Founding Period Research Articles

The Political Professionalism of James Monroe

James Monroe was a more effective chief executive than a number of his more illustrious predecessors, particularly John Adams and James Madison, both of whom are widely viewed as having made major contributions to nation's founding period, but as having been weak chief executives. Monroe brought a pragmatic approach to politics and an unpretentious capacity for hard work to his presidency. In that, and in not being a college graduate, he resembled twentieth-century president Harry S. Truman. Monroe also was like Truman in adhering to prevailing notion of executive leadership. However, in Monroe's time, it was held that a president should at least give impression of deferring to Congress (Ketcham 1987), and Truman served in a period that celebrated strong presidents who sought to place a personal stamp on public policy. In this article, as in The Presidential Difference: Leadership Style from FDR to George W. Bush (Greenstein 2004), I review personal development and political career of my protagonist and assess his strengths and weaknesses as chief executive in terms of his strengths and weaknesses in realms of public communication, organizational capacity, political skill, policy vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence. These qualities prove to be as instructive for analysis of an early president as they are for assessing modern chief executives. Formative Years Monroe was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, to Spence and Elizabeth Monroe on April 28, 1758. Like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, Monroe came from a slaveholding plantation family. Unlike them, his parents were not in Virginia's upper stratum. However, he had a prosperous uncle who made it possible for him to attend a leading preparatory academy. Monroe entered College of William and Mary in 1774, but he became absorbed in American Revolution and left in February 1776 to serve as a lieutenant in a Virginia regiment. In December of that year, Monroe took part in Battle of Trenton, receiving a near-fatal wound while leading an advance party that silenced a battery of cannons threatening Washington's advance. He was promoted to captain in recognition of his heroism and saw further combat in Battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. Monroe returned to Virginia to form a new regiment in 1778, but that proved not to be feasible. Making best of his situation, he read law under Thomas Jefferson and became older man's friend and disciple. Jefferson introduced Monroe to James Madison, with whom he formed a more tenuous bond. Early Political Service Monroe's long political career began with his election to Virginia legislature in 1782. The following year, he was named to Congress of Confederation, successor body to Continental Congress. He served for three years, taking a particular interest in development of area between Allegheny Mountains and Mississippi River. In 1790, Virginia legislature appointed Monroe to U.S. Senate. He became that body's leading Republican, joining with his House counterpart, James Madison, in opposition to Alexander Hamilton's financial program. In 1794, President Washington named Monroe minister to France. In assigning a prominent Republican to post, Washington sought to address French concerns that United States was siding against France in its war with Great Britain. Shortly after arriving in Paris, Monroe gave a speech to a French governmental body in which he spoke of parallels between American and French revolutions, declaring that two nations were united in their respect for the equal and unalienable rights of men (Ammon 1990, 119). Washington came to believe that Monroe had been excessively outspoken in support of revolutionary France and recalled him. When he returned to United States, Monroe published a lengthy treatise defending his actions in France (Monroe 1797). …

Tradition islamique et discours islamiste: quelle continuité?

A knowledge of the dynamics proper to traditional Muslim culture and a study of how these have combined with modernity reveal highly interesting elements of a complementary nature. In particular, with respect to the supposedly irreconcilable dichotomy between tradition and renewal, evidence emerges demonstrating that tradition has not been without forms of adaptation to greatly varying contexts and evolutionary dynamics whilst the current fundamentalist vision does not at all appear to be genuinely linked to its original founding period — except mythically. Paradoxically, the fundamentalist vision depends precisely on those characteristics of modernity which it purports to combat and oppose.

Spooky liberty: the art of avoiding identification process — an object for social sciences

Social sciences, caught in binarism and embedded in moral considerations for a short but founding period, stressed sets of dual oppositions in which one party was right and the other wrong. When, for instance, institutions are considered in opposition to individuals, identity and belonging appear either to be enforced or to enforce, but in all events to carry the compulsion to `fit in'. This bias leads to using identification categories to qualify processes of avoiding identification. Alternatively, the authors consider clandestine tactics and strategies as a theory of attitudes, most of which are invisible, aimed at defying the identification process. We argue for an `aggiornamento', not so as to build a meta-theory, but in order to grasp an underestimated aspect of reality: the avoidance of belonging and preset identity as a mere enactment of natural-born liberty.

