for recent trends in limitations and discuss how these three factors might influence future prospects for late-life health. We find that improvements in the health of the older population generally have continued into the first decade of the twenty-first century. The recent increase in the proportion of the younger population needing help with activities of daily living is concerning, as is the doubling of obesity in the last few decades. However, the increase in obesity has recently paused, and favorable trends in education and smoking are encouraging.
The potential impact of comparative effectiveness research on U.S. Health Care expenditures
Authors: Perlroth Daniella J. , Goldman Dana P. , Garber Alan M.
Published: October 2010

Comparative effectiveness research (CER) has the potential to slow health care spending growth by focusing resources on health interventions that provide the most value. In this article, we discuss issues surrounding CER and its implementation and apply these methods to a salient clinical example: treatment of prostate cancer. Physicians have several options for treating patients recently diagnosed with localized disease, including removal of the prostate (radical prostatectomy), treatment with radioactive seeds (brachytherapy), radiation therapy (IMRT), or—if none of these are pursued—active surveillance. Using a commercial health insurance claims database and after adjustment for comorbid conditions, we estimate that the additional cost of treatment with radical prostatectomy is $7,300, while other alternatives are more expensive—$19,000 for brachytherapy and $46,900 for IMRT. However, a review of the clinical literature uncovers no evidence that justifies the use of these more expensive approaches. These results imply that if patient management strategies were shifted to those supported by CER-based criteria, an estimated $1.7 to $3.0 billion (2009 present value) could be saved each year.
Biodemography: New approaches to understanding trends and differences in population health and mortality
Authors: Crimmins Eileen , Kim Jung Ki , Vasunilashorn Sarinnapha
Published: October 2010

The incorporation of biological information in large population surveys has expanded demographic analysis to clarify the meaning of observed trends and differences in population health and mortality. Levels of measured biological risk in the population were reduced in recent years largely because of the expanded use of prescription drugs. The increased use of antihypertensives and, to a lesser extent, lipid-lowering drugs was a likely cause of significant mortality reduction. Blacks and persons with lower educational attainment experience higher levels of biological risk factors, more diseases, and more frailty; these differences are the sources of higher mortality for these groups. Hispanics are less likely to have a higher prevalence of risk factors and diseases than the non-Hispanic population, providing further understanding of the “Hispanic paradox.” Almost every examined indicator of biological risk, disease, and frailty is related to higher mortality, indicating how incorporation of this information provides a fuller understanding of the morbidity process.
What can we learn from (and about) global aging?
Authors: Kapteyn Arie
Published: October 2010

Although aging is a global phenomenon, there are large differences across countries in both the speed of aging and the current age composition. Furthermore, countries adopt vastly different policies. This creates a natural laboratory that scientists can use to understand how policies affect outcomes. I discuss under what circumstances data from different countries can be used for inference about policy effects. Although comparable health and retirement data are currently being collected in some 25 countries, the use of such data requires careful modeling of differences in institutions and in response styles across countries.
Causes and consequences of early-life health
Authors: Case Anne , Paxson Christina
Published: October 2010

We examine the consequences of child health for economic and health outcomes in adulthood, using height as a marker of childhood health. After reviewing previous evidence, we present a conceptual framework that highlights data limitations and methodological problems that complicate the study of this topic. We then present estimates of the associations between height and a range of outcomes—including schooling, employment, earnings, health, and cognitive ability—measured in five data sets from early to late adulthood. These results indicate that, on average, taller individuals attain higher levels of education. Height is also positively associated with better economic, health, and cognitive outcomes. These associations are only partially explained by the higher average educational attainment of taller individuals. We then use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Children and Young Adults survey to document the associations between health, cognitive development, and growth in childhood. Even among children with the same mother, taller siblings score better on cognitive tests and progress through school more quickly. Part of the differences found between siblings arises from differences in their birth weights and lengths attributable to mother’s behaviors while pregnant. Taken together, these results support the hypothesis that childhood health influences health and economic status throughout adulthood.
Disease prevalence, disease incidence, and mortality in the United States and in England
Authors: Banks James , Muriel Alastair , Smith James P.
Published: October 2010

