Ideological Considerations Research Articles

British Inner Urban Policy Post 1979: a critique

Urban experimentation in the 1960s gave way to more permanent urban policy heralded by The 1917 White Paper. Evaluation of inner city initiatives implemented by the Department of Employment and Department of the Environment post 1979 can be undertaken at three levels. First, ideological considerations notably concerning the role of the market and public sector intervention have impacted on urban policy with unforeseen and limiting results. Second, intermediate analyses pertaining to institutional constraints reveal inner city policy’s limited relationship to appropriate analysis and substantial problems of co-ordination and objective definition. The third level of analysis, that of policy implementation, substantiates the pragmatic, unimaginative and poorly monitored nature of urban intervention. An effective policy towards the older urban cores will require modifications at all three levels.

Consequences of Federal Government Information Policies, 1981-1986

Prompted by ideological considerations, the Reagan administration, during the period 1981-1986, fostered policies to restrict, control, and manage the flow of information produced by and for the federal government. By means of misinformation, censorship, and selective dissemination, the Reagan administration successfully abridged public scrutiny of government decisions. Five aspects of these policies are examined: mandatory reductions to achieve a balanced budget, elimination and curtailment of statistical surveys, reduction in funding for United Nations research, private sector distribution of government products and services, and elimination of substantive government publications. This course of action subverts the concept of information as a public good and threatens the democratic ideal of full access to government information.

Human Rights: The Impact of International Action

While hardly replacing considerations of power, security, ideology, and economic interest, human rights have become a significant concern in international relations in recent years, a standard topic of talk and occasionally even action in a variety of bilateral and multilateral contexts. In this article I want to consider how this change has influenced the fate of human rights. I will argue that although international action has had, and continues to have, an impact on the realization of human rights, its role is ultimately subsidiary. The fate of human rights is largely a matter of national, not international, action.

Red Scare, 1936: Anti-Bolshevism and the Origins of British Non-Intervention in the Spanish Civil War

Simpson or the forthcoming Olympic Games in Berlin than in Italian aggression in Ethiopia or German reoccupation of the Rhineland. Whitehall seemed nearly as oblivious to the fascist menace as the man in the street. Certainly, some British policy-makers did sound the alarm against Mussolini and Hitler, but most were preoccupied with a more insidious threat to Britain's security. From Lisbon, Paris and Athens came signs that Stalin and his Communist International (Comintern) were bent on spreading Bolshevism throughout the Mediterranean basin, extending Soviet influence from the Atlantic to the Aegean and, perhaps, even snapping the British Empire's historic lifeline, which stretched from Gibraltar to Suez. The most disturbing omens, however, came from Madrid. There a left-wing republican coalition endorsed by the Kremlin had won a narrow victory at the polls in February, only to usher in what some Britons termed a 'Kerensky' era of deepening political and economic turmoil, which by July seemed ripe for a Spanish Lenin. When, instead, General Francisco Franco staged a military uprising, Britain quickly proclaimed a policy of strict non-intervention in the ensuing civil war. Why did it do so? This essay suggests that Whitehall imposed an arms embargo on the Spanish Republic primarily to prevent the emergence of a communist Spain, and more broadly, to check the spread of Bolshevism in western and southern Europe. Most explanations of British non-intervention during the Spanish Civil War minimize such ideological considerations and focus rather upon broader diplomatic factors, such as the quest for collective security or the fear of a wider conflagration. Early accounts by Patricia van der Esch and William Laird Kleine-Ahlbrandt contended

Women and the Law of Property in Early America

In this first comprehensive study of women's property rights in early America, Marylynn Salmon discusses the effect of formal rules of law on women's lives. By focusing on such areas such as conveyancing, contracts, divorce, separate estates, and widows' provisions, Salmon presents a full picture of women's legal rights from 1750 to 1830. Salmon shows that the law assumes women would remain dependent and subservient after marriage. She documents the legal rights of women prior to the Revolution and traces a gradual but steady extension of the ability of wives to own and control property during the decades following the Revolution. The forces of change in colonial and early national law were various, but Salmon believes ideological considerations were just as important as economic ones. Women did not all fare equally under the law. In this illuminating survey of the jurisdictions of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, Salmon shows regional variations in the law that affected women's autonomous control over property. She demonstrates the importance of understanding the effects of formal law on women' s lives in order to analyze the wider social context of women's experience.

