bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Bach against Modernity
Authors: Marissen Michael
Published: March 2023

Many scholars and music lovers believe that Johann Sebastian Bach is a “modern” figure, as his music seems to speak directly to the specific aesthetic and spiritual or emotional concerns of today’s listeners. This chapter suggests that by the standards of what eighteenth-century thinkers considered to be forward-looking and modern (namely, to exalt reason over revelation as arbiter of truth, to exalt human autonomy and achievement, to exalt religious tolerance, to exalt cosmopolitanism, and to exalt social and political progressiveness), Bach reflected and forcefully promoted a premodern world- and life view, both in his documented personal life and in his public music.
Time and Eternities in Bach’s Cantata 23
Authors: Marissen Michael
Published: March 2023

This chapter argues that the “existential I” of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata 23 is not a modern individual who achieves ultimate fulfillment through one’s own effort, merit, and accomplishment but a member of an eternal community whom personal salvation “befalls,” through the unmerited gift of divine grace. And so Cantata 23, which was one of Bach’s audition pieces for his long tenure as director of music in Leipzig, can be heard not simply as an aesthetic manifesto of a modern Great Artist (as is sometimes suggested) but as a sort of theological-musical manifesto: this is what music can do—music can project depths of biblical and theological meaning and experience in ways that words alone cannot.
Bach and Art and Mammon
Authors: Marissen Michael
Published: March 2023

This very brief chapter argues that in Johann Sebastian Bach’s world, the arts appear to have been valued more for spiritual comfort and enjoyment than for the modern, centrally driving ideals of entertainment, amusement, and “pure” aesthetic contemplation. Despite a great deal of previous research on the artistic, religious, social, and medical conditions of Bach’s day, many music scholars and enthusiasts could benefit from being still better informed about the concrete historical realities of early-eighteenth-century life and art. Bach himself ought to be appreciated as a real flesh-and-blood human being who was glad to honor God and to enjoy (but not serve) mammon and not just, or even primarily, to have labored for artistic and other recognition.
Against Inequality
Authors: Malleson Tom
Published: March 2023

Stark inequality is a problem the world over, one that has been worsening over the past 30 years, particularly in rich, economically developed countries. To acquire the same amount of wealth as Elon Musk, the average American worker would have to work for more than four and a half million years. Is this inequality morally acceptable, and is it feasible to actually reduce inequality in the real world? This book makes the case for rejecting meritocracy, presenting a strong defense against the claim that individuals “deserve” their wealth. The book argues that people, especially rich people, do not morally deserve the bulk of their income because it does not, by and large, come from anything they themselves do but is largely thanks to the vast understructure of other people’s labor, in addition to their lucky possession of bodily talents and efforts. Furthermore, the book brings to light extensive historical and comparative evidence to show that raising taxes on both income and wealth is practically feasible and that any costs of doing so are far outweighed by the truly enormous benefits that such taxes could bring in terms of environmental sustainability, democratic equality, equal opportunity, and reduced racism and xenophobia.
Do Rich People Deserve Their Income?
Authors: Malleson Tom
Published: March 2023

This chapter addresses meritocracy and the notion that people deserve to be rewarded in rough proportion to their economic contribution as valued by the market. It argues that in contemporary capitalism, income is not morally deserved because it typically stems from the luck of inheriting very unequal circumstances. In particular, some inherit far more power and class privilege than others in terms of money, geographic location, and access to advantageous schools and social networks. The chapter shows that the vast majority of one’s income cannot, by and large, be attributed to personal effort or talent but is in fact due to the understructure of labor and care provided by other people and is therefore undeserved. Another way of saying this is that income is not deserved because there is nothing close to a level playing field. Moreover, the income that people receive in the market is in many ways morally arbitrary. Far from being a simple reflection of economic contribution, income levels in the market are largely determined by market failures, random spikes and crashes of various prices, and the myriad decisions of politicians and lawyers that shape the nature of the market system and alter the resulting pattern of distribution.
Conclusion
Authors: Malleson Tom
Published: March 2023

The conclusion reviews the four major justifications of inequality discussed throughout the book: feasibility, cost, merit, and private property. It summarizes the reasons why we should be skeptical of each of these justifications. The ultimate aim of the book is to persuade the reader of two big ideas: first, for all the reasons discussed in previous chapters, substantial inequality is morally wrong, unjust and unfair; second, the benefits of reducing inequality outweigh the costs, likely by far. The conclusion contrasts the egalitarian positions defended throughout the book with mainstream Rawlsianism and social democracy.
Aging in the Contested Floodplain
Authors: Moonga Fred
Published: March 2023