We find that both disease incidence and disease prevalence are higher among Americans in age groups 55–64 and 70–80, indicating that Americans suffer from higher past cumulative disease risk and experience higher immediate risk of new disease onset compared with the English. In contrast, age-specific mortality rates are similar in the two countries, with an even higher risk among the English after age 65. We also examine reasons for the large financial gradients in mortality in the two countries. Among 55- to 64-year-olds, we estimate similar health gradients in income and wealth in both countries, but for 70- to 80-year-olds, we find no income gradient in the United Kingdom. Standard behavioral risk factor’s (work, marriage, obesity, exercise, and smoking) almost fully explain income gradients among those aged 55–64 in both countries and a significant part among Americans 70–80 years old. The most likely explanation of the absence of an English income gradient relates to the English income benefit system: below the median, retirement benefits are largely flat and independent of past income, and hence past health, during the working years. Finally, we report evidence using a long panel of American respondents that their subsequent mortality is not related to large changes in wealth experienced during the prior 10-year period.
Families, social life, and well-being at older ages
Authors: Waite Linda , Das Aniruddha
Published: October 2010

As people age, many aspects of their lives tend to change, including the constellation of people with whom they are connected, their social context, their families, and their health—changes that are often interrelated. Wave I of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP) has yielded rich information on intimate ties, especially dyads and families, and on social connections generally. Combined with extensive biological and other health measures, NSHAP enables researchers to address key questions on health and aging. We begin with recent findings on intimate dyads, then move to social participation, and finally to elder mistreatment. Among dyads, we find that whereas sexual activity drops sharply with age for both women and men, gender differences in partner loss as well as psychosocial and normative pressures constrain women’s sex more than men’s. However, surviving partnerships tend to be emotionally and physically satisfying and are marked by relatively frequent sex. In contrast to sex, nonsexual intimacy is highly prevalent at older ages, especially among women. Older adults are also socially resilient—adapting to the loss of social ties by increasing involvement with community and kin networks. Despite these social assets, older adults remain vulnerable to mistreatment. Overall, these findings yield a mixed picture of gender-differentiated vulnerabilities balanced by proactive adaptation and maintenance of social and dyadic assets.
Recent developments in longitudinal studies of aging in the United States
Authors: Hauser Robert M. , Weir David
Published: October 2010

We review recent developments in longitudinal studies of aging, focusing on the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Both studies are part of a trend toward biosocial surveys in which biological measurement is joined with traditional survey techniques, and a related trend toward greater harmonization across studies. Both studies have collected DNA samples and are working toward genotyping that would allow broadly based association studies. Increased attention to psychological measurement of personality and of cognitive ability using adaptive testing structures has also been shared across the studies. The HRS has expanded its economic measurement to longitudinal studies of consumption and to broader-based measurement of pension and Social Security wealth. It has added biomarkers of cardiovascular risk. The WLS has developed an integrated approach to the study of death and bereavement and an innovative use of high school yearbook photographs to capture information about health in early life of its participants.
"What have I to do with Wild Animals?": Glikl Bas Leib and the Other Woman
Authors: Idelson-Shein Iris
Published: October 2010

This essay offers a reading of a captivity narrative which appears in the memoirs of Glikl Bas Leib. Glikl's understanding of cross-cultural contact is especially intriguing in light of the writer's personal background as a woman, a mother, and a Jew. As in many other Jewish discussions of "the Exotic," Glikl's story reveals Jewish-specific fantasies and anxieties, however it also reflects more general concerns, found also amongst Glikl's non-Jewish contemporaries. The essay offers a review of these concerns as they crystallize in Glikl's memoirs, in an attempt to place this text both in its Jewish and in its non-Jewish context
Heretics in the Pulpit, Inquisitors in the Pews: The Long Reformation and The Scottish Enlightenment
Authors: Brekke Luke
Published: October 2010

