Article's Main Argument Research Articles

A Clarification of 'White Noise' and Some Observations about Paul Michael Garrett's Response

In this issue, Paul Michael Garrett responds to my paper about social work education and whiteness studies, which was published in a previous issue of this journal (Jeyasingham, 2012). His response includes a number of misreadings of my article and therefore this short paper will begin by clarifying the original article's focus and main argument. It then moves on to make some observations about Garrett's stated criticisms of my paper and the ways in which he presents scholarship about race, ethnicity and Irish people. It ends with some discussion about binary oppositions and the tone of Garrett's response.

A powerful, opinion-forming public? Rethinking the Habermasian public sphere in a perspective of feminist theory and citizenship

The article's main argument is that a public sphere forms a constructive arena for citizenship practice if we by citizenship understand four components: rights, responsibilities, participation and identity as formulated by Gerard Delanty. The Habermasian (re)working of the concept remains an essential contribution to theories of democracy and of political participation. With this in mind, the author's ambition is to address and to rework a specific type of public: an opinion-forming public within a framework of feminist political theory. The article is informed by the assumption that an opinion-forming public sphere is a central democratic arena in which the process of deliberation has intrinsic value. The analysis draws on a debate where a broader concept of communication than the one proposed by Habermas has been discussed. Iris Marion Young's concept of ‘inclusive communication’, greeting, rhetoric and narratives, is an attempt to widen public communication and further an ambition of constructing a concept of a more inclusive public sphere. The author suggests that feminist political theory goes some of the way towards reconstructing a concept of an opinion-forming public sphere within a Habermasian framework. The empirical cases (the women's rights as human rights movement and a Scandinavian feminist debate) illustrate how participants in such a public can use the public arena for internal learning by employing a broad concept of communication such as narratives and storytelling as a means of politicizing their situation and as a consciousness-raising and identity-giving process. The article also suggests that the positive reasoning around an extended concept of communication can be criticized. The overarching idea is that the type of communication in itself does not provide the democratic inclusion and the egalitarian communication it intends and that decisions made as a result of it can be misleading.