This chapter examines the effects of institutional changes on the social, economic, and cultural aspects of Indigenous older people of the Kafue flats floodplain in southern Zambia. The Indigenous people lived relatively modest lives with economic independence. However, their lives were negatively affected by institutional changes in the access, utilization, and management of pool resources as well as by the effects of climate change. Based on an analysis of evidence and experience of living in the area, the chapter argues that traditional management of pool resources was more sustainable and beneficial to Indigenous people than that brought about by institutional changes. It concludes that Indigenous livelihoods were under threat due to institutional changes and modernization. The latter contributed to “empty nests” and caused a transformation in living arrangements, thus leaving older people more vulnerable. The chapter suggests that future research should focus on how government policy changes need to be synchronized with the livelihoods and traditional culture of Indigenous people in a given area to enhance what is already known and beneficial to a locality.
Loneliness Among Indigenous People in Chile
Authors: Gallardo-Peralta Lorena P. , Sànchez-Moreno Esteban , Rodriguez-Rodriguez Vicente
Published: March 2023

Indigenous communities in Chile live in rural native settlements in generally isolated zones. In recent decades, these territories have experienced accelerated depopulation. However, older Indigenous adults prefer to live in their settings despite the decline in their social interactions. This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the feeling of loneliness and the social and community resources that Indigenous communities mobilize so as not to feel lonely. The chapter reports the findings of a study performed in two Chilean regions with a highly concentrated Indigenous population. It examines the incidence of and factors related to loneliness among Aymara and Mapuche older adults. The study findings confirm a high prevalence of loneliness among Indigenous older people. The significance of the results is addressed in the discussion of the internationally published literature. Specifically, it is argued that there is a need to include loneliness-related problems affecting Indigenous older adults as part of the development of specific public policies that recognize and promote the specificity of the aging process in Indigenous communities.
Examining Intergenerational Ties and Roles
Authors: Philip Jennifer , Soletti Asha Banu
Published: March 2023

Family and community support extended to older adults plays an important role in shaping the later years of their life. Existing studies clearly indicate families are undergoing changes in structure and functions. This chapter examines the role of family and community in older adult care and how the family transitions impact the lives of older adults living in tribal communities of Maharashtra, India. It explores the subjective experiences of aging, views on transitions in intergenerational relationships and roles, and the influence of aging on the lives of older adults. The findings indicate that older adults are dependent on their children and the earning household member becomes the decision-maker, resulting in a lack of engagement by family and community. This realization often results in a feeling of loss of status, worthlessness, and loneliness. Understanding the transitions in diverse contexts, and how these influence the later years of life, is important and has implications for policy.
Pan-Islamic Narratives of the Global Order, 1870–1980
Authors: Aydin Cemil
Published: March 2023

This chapter looks at modern Pan-Islamism as one of the contested narratives of world order whose content is universalistic and modern rather than rejectionist and reactionary. Along with Pan-African and Pan-Asian visions of the global, Pan-Islamic narratives emerged in the 1880s as a globalist response to the inequities of a racialized Eurocentric imperial world order. The initial idea of trans-imperial Muslim solidarity aimed to give Muslims more rights within European empires and to assert the equality of Muslim states in international law while shadowing the Eurocentric narratives of history, progress, and civilization. The claims and demands on the international order made by Muslim intellectuals and publics are analyzed through the Pan-Islamic discourse that emerged prior to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. This analysis is followed by a discussion of the legacies, transformation, and political utilizations of Pan-Islamic narratives of global order during the periods of decolonization, the Cold War, and post–Iranian Revolution.
The Enduring Dilemma of Japan’s Uniqueness Narratives
Authors: Koga Kei , Katada Saori N.
Published: March 2023

From the Meiji Restoration (1868) to the Reiwa era (2019–) and despite its intermittent international prominence, Japan has never managed to establish either a consistent or universal narrative that would express the significance of its place in the world. Instead, Japan has been facing an enduring dilemma posed by its own uniqueness narratives. The Japanese narratives of its success as the only Asian nation that had managed to modernize and militarize in the Western dominant world of the early 1900s, or as a peaceful economic juggernaut in the 1980s, had only a limited global impact. And while taking ownership of universal values during intense Westernization periods, in the late nineteenth century and during the post-1945 US occupation, it did not produce a narrative that could generalize its experience as a “liminal power” positioned between East and West.
Financial Sanctions and Political Risk in the International Currency System
Authors: McDowell Daniel
Published: March 2023

Chapter 1 establishes the theoretical and conceptual framework for the rest of the book, further developing the notion of political risk in the international currency system. Other countries use sanctions as a tool of economic statecraft, but the United States employs them more than any of its peers. The chapter presents a general theory of how US foreign policy influences the policies of foreign governments toward the dollar. The theory considers in simple terms how politics impacts the appeal of the dollar. It identifies the full range of US political actions that affect expectations regarding the benefits and costs associated with the dollar’s international use in two steps. In the first step, the theory incorporates established ideas about how US foreign policy increases the appeal of the dollar. In the second step, it explores the often overlooked observation that US political behavior (in this case, imposing financial sanctions) can also turn states and market actors against the currency.
Introduction
Authors: Nathanson Constance A. , Bergeron Henri
Published: March 2023

