Corridors Of Power Research Articles

Is the National Prayer Breakfast Surrounded by a “Christian Mafia”? Religious Publicity and Secrecy Within the Corridors of Power

One of nation's most public annual events that bridge religious and political realms is National Prayer Breakfast. One of most secretive religious groups among country's elite is referred to as the Fellowship. Many do not realize that two are linked very closely, for Fellowship administers National Prayer Breakfast and supports attendant prayer breakfast movement. I find this relationship is integral to both dimensions of Fellowship, yet movement insiders demonstrate a clear preference for private and secretive elements and minimize role of public legitimation for group and its activities. Data for this article are based on interviews with approximately 300 societal leaders and leaders of religious institutions as well as archival material and participant-observation surrounding National Prayer Breakfast, wider prayer breakfast movement, and its sponsoring organization, International Foundation.

The Asian mystique: dragon ladies, geisha girls & our fantasies of the exotic Orient

Few Westerners escape the images, expectations and misperceptions that lead us to see as exotic, sensual, decadent, dangerous, and mysterious. Despite -- and because of -- centuries of East-West interaction, the stereotypes of Western literature, stage, and screen remain pervasive icons: the tea-pouring, submissive, sexually available geisha girl; the steely cold dragon lady dominatrix; as well as the portrayal of the Asian male as effeminate and asexual. These Oriental illusions color our relations and relationships in ways even well-respected professional Asia hands and scholars don't necessarily see. The Asian Mystique lays out a provocative challenge to see and Asians as they really are, with unclouded, deeroticized eyes. It traces the origins of Western stereotypes in history and in Hollywood, examines the phenomenon of 'yellow fever,' then goes on a reality tour of Asia's go-go bars, middle-class homes, college campuses, business districts, and corridors of power, providing intimate profiles of women's lives and vivid portraits of the human side of an we usually mythologize too well to really understand. It strips away our misconceptions and stereotypes, revealing instead the fully dimensional human beings beyond our usual perceptions. The Asian Mystique is required reading for anyone with interest in or interaction with or Asian-origin people, as well as any serious student or practicioner of East-West relations.

Special Issue Editors' Statement: Helping Consumers Help Themselves

John G. Lynch Jr. is Roy J. Bostock Professor of Marketing, Fuqua School of Business (e-mail: john.lynch@duke.edu), and Wendy Wood is James B. Duke Professor of Psychology, Professor of Marketing, and Codirector of the Social Science Research Institute (e-mail: wendy.wood@duke.edu), Duke University. The authors thank the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, and the Warrington College of Business, University of Florida, for financial support for a conference at Duke in May 2005, in which these articles were originally presented and discussed. They also thank the discussants at the conference who provided thoughtful commentary on the articles appearing in this special issue (including Kathryn Aikin, Pankaj Aggarwal, Tim Buthe, Noel Brewer, Bob Giloth, John Herrera, Loraine LauGesk, Alan Levy, Patrick Malone, Danny McGoldrick, Joseph Mulholland, Mike Munger, Jan Pappalardo, David Pizarro, Daniel Rodriguez, and Kevin Schulman) and Eldar Shafir who commented on a draft of this introduction. They especially appreciate JPP&M editor Joel Cohen, who offered them the opportunity to serve as guest editors of this special issue and provided many instructive comments on this editorial and other articles in the special issue that helped them and the contributing authors better understand the policy environment. This special issue of Journal of Public Policy & Marketing addresses the theme “Helping Consumers Help Themselves: Improving the Quality of Judgments and Choices,” and it is motivated by Editor Joel Cohen’s desire to bring psychological theory to bear on public policy and public policy research. His premise is that public policy in the United States and internationally is dominated by the disciplines of economics and law. In the corridors of power, however, there is little parallel discussion of useful complementary perspectives drawing on psychological theory and research. This special issue is intended to start conversations between policy makers and psychologists, behavioral economists, and consumer behavior scholars whose work challenges key assumptions in standard policy analyses. The articles in this issue center on three key interventions to public policy that are drawn from economics and that are intended to benefit consumers in the marketplace:

Власть и бизнес: новые правила игры

The author of the article undertakes to analyze the influence of the recent novations – abrogation of electing of governors and transition to a purely proportional system of elections to the RF State Duma – upon mutual relations of business and the power. The author demonstrates that the change of the principle of the formation of the governors contingent personnel and the replacement of the mixed electoral formula by elections exclusively by party lists destroy the mechanisms, long since given a work-out to, of coalescence of business and politics. But, although concentration of authoritative powers in the hands of the federal center, certainly, impedes “seizure of the state” by groups of economic interests, it is not equivalent to the establishment of an “honest competition regime”, for the government starts serving the interests of the business under its control. According to the author’s conclusion, the control over the “strategic branches”, announced by the federal center, means that political influence as resource of competitive struggle, rests only with the economic agents chosen by it. The rest business structures lose the opportunities for lobbying their interests in the power corridors – which, from the author’s point of view, might be welcome, were this “distant separation of business from the power” not selective.