The Public Sector in the Market Economies of Developing Asia

Discussions on the role of the public sector tend to be on what the public sector ought to do on the basis of assumptions about the existence of public goods, the existence of externalities in the economy, the need to create infrastructure and the need to redistribute income. These discussions are inevitably influenced by ideological considerations and by an implicit concept of the public sector as an all-knowing entity that makes few if any mistakes and that always aims at maximizing the “general” welfare. These “normative” discussions that fill the pages of public finance textbooks are useful for providing a framework for reference. However, more attention must be directed toward the “positive” role of the public sector, recognizing that it is run by individuals who have biases and who make their share of mistakes…

Functionalism and the Balance of Interests in the Law of the Sea: Cuba’s Role

How adequate is functionalism as a comprehensive theory of international politics and law? In its classic version, functionalism posits that, as economic and technological interdependence grows, diplomacy and the elaboration of international legal rules will be shaped increasingly by functional concerns and less and less by ideology and “high politics.” While such a trend is evident in some areas of international relations, such as the European Community, it is less so in others. In many negotiations and disputes around the globe, even though the issues may be amenable to a functional approach and resolution, states continue to give great weight to ideological and political considerations in their diplomacy and legal stances. Proponents of functionalism have assumed that the growing tide of functional links and relationships eventually will dominate international relations and render political and ideological conflicts less significant, if not mostly irrelevant. But in many cases, the reverse has happened. International organizations set up for functional purposes have been inundated by political and ideological rivalries, and international legal issues of a functional character have been seized upon by states to advance their ideological and political objectives. Cuba’s policy towards the law of the sea serves as a case study of this problem.

Culture and the environment in the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union is one of the most physically and culturally diverse nations on earth. Its natural environment embraces a rich variety of resources and ecosystems, many of which, such as Lake Baikal, are of world significance. Culturally, it is comprised of over a hundred ethnic groups, belonging to eight major language groups and six major religions. However, two cultures are dominant: the Slavic group (which takes in 75% of the USSR population and 80% of its land area) and the Turkic-Islamic peoples who account for the large majority of the remainder. Owing to the highly centralized nature of the country's political-administrative system, however, the effect of culture or ethnic traditions in the resolution of national environmental issues is quite small. Major decisions regarding either specific conservation issues or basic environmental policies are made at the centralized level by ministerial, planning, and Communist Party officials, and are based on pragmatically refined ideological considerations, rather than on regional cultural attitudes. This pragmatic refining of ideological considerations will involve the weighing of specific economic and environmental imperatives, and deciding on appropriate trade-offs. To find cultural expression in environmental management, one would need to look closely at local projects and approaches in the various ethnic regions, particularly the non-Slavic ones.

Thunder on The Right: Education and the Ideology of The Quick Fix

In the aftermath of the recent spate of national reports indicting the state of American schooling, a national debate is emerging to sort out the nature of the education 'crisis' and to provide a set of possible solutions. One such debate, jointly sponsored by the Bureau of National Affairs, the Institute for Educational Leadership, and Harvard Educational Review, brought together in a recent two day national conference a number of government spokespersons, national educators, and prominent political leaders. The conference titled, EDUCATION, PUBLIC POLICY, AND THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION, revealed some deep divisions among the participants regarding both the problems facing public schools as well as the role the federal government should play in resolving them. While no consensus emerged in the two days of heated debate, it became clear that beneath the rhetoric and insights offered by the various participants, a number of ideological and political issues emerged that portend some of the struggles slowly developing around the crisis in education. The most important issues discussed at the Washington conference focused on the current state of public education, the role of federal policy in education, and the relationship between schooling and the imperatives of a high technology future. The various perspectives that emerged in the debate split primarily over political and ideological considerations. On the one hand, there was a political division between those spokespersons representing President Reagan's position and those opposed to official government policy. On the other hand, there were ideological conflicts centering primarily around the steps that should be taken to reform the nature of public education; this debate was waged primarily among political moderates and liberals, with a small number of leftist critics adding to the foray. In most instances, the questions raised as well as the solutions offered stayed within a relatively traditional educational framework.