This chapter poses the central questions the book was designed to answer. Why was there a blood crisis in France? Why was there no crisis in the United States? Chapter 1 introduces the 1991 French blood crisis as the fulcrum around which this book is organized, summarizing the background to this crisis and its absence in the United States, with explicit attention to the criteria by which “crisis” is defined. “Political crisis” is understood as a social production. The books outlines our theoretical framework for the social production of crisis grounded in relevant sociological theory and in comparative cross-national analysis of data from a wide range of sources, both historical, and contemporary with the events in question. Finally, the chapter closes with a summary of the plan for the book.
The Social Production of Political Crisis
Authors: Nathanson Constance A. , Bergeron Henri
Published: March 2023

This chapter draws on empirical data together with a rich body of recent literature in the social and political sciences to advance a conceptual framework that not only helps account for the divergent pathways taken by France and the United States in response to HIV/blood contamination but also contributes to knowledge of the social processes by which occurrences in the world are transformed into political crises. The social production of political crisis happens on three levels: first, underlying contradictions in the beliefs and practices that animate an important “field” of action in the polity (the blood system in the present case); second, a process of “strategic mobilization” that renders those contradictions visible in the public arena; and third, a cultural array of beliefs (schemas, symbolic constructions) that frames those contradictions as immoral and unacceptable. Here each of these elements are described in detail, grounding them in sociological theory and empirical data.
Rules to Win By
Authors: McAlevey Jane F. , Lawlor Abby
Published: March 2023

Rules to Win By: Participation and Power in Union Negotiations provides a guidebook on participatory social change. It looks into a new theory of negotiation alongside tools and resources for any campaign to harness the power of common people to win the public good. The vision for negotiations originates in engaging the entire union membership directly in the strategizing and negotiation. In an era of polarization and massive legislative setbacks, changemakers in every field need to learn the skills and lessons honed in conflicts against experienced and ruthless union busters. The guidebook also draws insights from recent hard-won unionization and contract negotiation fights to elaborate on how to build the power required to effectively challenge and reverse income inequality, and attacks on democracy.
Legal Rope-a-Dope (PASNAP)
Authors: McAlevey Jane F. , Lawlor Abby
Published: March 2023

This chapter references the effort of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) in their labor-market-wide campaign to elaborate on decades of hard unionization and contract campaigns. It details the PASNAP fight at Albert Einstein Medical Center through a high-participation, high-power organizing approach that can maintain strength and momentum in first contract negotiations and eventually fizzle out. PASNAP and Jane McAlevey conducted a three-phase power structure analysis to understand how the city works, and who could make them grow up and start negotiating. The chapter expounds on the perspective of taking an organizing approach to starting a union, identifying leaders, and winning an election. Using an organizing approach to negotiations meant building real structures that enable workers to take ownership of the fight themselves.
Conclusion
Authors: McAlevey Jane F. , Lawlor Abby
Published: March 2023

This concluding chapter elaborates on how participation in negotiation would help build governing power. Transparent, big, and open negotiations, reinforced by a high-participation organizing strategy throughout contract preparations, trust that workers can use their intelligence and power to participate in negotiations. Thus, high participation negotiations are designed for winning a transformative contract. The chapter also considers collective bargaining as a powerful policy tool. It explains that good unions will be the key to rebuilding a fairer country and world, and workers who have contracts expiring stand perhaps the best chance of creating the conditions necessary to fix the broken democracy.
Biological Essentialism
Authors: Devitt Michael
Published: March 2023

The book addresses three main issues. The first concerns the essences (natures, identities) of biological taxa, particularly species. Kripke and other metaphysicians hold that these essences are (at least partly) intrinsic, underlying, probably largely genetic properties. This view, based largely on intuitions, is dismissed by the consensus in the philosophy of biology as being incompatible with Darwinism and reflecting ignorance of biology. The book argues that the demands of biological explanation show that the metaphysicians are right. The positive view of the consensus is that the essences are wholly relational: taxa must have certain histories. The book argues that there is indeed an historical component to the essence, but this component presupposes an intrinsic component. The book’s second issue concerns the essences of biological individuals. Metaphysicians have had much to say about this, again on the basis of intuitions. Many hold that an individual is essentially a member of its species. This has recently been unequivocally rejected by philosophers of biology. The book appeals to biological explanation again to argue for essential membership; furthermore, to argue for the Kripkean view that an organism’s essence is partly intrinsic and partly relational (a matter of origin). Finally, the book addresses the lively contemporary issue of whether race is biologically “real”. From the perspective developed earlier, the book argues that there are indeed racial kinds, in some sense, that are “in the realm of the biological”. These kinds also have partly historical and partly intrinsic underlying essences.
Defending Partly Intrinsic Taxon Essentialism
Authors: Devitt Michael
Published: March 2023

