Culture In Comparative Perspective Research Articles

Civil-Law Courts in Common-Law Systems: Interpretive Cultures in Comparative Perspective

In the comparative law literature and in the literature that deals with legal interpretation and incorporates comparative insights, the general idea is that civil law legal systems are deductive, norm-based, whereas common law legal systems are inductive, precedent-based. In arguing for textualism as an interpretive methodology, the late Justice Antonin Scalia proposed that Federal Courts in the U.S. should behave as civil law courts, since most of the cases over which they adjudicate are to be settled through the construal of predefined, legislature enacted statutes. In this Article, we start from Scalia’s argument and put it to a conceptual and empirical test. Using the concept of interpretive culture, constructed from social science theoretical imports and analyzing comparatively four cases, two decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and two decided the Brazilian Supreme Court, the Article turns Scalia’s assumptions on their head and shows that, actually, it is the U.S. Supreme Court that gives greater emphasis on the textual analysis of the legal norms. Theoretical entailments and comparative law tenets from these findings are discussed. The Article concludes that it is unwarranted to argue that textualism or greater concern with the text of statutes (or constitutional norms) automatically foster separation of powers or respect for democracy, and that, rather, these are parts of interpretive cultures that vary in time and space and for complex reasons.

Strategic Cultures and Security Policies in the Asia-Pacific

Reflecting the culturalist turn in security studies, this special issue shows how one of the most powerful tools of security studies illuminates the origins and implications of the region's difficult issues, from the rise of China and the American pivot, to the shifting calculations of other regional actors. Strategic culture sometimes challenges and always enriches prevailing neorealist presumptions about the region. It provides a bridge between material and ideational explanations of state behaviour and helps to capture the tension between neoclassical realist and constructivist approaches. The case studies survey the role of strategic culture in the behaviours of Australia, China, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and the United States. They show the contrast between structural expectations and cultural predispositions as realist geopolitical security threats and opportunities interact with domestic elite and popular interpretation of historical narratives and distinctive political-military cultures to influence security policies. The concluding retrospective article devotes special attention to methodological issues at the heart of strategic cultural studies, as well as how culture may impact the potential for future conflict or cooperation in the region. The result is a body of work that helps deepen our understanding of strategic cultures in comparative perspective and enrich security studies. As disputes intensify over territory and resources, as regional militaries develop and leaders adjust their strategic calculus and defence commitments, the dovetailing of culture and politics in the Asia-Pacific shows through.

"The Communal Experience": The Role of Groups in Geoffrey Hosking's Understanding of Russian Society

Just over decade ago, late Richard Stites--who, like Geoffrey Hosking, had deep familiarity with history both before and after 1917 divide--published an article describing paradoxical tendency of collectives to cram themselves into tiny corners of enormous spaces. As he observed, After half-dozen years of perestroika and almost decade of political freedom and market, I for one am persuaded that not all peculiarities of spatial and work culture are attributable solely to Soviet socialism. Perhaps historians and literary scholars will someday uncover deeper layers. (1) Richard Stites's own concern with discrete phenomena in history (notably, women's movement and other areas of utopian socialism and cultural production, from serf theaters to estrada of Brezhnev days) meant that uncovering deeper layers was marginal to his work. For Geoffrey Hosking, in contrast, the peculiarities of culture--or rather, specificities, to use less loaded term--have been an abiding preoccupation. There may be biographical considerations here. Geoffrey Hosking (henceforth GH, to avoid overfamiliarity of first name alone and officiousness of surname) began his academic career studying modern languages, subject that in traditional British universities used to (and in some, such as mine, still does) emphasize specificity of culture in comparative perspective. This has left traces in several characteristics of GH's intellectual background. The first is his wide of culture in broadest sense. It is hard to think of anyone whose work has had comparable impact across range of disciplines constituting Russian studies. The second inheritance of GH's first specialization is his excellent command of at least three major European languages. GH's of French and German goes long way beyond reading knowledge to which many of us can lay claim. He can present papers and argue case in both languages. As for his Russian, I remember being told by writer Zinovy Zinik, producer in BBC's Service, that GH was only British contributor whose radio performances never had to be edited before being broadcast. This nearnative fluency, alongside his detailed command of history over three centuries, and his capacity to pose large questions (as in his recent project on historical role of trust in culture), helps explain his (again highly unusual) level of authority in Russia itself. Immersion in culture also enabled GH to grasp some factors in volatile period of transition more quickly than most Westerners. While many (Rogers Brubaker, for example) were speaking of nationalism in dog that didn't bark terms, GH was already, in 1990, describing Russia as a nation traumatized by its own past: Standing in modern Soviet street, I sometimes feel as if I were in society afflicted by communal amnesia. (2) Rulers and Victims: The Russians in Soviet Union was brilliant examination of some of underlying social tensions in vanished empire (take, for instance, comments offsetting institutionalized patronage, i.e., personalization of transactions and welfare compact, which assumes more diffuse understanding of how benefits are dispersed). (3) But it also captured certain central points in national myth, particularly neo-Slavophile belief in self-sacrifice and exploitation that consistently colored dissemination of Soviet ideal. However, although this is what Russians call a jubilee, and encomium is appropriate, most sincere tribute to intellectual comradeship is to argue with someone's ideas. In these brief remarks, I will take GH to task on one particular point--not because it is necessarily representative in an overall sense of large and important body of work that he has created, but because it relates to issues that are widely debated in studies at moment. …