Encyclopedia of World War II: a political, social and military history

An unprecedented achievement in publishing-a multivolume encyclopedic resource, for both the general reader and specialist-on the central conflict of the 20th century, The Encyclopedia of World War II covers the entire scope of the Second World War from its earliest roots to its continuing impact on global politics and human society. A monumental five-volume work, The Encyclopedia of World War II is an achievement in scholarship that surpasses all such efforts on World War II before it. From the conflict's historic origins to VJ Day and beyond, it offers readers unprecedented coverage of all aspects of the war as it played out in the corridors of power, in the minds of military strategists, on the battlefields, and in the lives of ordinary soldiers and civilians. Full of fascinating characters and insights, including a wealth of new information and new thinking about the war's events and impact, The Encyclopedia of World War II will stand as the definitive single reference on the subject for years to come. With over one million words of richly illustrated text, it covers every important battle and weapon system; individual nations and geographic locations; and political, social, and military leaders. Featured essays offer deeper analyses of crucial events such as Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust, the atomic bomb, and other fascinating topics. Providing its content is an incomparable team of international academics and independent historians. Volume five, the documents volume, is unmatched in breadth and depth and includes primary sources such as important official writings and personal reminiscences of the war's key events. * Over 1,400 A-Z entries, including lengthy biographies of individuals, studies of battles, details of weapons systems, and analyses of wartime conferences, crucial battlefield and diplomatic turning points, and lingering historical controversies * Over 270 contributors, including an unprecedented number of international authorities (many from Japan and China), giving the work a global perspective no other encyclopedia on World War II can match * A wealth of primary documents, ranging from official documents to personal correspondence, is included in a separate volume * An introductory section with 70 detailed geopolitical and military maps providing a clear orientation for proceeding with research into specific topics and events, as well as 300 photographs, illustrations, charts, and tables * Includes a discussion of military ranks of the major warring powers and a lengthy comparative table of officers and enlisted men

Blackett: Physics, War, and Politics in the Twentieth Century

Acknowledgments Introduction: A Life of Controversy 1. The Shaping of a Scientific Politics: From the Royal Navy to the British Left, 1914-1945 2. Laboratory Life and the Craft of Nuclear Physics, 1921-1947 3. Corridors of Power: Operational Research and Atomic Weapons, 1936-1962 4. Temptations of Theory, Strategies of Evidence: Investigating the Earth's Magnetism, 1947-1952 5. "Reading Ourselves into the Subject": Geophysics and the Revival of Continental Drift, 1951-1965 6. Scientific Leadership: Recognition, Organization, Policy, 1945-1974 Conclusion: Style and Character in a Scientific Life Abbreviations Notes Index

Popular Choice and Managed Democracy: The Russian Elections of 1999 and 2000 by Tomothy J. Colton Michael McFaul (review)