Reformation scholars have identified Calvinism with urban elites, but by 1700 many rural Scots had appropriated the Reformation for themselves. In the same century many Scottish clergymen were abandoning Reformation piety and doctrines as outdated relics, in a process that Richard Sher has described as an enlightenment within the established church, not against it. When clerical enlightenment and parish piety clashed, "enlightened" clergymen might be rejected by congregations, even accused by parishioners of heresy. Such cases indicate a long-term success of the Reformation message in the region, but one not accompanied by deference to clerical authority.
"A New Description of Empire": Edmund Burke and the Regicide Republic of Letters
Authors: Ryan Dermot
Published: October 2010

In a departure from the extensive scholarship which focuses on Edmund Burke's writings on the British Empire, this essay explores Burke's diagnosis of an entirely new imperial formation: "the universal empire of the Regicide Republick of France." In order to account for the emergence of this novel form of empire and to explain the logic of its expansion, Burke returns to his early language theory from A Philosophical Enquiry (1757), modifying his analysis in the face of a burgeoning radical print culture. While the Enquiry celebrates the affective powers of language, Burke's Letters on a Regicide Peace (1795–97) deplores the transformative potential of print. Indeed, in Burke's final writings, "the Empire of Regicide" is inaugurated and sustained by a globalizing republic of letters.
A Sound of Voices: The Ventriloquial Uncanny in Wieland and Prometheus Unbound
Authors: Judson Barbara
Published: October 2010

This essay examines the uncanny as a literary mood emergent in the late eighteenth century which enabled writers to explore the notion of a hidden self, one that acts autonomously and is largely outside the purview of reason. Such a self was especially frightening after the Terror and the Napoleonic Wars undermined belief in man's capacity for rational self-government. Both Wieland and Prometheus Unbound dramatize the problem that the unconscious posed for liberal politics, depicting the mind's profound susceptibility to superstition and bigotry in terms of the ventriloquial uncanny: mysterious voices that test the self's capacity for rational accountability.
"Perfectly Whole": Skin and Text in John Gabriel Stedman's Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam
Authors: Senior Emily
Published: October 2010

Most commonly associated with the striking engravings by William Blake which embellished its 1796 publication, John Gabriel Stedman's Narrative has much to offer scholars of colonial history and literature beyond this connection. This paper reads Stedman's account of military life in the troubled Dutch colony of Suriname in terms of his fascination with the effects of the turbulent colonial environment on skin. As the point of convergence for social narratives of the body in terms of beauty, feeling, health, and race, skin becomes the motif through which Stedman makes sense of the disease and death which surround him.
Gothic Criticisms: Wuthering Heights and Nineteenth-Century Literary History
Authors: Rena-Dozier Emily
Published: October 2010

The history of the novel in the nineteenth century depended on a developmental narrative in which the domestic novel became the basic form of British fiction, taking over from earlier forms such as the picaresque or the gothic. By revealing that the efforts of the domestic to separate itself from the gothic result in a replication of gothic violence, Wuthering Heights attacked the fundamental premises of the narrative of the rise of the novel, disturbing the progressive logic of the history of the novel by demonstrating the interdependence, and ultimate indistinguishability, of gothic and domestic modes. In so doing, Wuthering Heights became a deeply uncomfortable text for nineteenth-century literary history, so uncomfortable that it remained marginal for nearly a century after its publication.
A Diamond Bigger than the Ritz: F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Gold Standard
Authors: Godden Richard
Published: October 2010

Karl Polanyi, historian of the market, describes "belief in the gold standard" during the twenties as "the faith of the age," adding that for believers, "bank notes have value because they represented gold." Departing from tensions within the idea of money (as anatomized by Karl Marx, Slavoj Žižek, and Suzanne de Brunhoff), this essay explores the logic of F. Scott Fitzgerald's choice (in 1922) of the Diamond (bigger than the Ritz) as an analogue for the function of monetary gold within the American postwar economy at a point when, for the sociologists Robert and Helen Lynd, "more and more of the activities of living are coming to be strained through the bars of the dollar sign."
The Large Novel and the Law of Large Numbers; or, Why George Eliot Hates Gambling
Authors: Rosenthal Jesse
Published: October 2010