Legal accents, legal borrowing: the international problem-solving court movement

Acknowledgments ix INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE: Problem Solving and Courts of Law 7 CHAPTER TWO: Law and Culture in Comparative Perspective 24 CHAPTER THREE: Anglo-American Alternatives: England and the United States 43 CHAPTER FOUR: Commonwealth Contrasts: Canada and Australia 76 CHAPTER FIVE: Devolution and Difference: Scotland and Ireland 109 CHAPTER SIX: American Exceptionalism 136 CHAPTER SEVEN: Ambivalent Anti-Americanism 157 CHAPTER EIGHT: Building Confidence, Justifying Justice 179 Notes 197 Selected References 235 Index 243

The Political Agenda During Different Periods of Estonian Transformation: External and Internal Factors

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeKeywords: post-communist transitionpolitical agendaEU accessionEstonia Acknowledgements The research was supported by grants from the Estonian Ministry of Education and Science (0180017s07) and the Estonian Science Foundation (6526). Notes Notes 1. We shall return to problems of inter-ethnic integration later on in this essay. These problems are in the focus of three other essays published in the current volume (Ehala 2009 De Melo, M, Denizer, C and Gelb, A. 1996. Patterns of Transition from Plan to Market. World Bank Economic Review, 10(3): 397–424. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Korts 2009 Kersting, N and Cronquist, L (eds). 2005. Democratization and Political Culture in Comparative Perspective, Wiesbaden: Verlag Für Sozialwissenschaften. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Vihalemm & Kalmus 2009 Vetik, R (ed.). 2002. Kaks Eestit. Artiklite, ettekannete ja analüüside kogumik, Tallinn: TPÜ Kirjastus. [Google Scholar]). 2. The ‘Tiger Leap’ program has been a priority for all governments since 1997, and has brought Estonia into the group of the leading ICT countries in Europe. A detailed elaboration of the development of information society in Estonia is provided in the essay of Pille Runnel, Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt and Kristina Reinsalu, published in the current volume. 3. See the essay in the current volume by Veronika Kalmus, Margit Keller and Maie Kiisel on the rising consumer culture and environmentalism in Estonia. 4. See the other essays in the current volume where Triin Vihalemm and Veronika Kalmus focus on the differences in value structures (Vihalemm & Kalmus 2009 Vetik, R (ed.). 2002. Kaks Eestit. Artiklite, ettekannete ja analüüside kogumik, Tallinn: TPÜ Kirjastus. [Google Scholar]), Külliki Korts elaborates on the issue of contacts and tolerance (Korts 2009 Kersting, N and Cronquist, L (eds). 2005. Democratization and Political Culture in Comparative Perspective, Wiesbaden: Verlag Für Sozialwissenschaften. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), and Martin Ehala explores the political crisis related to the replacement of a Soviet military monument in the context of Estonian and Russian identity changes (Ehala 2009 De Melo, M, Denizer, C and Gelb, A. 1996. Patterns of Transition from Plan to Market. World Bank Economic Review, 10(3): 397–424. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 5. Integration Strategy 2008–2013, available at: www.rahvastikuminister.ee/?id=11104, accessed 20 April 2008. 6. Details illuminating spread of consumerist attitudes in Estonia are presented in the essay by Veronika Kalmus, Margit Keller and Maie Kiisel in the current volume (Kalmus et al. 2009 Kallas, S. 1998. 1992. aasta rahareform ja selle mõju Eesti arengule Edited by: Ant, J. (1998) [Google Scholar]).