Tocqueville Reinvented or ‘Democracy in Brazil’

AbstractThis paper compares Tocqueville's concept of democracy to the social and political evolution of Brazil. It draws attention to the different points of departure which marked the establishment of American and Brazilian societies, through the works of authors such as Laura de Mello e Souza, Gilberto Freyre, Florestan Fernandes, Celso Furtado, and Sérgio Buarque de Holanda. It notes that, despite conditions being more favourable for the formation of a democratic society in the United States than in Brazil, subsequent to the founding periods a certain coming together occurred in the process of formation of the two societies. The ‘similarity of differences' between American and Brazilian societies becomes clear as soon as one brings together the roles played by the three constituent ethnic groups of these societies, which, by their simple existence, link difference to inequality.

Parameters Of Paradigms Toward A Specification Of The U.S. Religion Market System

The «New Paradigm» for the sociology of religion announced in 1993 was not intended to serve as a general theory. Rather it represented a claim that religion in the United States operates according to institutionalized patterns that are distinct from European patterns. In particular, the U.S. system is diffusely pro-religious; the rights of religious minorities, while not always honored, are deeply institutionalized in U.S. tradition. Why this pattern should obtain was not explained in the 1993 article. The present article attempts to do so. A key insight is found in the observation that the rights of racial minorities are better institutionalized in France and the rights of religious minorities less so than in the U.S. Histories of the founding period of the U.S. as a political entity– especially the writing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (1787–1789) and acts of Congress and the Executive Branch in the early republic (1790–1803)–are accessed to understand the deep seated pattern by which intergroup difference in the U.S. tends to be played out disproportionately on the religious stage.

The representation of the Cold War: the Peace and the War camps in Czechoslovakia, 1948–1960

The purpose of the paper is to analyse the socialist representation of East and West Camps in Czechoslovakia, during the founding period of the 1950s. After investigating the origins of the Peace Movement, I analyse how the Peace and the War Camps were represented, and how the representation of ‘the other’ (in this case, the West) also revealed the (both idealised and actual) self-images and intents of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia.

The Founders and the Revolutionary Underpinning of the Concept of the Right to Know

In examining the revolutionary characteristics of the concept of the people's right to know, this study calls attention to pecuniary motives behind the American Revolution. During the founding period of the nation, the concept of the people's right to know—closely tied to the financial transparency of various taxes levied, the allocation of natural resources, and the proper education of the public—was repeatedly articulated and underscored as one of the most important democratic principles: the embodiment of the transcendent idealism of the democratic yearning of the people.

The social contract in America: from the revolution to the present age

Because most Americans believe that government requires the consent of the governed, the idea of the social contract may come as close to a public philosophy as we've ever had. And, as Mark Hulliung reminds us, we have frequently fought our greatest political battles by wielding one or another version of social contract theory. Hulliung's book is the first to examine the role of the social contract across the entire sweep of American history, well beyond the Revolution and Founding periods. While he pays close attention to the contested versions of the social contract from 1765 to 1861, he also underscores its relevance after the Civil War, from late nineteenth-century land reform to the rights revolution of the late twentieth century. By considering this lengthy timeline, Hulliung demonstrates the life and death of what may be the most expansive and persistent form in our country's political discourse, one that has figured in virtually all major controversies in American history. He shows how it has been enlisted by advocates of seemingly every major cause, from Henry George to Martin Luther King and Justice Clarence Thomas, whose view that constitutional authority rests in the consent of the people of each individual state, rather than of the nation as a whole, echoed the version of the social contract once held by southern slave owners. Hulliung treats the social contract as not one theory but several, considering the Americanization of Grotius and Pufendorf as well as Locke. He examines alternative readings of the contract in the struggles between claims of alienable versus inalienable rights; between consent given once and for all versus consent reaffirmed with each generation; and between the sovereignty of the people in various states versus the sovereignty of the people of the nation. Innovative and provocative, Hulliung's study clearly shows that, until we come to terms with the centrality of the social contract in American history - and the significance of its possible demise - something essential will be missing from our accounts of the past and our understanding of the present.