Chapter 1 went against the consensus in the philosophy of biology by arguing that Linnaean taxa, including species, have essences that are partly intrinsic underlying, probably largely genetic, properties: biological generalizations about the phenotypic properties of taxa require explanations that must advert to these essences. The present chapter responds to criticisms of that argument. My responses emphasize three distinctions: between structural and historical explanations, which is central to my argument for intrinsic essentialism; between the category and the taxon problems, which is central to my rejection of the main argument against intrinsic essentialism; between the conspecificity and taxon problems, which is central to my diagnosis of where the consensus has gone wrong. I deny that my essentialism is at odds with certain biological variations and that its talk of intrinsic essences is an uncalled for metaphysical addition to biology.
Historical Biological Essentialism
Authors: Devitt Michael
Published: March 2023

The consensus in the philosophy of biology is that a taxon’s essence or nature is not intrinsic but wholly relational, particularly historical. (A) Why believe this? (B) What precisely is this essence? In answer to (A), the chapter argues that historical/evolutionary explanations demand that there be an historical component to the essence, at least. A good answer to (B) must be complete in that it distinguishes one taxon from another and plausible in that posits an essence that can bear the explanatory burden. Answers found in the literature do not pass this test. The chapter argues that the relevant history of a taxon is of organisms of a certain intrinsic kind evolving into organisms of a certain other intrinsic kind, until we reach the taxon in question. The historical component to the essence requires an intrinsic component.
Individual Essentialism in Biology
Authors: Devitt Michael
Published: March 2023

A few philosophers of biology have recently explicitly rejected Essential Membership, the doctrine that if an individual organism belongs to a taxon, particularly a species, it does so essentially. But philosophers of biology have not addressed the broader issue, much discussed by metaphysicians on the basis of modal intuitions, of what is essential to the organism. In this chapter, I address that issue from a biological basis, arguing for the Kripkean view that an organism has a partly intrinsic, partly historical, essence. The arguments appeal to the demands of biological explanation and are analogous to arguments that I have given earlier that a taxon has a partly intrinsic, partly historical, essence. These conclusions about the essences of individuals and taxa yield an argument for Essential Membership. Finally, I reject four objections that LaPorte has made to Essential Membership.
Epistemic-Modal Bridge Principles
Authors: Alter Torin
Published: March 2023

This chapter defends the modified new fact thesis and related epistemic-modal bridge principles from objections due to Howell and Goff. It is argued that Howell’s objections and some of Goff’s fall prey to arguments presented above, in Chapter 7. Then the chapter turns to Goff’s reflections on the doctrine of Revelation, on which introspection reveals the essential nature of our conscious experiences, According to Goff, the relevant epistemic-modal bridge principles depend on that doctrine, He also argues that one can use Revelation to refute physicalism more directly, that is, without relying on epistemic-modal bridge principles. The chapter argues that Goff is mistaken on both counts. His more direct anti-physicalist argument requires an implausibly strong version of Revelation, and the bridge principles do not.
The Racial Xenos
Authors: Desautels-Stein Justin
Published: March 2023

Chapter 2 introduces the book’s working theory of racial xenophobia. It develops an understanding of the racialized outsider through an analysis of Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer, read in the light of Denise Ferreira da Silva’s Toward a Global Understanding of Race, and Saidya Hartman’s Scenes of Subjection. After conceptualizing the “racial xenos,” the chapter then moves on to the intellectual history of racial xenophobia in the emergence of race science.
Nations of Daylight, Children of the Night
Authors: Desautels-Stein Justin
Published: March 2023

Chapter 3 introduces the structure of “classical” racial ideology in international law. It consists in the confluence of formalist legal reasoning and the import of racial identity as a natural feature of human identity, explored in Chapter 2. The survey of international law’s classic racial ideology includes thinkers such as Elihu Root, Alejandro Alvarez, Johann Kaspar Bluntschli, Caleb Cushing, and James Lorimer.
Decolonization and the Ambivalence of Self-Determination
Authors: Desautels-Stein Justin
Published: March 2023

Chapter 6 discusses the third element of modern racial ideology, the deracialization of the sovereign’s right of imperium. At the same time, the chapter also explores the development of a right of self-determination that pushes against the racist manifestation of dominium introduced in Chapter 5. It does so through a discussion of the Universal Races Congress (URC), the Pan-African Congresses, the Bandung Conference, and the postcolonial turn in the United Nations General Assembly.
Administrative Procedure and Judicial Control
Authors: Jabloner Clemens
Published: March 2023