In Daniel Deronda , George Eliot moves away from the organic understanding of the individual and society central to her earlier novels. Influenced by thought in statistics and probability, she comes to believe that the social laws that govern large numbers do not necessarily apply at the individual level. This is especially true of the Daniel Deronda 's Gwendolen plot. The Jewish plot involving Daniel, while less familiar in subject matter, evokes more familiar Eliotic themes. The novel's moral censure of gambling condemns the belief that since things will "work out" at the level of large numbers, they will also work out for the individual.
Servants, Aestheticism, and "The Dominance of Form"
Authors: Goldstone Andrew
Published: October 2010

The fictional representation of domestic servants reveals the relationship between aesthetic form and social domination in the work of aesthetes from Oscar Wilde to Henry James and beyond. Tracing the sources of Wilde's An Ideal Husband and Dorian Gray and James's The Ambassadors in French decadence and situating them within the history of service, I show that aestheticist depictions of servants recall, through literary form, the aesthete's dependence on servants' labor. I suggest that modernism shared this socially self-conscious concept of aesthetic form with aestheticism, precisely because it too pursued aesthetic autonomy.
"The beloved ideas made flesh": Daniel Deronda and Jewish Poetics
Authors: Scheinberg Cynthia
Published: October 2010

This essay reads George Eliot's Daniel Deronda as a self-conscious revision of the Christian scriptural approach to Jewish identity and Jewish literary authority. Whereas the Christian Scriptures discredit Judaism and Jewish people, severing them from the authority of their Jewish literary and scriptural canon, in Daniel Deronda Eliot restores the Jews to primary ownership of their textual tradition. Linking the discourses of poetic identity and Jewish identity throughout the novel, Eliot thus challenges universalist assumptions of Western (Christian) aesthetic theory.
"Save Where . . .": The Trope of Exceptionality
Authors: Gray Erik
Published: October 2010

The trope of exceptionality is a poetic device popularized by Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" (1751): the poet describes a scene of total darkness and silence, interrupted by a single, vivid exception ("Save where . . ."). The trope was introduced into English poetry by John Milton, became ubiquitous in descriptive poetry after Gray, and was notably employed by major Romantic poets, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. The device is important not only for its prominence in literary history but for the way it reflects upon literature itself, which creates meaning by establishing normative patterns and introducing exceptions; in this sense exceptionality could be seen as the poetic trope par excellence.
"Circling Eye" and "Houseless Stranger": The New Eighteenth-Century Wanderer (Thomson to Goldsmith)
Authors: Horrocks Ingrid
Published: October 2010

This essay presents an argument for the literary figure of the wanderer or traveller having developed in the eighteenth century out of a reimagining of the prospect overview. Through examination of a single moment of transition--the shift from the elevated prospective view of Alexander Pope and especially James Thomson's prospect poems to the wanderer narrative embodied in Oliver Goldsmith's The Traveller --I propose the poetic wanderer as the figure for what Kevis Goodman has recently described as a shift around the mid-century from the observer as an "contemplative, closed subject" to an "open, vulnerable and dependent being."
"Young ladies are delicate plants": Jane Austen and Greenhouse Romanticism
Authors: Lynch Deidre Shauna
Published: October 2010

By annotating how in Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey Jane Austen tracks between the novelist's domain and the naturalist's, this essay seeks to unsettle some entrenched assumptions about her relationship to realism—and the ideological work of naturalization that realism is said to sponsor—as well as to romanticism. Austen's era, which we customarily identify as the time of a romantic return to nature, was marked by conflicts over what nature did and did not include—conflicts between, in the parlance of the period, "the botanist" and "the florist," between an account of nature as that which was given and an account of nature as that which (as with the modern nurseryman's new hybrids and luxuriants) might be manufactured. In arranging for her young heroines' stories of growing up to unfold in the "artificial climates" of modern fashionable gardening and amidst "florists' flowers," Austen deliberately works through those conflicts. She inhabits the plot of "natural development" to which she is often linked in elusively oppositional ways.
Aesthetic Freedom: Walter Pater and the Politics of Autonomy
Authors: Morgan Benjamin
Published: October 2010