‘Fulfilling Christ’s own wish that we should be one’

George Bell, Bishop of Chichester from 1929 to 1958 is well known in church circles, both for his ecumenical engagement, initially in the Life and Work Movement and later during the founding period of the World Council of Churches, and for his efforts on behalf of the German Confessing Church. This article investigates his ecumenical work during the 1920s. In 1914, Bell was appointed chaplain to Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, a post he held until 1924. During the First World War he sought to support joint work by the churches. In 1919, he took part in the Conference of the International Movement for Friendship between the Churches in Oud Wassenaar, where he met leading figures of the infant ecumenical movement, including Adolf Deismann, Friedrich Siegmund Schultze and Nathan Soderblom. During the 1920 Lambeth Conference, Bell played a not insignificant role in the drafting of the Appeal to All Christian People, which helped to shape his ecumenical work in the years that followed. In 1924, Bell was appointed Dean of Canterbury, where he sought to express his ecumenical interests through concrete steps, for instance by inviting Free Church Ministers to preach in Canterbury Cathedral. In this period he also initiated the Anglo-German Theological Conferences which grew out of the Stockholm Life and Work Conference and met in 1927, 1928, and 1931. Bell’s very varied approaches to ecumenism demonstrates that it is too simple to see his fundamental vision as having an exclusive focus on shared common action. Rather, Bell was quite aware of the need for theological dialogue and fostered this through his work.

Physics in Serbia: From Personal Achievements to Institutions

Physics in Serbia:From Personal Achievements to Institutions Marko M. Popović [Illustrations] 1. Introduction Physics in Serbia has developed over several periods in which physicists and society have had different influences on each other. This study examines those documented periods which characterize that evolution. There are three necessary conditions that need to be fulfilled for any success in scientific work, particularly in physics. They are: a. requisite level of knowledge of individuals or a group of scientists who are dealing with a specific scientific problem or issue; b. ability of those scientists to use their knowledge, to solve the problem which is being investigated; c. necessary working conditions provided by the state (funds for basic or other investigations), industry, universities or any other partner interested in investment in that knowledge to be realized by scientists, something like a market of knowledge which needs to be activated.1 Through the history of physics in Serbia, fulfillment of all those three conditions, together with proper adjustment to them, has resulted in a success, at times remarkable. Characteristic periods in the development of physics in Serbia can be divided into the following: 1. Period of individual efforts, from 1801 until World War II; 2. Nuclear program from 1947 until 1960; 3. Period of founding and development of different institutions for physics, from 1960-90; [End Page 255] 4. Period of stagnation and isolation, 1990-2000; 5. Current Status and Outlook for Research—Revival of Research in Physics. This study will try to describe briefly, but not completely, those periods in the science of physics and its development in Serbia. The duration of those periods varies, as can be seen from the above (1-5), but in our opinion they most appropriately illustrate the development of physics in Serbia. 2. Period of Outstanding Individuals The period of outstanding individuals is the longest era during the slow process of introduction and development of the study of physics in Serbia. It ended with the outbreak of World War II on April 7, 1941. During this period, the study of physics is mainly connected with the development of the Great School and later on with the establishment of the University of Belgrade and the teaching of physics at those institutions. It is not the purpose of this article to enumerate all those who participated in organizing the study of physics, but only to name those who were the most important. They have been selected on the basis of their efforts to introduce instruction of physics in the school curriculum, or to write textbooks on that subject in Serbian. Furthermore, attention will be paid to people whose works were great scholarly contributions in the field of physics. However, it is important to acknowledge that none among those scholars left behind them that which is most important for the discipline: a research laboratory or an institute. The second period can be divided in two sub-periods. The first sub-period was (2.1.) from the time when the physics was first mentioned in Serbia to the formation of the University in Belgrade (1904); the second sub-period (2.2.) continued till WWII. 2.1. From the First Mention of the Word "Physics" in Serbia to the Formation of the University in Belgrade The author's effort to determine whether or not the word physics was ever mentioned in Serbian mediaeval written sources yielded no result. According to S. Koički,2 the word physics was used for the first time at the end of the [End Page 256] 18th century3 when Dositej Obradović (1739-1811) mentioned it in one of his fables4: "... to find whichever Serb who would publish PHYSICS for his people and in his language."5 Surprisingly or not, such a person was found almost immediately. Atanasije Stojković (1773-1832), physics professor in Harkov, Russia6 provided the response to Obradović's aspiration "revealed in his didactic fables" (Fig. P-1 in the graphic insert following p. 200 of this issue).7 With the help of a newly-opened printing University press in Budim (Hungary), Stojković published during three consecutive years, 1801, 1802 and 1803, three volumes of his book Fisika (Fig. P-2).8...