564 SEER, 83, 3, 2005 Colton, Tomothy J. and MeFaul, Michael. PopularChoiceand Managed Democracy: 7The RussianElections of I999 and2000. Brookings Institution Press, Washington D.C., 2003. x + 3I7 pp. Tables. Appendices. Notes. Index. $22.95: ?4I6.50 (paperback). THIs book setsitselfambitiousgoals, seekingto deal with the I999 Duma and 2000 Presidential elections in a comprehensive way by considering how politicalpartiesand candidatesrantheircampaigns,how the media magnified or ignored them, and how Russianpublic opinion received and respondedto their messages. The authors work with a wide variety of sources, including partypublications,interviewsand media reportsand, extensively,they utilize a unique set of public opinion surveys of Russians that includes a panel of respondentsinterviewedover the course of the two primaryelections, as well as re-interviewswith respondentsfrom election studiesconducted in the midI990S . The panel studies are put to excellent use at times, particularlyin the convincing individual-levelanalysisof voter volatility,the extent of which has been somewhat obscured to researchersby relatively greater stability over time in aggregate-levelpartysupport. The book has several bridging objectives. First, in line with its spread of source materials, it has the self-conscious aim to integratejournalistic and scholarly (by which they seem mainly to mean quantitative) methods of investigation (p. I2). Second, it seeks to 'transport us from understanding voters at the micro level to understandingthe elections at the macro level, which was our principal target in undertaking the project' (p. I99). Third, the evidence presentedin the book points the authorstowardsa political label for Russia -the 'manageddemocracy'of the book'stitle- that theybelieve has programmatic importance for US policy makers and, presumably, for democratsaround the world who are tryingto understandRussianpolitics in the Putinera. The book's laudable bridging objectives, however, also constitute its most serious weaknesses. 'Managed democracy' may have been a reasonable descriptionof the state of affairsin Russia and a politicallyusefulterm in the corridorsof power in Washington,but it is not a term with any comparative value in scholarlypoliticalscience. In each of the chapterson the main parties and presidentialcandidates, readerswill be confrontedby a large number of simple descriptivestatisticsabout the social and attitudinalcharacteristicsof their supporters.The desire to simplify the statisticalpresentation is understandable for a general audience, particularly given the authors' desire to advance theirpolitical message. But the relegation of the real analyticalmeat that sustains the main conclusions in the text to a brief and inadequately explained appendix is a seriousflaw in the book for the simplereason that the scholarly statistical analysis does not in fact sustain many of their main conclusions. Putin wins, the authors conclude, because he 'tapped into the desire of so many Russians to avoid having to make [... .] wrenching choices [between democracy and growth and the strong state], as opposed to opting unreservedlyfor democracy or choosing autocracy' (p. 222). Readers should look at the profileof Putinvoters in Appendix B, TablesBi-B4 (pp. 237-39). (NB, REVIEWS 565 table B4 contains an errorin the presentationof stanceson issue opinions for Putin and Ziuganov supporters positive and negative signs need to be switchedin both cases.)They will see that Putinwas supportedby people who think more highly of how the country is going economically and democratically , by people with stronger democratic ideals, and by people who are less likelyto support strong and delegative leaders bringing order than either supportersof Ziuganov or the supposedlyliberal Iavlinskii.(My own analysis of Putin'ssupportersusingothersurveydatabroadlyconfirmsthis.) The disconnection between the anti-democratic characteristicsof Putin's policies and the ideological characteristicsof his supporters which is a real and pressing question for research is not resolved in the book and one is leftwondering, therefore,what the addedvalue was in the huge investmentby the authorsin surveys.Takeawaythe quantitativeanalysisand one isleftwith thejournalistic side of the story,which is frequentlyexcellent and, of course, theauthors'politicalmessage.But,asan academicwho takessurveysseriously, I would have preferredmore serioussurveyscholarship.As an avid readerof newspapers,I wondered whether asjournalism the book is notjust a little bit late. And Putin'smore recentpolitical actionssuggestthat, as a politicalterm, 'manageddemocracy'might be past its sell-bydate in 2005. Department ofPoliticsandInternational Relations STEPHEN WHITEFIELD andPembroke College, Oxford University ...

Blackett: physics, war, and politics in the twentieth-century

Acknowledgments Introduction: A Life of Controversy 1. The Shaping of a Scientific Politics: From the Royal Navy to the British Left, 1914-1945 2. Laboratory Life and the Craft of Nuclear Physics, 1921-1947 3. Corridors of Power: Operational Research and Atomic Weapons, 1936-1962 4. Temptations of Theory, Strategies of Evidence: Investigating the Earth's Magnetism, 1947-1952 5. Reading Ourselves into the Subject: Geophysics and the Revival of Continental Drift, 1951-1965 6. Scientific Leadership: Recognition, Organization, Policy, 1945-1974 Conclusion: Style and Character in a Scientific Life Abbreviations Notes Index

Change from Within the Corridors of Power: A Reflective Essay of a Sociologist in Government