Walter Pater is often criticized for claiming that the aesthete is a solipsist and that art exists for its own sake. However, an analysis of Pater's intellectual ties at Oxford and of his essay "Winckelmann" reveals that Pater actively questions aesthetic autonomy as theorized by German idealists. Skeptical of Hegel's argument that art offers access to a sense of freedom, Pater asserts that aesthetic experience emphasizes our subjection to a material world of sensation. This challenge to the liberal individualism of German aesthetics has been overlooked by politically oriented interpretations of Pater's work that focus on his queerness.
"Just apply a weight": Thoreau and the Aesthetics of Ornament
Authors: Davis Theo
Published: October 2010

Questioning the view that Thoreau abandoned aesthetics in order to know nature, this essay argues that he articulated an alternative, ornamental aesthetics. Far from rejecting his era's taste for ornament, Thoreau developed nineteenth-century understandings of ornament into an aesthetics focused upon impact and reaction, and crossing between the natural and man-made. Taking ornamental forms as the result of pressures in the material world, such as the way ice bends trees into feathery shapes, Thoreau ultimately understands form as a contingent effect. He also presents ornamental writing as a result of pressure, rather than expression, and suggests that it is the thought indicated by gnomic sentences that is ornamental (rather than, as we might expect, the material form of lettering). Thoreau's ornamental aesthetics, fascinated by the provocation of effects by blunted pressures, sidesteps an aesthetics concerned with reshaping the natural world into the expression of human thought. Still, his preoccupation with pressure and force indicates that even a recessive, posthumanist aesthetics will entail impact, transformation, and even damage. This makes his ornamental aesthetics both a model and a warning to contemporary critics concerned with rethinking the aesthetic.
Success Stories from "Emerging Africa"
Authors: Radelet Steven
Published: October 2010

Since the mid-1990s, seventeen emerging countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have been leaving behind the conflicts, stagnation, and dictatorships of the past and achieving steady economic growth, deepening democracy, stronger leadership, and falling poverty—and six additional African countries are showing signs that they may be on the same path. The paths of the countries that comprise "emerging Africa" are characterized by five commonalities democratic and accountable governments; the implementation of more sensible economic policies; the end of the decades-long debt crisis, and with it major changes in Africa's relationship with the international community; the spread of new technologies that promote political accountability and create fresh business opportunities; and the emergence of a new generation of policy makers, activists, and business leaders.
Democracy Support and Development Aid: The Elusive Synthesis
Authors: Carothers Thomas
Published: October 2010

Abstract: Development aid and democracy support have become increasingly interconnected, but cooperation between them is only partial and its future uncertain. Traditional divisions between the two domains narrowed in the 1990s amidst increases in international aid budgets and optimism about dual transitions to democracy and markets. Development agencies increasingly recognize the importance of governance and political context in their work while democracy organizations address the challenge of helping democracy deliver the on citizens' socioeconomic demands. Yet both domains remain wary of integration. Many developmentalists are fearful of politicizing aid while democracy experts worry that democracy goals be subordinated to economic objectives.
Reformism vs. Populism in the Philippines
Authors: Thompson Mark R.
Published: October 2010

The Philippines' first automated elections in May 2010 were generally honest and orderly, surprising pessimistic Filipino and foreigner observers alike. "Noynoy" Aquino easily won the presidential race by focusing on his "reformist" credentials, a strategy that his mother (her death in August 2009 led him to launch his candidacy) had adopted against Marcos in 1986. Reformism involves direct media appeals and the claim "I will not steal from you." Two other leading presidential candidates took a more "populist" stance, which also relies more on the media than on clientelism but with the message "I will help you." Interestingly, Aquino's running mate was defeated in the (separate) vice-presidential race by a "populist" candidate, showing this narrative also remains strong. Regardless of whether government grows substantially cleaner under Aquino, most Filipinos will long remain impoverished. This may lead to a pattern of electoral cycling in which greater efficiency and greater equality alternate as the major promises in elections.
Democracy Support and Development Aid: The Case for Principled Agnosticism
Authors: Levy Brian
Published: October 2010