This chapter embarks from the principles of the division of powers original significance as a guaranty for the administration, referring to a famous observation by Tocqueville. The chapter then follows the development of principles in the course of the nineteenth century, during which the judiciary was defined as an organ to be protected. The Austrian system of a single court controlling the administration, set up in 1876, was a successful attempt to balance the powers. Since there were no procedural guidelines concerning administrative procedure, it was for the Administrative Court to develop a set of rules, which in 1925 formed the basis for general legislation. This concept is still valid today, but challenged by developments in European law, which attach greater importance to intensified judicial control concerning the legal refinement of administrative procedure itself.
The History of the Administrative Procedure in Austria until 1925
Authors: Olechowski Thomas
Published: March 2023

The chapter gives an overview of the development of administrative procedural law in Austria from the eighteenth century until its codification by the Administrative Procedural Acts in 1925. Initially, there were scarcely any comprehensive regulations, but rather special provisions for individual administrative matters; often the behaviour of the authorities was also completely unregulated and therefore ‘free’. Of central importance was the introduction of administrative jurisdiction in 1875. In its case law, the Administrative Court developed a number of principles that were later incorporated into the 1925 laws. These laws were drafted by Egbert Mannlicher and Emmerich Coreth. They were a model for some other States and are still in force in Austria today.
The Hungarian Legislation on Administrative Procedure
Authors: Varga András Zs.
Published: March 2023

Before the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire, Hungary was involved in the development of standards of administrative conduct by the Royal Administrative Court. Hungarian courts have, ever since 1919, exercised control to prevent the abuse of discretionary power. However, in the first part of this chapter’s time frame, Hungary did not adopt any general legislation on administrative procedure, while it did so in 1957. The chapter focuses on two main issues. First, it summarises the theoretical debates after adoption of the Austrian Administrative Procedure Act (APA) regarding the feasibility of codification of a similar Hungarian APA. Nevertheless, it mentions the most important impact factors of constitutional history—and coexistence within the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy. Second, the chapter recalls the development of codification from 1957 (first APA) up to now (fourth APA). It points out that the actual law in force somehow reflects the doubts of the 1920s, even if a formally comprehensive law is adopted.
Austria and Germany
Authors: Schefold Dian
Published: March 2023

The Austrian Administrative Procedure Act was influenced by the constitutional concept of Hans Kelsen with its accent on the rule of law (Rechtsstaat) on the one hand and the jurisprudence of the Austrian Administrative Court on the other. It was seen in Germany rather as a restriction of discretionary power of the administration. In the German Federal State, a central State’s regulation of administrative procedure would have been difficult. The Prussian model of self-government under rule of law, developed in the 1870s–1880s by Rudolf Gneist, provided for a mixture of self-government, formalised administrative procedures, and administrative jurisdiction on the local (second-tier) level. After the Second World War, administrative jurisdiction had priority over administrative procedure.
The Austrian Legacy
Authors: Cananea Giacinto Della , Zumbini Angela Ferrari , Pfersmann Otto
Published: March 2023

The concluding chapter discusses both the originality and significance of the research findings. First, the enquiry focuses on three aspects which have not been valued highly enough by previous studies concerning the spread of administrative procedure legislation after the Austrian codification of 1925, namely the variety of factors that determined the Austrian turning point, the rapid diffusion of the new ideas and institutions, and their durability, despite regime change after 1945. Second, and more importantly from the perspective of the ‘common core’, the chapter discusses the role of administrative procedure within legal systems which adopted administrative procedure legislation. It shows that between them, the area of agreement was even broader and more significant than was commonly believed. It also discusses the relevance of negative findings concerning the legal systems that did not opt for one type of administrative procedure legislation or another. Lastly, it argues that if the development of administrative law in Europe owes much to France for its shaping of judicial review through special courts, its consolidation owes much to Austria due to its inclination towards the codification of administrative procedure.
Prologue: A Grave in Yokohama
Authors: Parsell Diana P.
Published: March 2023

American travel writer Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore (1856–1928) is buried in Yokohama, Japan, where she lived on and off for several decades while reporting on Meiji Japan and other places across the Far East. Though a scarcity of personal papers contributed to Scidmore’s long obscurity, the author has reconstructed her life and work through her six books of travel; hundreds of letters and other records, many newly uncovered; and a considerable body of journalism that places Scidmore among America’s pioneering woman reporters. The book illuminates Scidmore’s role in giving Washington, D.C., its Japanese cherry trees and her other achievements in Alaska exploration, the U.S. conservation movement, the formative years of National Geographic, and the “opening” of China to tourism in the late-nineteenth century. Written for both general-interest readers and scholars, this foundational biography will pave the way to deeper research and analysis of Scidmore’s life and work.
A Fresh Start
Authors: Parsell Diana P.
Published: March 2023