The Monolingual Lusoga Dictionary Faced with Demands from a New User Category

In this article, a case is presented of an existing dictionary that is aimed at users with a minimum of primary 7 education, now faced with demands from users in primary 1–3. The reason for this demand is the result of the fact that Lusoga is currently being implemented as a medium of instruction in Uganda, in an environment where there is hardly any literature to serve the intended purpose. A review of the existing literature in and on Lusoga shows that the monolingual Lusoga dictionary — Eiwanika ly'Olusoga (WSG) — is the only reference work with essential information, in Lusoga, that can initiate the teaching of Lusoga at the elementary level. Although the information in the WSG may fit the purpose at hand, that information is mainly presented as a summary, with statements of conclusions only. Explanations to ease its access to the new user are thus missing. Findings from a pilot study conducted by the National Curriculum Development Centre on the implementation of the teaching of Lusoga reveal that the new user is not only the primary 1–3 pupil, but also the teacher who will need to instruct that pupil. Since children's literature requires additional consideration beyond what can be presently availed, and since the WSG was actually compiled for an advanced user, the focus is shifted from the primary 1–3 pupil to the primary teacher. For that teacher, it is suggested to compile an additional Guide, expanding on the various extra-matter texts and especially the Language Portrait found in the WSG. This is done on the assumption that once the information is expanded and re-represented, a teacher will be able to combine the information in the Guide with that in the WSG, in order to make a Lusoga syllabus from which to draft Lusoga lessons. Although the ideal would of course be to be able to produce fully-fledged customised primers from scratch, this article's main argument is that in the absence of both human and financial resources to do so, one can reuse and expand on the data found in an existing higher-level dictionary.OBUFUNZE: Eiwanika ly'Olusoga lizuuseeku omukozesa ataali muluubilile. Mu lupapula muno mulagibwamu engeli Eiwanika ly’Olusoga elyawandiikilwa omukozesa atuuseeku mu kyomusanvu bwe lizuuseeku omukozesa okuva mu kibiina kyolubelyebelye okutuuka mu kyokusatu. Kino kiidhie lwa kuba ensomesa y’olulimi Olusoga eli kuteebwa mu nkola aye ng’ebyetaagisa okutuukiliza omulimu guno bikaali kutuukilizibwa. Okwekeenenia kw’ebiwandiiko ebiliwo ku oba mu Lusoga ebisobola okwemelezaawo ensomesa mu lulimi Olusoga kuzwile nti Eiwanika ni lyonka elilina ebyetaagibwa okusimba omusingi gw’ebyendhegelesa mu lulimi Olusoga ebisobola okutuukana n’ebyetaago by’omukozesa aluubililwa mu kiseela kino. Waile ng’amakobo g’Eiwanika gaaliba gatuukana n’ebyetaago by’omukozesa ono, engeli ye gaategekebwa mu Iwanika teyanguyila mukozesa ono muyaaka kugeeyunila bukalamu. Okwinhonhola kw’amakobo g’Eiwanika kwasinga kukolebwa mu musomo amakobo gano mwegaasibuka. Kale kyaba nti amakobo agandi gazila bulungi businziilo mu Iwanika busobola kwetengelela kuyamba omukozesa aluubililwa. Ebyava mu kugezesa ensomesa y’ebyennnimi enzaalilanwa mu Uganda okwakolebwa ekitongole kya National Curriculum Development Centre byazuula nti omusomi ti ni yenka ayenda okutendekebwa aye n’omusomesa agya akusomesa yeena ayenda obuyambi. Engeli ebiwandiiko by’abaana abato bwe by’ekengelwa einho ate ng’omukozesa omuluubilile ow’Eiwanika yali muntu mukulu, eisila lili ku musomesa w’abasomi abo. Okutendeka omusomesa ono mu bimwetaagibwamu ng’asomesa Olusoga, akatabo akandi akalaga engeli y’okusomesaamu amakobo g’Eiwanika kaidha kuwandiikibwa okumulaga engeli y’ayinza okukozesa ebili mu nnhandhula ni mu nfaanana y’olulimi mu Iwanika okutegeka amasomo g’Olusoga ag’endhawulo. Waile nga kyali gwaine nti ebitabo ebita eisila ku nsomesa y’Olusoga mu pulaimale n’ebyalisinze kwetaagibwa, olupapula luno lusinziile ku mbeela eliwo buti ey’eibula ly’ensako n’abakugu abanoonheleza ku Lusoga, n’okusalawo okukozesa ekiwandiiko ekiliwo mu kiseela kino okugaziya emigaso gya kyo eli okutembeeta ensomesa y’olulimi Olusoga ng’esinziilwa ku Iwanika.Ebigambo ebikulu: EITEEKA LY’EBYENNIMI, ENDHEGELESA Y’ENNIMI ENZAALILANWA, OLUSOGA, UGANDA, ENTEGEKA Y’AMASOMO, OMUKOZESA WA P1–P3, OMUSOMESA WA PULAIMALE, ENTENDEKA Y’ABASOMESA BA PULAIMALE, WALIFU, GULAAMA, AMAKOBO GA KANALULIMI, EIWANIKA LY’OLULIMI OLULALA, EBIWANDIIKO BY’OMU BIKUGILO, ENFAANANA Y’OLULIMI, EBIFAANANI

Homer and His Peers: Neoanalysis, Oral Theory, and the Status of Homer

Both leading trends in contemporary Homeric scholarship, Neoanalysis and Oral Theory, recognize today that the Iliad and the Odyssey frequently evoke episodes whose proper place is in the poems of the Epic Cycle. Yet, while in the Neoanalysts' eyes the intertextual relations between Homer and the Cycle mean that Homer enjoyed a special status which was due to the fact that his poems were composed with the help of writing, from the standpoint of oral formulaic theory Homer and the Cycle should nevertheless be placed on the same plane as independent variants of a common tradition. The article's main argument is that, contrary to the oralists' opinion, the position of the Homeric poems in Greek epic tradition was indeed unique. Contrary to the Neoanalysts' opinion, it is of little relevance whether it was in oral or in written form that they attained this position.