Introduction As a Canadian sociologist who has worked both in the academy and in government in Newfoundland and Labrador, my purpose in this essay is three-fold: (1) to offer some theoretical and methodological observations, based on my practical experiences, about the nature of politics and how governments work; (2) to show how the application of the sociological imagination has led to some important changes in governance in Newfoundland and Labrador; and, (3) to advocate for greater involvement of sociologists and the application of the sociological imagination within the corridors of power in this country. Sociologists in North America have been less involved in government than have other social scientists, especially economists and political scientists.1 Nevertheless, several of our colleagues have been involved in many ways in trying to effect progressive change in Canadian society (Carroll et al, 1992; [End Page 471] McFarlane, 1992). For the Newfoundland and Labrador case specifically, Barbara Neis has examined various ways in which sociologists and anthropologists have been involved in what she calls "the uneasy marriage of academic and policy work" in "a rich and multi-faceted thirty-year history of different approaches to policy work organized through a variety of institutional structures" ranging from political activism to private sector consulting (1992: 321). There is a continuum of involvement of sociologists in practical affairs and policy work, ranging from purely academic studies through advocacy and social movements to formal advisory roles, participation in commissions and task-forces, to public service appointments and elections to political office. To put the subsequent analyses in context, I will briefly summarize my own involvement along this continuum. I started out as a purely academic researcher and writer, with my early work in economic sociology focusing on real estate agents in Montreal and oilmen in Calgary (House, 1974, 1977a, 1977b, 1980). After returning to my native province of Newfoundland and Labrador in the mid-1970s, I became more interested in policy issues related to social and economic development. In writing about oil and Newfoundland, I offered a number of recommendations for how the province might maximize its benefits from this new resource industry (1985); and, as Research Director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research, initiated a new series of ISER Research and Policy Papers whereby social scientists at Memorial University commented on several important policy matters (Storey, 1994). My first opportunity for more direct involvement in government came in 1985 when I was asked by then Premier Brian Peckford to chair a provincial Royal Commission on Employment and Unemployment. The Commission was given a wide-ranging mandate and produced a comprehensive report called Building on Our Strengths (1986). My second foray into government followed the provincial election of 1989, when I was invited by the new Premier, Clyde Wells, to chair an economic development agency called the Economic Recovery Commission (ERC). As Chair of the ERC, I was considered by those "in the system" (discussed below) to be in a Deputy Minister-equivalent position. From 1994 to 1995, I was also the provincial co-chair of a federal/provincial Task Force on Community Economic Development (1995). Brian Tobin closed down the Commission when he became Premier in 1996 and I returned to my role as an academic sociologist at Memorial. More recently, since this essay was first drafted, I have accepted another secondment to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador as Deputy Minister of the Department of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development under the new Premier, Danny Williams. Although most of the material in this essay [End Page 472] relates to the earlier experiences, I have added a few comments based on observations related to my current position. Some Reflections on Methodology and Epistemology The research that I carried out early in my career was mainly through participant observation, personal interviews and survey research. While such systematic...

Change from within the Corridors of Power: A Reflective Essay of a Sociologist in Government

Change from within the Corridors of Power: A Reflective Essay of a Sociologist in Government

"Who Lost China?" A Foreshadowing of Today's Ideological Disputes in Bioethics

Throughout the early 1950s, as the Korean War raged, a single contentious question consumed political debate in the United States: Who lost China? Political opponents tossed this question back and forth hoping that the tar baby would stick to someone on the other side and let them affix blame both for the Korean War and, more importantly, for allowing communists to seize control of the most populous nation on earth. The debate over lost was the opening gambit in what became an ongoing and notably nasty fight about what course U.S. foreign policy should follow vis-a-vis communist China, the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union's satellite states. It deeply divided the scholars studied China, communism, Korea, and foreign policy and has kept them divided right down to the present day. As the controversy evolved, some predicted it would be the death knell for the objective, academic study of foreign policy. They thought the gentlemanly norms that had guided work in foreign affairs prior to the Korean conflict could not stand the political heat generated by the fight over China. Bioethics is currently in the midst of its own who lost China contretemps. The bioethics battle is not about to blame for allowing a group of fanatical ideologues to come to dominate a populous state. It is, rather, a debate about what role ideology and religion ought to play in determining the policies and practices of biomedicine in the world's most powerful state. But the fight is indicative of something else that many in bioethics and outside the field are loathe to admit--that bioethics is a field and that it has matured into a position of power in American society. On one side is an alliance of neoconservative and religiously oriented bioethicists. They are wary of where biomedicine and biotechnology are taking us. They speak in terms that are religious or quasi-religious. They have established their own journals, think tanks, and training programs. They operate in the corridors of power both in the White House and in Congress. They are at ease with the Republican party. They are backed by the deep pockets of very conservative foundations and wealthy philanthropists. They have no hesitance in saying that they operate as bioethicists. On the other side stand a loose amalgam of left-liberal bioethicists tenuously allied with a far smaller number of more libertarian bioethicists. This group is, on the whole, more at ease with the Democratic party. They are also more at ease with science and technology then their conservative counterparts. While not always in love with every thought, proposal, experiment, or initiative emanating from the world of bioscience and technology, they have no inherent fear or loathing of a scientific worldview. Indeed, they place their bets for a better tomorrow on scientific and technological progress. They speak primarily in secular terms drawn more from philosophy or the law. Explicitly religious arguments get them nervous. They tend to dominate academia and the major bioethics programs located there. They have their own journals, blogs, and training programs. They don't have special access to left-wing foundations and philanthropists, but government, a few old-line foundations, and some corporations fund their work. They are a bit more nervous about admitting to being bioethicists in public places despite the fact that their history is far longer than that of their conservative counterparts. As was true of the fifty-year-old battles over let go communist, both sides in the current bioethics culture war deny that they are to blame for any excesses when it comes to disagreements. They will usually allege abiding respect for the other side while maneuvering as best they can behind the scenes with a well-placed phone call or a strategically timed op-ed to weaken or impugn their opponents. In one sense, the evidence that politicization has taken hold in bioethics is everywhere. …