Review: Resisting Global Toxics. Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice, by David Naguib Pellow

Review: Resisting Global Toxics. Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice By David Naguib Pellow Reviewed by Enzo Ferrarra Torino, Italy David Naguib Pellow, Resisting Global Toxics. Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice, MIT Press 2007, IX+346 pp., £33.95, ISBN-13: 978-0-262-16244-9 (Hardcover), alkaline paper In 1937, while Nazi harassment was declining towards the “final solution”, Edmund Husserl, founder of phenomenology, argued that modern genocides, like social crimes and inequalities involving mass participation, share a disengagement between ethics and sight as an essential trait. To gain the complicity of entire societies in immoral actions, he explained in “The Crisis of European Sciences”, it is necessary to conceal or make ambiguous the relationships between collective actions and their consequences. The only antidote is the pedagogy of sight applied as a capillary practice: opportunities for attentive ethical choices can arise, but the obstacles to a comprehensive perspective have to be eliminated. In this arena, the efforts of David Naguib Pellow, director of Cultures in Comparative Perspective at the University of California, are remarkable. In the award-winning “Garbage Wars” (2002) and in “Power, Justice, and the Environment” (2005), he has already exposed to the Western sight the unequally distributed costs of its toxic development. Now, in “Resisting Global Toxics”, Pellow examines the export towards the poor communities of the planet of millions of tons of toxic waste produced in the global North, and charts the rise of transnational movements struggling to challenge and reverse it. From his current book’s first pages the practice of waste trading clearly emerges along with the indefensible ideology that accompanies it. To stress that environmental inequality ought to be theorized in the context of race, class and nation, Pellow quotes a 1991 internal memo from Lawrence Summers, vice president of the World Bank: “A given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost…under-populated countries in Africa are vastly under-polluted (…). The concern over a pollutant that causes a one in a million change in the odds of prostate cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostate cancer than in a country with higher mortality rates” (p. 9). The literature on the ill effects of globalization rarely characterizes environmental injustices as racialized, so the relationships between modernity, race, class and nation must be brought forward as well as the nature and efficacy of movements combating inequalities in the global economy. More refined transnational networks now use a rights-based discourse to mobilize across national borders and along racial and class lines, while responsive environmental studies directly challenge the toxic nature of late modernity itself. Entire chapters of the book deal with “Electronic wastes” (Ch. VI), the fastest growing stream of pollutants in industrialized nations, and pesticides (Ch. V, “Ghosts of the green revolution”). The first are externalities, the unwanted byproduct of industrial manufacture, but the latter were explicitly valued for their killing power in the belief that their heavy use would lead to larger crop yields. Unfortunately, scientific advances cannot put remedy to collective misbehaviors. Rather, they Electronic Green Journal , Issue 26, Spring 2008 ISSN: 1076­7975

Nationalism and democratic construction: the origins of Argentina and Uruguay's political cultures in comparative perspective

AbstractThe article focuses on the different effects the formation of national identity had on the development of political democracy in Uruguay and Argentina. Uruguay's process of state building after the civil wars relied on political consensus regarding the rules of the game: the concept of political democracy became an integral part of Uruguay's collective identity. In Argentina, political elites after the civil wars divided on the question of national identity and the substance of political democracy. Uruguay's political identity as a partidocracia [rule by parties] is not a guarantee against authoritarianism, but the country's democratic political culture is resilient, permeating even the armed forces. In Argentina, the exclusionist character of the political process invites authoritarianism, whether of the liberal or populist‐democratic variety. This article focuses, first, on the different models of collective identity that developed after independence; second, on the distinct roles played by the two hegemonic parties in each nation ‐ the Colorados under Batlle and the Radicals under Yrigoyen; and finally, on the authoritarian periods both countries experienced in the 1930s.

Nationalism and democratic construction: the origins of Argentina and Uruguay's political cultures in comparative perspective

The article focuses on the different effects the formation of national identity had on the development of political democracy in Uruguay and Argentina. Uruguay's process of state building after the civil wars relied on political consensus regarding the rules of the game: the concept of political democracy became an integral part of Uruguay's collective identity. In Argentina, political elites after the civil wars divided on the question of national identity and the substance of political democracy. Uruguay's political identity as a partidocracia [rule by parties] is not a guarantee against authoritarianism, but the country's democratic political culture is resilient, permeating even the armed forces. In Argentina, the exclusionist character of the political process invites authoritarianism, whether of the liberal or populist-democratic variety. This article focuses, first, on the different models of collective identity that developed after independence; second, on the distinct roles played by the two hegemonic parties in each nation — the Colorados under Batlle and the Radicals under Yrigoyen; and finally, on the authoritarian periods both countries experienced in the 1930s.

Japanese Culture in Comparative Perspective:Japanese Culture in Comparative Perspective.

Japanese Culture in Comparative Perspective. Chikio Hayashi and Yasumasa Kuroda. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997. 216 pp.