Judging Teachers: the social and political contexts of teacher evaluation

Abstract This paper argues that the assessment and evaluation of teachers in slate provided schooling in Britain has never been simply a matter of technical competence. Judging teachers has always involved social, ideological and political considerations which have varied in different historical periods. An analysis is made of attempts to apply principles and procedures of assessment especially to teachers in urban working class schools. It is shown that these attempts have historically moved from a ‘visible’ strategy of direct imposition and surveillance to an ‘invisible’ strategy through the ethic of legitimated professionalism. Current developments in British schooling suggest, however, a possible return to more direct and visible procedures as ‘teacher incompetence’ is placed at the centre of the education problem.

Catholic Conspiracy in Early Elizabethan Foreign Policy

In the tension-ridden environment of early Elizabethan England diplomacy was increasingly hampered by the intrusion of religious dogmas into foreign affairs. As Garrett Mattingly has so cogently stated, Opposed ideologies would distort the lines of policy, cut across old allegiances, and multiply the hostilities between states by the implacable hatreds of conflict over absolute, transcendental ideas.' In spite of Mattingly's assertion, however, recent studies of English diplomacy have moved away from ideological considerations and have focused attention on the impact of events to the extent that religion has been demoted to a position of only peripheral importance to the shaping of policy.2 It might be said that perhaps a more balanced interpretation of Elizabethan diplomacy would recognize the interrelationships between events, personalities, and ideologies than is currently the case. The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate how one important element of religious ideology-belief in a Catholic conspiracy to exterminate Protestantism-affected diplomatic thinking. It will be shown that belief in such a conspiracy was instrumental to the creation of an aggressive attitude, an elan vital, that gave Englishmen confidence in the future, in spite of impending or imaginary threats from abroad. Unfortunately, however, such thinking projected Philip II of Spain as the perpetrator of such plots and was thus instrumental to the deterioration of Anglo-Spanish relations in the 1560s. The frequency with which allusions to conspiracy are found in English diplomatic correspondence suggests widespread acceptance of such rumors. As might be expected, belief in the Catholic bogey was a common assumption among Protestant hot gospellers, such as Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, Christopher Mundt, Sir Henry Norris, and Sir Francis Walsingham. But even among diplomats considered to be religious and political moderates, such as Sir Thomas Gresham, Sir Thomas Challoner,

"Moving Education Forward to Keep Society Back": The South African "De Lange Report" Reevaluated

The Republic of South Africa is one of the most racially heterogeneous countries of the world. It is also at the meeting point of many First WorldThird World and North-South problems. Whereas, in the past, South Africa has addressed these problems with the crude apartheid system, it has now become more subtle and, to many, reasonable in its approach. Manpower planning considerations now tend to override ideological considerations, and some black groups are being granted concessions. Perhaps the most important element in this changing situation is the suggested overhaul of the entire education system in South Africa. This paper sets out to examine the main propositions of the De Lange Report, to evaluate them in the light of various intellectual and value frameworks, to examine reactions to the report, and to predict what is likely to happen. The title of our paper is taken from a publication' produced 1 year after the De Lange Commission made available its recommendations for the future development of education in South Africa.

Transport Linkages in South Asia

A recent study of the Industrial Revolution by Sydney Pollard — The Industrialisation of Europe 1760–1970— has shown that industrialization for the first century or so, being the consequence of individual decisions, was not so much a national as a regional phenomenon. It was not governments and planning agencies but conditions of the market, availability of labour, accessibility of raw materials and the state of transport and communications systems that determined which areas got industrialized and which remained undeveloped. Even in the “Workshop of the World” it was not Britain itself but specific parts (the Black country and Lancashire) which moved forward, while others (Cornwall and Shropshire) remained pre-industrial. This amiably anarchic process of growth, according to the principle of laissez-faire, was rudely interrupted in the last quarter of the nineteenth century by the actions of governments and the even more influential principle of nationalism. Protectionist tariffs, spiralling ever upwards, tried to exclude certain commodities; governments urged on industrialists to produce strategically vital goods, and each society sought to be less dependent on the foreigner. World War I accentuated this tendency to an enormous degree, not only by physically interrupting commerce but also by “import substitution.” In fact, it was the “import substitution” of the Chilean nitrates, a vital raw material for the manufacture of explosives and fertilizers, by Haber's nitrogen fixation process to produce ammonia that precipatated World War I. But for it Kaiser's Germany woruld never have dared to declare war. Ruthless pursuit of self-sufficiency can provoke a rogue reaction like World War I. The inter-war years, characterised by new frontiers and teriffic shortages of capital and further bouts of national rivalry, again checked the spread of industrialization—or at least ensured that the process was not purely an economic one. Far from what the Marxists call the “economic substructure” determining politics, political and ideological considerations determined economic development resulting as we all know, in such global catastrophes as the Great Depression and its aftermath in the twenties and thirties. Only in the period after World War II was the old trend revived and industrial recovery came about. Europe was, of course, now divided into two blocs; but within each of them, in their different ways, an impressive industrial growth took place, spreading into new regions in accord with those basic determinants of market, labour, raw materials, transport and communications. The role of governments is certainly much more pronounced in the modern world than in Adam Smith's day. But the relative failure of, say, the depressed regions of northern England or northern France, despite large-scale support, is a measure of the way things are going.

