Liberal Ones Research Articles

Algunas tendencias del liberalismo en América Latina

<p>La tendencia a la formación de un Área de Libre Comercio en las Américas proviene en buena medida de los regímenes de alta inflación de las dos últimas décadas y la posición privilegiada que el capital financiero viene obteniendo desde entonces. Por otra parte, representa el agotamiento de las vejas políticas desarrollistas y la adopción deliberada de las políticas liberales. La hipótesis de unión comercial apunta en la dirección de que las estrategias de crecimiento derivan de los principios del librecambismo, que consideran al mercado externo como el principal medio de promoción del crecimiento económico. Este artículo analiza las determinaciones internas y externas de la creación de una unión comercial y monetaria, de sus ventajas y desventajas, así como los límites y las posibilidades de la política que la promovería. Se indica que el desarrollo económico y social deseable, promovido bajo estas bases, no permite una inserción positiva en los mercados internacionales con autonomía nacional y con el mantenimiento de las paridades de los términos de intercambio entre los países.</p>

Think Tanks in the U.S. Media

This article examines the relative media visibility of expertise from a sample of fifty-one public policy think tanks in six national newspapers between 1991 and 1998. We consider media visibility in relation to hypotheses developed from the interest group, media studies, and policy sciences literature and, using regression and descriptive analysis, establish that Washington-based think tanks and think tanks of no identifiable ideology have a distinct advantage in gaining media visibility. Ideologically conservative think tanks are cited with a substantially higher frequency than identifiably liberal ones in the aggregate but not once we control for their greater budget resources, except in more conservative news outlets, where they continue to be advantaged. Disparities in the budget resources of think tanks account for substantial variation in their media visibility, as do ideological and geographic biases linking specific think tanks and media outlets.

People's functional evaluations, perception of fairness, and commitment to the state

A questionnaire was mailed to a random sample of 3,000 people who were older than 20, and 993 responded. The questionnaire was designed to measure the respondent's functional evaluations of Japan's political branches (the Diet, the Government, and its administrative agencies), its perceived fairness, his/her emotional and utilitarian commitment to Japan, and the political party he/she supported. Based on the fairness-bond theory model, we hypothesized that positive evaluations of political branches would increase perceived fairness, which in turn leaded to a stronger commitment. Path analysis indicated that the hypothesis was partially supported, and that functional evaluations of political branches had a direct effect on the commitment. It was also found that politically conservative respondents showed more positive evaluations and stronger commitment to Japan than liberal ones, suggesting political attitudes as a moderator variable for the fairness mediation.

Citizenship and modernity: the emergence of the social issue on the public agenda

The guiding thread of this article is the inclusion of the so-called "social issue" on the public agenda from modernity through its more current developments. The study seeks to demonstrate that one of the meanings of modernity is precisely the radical inversion of the meaning of public and private, providing for the broadening of public space. Far from being associated with a given bourgeois capitalist model, modernity thus projects itself as a reinvention of rights, citizenship, and contemporary democratic experience. Over this long course, the individualization process has been seen as a crucial factor for understanding both the ideology of modern societies and - paradoxically - the very emergence of social sciences. The individualist concept, emphasizing the specificity of modern representation of the social sphere, i.e., its characteristic as a self-instituting society, allows for a broadened understanding of the public domain. In this sense, the ideological polarization between liberal conceptions (favoring individualism) and Marxist ones (linked to holistic representations of the social sphere) should be reviewed, since this polarization has repercussions on the very analytical tools used by social sciences.

Whatever Happened to the Declaration of Independence? A Commentary on the Republican Revisionism in the Political Thought of the American Revolution

Was the United States founded to cultivate virtue or to protect rights? Republican interpretations argue the first, liberal ones the second, and the former has largely displaced the latter as the leading interpretation of the American Revolution. This article revisits the republican-liberal debate by addressing the revisionists' conspicuous neglect of the Declaration of Independence. The author concludes that the essential political premise of the American Revolution is that government exists to secure natural rights, not to cultivate virtue.