The Monolingual Lusoga Dictionary Faced with Demands from a New User Category

In this article, a case is presented of an existing dictionary that is aimed at users with a minimum of primary 7 education, now faced with demands from users in primary 1–3. The reason for this demand is the result of the fact that Lusoga is currently being implemented as a medium of instruction in Uganda, in an environment where there is hardly any literature to serve the intended purpose. A review of the existing literature in and on Lusoga shows that the monolingual Lusoga dictionary — Eiwanika ly'Olusoga (WSG) — is the only reference work with essential information, in Lusoga, that can initiate the teaching of Lusoga at the elementary level. Although the information in the WSG may fit the purpose at hand, that information is mainly presented as a summary, with statements of conclusions only. Explanations to ease its access to the new user are thus missing. Findings from a pilot study conducted by the National Curriculum Development Centre on the implementation of the teaching of Lusoga reveal that the new user is not only the primary 1–3 pupil, but also the teacher who will need to instruct that pupil. Since children's literature requires additional consideration beyond what can be presently availed, and since the WSG was actually compiled for an advanced user, the focus is shifted from the primary 1–3 pupil to the primary teacher. For that teacher, it is suggested to compile an additional Guide, expanding on the various extra-matter texts and especially the Language Portrait found in the WSG. This is done on the assumption that once the information is expanded and re-represented, a teacher will be able to combine the information in the Guide with that in the WSG, in order to make a Lusoga syllabus from which to draft Lusoga lessons. Although the ideal would of course be to be able to produce fully-fledged customised primers from scratch, this article's main argument is that in the absence of both human and financial resources to do so, one can reuse and expand on the data found in an existing higher-level dictionary Keywords: Language Policy, Mother-Tongue Education, Lusoga, Uganda, Primer, Syllabus, Guide, Elementary User, Primary Teacher, Teacher Training, Orthography, Grammar, Linguistic Information, Monolingual Dictionary, Extra-Matter Texts, Language Portrait, Pictorial Illustrations

Redesigning Culture: Chinese Characters in Alphabet-Encoded Networks

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the difference between two ideas of what written language can be—the Roman alphabet versus Chinese characters—and what happens when this difference is embodied in everyday devices such as computers or mobile phones in the People's Republic of China today.The article's main argument is that this highly contrasted opposition brings to light an alternative to the problem of the concept of “culture,” in the context of the design and use of artifacts, if we consider it as being related to a specific set of phenomena characterized by the presence of lower-level cultural elements.

Paying for Protection

Since the creation of the Atlantic Alliance in 1949, the Alliance's minor partners have persistently spent a smaller share of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on military measures than their larger brothers-in-arms do. Taking my cue from collective goods theory, I examine the factors shaping the armament behaviour and military spending patterns of the smaller allies. The article's main theoretical argument is that the smallest among allies tend to perceive their military instruments as the price of admission to a collective defence organization upheld by larger and more potent powers. In essence, military spending becomes the price of security guarantees and protection. Consequently, small allies raise their military expenditures when their security-guaranteeing senior partner threatens with sanctions that the small ally considers more costly than the requested increase in military expenditures and not as a response to rising threats. In the second section of the article, this theoretical claim is illustrated and assessed against Denmark's Cold War defence policies. The empirical findings corroborate the belief that the small allies' leading policy-makers view their armed forces as a necessary evil maintained in order to profit from their senior partners' capabilities.

Political-Elite Formation and Transition to Democracy in Pre-State Conditions: Comparing Israel and the Palestinian Authority

AbstractThis article's main argument complements the literature on transitions to democracy by focusing on the long-term process of political- elite formation and its influence on the ability of political elites to lead a peaceful and stable transition to democracy. By comparing the case of Israel before independence and the case of Palestine before the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, this article suggests that gradual political-elite formation from within the domestic population is likely to achieve better democratic results than a political- elite formation in exile, without close ties to the domestic population, that is ‘parachuted’ on the population when the political entity is formed.