The language of ideology

Even in a relatively quiet and sober decade, such as the seventies, one can hardly subscribe to Daniel Belt's evidently premature judgment about "the end of ideology". Ideologies may no longer sound so biased, militant and aggressive as in the days of the Cold War, but they still dominate the whole world of politics and culture. Humankind is still divided into ideologically exclusive camps. Many economic, political and ecological problems cannot be solved in optimal ways for ideological reasons. Rather than withering away, ideologies tend to multiply and grow in complexity. In addition to traditional class struggles, new conflicts break out and new social movements have been generated: those of rebellious youth, oppressed races, women, national and religious communities. Each of them tends to create a new ideology: the New Left, feminism, black racism as opposed to white racism, various forms of nationalism, and of (Zionist and Islamic) religious ideology. Philosophy was never able to preserve its purity from various ideological intrusions. On the contrary, it was philosophers who pro vided theoretical foundations for all three of the most important political ideologies of our times: liberalism, Marxism and fascism. And it could be shown that even the most strictly anti-metaphysical, anti-speculative, consequently anti-ideological contemporary trend that of analytical philosophy tacitly assumes some of the basic premises of liberalism. Now when analytical philosophy is opened up for historical study and value judgments, it will even less be able to keep its distance from ideological considerations. And yet philosophy, because of its commitment to unbiased thinking and universal values, is better equipped than any other form of inquiry to provide a critique of ideology and ideological reasoning. The first question we have to discuss is then the following: What is ideology? How can it be distinguished from philosophy, science, and rhetorics? What are the basic logical characteristics of the language of ideology?

Sex Bias in Counseling: A Reply and Critique

The social importance of the gender‐bias issue in counseling implores that our beliefs about the issue be predicated on evidence rather than on ideological considerations.

Familiarity and Inertia in the Formation of Governing Coalitions in Parliamentary Democracies

Political scientists who set out to test theories of coalition formation in parliamentary contexts (notably Browne, de Swaan, and Taylor and Laver) found only limited evidence to support the more classical game-theoretic propositions, which predict the formation of coalitions that command a majority of seats in a parliament but are otherwise as small as possible, in some sense of the word ‘small’. As a consequence, Browne later advocated the laying aside of these size theories in favour of theories that took account of the policy preferences of potential coalition partners, and in two separate studies theories were tested that focused upon the ideological component in coalition formation. Both these studies found theories based on presumed policy preferences to perform better than size theories. A more recent study has shown that the relative performance of theories based on size and ideological considerations depends on assumptions made in conducting the research. This study employed multiple regression analysis to establish that both kinds of theory had parts to play in an explanation of formation outcomes, which were dominated sometimes by size and sometimes by ideology, depending on country and time period. In the course of the analysis an additive combination of size and ideology was found to correlate to the extent of r ≃ 0·4 with formation outcomes, producing consistently better predictions than any existing theory.