Liberty and American experience in the eighteenth century

Written by some of today's premiere scholars of American history, Liberty and American Experience in the Eighteenth Century examines some of the central themes and ideologies central to the formation of the United States including: David Womersley's introduction includes a discussion of Edmund Burke's theories on property rights and government, setting the foundation for the various themes of liberty found in this volume. In 'Of Liberty and the Colonies: A Case Study of Constitutional Conflict in the Mid-Eighteenth Century British American Empire', Jack Greene examines other forms of government and uses those examples to argue that the founding was not the conservative process that many have previously supported. Robert Ferguson explores the roles of law and religion in the formation of a free and liberal society in 'The Dialectic of Liberty: Law and Religion in Revolutionary America'. In 'Religious Conscience and Original Sin: An Exploration of America's Protestant Foundations', Barry Shain supports Ferguson's contention that religion had a profound impact on the outlook of the colonists. John Danford, in 'Riches Valuable at All Times and to All Men: Hume and the Eighteenth-Century Debate on Commerce and Liberty', examines the spiritual context of the Founders in regard to the Enlightenment, arguing that the Founders preferred known ways of governance and economics to untried and untested theory. 'Moral Sense Theory and the Appeal to Natural Rights in the American Founding' by R G Frey suggests that there are conflicting viewpoints between moral sense theory and the idea of natural rights in the founding period. David Wootton presents an opposing view of the Founders in 'Liberty, Metaphor, and Mechanism: Checks and Balances and the Origins of Modern Constitutionalism'. He suggests that the ideas formed in the Enlightenment were seized upon by the Founders and that the result was a much more progressive system than could have been predicted. 'In Scottish Thought and the American Revolution: Adam Ferguson's Response to Richard Price', Ronald Hamowy discusses the consequences of the colonial conflict and pays tribute to the intellectual force of American affairs. Lance Banning examines the divisions in thought among the revolutionaries regarding the nature of liberty and the manner in which liberty was to be preserved in 'Federalism, Constitutionalism, and Republican Liberty: The First Constructions of the Constitution'. In 'Is There a James Madison Problem?', Gordon Wood presents the disparity in Madison's political thought from the 1780s to the 1790s. 'Liberty and American Experience in the Eighteenth Century' provides an examination of various facets of the Founders' lives and thoughts, as well as their times, to help readers understand the events that went into their country's creation.

Islam, Slavery and Jihad in West Africa

AbstractModernist readings of Islam exist in different forms, from the Orientalist to the Islamist, but they agree in defining Islam by looking back to the founding period of the Prophet and his immediate successors. Muslim reformers undertook this step to cut out centuries of commentary and precedent that they blamed for the stagnation of the Muslim world, but their influence is now so pervasive that it distorts historical interpretations of Muslim thought by imposing modernist interpretations that erase past debates about contentious issues such as jihad and slavery. This article challenges the assumptions of this modernist consensus by exploring past debates about slavery and jihad in West Africa from 1600 to 1900, and exploring the diversity of positions defended by West African Muslims. For heuristic purposes, these are defined as those of the revolutionary, the jurist, and the mystic.