“A Word Newly Introduced into Language”: The Appearance and Spread of “Social” in French Enlightened Thought, 1745–1765

In the early 1760s, the entry dedicated to the term “social” in Diderot's Encyclopédie claimed that it was “ un mot nouvellement introduit dans la langue.” Strictly speaking, this description was inaccurate: “social” had already appeared (though very sporadically) in seventeenth-century French texts. But the essence of the Encyclopédie's argument was correct: “social” had been so marginal in French up until the mid-eighteenth century that its wide deployment in enlightened discourse from the 1740s onward could be treated as a new appearance. The article main argument is that “social's” new appearance in the mid-1740s was of considerable intellectual importance. To support this argument, the article is divided into three parts. The first outlines the general premises of the research into the word “social” and its significance. By placing this research within the ongoing investigation of the semantic field around “société” in enlightened philosophy, the article claims that such an investigation is much more than an etymological exercise. The special epistemological status of “social” in enlightened philosophy makes an understanding of the reasons for its rapid domination of French philosophical discourse a most rewarding project from the perspective of intellectual history. The second part of the article provides empirical evidence for the argument that “social” had been all but completely absent from French intellectual discourse before the mid-eighteenth century. It is of course harder to ascertain the absence of a word before a given point in time than to confirm its presence, but many different indications substantiate the essence of the Encyclopédie's claim. These indications also allow one to follow “social's” discursive rise after about 1745 and to speculate about the identity of the author(s) responsible for it. All evidence lead to two philosophes, the article claims: Diderot and Rousseau. Finally, the third part of the article presents an argument about the reasons for “social's” rapid naturalization in French enlightened thought and discusses what the philosophes tried so intensively to do, achieve, or express with “social.” Possible answers to this question lead to a reevaluation of mid-eighteenth century enlightened thought in general and contemporary philosophes in particular. Most importantly, such answers allow us to reflect on how we write and think about the intellectual achievements of the mid-eighteenth century, and in what way we, too, still inhabit the mental universe the philosophes helped to create.

KEY DILEMMAS OF REGIONAL INNOVATION POLICIES1

This article is a critical discussion of theoretical and policy issues related to regional development and innovation policy. It draws on the ‘new regionalist’ perspective to examine regions from a strategic perspective and, in particular, the role of knowledge and learning, competitiveness and institutional capacity-building. The article's main argument is that these present day uses of these concepts are based on assumptions that are often overstated, and that in some cases claims have been made that are not sufficiently grounded in empirical evidence.

?The Battle Over Our Homes?: Reconstructing/Deconstructing Sovereign Practices Around Israel's Separation Barrier on the West Bank

During Second Intifada, Israel started to construct a separation barrier, officially aimed at preventing Palestinian terrorists from penetrating into its territory. Previous Palestinian attacks caused death and injury of many innocent civilians, and raised a sense of indignation toward incompetence of Israeli government and forces. The construction of barrier, however, raised some objections, based on argument that barrier was not built on Green Line (the 1949 Armistice agreement established between Israel and Jordan) and that it both expropriated extensive Palestinian agricultural lands and de facto annexed many of Israel's settlements that had been built in occupied territories. Tracing various practices, representations, discourses, and arenas in which clashes between state and Anti-Wall movement have occurred, article's main argument is that relative failure of Anti-Wall activists in their struggle, and relative success of state in constructing Separation Barrier, resulted from fact that conflict has become, for both sides, not only a conflict about a barrier and its route, but a struggle over sovereignty and national identity. Under these circumstances, activists failed in mobilizing public against the Wall, whereas state succeeded in using various discursive and non-discursive sovereign practices, based on arguments such as security needs, and the battle over our homes, as a means to accomplish its mission despite resistance that appeared.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Euro-Mediterranean Security Revisited

The study of the EU's relations with its near abroad is increasingly important in the wake of the 2004 enlargement of the Union because it directly relates to the question whether the EU might help to foster peace and stability in its neighbourhood. Euro-Mediterranean relations are highly interesting in this regard since the EU has a rather long, but not entirely successful, history of trying to promote security and cooperation in its southern vicinity. In this article the Regional Security Complex Theory, developed by Buzan and Waever (2003), is applied to shed new light on security aspects of Euro-Mediterranean relations. The article's main argument is that the ‘ups and downs’ of Euro-Mediterranean security cooperation is better understood if the Mediterranean is not considered as a region in itself but rather as a link between two separated regional security complexes.