The “Worthless Lands” Thesis: Another Perspective

here is no question that Alfred T Runte's National Parks: American Experience and his related articles are valuable-or that they have stirred controversy. essay by Richard W. Sellars is but the latest attack. Sellars focuses on what has come to be known as the thesis, which is the most original portion of Runte's work and central to it. Runte's reply restates-and qualifies-his case. In the judgment of this reviewer, Sellars does not go far enough in his critique. thesis, I submit, is flawed at its heart by presentism-the historian's cardinal sin of judging past events by present-day standards and values. Moreover, Runte's work appears inadequately informed by relevant historical literature. History is a cumulative discipline; a scholar ignores the work of his predecessors at his peril. Yet Runte, seemingly intent upon forcing all into the procrustean bed that is the thesis, ignores contrary conclusions of others-or denies that their arguments are informed by evidence. creation by Congress of the early national parks needs to be viewed within the context of the times, and especially in light of the prevailing perception of the proper role of the federal legislature in dealing with public lands. A host of studies of federal land policy have made clear that in the nineteenth century Congress was generally expected to encourage national development by speedily transferring public lands to private ownership. Land questions focused not so much on whether this should be done, but on how to encourage family farms while preventing engrossment of the land by a wealthy few. When Senator John Conness and others described proposed parks to fellow congressmen as encompassing lands, they meant that creating the parks in question would not be a violation of Congress's basic responsibility to encourage family farms and the democracy they supposedly buttressed. One did not need to be a dyed-in-the-wool Jacksonian to speak thus. Such arguments were frequently rhetorical, as Sellars notes, intended to disarm the many champions of Jacksonian democratic ideals who had the power to thwart creation of any parks to which they chose to offer serious opposition. Debates over the creation of parks were shaped by class as well as ideological considerations. It was easy to see them as undemocratic reserves for the wealthy. When the first national parks were being established, few Americans could afford to take their leisure far from home. Speaking of Yellowstone and Yosemite in 1882, the San Francisco Chronicle put it bluntly: The richforeign and native-enjoy a monopoly of these pleasure grounds. It is wrong in principle and oppressive in practice for any government to tax the common people and the poor for the exclusive benefit of the Not until the 1920s, when the automobile revolutionized American use of leisure time, could Robert Sterling Yard write, We can no longer dismiss national parks as travel resorts, or consider them from a class point of view.... One should hardly be surprised if Conness and others went out of their way to further the belief that the land involved in proposed parks was worthless-that is, that the advocates of parks were not proposing to take from poor would-be farmers to give to the rich. But one should not interpret such statements too literally. If no one had seen economic value in the land that was to be made into parks, there would have been little reason to protect them with park status. lands might have been worthless for agriculture or mining, but, as Sellars points out, they could be readily put to other uses, most notably to attracting tourists. Facilities to cater to visitors sprang up during the late nineteenth century near almost every accessible natural wonder. They appeared near some even earlier, threatening to destroy much of the beauty that had called the facilities into being. Against such uses, national park status promised at least some protection. In his rebuttal, Runte tries to escape the implications of this for his thesis by limiting his definition of worth to the use of natural resources that further national development. He is especially contemptuous of those who carried out digs in order to obtain Indian artifacts. They were vandals, rather than people seeking Automobiles revolutionized Americans' use of leisure time and made national parks accessible to greater numbers of tourists. Winding through the dense forests above are visitors to Mount Rainier National Park, ca. 1912. S. C. Lancaster lantern slide, courtesy R J Fah i

The visible and the invisible hand: Resource allocation in the industrial sector

AbstractThe standard economic analysis holds that resource allocation in the industrial sector is primarily a market process operating through the capital markets. The current political resurgence of free market economics has popularized this approach. Contrary to this approach the authors demonstrate that: (1) trends in the size, diversity and administrative complexity of firms; (2) structural features of the capital markets; and (3) the emergence of the state as a major source of capital in developed countries imply that internal organizational and political/ ideological considerations are also vital to understanding resource allocation in the economy.

Die sosialistiese en kommunistiese pers as ideologiese instrumente

Although certain characteristics are universal for all media systems, the execution of its functions will be determined to a great extent by ideological considerations. In countries with central planning of almost all aspects of social life and where production and distribution are nationalized, the media too will be manipulated. In Socialist and Communist political systems there is no provision for a free and independent press acting as a watchdog over the powers that be. The press should rather be seen as ideological instruments that function in orchestration with other instruments of state power as part of an indirect strategy that see peace as the continuation of warfare.

From the Experience of Teaching Methods Work by Model Schools in the 1920s

The early 1920s was, in Siberia, a time of searching for ways to build the new school. This work took place under difficult conditions. It was necessary to restore the school network and repair the school buildings destroyed by Kolchak's forces, in some places rebuilding them from the ground up or adapting other kinds of buildings for use as schools. Major difficulties also arose with the selection of teaching cadres who were capable of resolving the tasks confronting the new school. Hundreds of teachers were executed by the White Guard forces. Many others gave up teaching, some for ideological considerations because they did not wish to recognize the establishment of Soviet power, and others because of their financial circumstances and living conditions.