Iran builds the bomb

The Islamic Republic is immersed in an intense debate regarding the direction of its nuclear programme. What Iran will do is likely to depend on the type of relationship it has with the United States, the emerging security architecture in the Persian Gulf and the evolving nature of its domestic politics. As constituencies and alliances shift, and policies and positions alter within the corridors of clerical power, Washington has an opportunity to influence the direction of Iran's nuclear deliberations before decisive steps are taken in the wrong direction. Through a bilateral arrangement involving mutual concessions from both sides, the US could empower those within the clerical estate calling for nuclear restraint. In dealing with Iran's nuclear crisis, US leadership and active engagement are indispensable.

Iran Builds the Bomb

The Islamic Republic is immersed in an intense debate regarding the direction of its nuclear programme. What Iran will do is likely to depend on the type of relationship it has with the United States, the emerging security architecture in the Persian Gulf and the evolving nature of its domestic politics. As constituencies and alliances shift, and policies and positions alter within the corridors of clerical power, Washington has an opportunity to influence the direction of Iran's nuclear deliberations before decisive steps are taken in the wrong direction. Through a bilateral arrangement involving mutual concessions from both sides, the US could empower those within the clerical estate calling for nuclear restraint. In dealing with Iran's nuclear crisis, US leadership and active engagement are indispensable.

Nursing skills in the corridors of power

Nursing skills in the corridors of power

Nursing skills in the corridors of power.

Nursing skills in the corridors of power.

Corridors of power

Corridors of power

Case Report. Nurse prescribing: a case study in policy influence.

The implementation of nurse prescribing is characterized by political machination, the need to construct an effective case, and deft manoevering within the corridors of power. This paper illustrates the approach taken by the Royal College of Nursing and its key members in policy formulation and influence as this key nursing tool was brought to the attention of government, and achieved passing of the legislation required to make it a reality.

Institutions and disciplinary fortunes: two moments in the history of UK geography in the 1960s I: geography in the ‘plateglass universities’

Geography grew rapidly within British universities during the 1950s and 1960s. At the beginning of the latter decade, however, the discipline was excluded from most of the new universities established to meet expanding student demand. This first essay in a pair looks at why such an ostensibly successful discipline was not incorporated in the plans for those new institutions, focusing on the external view of geography at the time and on its lack of effective champions in the highest ‘corridors of power’, notably its learned societies.

Corridors of Power

Corridors of Power

Disasters at the interface of nature and society provoke thought

A casual remark, a chance encounter in the corridors of power, decisions made at the administrative level; those are the things disasters are made of. We didn't know this until September 11, 2001.What is a disaster? Natural and social causes, like separate strands, are closely intertwined. In the 5th century, attributing earthquakes to natural causes was a crime: there is a heresy that claims that earthquakes are supposedly caused by the elements of nature rather than by the righteous judgment and wrath of God, quoth Saint Philastrius. It took 14 centuries to replace this paradigm with another: one should not view God as an irrational being, capable of destroying His own temples, in the words of Camilo Henriquez, S.J., after the 1822 Valparaiso earthquake. This was a giant step forward, but it was not enough. We now realize that all disasters are social, as well as natural.