Abstract: The theories and practices of both democracy support and development assistance are presently going through a period of profound change. The development and democracy domains alike recognize that both institutions and politics matter. Institutions provide the formal and informal "rules of the game" within which both democratization and development efforts play out. Politics inevitably shapes the dynamics of reform. The development process follows the classic patterns of any evolutionary system: 1) Change is cumulative. 2) The trajectory of change varies according to the (country-) specific. 3) Cumulative path dependence can generate a very wide dispersion of patterns, with no necessary convergence. The evolutionary approach deepens rather than retreats from the insight that institutions and politics matter for development, but it also points to a more nuanced approach than simply calling for "good governance."
The Meanings of Democracy: Anchoring the "D-Word" in Africa
Authors: Bratton Michael
Published: October 2010

Abstract: Differences in popular understandings of the word "democracy" across continents, countries, social groups and individuals pose serious challenges of conceptual equivalence and content validity for comparative survey researchers. This article explores the pros and cons of three potential solutions tried by the Afrobarometer: an open-ended question on the meaning of the "D-word", a set of questions about core democratic institutions, and an innovative method of "anchoring" popular understandings by means of a scale of hypothetical vignettes about a variety of political regimes with differing degrees of democracy.
Democracy Support and Development Aid: Getting Convergence Right
Authors: Wollack Kenneth , Hubli K. Scott
Published: October 2010

Abstract: While largely agreeing with Thomas Carothers' article, "Democracy Support and Development Aid: The Elusive Synthesis," the evolving relationship between the democracy and development communities should be viewed in terms of increased complementarity, rather than integration. To further this evolution, both communities should retire outdated stereotypes, increase political economy approaches and continue to learn from each other. To advance more mutually reinforcing economic and democratic development assistance, aid providers should also strive to ensure that their programs "do no democratic harm" and that "country ownership" does not become government or ruling party ownership, as may be the case in countries with significant democratic deficits.
The Meanings of Democracy: Solving an Asian Puzzle
Authors: Chu Yun-han , Huang Min-hua
Published: October 2010

Abstract: It is problematic to rely on indicators carrying the "D-word" for measuring democratic legitimacy. Popular conception of the "D-word" has been so much contaminated by competing public discourses and socializing mechanisms that the word "democracy" has lost much of its conceptual clarity and semantic consistency when it travels across borders. We introduce a more reliable tool to compare the cultural foundation for liberal democracy across countries, especially between democratic and non-democratic ones. A newly developed typological analysis, which is applied to two waves of Asian Barometer Survey, enables us to differentiate the substance of democratic legitimacy from its appearance.
Liberation vs. Control: The Future of Cyberspace
Authors: Deibert Ronald , Rohozinski Rafal
Published: October 2010

Among theorists of new information and communication technologies, there is a persistent tension between those who see them as technologies of liberation, and those who see them as technologies of control. We argue that the dichotomy itself is misleading, suggesting a basic opposition between forces of light and forces of darkness. In fact, the situation is much more complex and needs to be qualified. Rather than seeing technologies in oppositional terms, as either "empty" vessels to be filled by human intent, or powerful forces imbued with some kind of agency that no one can withstand, technologies are complex and continuously evolving manifestations of social forces of a particular time and place. Once created, technologies in turn shape and limit the prospects for human communication and interaction in a constantly iterative manner. This dynamic is especially evident in the case of cyberspace, a domain of intense competition, one which creates an ever-changing matrix of opportunities and constraints for social forces and ideas. Social forces and ideas, in turn, are imbued with alternative rationalities which collide with each other and affect the structure of the communications environment. Unless the characteristics of cyberspace change radically in the near future, and global human culture grows monolithic, linking technological properties to a single social outcome, like liberation or control, is highly dubious.
The Meanings of Democracy: The Shadow of Confucianism
Authors: Shi Tianjian , Lu Jie
Published: October 2010

Abstract: Scholars have been puzzled by the high level of support for democracy, as well as the high level of support for the authoritarian regime, in China, as revealed in numerous surveys. In this paper, Shi and Lu argue that people in different societies may understand democracy in distinct ways. Confucian culture defines democracy in terms of Minben , which is different from the procedural understanding of democracy following the liberal tradition. These two definitions generate different expectations for the government, provide varying standards for assessing political legitimacy, and define distinct functions of participation. Their findings suggest that meaningful comparative studies of support for democracy require scholars to be sensitive to culturally embedded understandings of democracy in different societies.
The Upsurge of Religion in China
Authors: Madsen Richard
Published: October 2010