The Fall and Rise of the Local Community: A Comparative and Historical Perspective

In pursuing an historical and comparative approach, the article aims at exploring the relation between local government and 'local community'. For comparative purposes, the paper draws primarily on the UK/England, Germany and Sweden as pertinent examples. The explicitly historical approach of the article promises to recognise (and perhaps even rediscover) the distinct and, at the same time, symbiotic and dialectic development and relation which have existed between local government and local community throughout their evolution-from the 'founding period' of modern local government during the 19th century, through its development under the (centralised) welfare state in the (mid) 20th century, to the present-day. The historically educated perception should be helpful to identify and assess the dynamics and perspective of the recent 'rise' of the local (political, social and economic) community and its impact on redefining and recalibrating the relation and balance between local government and what, in the current social science debate, is called 'governance'—with the 're-emerging' local community and its manifold political, social and economic actors becoming part-and-parcel of the expanding and multiplying networks of (non-public) actors that are captured under the term and concept 'governance'.

E Pluribus Unum: Nineteenth‐Century Literature and the Constitutional Paradox

E Pluribus Unum: NineteenthCentury Literature and Constitutional Paradox W. C. Harris. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 2005. This book is an extended comment on our national motto, E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one), which appears on Great Shield adopted by Continental Congress in 1782. It continues to be our daily companion on backside of one-dollar bill. The secretary, Charles Thomson, explained that shield and its motto represent several states all joined in one solid compact entire, supporting Chief, which unites whole & represents Congress. In valuable Afterword that I recommend reading first, Harris traces elusive origin of phrase E Pluribus. He rigorously and convincingly argues that slogan derived not from classical source such as Virgil or Horace, but was New World Latin invented to express both an ideal and tension of dilemma. Harris believes slogan's appearance was an important moment in conceptual search, a of writing, of finding words that are right and effective (198). He sees back and forth dialectic in founding period, with Declaration and Articles of Confederation expressing pluralism and quest for equality that was countered by unification of power represented in Constitution. The distinctiveness of this book lies in seeing these well-known polarities as continuing engagement with ancient metaphysical of the one-and-the-many, addressed in detail by Plato in Sophist (360 BCE) and by neoPlatonist Plotinus (205-270 CE) in collected writings called Enneads. Harris's machinery for treating this congeries combines extremely close textual readings with intensive reviews of political, social, and religious history. But above all, E Pluribus Unum illustrates assimilation of Continental metaphysics and discourse theory into American studies. Without even bibliographical reference to Derrida's Writing and Difference (1967) Harris discusses American literature's nineteenth-century engagement with work of difference, impulses of resistance against hierarchy in spirit of articulation, separation, and equality. Absent formal acknowledgment of French deconstructive inspiration, framework language is yet catechetical: issues are found at sites; positions are privileged; texts are decentered or imbricated; exhausted stances find textual expressions that recuperate them; hegemonic hierarchies are enforced through a quota of difference-work that can be disrupted, or fragmented; doctrines are textually inscribed or reinscribed. In significant footnotes regarding focus for this work, Harris rejects stringing our best writers in traditions (Daniel Rogers's phrase) but chooses instead neglected texts of major American Renaissance authors or texts by same authors which have not been read in light of one-and-the-many problem (210 fn5). The tendency to deal with textas-metaphysical puzzle results in some sentences of at least 100 words in length that show their syntactical pedigrees from Hegel, Heidegger, and Sartre that inspired deconstructionists. Here is shorter sample: What makes of many and one so thorny is constitution of social and compositional wholes on some version of problematic of unity which is less problematic, that is, which reassigns on less particularized basis inevitable quota of difference-work (33, author emphasis). Placed within such metaphysical framework, American literature, particularly Poe's Eureka, Whitman's Leaves of Grass, and assorted works of Melville and William James can be seen as instances of attempted mediation between unity and plurality. Harris contends that in these authors we witness formation of kind of secondary American documentary culture, set of new literary charters meant to compensate for unresolved problems attached to originating Constitution of United States and Lincoln's assertive efforts to preserve Union. …

A 'Spacious Conception': Separationism As an Idea

This article argues that the true historical meaning of church-state separation can only be understood as founders likely envisioned: that separation was a dynamic, unfolding idea, one that could not be explained or limited by the practices of the founding period. Relatedly, the founders would have eschewed reliance on selective writings of any of the early leaders. Part One of this article briefly traces some of the seventeenth and eighteenth notions of church-state separation that informed the founders of the Constitution. Part Two then considers the various, dynamic perspectives during the founding period and whether the founders likely viewed those notions as static concepts. Part Three recounts the disestablishment during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and part four examines four contemporary events – the Northwest Ordinance, legislative chaplains, thanksgiving proclamations, and Indian missions – that are regularly used to discredit the Everson rendition of the founding.