Eliza Scidmore’s upbringing in Washington, D.C., beginning during the Civil War lays the foundation of her deep knowledge of the U.S. capital that informs her later reporting as a society writer and her persistent efforts to bring Japanese cherry trees to the city. In an unconventional family arrangement for the era, Scidmore and her brother George are raised by a white, middle-class mother who supports the family through boardinghouse work and a federal job. Eliza’s early education at a convent school fosters a fascination with geography and curiosity about the world. During her adolescence in the 1870s, she witnesses physical improvements under alderman “Boss” Shepherd that mark the beginning of Washington’s vibrant social and political life during the Gilded Age. While her brother George completes law school and joins the U.S. Consular Service, Eliza attends Oberlin College—though in an act of growing independence she leaves before completing her degree.
Jinrikishas in Japan
Authors: Parsell Diana P.
Published: March 2023

In the summer of 1885, Eliza Scidmore sails to Japan for the first time with her mother to visit Eliza’s brother, George Scidmore, an official with the U.S. Consular Service. The trip, at a time of strong globetrotter activity, marks the start of her many years of reporting on Japan during its Meiji period, which brought a rapid transition from feudal society to Western-style modernization. Eliza and Mrs. Scidmore will live there off and on for forty years while George serves most of his government career in Japan. In two trips totaling more than two years, mother and daughter make forays to destinations in Japan, Korea, and China. Still writing travel journalism for the St. Louis Globe–Democrat, Scidmore reports on adventures such as climbing Mount Fuji.
New Highway to the East
Authors: Parsell Diana P.
Published: March 2023

In 1894–5 Eliza Scidmore makes an around-the-world trip on behalf of the Canadian Pacific Railway, now marketing itself as a “new highway” to the Far East. Her compact travel guide for the company, Westward to the Far East (1891), reflects her expanding travels across the region. She also reports on Banff and other places in the Canadian Rockies where the company is building chateau-stye hotels to promote tourism. On her world tour she visits Japan’s Inland Sea, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), India, and Java, the subject of her 1897 book Java, the Garden of the East. During her trip, the Sino–Japanese War breaks out, a conflict that will change the region’s balance of power. Scidmore returns home by way of London to join a National Geographic Society delegation at the Sixth International Geographic Conference, where the U.S. press lauds her success as an exemplary “American girl.”
Trouble in China
Authors: Parsell Diana P.
Published: March 2023

Through frequent writings on her travels to China in the late-nineteenth century, Eliza Scidmore helps “open” the country to Western tourism. She steps up her reporting there after China’s military defeat by Japan in 1895 and a palace coup in which the empress dowager Cixi wrests control from Emperor Guangxu. Scidmore’s contacts in Peking include Der Ling, a lady-in-waiting to the dowager. Helen Taft, the future first lady, is visiting Japan for the first time in the summer of 1900 when the Boxer Rebellion puts Peking under siege. Scidmore’s publisher rushes her book China: The Long-Lived Empire into print. Later that year, on a reporting trip for her book on India (1903), Scidmore socializes with British Viceroy George Curzon and his American-born wife, the former Washington debutante Mary Leiter. Scidmore strikes up a friendship with Chicago socialite Emily MacVeagh, a fellow enthusiast of Asian treasures.
Eyes on Japan
Authors: Parsell Diana P.
Published: March 2023

Eliza Scidmore is reporting from the Far East for the Chicago Daily Tribune when war breaks out in 1904 between Japan and Russia. The assignment becomes a professional embarrassment when she discovers the editors have been misrepresenting her and her work. After the assignment, she arranges to visit Matsuyama and other prisoner-of-war camps to find out how Japan is observing POW accords adopted at the 1899 International Peace Conference in the Hague. She finds Japan’s conduct exemplary and turns her findings into her only published work of fiction, As the Hague Ordains (1907). On a trip to Peking, Scidmore acquires a former throne chair of the empress dowager of China, looted from the Summer Palace after the Boxer Rebellion. She returns to Washington while President Theodore Roosevelt is mediating the Portsmouth Peace Treaty that ends the war between Japan and Russia in 1905.
“The World and All That Is in It”
Authors: Parsell Diana P.
Published: March 2023