"But Whoever Treasures Freedom...": The Right to Travel and Extraterritorial Abortions

My thinking on the subject of extraterritorial regulation of abortions was sparked originally by two events that occurred about a year ago. The first was the Supreme Court's grant of certiorari1 in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 2 to address the question of whether Roe v. Wade3 remained the law of the land. At the time, the betting was that, with the substitutions of Justice Thomas for Justice Marshall and Justice Souter for Justice Brennan, the Court would answer no; abortion would be remitted entirely to the political process. The expected green light created the risk of a checkerboard of abortion rights, with some states dedicated to the total elimination of abortion and others equally committed to the protection of reproductive autonomy, either as a matter of statute or of state constitutional law. This result appeared likely to reinstate the pattern that existed in the years immediately before Roe, under which more than forty percent of abortions were performed for women outside of their home states. Women with resources traveled from restrictive states to more liberal ones to obtain abortions.

New perspectives on an old problem: the position of women academics in British higher education

Women academics in Britain are an elite group among women. Nevertheless, there is abundant evidence that they are disproportionately in lower grades and less secure posts than their male counterparts. These are longstanding inequities which appear to have been met with complacency rather than commitments to bring about change. This paper draws upon feminist theory to outline a range of perspectives which can be used to analyze this situation. Different approaches define the problem differently: it can be located in sex-typed socialization; family-career role conflicts; under-investment in women's education; sex discrimination; or the working of capitalism and patriarchy. The strategies which follow from each approach are discussed and evaluated. Certain features of the British university system may operate to the detriment of women, and there is no network of powerful liberal feminist organizations that can act as a watchdog to safeguard their interests. The unsettled situation of higher education in Britain would seem to make this an inauspicious time to initiate reform, but there are contradictions which might be a basis for feminist action. Socialist and radical feminist frameworks go further than liberal ones in making sense of the entrenched inequalities and resistance to change. Yet there is a case for pursuing liberal feminist strategies, at least in the short run.

Denominational Differences in White Protestant Communality

Differences in religious communality orientations, i.e., the role of religion in shaping a person's group life and self-identification, among members of religiously conservative and liberal Protestant denominations in samples of two cities, were evaluated in terms of Gordon's assimilation paradigm. Specifically, religion of friends, church participation, religious selfidentification, and intermarriage attitude were studied. Results indicated that conservative denominations were decidedly more communal than the liberal ones. Important differences persisted within both whiteand blue-collar categories. Non-church Protestants differed sharply from the liberal as well as the conservative denomination members, as nearly all were low in communal orientation. Researchers in the sociology of religion have tended to neglect an important area of study: religious group life or communality. Aspects of religious life such as belief, practice, and experience have received extensive attention, and religious affiliation has been correlated with nearly every conceivable variable from sex to politics (for a review see Demerath, 1968). But the role of religion in the group life of modern Americans has been virtually ignored. Do members of the several religious faiths prefer and depend upon co-religionists for social and psychological support in their primary group life? To what extent do they anchor their sense of social location and self-identification in their religious group? How strong are their feelings regarding the greatest threat to religious group solidarity of all: intermarriage? Will Herberg (1960) was one of the first modern scholars of religion in America to reconsider the importance of religion in the group life of the American people. Shortly after Herberg's essay, Gerhard Lenski (1961) raised the question of socio-religious group solidarity and presented empirical evidence which indicated that the religious factor figured prominently in the lives of Detroit Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. The most systematic discussion of religious communality and relevant literature may be found in Milton Gordon's Assimilation in American Life (1964). Evidence suggesting strong Jewish communalism is rather convincing (cf. Kramer and Leventman, 1961; Ringer, 1967; and Goldstein and Goldscheider, 1968). White Protestant and Catholic c mmunality has received considerably less attention. In one of the few available c ntemporary studies, Wilensky and Ladinsky (1967) reported that religion was much more important than occupation in a sample of largely Protestant lawyers and engineers as a factor in friendship