Taxes, Conscience, and the Constitution

It was often claimed in the founding period - and it is claimed today by jurists like Justice Souter and by scholars like Noah Feldman - that citizens have a right of conscience not to pay taxes that will be used to advance religious teachings which they do not believe. But advocates of this position typically reject the corresponding claim that citizens have a right of conscience not to pay taxes that will be used to advance non-religious (or, in their view, anti-religious) teachings in which they do not believe. Are these positions reconcilable? This essay investigates the question and concludes that they are not. Nor is it a tenable position to hold that conscience is violated by the use of a citizen's tax dollars to promote any beliefs, religious or non-religious, that particular taxpayers reject. So jurists and scholars would do well to drop the selective and opportunistic appeal to the ostensible connection between taxes and conscience.

The triple alliance: how a plant-ant, living in an ant-plant, acquires the third partner, a scale insect

Mutualistic associations between ants and plants often involve a third partner, scale insects (Hemiptera, Coccoidea). In southeast Asia, plant-ants of the genus Cladomyrma live together with coccoids in hollowed twigs of a wide range of ant-plants (myrmecophytes). Established colonies never lack sap-sucking scale insects and the ants appear to be dependent on the honeydew excretions of their trophobionts. Acquisition of scale insects thus seems to be an important step in the successful establishment of a new colony on a host plant. Coccoids may either be transported by a foundress ant on her nuptial flight (vertical transmission via co-dispersal) or ant and coccoid disperse on their own and associate anew during colony initiation (horizontal transmission). Here we test the assumption that founding gynes of Cladomyrma do not transport scale insects during their dispersal flight, and we determine when and how trophobionts are acquired. The results obtained in this study show that although coccoids are not carried by foundresses, their numbers within founding chambers of Cladomyrma increased with the founding stage. In all Cladomyrma species, colony-founding is claustral and the entrance hole into the nest chamber is first plugged with pith debris and later grows over by wound callus. However, access of trophobionts into hollow twigs is facilitated either by additional small openings (‘secondary slits’) produced by the foundress ant after hollowing out a nest chamber or by the maintenance of an orifice at the entrance hole during the founding period. Immature pseudococcids experimentally placed onto twigs close to a Cladomyrma foundation readily entered these slits. Exclusion experiments suggest that foundresses of C. petalae are less successful in rearing their first offspring if entry of coccoids into founding chambers is prevented.

Balancing and Rebalancing in the Creation and Evolution of Organizational Control

This research examines data collected as part of a 10-year case study of the creation and evolution of organizational control during organizational founding. Past research has taken a cross-sectional approach to examining control use in mature, stable organizations. In contrast, this study examines organizational controls during the founding period and takes a longitudinal perspective on organizational control. By examining how organizational controls are created and evolve through specific phases of the founding period, the research also provides new data and insights about what drives shifts in the use of various types of control. Specifically, this research sheds light on the role of imbalance among formal and informal controls as the key driver of shifts in control configurations, and provides a step toward making organizational control theory more dynamic.

“The Goody-Goods Are No Good”: Notes on Power and Authority in the Early History of Psychoanalysis, with Special Reference to Training

In this historical essay, I identify themes in the patterns of power and authority within institutional psychoanalysis—themes that harken back almost a century, to the founding period, and that reflect the special nature, and ambiguities, of the analytic endeavor as physicians of that time experienced it. I then argue that a focus on self-analysis as a prerequisite for analytic competence at the time of creation of the International Psychoanalytic Association, as an exclusive self-constituted training and certifying organization, allowed certain crucial unsolved organizational questions to be eclipsed. The resulting ambiguities then passed wholesale into the subsequent creation of training institutes and, I argue, continue to tacitly inform current debates on the training analysis.

T. Tanaka, The Currents of American Economic Thought-from the founding period to the present times

T. Tanaka, The Currents of American Economic Thought-from the founding period to the present times