Japanese culture in comparative perspective

Japanese culture in comparative perspective

Review. Fields of Knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective, 1890-1920. Ringer, Fritz

Journal Article REVIEWS Get access Fields of Knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective, 1890–1920. By FRITZ RINGER. Cambridge University Press; Paris, Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1992. xiii + 379 pp. Hb £45. $69.95. NICHOLAS HEWITT NICHOLAS HEWITT UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar French Studies, Volume LI, Issue 4, October 1997, Pages 498–499, https://doi.org/10.1093/fs/LI.4.498 Published: 01 October 1997

American Political Culture in Comparative Perspective

In order to formulate a comparative model of political cultures, a theory that integrates psychological, sociological and economic variables is developed. Within societies dominant political cultural themes stress particular patterns of right and obligation. These patterns simultaneously undergird social solidarity and justify an unequal distribution of rewards. Differences among political cultures exist vertically on an historical dimension of increasing moral comprehensiveness and horizontally on a dimension of moral content. Internal tensions deriving from technological development and from social discourse about the moral adequacy of norms stimulate change. A case study of American political culture, with its contrasting emphases on egalitarianism and individualism, assesses the theoretical claims.

Fields of Knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective, 1890-1920. Fritz Ringer

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsFields of Knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective, 1890-1920. Fritz RingerRobert NyeRobert Nye Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 85, Number 3Sep., 1994 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/356952 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1994 History of Science Society, Inc.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Is Chinese Culture Distinctive?—A Review Article

Anyone Who Works in the Field of Area Studies knows from experience that cultures are different. Indeed, the effort to understand the distinctiveness of cultures in comparative perspective is a central undertaking of the modern humanities and social sciences, not only in Asian studies but in studies of other parts of the world. But works on the subject seldom discuss the conceptual and methodological issues involved. What do we mean by culture in the context of comparative statements? How can a culture's distinctiveness be conceptualized? What is required to demonstrate that such distinctiveness exists, what it consists of, and what influence it has on the performance of societies? In the case of Chinese studies, how far have we come in establishing that Chinese culture is distinctive, in what ways, and with what consequences?It is helpful to discuss these issues in terms of two bodies of literature with different ways of conceptualizing culture and its distinctiveness, although I intend to blur the distinction at the end. Following Ying-shih Yü, I will label the two approaches hermeneutic and positivistic. I do not argue that one of the approaches is better than the other; each achieves goals that the other does not. The real problem is lack of clarity about the different logical statuses of the kinds of findings that typically emerge from the two approaches. This can lead to problems when insights are transposed from the hermeneutic approach into positivistic language or vice versa.

Fields of Knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective, 1890-1920.

Fields of Knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective, 1890-1920.

Fields of Knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective, 1890-1920, by Fritz Ringer

<i>Fields of Knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective, 1890-1920</i>, by Fritz Ringer

Fields of Knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective, 1890-1920.

Fields of Knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective, 1890-1920.

Book Reviews

AbstractThe German High Command at War: Hindenburg and Ludendorff Conduct World War I.The Germans and the Final Solution: Public Opinion under Nazism.The Two Cities: Medieval Europe, 1050–1050.To the Ends of the Earth: Women's Search for Education in Medicine.Sylvia Pankhurst: From Artist to Anti‐Fascist.Religion and Society in Russia: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.The Production, Distribution and Readership of a Conservative Journal of the Early French Revolution: The Ami du Roi of the AbbÉ Royou.The Soderini and the Medici: Power and Patronage in Fifteenth‐Century Florence.For King and Kaiser! The Making of the Prussian Army Officer, 1860–1860.A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony 1581–1581.Revolution in Russia: Reassessments of 1917.Nature Lost? Natural Science and the German Theological Traditions of the Nineteenth Century.The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles, and Ideology.Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army.English and French Towns in Feudal Society.A War Imagined: English Culture and the First World War.The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan.Cinema and Soviet Society, 1917–1917.Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries.Parliament under the Tkdors.Rewriting the French Revolution: The Andrew Browning Lectures, 1989.United Government and Foreign Polioy in Russia, 1900–1900.Dreadnought: Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War.Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution.The “Nazi Menace” in Argentina, 1931–1931.Byzantium: The Apogee.From Ostpolitik to Reunification: West German‐Soviet Relations since 1974.Philanthropy and the Hospitals of London: The King's Fund, 1897–1897.Saint Louis: Crusader King of France.Fields of Knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective, 1890–1890.Reform and Revolution: The Life and Times of Raymond Robins.Women in the Chartist Movement.Zvringli: An Introduction to His Thought.Soldiers of Christ: Preaching in Late Medieval and Reformation France.The Communists: The Story of Power and Lost Illusions, 1948–1948.A Policy Calculated to Benefit China: The United States and the China Arms Embargo, 1919–1919.La Mettrie: Medicine, Philosophy, and Enlightenment.The Protestant Crusade in Great Britain, 1829–1829.

Fields of Knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective, 1890-1920

Focuses on the outlooks of French academic historians and scientists during the decades around 1900 and compares French visions of higher education and science with their contemporary German counterparts.

Workers and Their Culture in Comparative Perspective

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