Unlike liberal democracies, which generally accord their citizens the right to complete freedom of religious belief and practice, the People's Republic of China claims that it needs to control religion in order to preserve social harmony and economic modernization. China's government maintains that religion is destined to recede as modernization continues to proceed. Yet religion is growing rapidly, and has overwhelmed the CCP regime's systems of surveillance and control. Along with similar religious movements that have challenged the government's authority, the Falun Gong has been put into the category of "evil cults" that the state strives to crush by mobilizing new forms of police power on a vast scale. There are pragmatic reasons for the Chinese government to worry about the radicalism that might come with a religious revival, but the reaction against it seems so extreme as to be counterproductive.
The Meanings of Democracy: What Arabs Think
Authors: Braizat Fares
Published: October 2010

Abstract: This paper tries to shed light on the meaning of democracy in the Arab World. Many have stipulated that Arabs, because they lack democratic governance, tend to have a vague conception of democracy if they hold one at all. Accumulated empirical data drawn from survey research in the Arab World strongly challenge and refute these assertions. Indeed, Arabs have a relatively sophisticated understating of what constitutes democracy. Whether democracy is measured directly or indirectly, it is widely recognized in association with civil liberties, political rights and power rotation. Hence, Arabs are no exception to the global popular understanding of democracy.
Yemen's Multiple Crises
Authors: Alley April Longley
Published: October 2010

The Salih regime is in a precarious position. It faces a southern secessionist movement, a rebellion in the north, a resurgent al-Qaeda, and a festering socioeconomic crisis. Since 2007, the regime has aggressively curtailed human rights and political freedoms in the name of preserving stability and unity. Yet this has only aggravated challenges and could lead to state fragmentation. An inclusive national dialogue offers a potential way out of the crisis. International efforts to stabilize Yemen should prioritize democratic reform, and be arranged so as to help rather than hinder Yemeni initiatives to achieve peaceful change through dialogue and compromise.
Latin America: Democracy with Development
Authors: Toledo Alejandro
Published: October 2010

Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo analyzes two concurrent crises: 1) collapses in the U.S. housing and financial sectors that led to the global economic downturn; and 2) the rise of social discontent and institutional fragility in some Latin American countries. Toledo argues that these two failures are inversely related. In the first case, a lack of government regulation led to an economic crisis; in the second, a deficient distribution of economic prosperity has enabled the rise of several authoritarian governments. Toledo presents policy recommendations for preventing future economic and political crises, referring to the Social Agenda for Democracy in Latin America , a regional consensus authored by 20 former heads of state.
African Elections as Vehicles for Change
Authors: Cheeseman Nic
Published: October 2010

Although government defeats are extremely rare in multiparty Africa, little analysis has taken place of the conditions under which ruling parties lose power. This article documents a remarkable pattern that has so far received little comment: throughout the continent opposition parties are almost four times more likely to win elections when the sitting president does not stand. Using a comparative data-set and examples from Kenya, Ghana, and Sierra Leone, the article explains the three main reasons that open-seat elections are more likely to lead to political change, and considers the relationship between term-limits, turnover, and democratic consolidation.
Liberté, Égalité, Sororité: Flora Tristan and the Contact Zone Between Race & Gender
Authors: Law-Sullivan Jennifer
Published: October 2010

In Pérégrinations d’une paria (1838), Flora Tristan equates a slave’s right to freedom with a woman’s right to divorce. This study will argue that because of Tristan’s unique identity—woman, traveler, writer, pariah—she is able to create a new space for herself and those about whom she writes. Although sometimes hyperbolic and constructivist, Tristan’s work ultimately results in a very powerful final judgment on the inequality present in the worlds she has experienced. Tristan’s portrayal of the slaves she encounters on her journey and her support of legalized divorce show that social reform is always at the forefront for this exploratrice sociale. ( jl-s )