As Eliza Scidmore resettles in Washington in 1905, she finds the National Geographic Society enjoying a new lease on life thanks to an innovation in the magazine’s use of photography. In an impulsive move, its new editor, Gilbert H. Grosvenor, ran eleven full-page images of black-and-white photographs in one issue, ushering in a picture-centric format that will define the magazine for the next century. After the death of Scidmore’s long-time mentor and the society’s chief patron, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, his son-in-law Alexander Graham Bell takes over and presses to make the magazine more enticing to general readers. Eliza begins working closely with Grosvenor (Bell’s son-in-law) to plan stories and acquire images from Asia. Some photos she takes herself; others she acquires from a variety of sources. During this period, Scidmore urges Grosvenor to make the leap to color printing to do justice to hand-colored images now becoming available.
Field of Cherries
Authors: Parsell Diana P.
Published: March 2023

In her efforts to bring Japanese cherry trees to Washington, Eliza Scidmore finds collaborators in U.S. Department of Agriculture botanist David Fairchild and his wife, Marian (a daughter of Alexander Graham Bell). At a 1908 Arbor Day lecture at Franklin School, which Scidmore attends, Fairchild calls for planting a “field of cherries” on an avenue known as “the Speedway,” running past Potomac Park. It’s the first public airing of an idea Scidmore has championed, in slightly different form, for two decades. Despite the common goal she and the Fairchilds now share, resistance by the city’s park officials remains an obstacle. Meanwhile, the press reveals Scidmore as the author of the anonymously published novel As the Hague Ordains (1907), based on her reporting of Russian POWs in Japan during the Russo–Japanese War. The emperor of Japan awards Scidmore a medal for her writing about his country.
Up in Smoke
Authors: Parsell Diana P.
Published: March 2023

Eliza Scidmore publishes an article in the March 1910 edition of The Century magazine on the 2,000 cherry trees due to arrive as a gift from Japan, but the article becomes obsolete when all the trees are destroyed soon after their arrival. The action occurs at the recommendation of U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors who find the trees badly infested and deem them a threat to U.S. agriculture. The tree burning takes place in the shadow of the Washington Monument, near the agriculture department’s storehouses. First Lady Helen Taft, whose initiative for the beautification of Potomac Park launched the planting project, has awaited the trees’ arrival with anticipation during a year of recovering from a stroke. Now her project goes up in smoke. Japanese officials respond to the debacle with graciousness and offer to send a replacement batch, though tensions in U.S.–Japan relations create uncertainty about whether it will be carried out.
Epilogue: At Home in the World
Authors: Parsell Diana P.
Published: March 2023

Though Eliza Scidmore stated in her will that she desired no special disposition of her ashes, a petition to the family from American and Japanese friends led to her burial in 1929 alongside her mother and brother in Yokohama’s Foreign General Cemetery. The Japanese have memorialized her over the years as an early “friend of Japan.” In her native America, meanwhile, interest in Scidmore has increased steadily for a decade, since she was “rediscovered” during Washington’s centennial celebration of its first Japanese cherry trees in 2012. The destruction of most of her personal papers by a relative soon after her death contributed to a dearth of information that helps explain Scidmore’s near obscurity for much of a century despite her historical importance. The resurrection of her story through her prolific journalism and many previously unrevealed letters paves the way to further studies of her life and work. This foundational biography is a significant contribution to women’s studies because Eliza Scidmore serves as a representational figure at a time of great transition in American history, when women’s roles were being shaped by influences beyond their position in the family. Her writings show that among the principles that guided her reporting in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a deep faith in human progress, whether of individuals or of nations.
Ancient and Modern State Systems
Authors: Lok Matthijs
Published: March 2023

The seventh chapter (‘Ancient and Modern State Systems’) turns again to anti-Napoleonic history writing as the case of Arnold Ludwig Heeren, introduced in Chapter 1, is examined. Heeren’s self-positioning as an ‘impartial’ historian of Europe and his ambivalent attitude towards contemporary political affairs is described. Then a sketch is provided of Heeren’s development from a scholar of the classical world into a historian of modern Europe, to be followed by sections on Heeren’s academic precursors, in particular the Göttingen school of Staatenhistorie and international law. Subsequently, Heeren’s account of the rise of the modern state system is described, as is his analysis of the decline and fall of this state system in his own era. The following section deals with the ambivalent and multifaceted role of empire and extra-European colonialism in his account of the international system.
Challenging Democratic Commitments
Authors: Viehoff Daniel
Published: March 2023