Inside the Black Box: Corporate Laws and Theories

This article argues, first, that new theoretical ways of thinking about companies are coming to the fore and, second, that these new ways of thinking are finding their way into some aspects of company law and regulation. Snider's device of tracking the emergence of new ideas as `journey from academic journal to economic policy to law' is employed in support of the article's main argument. In particular, it is submitted that the idea of the firm as a `nexus of contracts' is being replaced by the idea of the firm as a `behavioural entity'. While management and economics theorists have gone `inside the black box' in order to ask different questions and produce better theories, the law has arrived there via a much more pragmatic route. However, recent developments in two areas of company law and regulation, corporate criminal responsibility in the UK and Australia and corporate governance in the UK, can be seen in terms of a move away from a focus on the individual decision maker and towards the concept of corporate culture.

Using Private‐Public Linkages to Regulate Environmental Conflicts: The Case of International Construction Contracts

The article takes a pluralistic view of the ‘trade‐environment’ conflict by exploring one of the settings of this conflict: the lex constructionis– international construction law. It seeks to unravel the way in which the unique structural‐cultural attributes of this legal domain have affected its environmental (in)sensitivity. The article's main argument in that context is that the contractual tradition of the lex constructionis (as manifested in the standard contracts that dominate this field) and its unique institutional structure, have created a culture of ecological indifference. This culture has important practical consequences because of the deep ecological problematic of international construction projects. The article develops an alternative contractual model, which depicts the construction contract as a semi‐political mechanism, rather than a private tool. This conceptual change seeks to break the public/private separation that characterizes the contractual discourse in the international construction market. The article explores, further, whether this alternative contractual vision could be realized in practice, and proposes several implementing modules which could further this goal. While the article explores a particular international regime, its methodology and conclusions – in particular, the political‐constitutional interpretation of the contract and the critique of the public/private dichotomy (see sections III.3 and III.4) – should be relevant to the regulation of many other (national or international) environmental dilemmas.

The inclusive workplace: an ecosystems approach to diversity management.

This article's main argument is that organizations need to expand their notion of diversity to include not only the organization itself, but also the larger systems that constitute its environment. The concept of "the inclusive workplace," introduced here, refers to a work organization that is not only accepting and using the diversity of its own work force, but also is active in the community, participates in state and federal programs to include working poor people, and collaborates across cultural and national boundaries with a focus on global mutual interests. Using an ecosystems perspective, the article outlines a value-based model and a practice-based model of the inclusive workplace as they pertain to the different organizational levels, from the micro to the macro. Finally, implications for the social work profession are drawn with specific case examples for each system level.

Reading the Newspaper: Strategies and Politics of Reader Response, Chicago, 1912–1917

This article is about reader response to journalism during an important transitional period in the history of the American newspaper. It draws on a manuscript collection of letters sent by readers to James Keeley, editor of the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Herald in the early 20th century. It explores the strategies that readers used to make sense of what they read. The article's main argument is that reader response was often not idiosyncratic, but rather it was linked to interpretive communities, and these communities were influenced by political organizations. In other words, readers constructed their own meanings as they read, but this creative process was often guided by organized cultural and political power. Then as now, interest groups taught readers how to read their newspapers.

The governance of homelessness: legality, lore and lexicon in the agency— maintenance of youth homelessness

'The article's main argument is that homelessness is not merely about housing scarcity but is also a site of struggle over social change. To support the argument, empirical research data is used to demonstrate how state agencies maintain homelessness via both the creation and subsequent deterrence, denial and disciplining of challenging popu lations.'