Many citizens of liberal democracies are both wedded to fundamental tenets of liberal political morality and robustly committed to democracy. (They are robustly committed to democracy just insofar as they would, within certain limits, prefer living under instrumentally suboptimal democratic institutions to living under instrumentally superior non-democratic ones.) Recent liberal arguments for instrumentalism about democracy, advanced most prominently by Richard Arneson and Jason Brennan, have sought to cast doubt on the compatibility of these allegiances. They charge that core elements of liberal political morality disallow the procedural justifications of democracy on which robust democratic commitments rest. The choice between democratic and non-democratic procedures should, they argue, be based on instrumental considerations only. This chapter shows that these liberal arguments for pure instrumentalism about political procedures fail: we can accept the liberal principles and values to which these arguments appeal, and yet invoke democratic procedural goods in the justification of democratic arrangements. By delineating the space that remains for procedural considerations within a broadly liberal political morality, this chapter provides an outline for justifications of democracy that take equally seriously the democratic and the liberal commitments many citizens of liberal democracies endorse.
Practical Political Liberalism
Authors: Perl Caleb
Published: March 2023

This chapter introduces a new version of political liberalism, or at least a new, very close cousin of political liberalism. The new version differs from traditional kinds of political liberalism in its focus on practical rather than doxastic commitments. One might be committed to paying taxes, and might also believe that paying taxes is morally required. The former is a practical commitment: a commitment to act. The latter is a doxastic state: belief in a proposition. This chapter focuses exclusively on the practical states necessary for cooperating together in the right way. So the author calls the new version practical political liberalism. The chapter introduces practical liberalism as particularly accommodating to religious citizens. For instance, it can seem like more traditional kinds of political liberalism require religious citizens to be skeptics about religious questions. Practical liberalism will explain why skepticism isn’t required. And the explanation illustrates more generally how practical liberalism doesn’t require religious citizens to accept additional commitments that they’d find objectionable. The chapter then argues that all political liberals should be practical liberals.
Political Liberalism and the Dismantling of the Gendered Division of Labor
Authors: Gheaus Anca
Published: March 2023

Women continue to be in charge of most childrearing; men continue to be responsible for most breadwinning. There is no consensus on whether this state of affairs, and the informal norms that encourage it, are matters of justice to be tackled by state action. Feminists have criticized political liberalism for its alleged inability to embrace a full feminist agenda, inability explained by political liberals’ commitment to the ideal of state neutrality. The debate continues on whether neutral states can accommodate two feminist demands: to enact policies aimed at dismantling the feminization of caregiving, especially childrearing, and to compensate women for some of the disadvantages they incur by being primary care-givers. I contribute to this debate with three arguments in support of policies meant to de-gender care-giving and compensate care-givers. The first appeals to equality of opportunity to positions of advantage and justifies policies that prevent or mitigate statistical discrimination and implicit biases. The second draws attention to a possible causal relationship between the specialization of women in early childcare and misogyny; since the latter is incompatible with political liberal justice, it yields the conclusion that political liberals ought to further investigate the causal hypothesis with the aim of establishing or refuting it. The third argument concludes that legitimate childrearing prohibits adults from socializing children or, at least girls, into gender norms; it justifies duties of justice on the side of parents, educators, and economic agents, and state policies meant to offset foreseeable breaches of some of these duties.
Self-Sovereignty, Drugs, and Prostitution
Authors: Marneffe Peter de
Published: March 2023

Portugal and the state of Oregon have decriminalized drugs, but they have not legalized them. There are no criminal penalties for using drugs or possessing small quantities, but there are criminal penalties for the commercial manufacture and sale of drugs. Sweden, Norway, and Denmark have decriminalized prostitution, but they have not legalized it. There are no criminal penalties for the sale of sexual services by private individuals, but there are criminal penalties for operating a sex business such as a brothel or escort agency. This chapter defends one possible rationale for these policies: that laws that prohibit the use of drugs or the sale sex violate our right of self-sovereignty—the right we have to control our own minds and bodies—but laws that prohibit us from engaging in related commercial enterprises do not. The chapter presents a theory of self-sovereignty and explains why, given this theory and certain normative and empirical assumptions, it makes sense to hold that whereas criminalization violates our right of self-sovereignty, nonlegalization does not. For this reason, one cannot validly infer from the premise that criminalization violates our rights that nonlegalization does too.
Liberty, Security, and Accountability: The Rise and Fall of Illiberal Democracies
Authors: Gratton Gabriele , Lee Barton E
Published: March 2023

We study a model of the rise and fall of illiberal democracies. Voters value both liberty and economic security. In times of crisis, voters may prefer to elect an illiberal government that, by violating constitutional constraints, offers greater economic security but less liberty. However, violating these constraints allows the government to manipulate information, in turn reducing electoral accountability. We show how elements of liberal constitutions induce voters to elect illiberal governments that remain in power for inefficiently long—including forever. We derive insights into what makes constitutions stable against the rise of illiberal governments. We extend the model to allow for illiberal governments to overcome checks and balances and become autocracies. We show that stronger checks and balances are a double-edged sword: they slow down autocratization but may make it more likely. We discuss the empirical relevance of our theoretical framework and its connection to real world examples.