Mainstream Debate Research Articles

Does the US Media Have a Liberal Bias?

In Left Turn: How Liberal Bias Distorts The American Mind, Tim Groseclose argues that media effects play a crucial role in American politics. His case rests on three arguments: (1) that journalists tend overwhelmingly to be liberal rather than conservative; (2) that their innate political bias slants their views in empirically measurable ways; and (3) that this bias fundamentally shapes American politics, by bringing US citizens further to the left than they would naturally be. According to Groseclose, in a world where media bias did not exist, American citizens would on average hold views close to those of Ben Stein or Bill O'Reilly. In such a world, John McCain would have defeated Barack Obama by a popular vote margin of 56%—42% in the 2008 presidential election.In making these claims, Groseclose draws on his own research, and on recent media scholarship by both political scientists and economists, making the broader claim that peer-reviewed social science—which seeks to deal with problems such as endogeneity and selection bias—should be the starting point for public arguments about the role of the media. His book, then, is clearly an effort to bring social scientific arguments into mainstream debates. Groseclose makes no secret of his conservative political leanings—but recent books from left-leaning political scientists such as Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson are equally unapologetic. It is at least plausible that political scientists' typical unwillingness to engage directly in political arguments has weakened the discipline's capacity for public engagement.In this symposium a diverse group of contributors have been invited to engage with Groseclose's arguments in ways that bring together specific empirical and/or theoretical points and arguments aimed at the broader “political science public sphere” that Perspectives on Politics seeks to nurture. Contributors were asked to consider these five questions: (1): How do we best measure media effects? (2): If media bias exists, what are its plausible sources? (3): Can one use work on media effects to determine what people's views would be in the absence of such bias? (4): Do you agree that American politics is insufficiently representative, and if so what do you consider the primary sources of this problem? (5): What kinds of political and/or media institutions or practices might enhance democratic discourse?—Henry Farrell, Associate Editor

Does the US Media Have a Liberal Bias?

In Left Turn: How Liberal Bias Distorts The American Mind, Tim Groseclose argues that media effects play a crucial role in American politics. His case rests on three arguments: (1) that journalists tend overwhelmingly to be liberal rather than conservative; (2) that their innate political bias slants their views in empirically measurable ways; and (3) that this bias fundamentally shapes American politics, by bringing US citizens further to the left than they would naturally be. According to Groseclose, in a world where media bias did not exist, American citizens would on average hold views close to those of Ben Stein or Bill O'Reilly. In such a world, John McCain would have defeated Barack Obama by a popular vote margin of 56%—42% in the 2008 presidential election.In making these claims, Groseclose draws on his own research, and on recent media scholarship by both political scientists and economists, making the broader claim that peer-reviewed social science—which seeks to deal with problems such as endogeneity and selection bias—should be the starting point for public arguments about the role of the media. His book, then, is clearly an effort to bring social scientific arguments into mainstream debates. Groseclose makes no secret of his conservative political leanings—but recent books from left-leaning political scientists such as Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson are equally unapologetic. It is at least plausible that political scientists' typical unwillingness to engage directly in political arguments has weakened the discipline's capacity for public engagement.In this symposium a diverse group of contributors have been invited to engage with Groseclose's arguments in ways that bring together specific empirical and/or theoretical points and arguments aimed at the broader “political science public sphere” that Perspectives on Politics seeks to nurture. Contributors were asked to consider these five questions: (1): How do we best measure media effects? (2): If media bias exists, what are its plausible sources? (3): Can one use work on media effects to determine what people's views would be in the absence of such bias? (4): Do you agree that American politics is insufficiently representative, and if so what do you consider the primary sources of this problem? (5): What kinds of political and/or media institutions or practices might enhance democratic discourse?—Henry Farrell, Associate Editor

Does the US Media Have a Liberal Bias?

In Left Turn: How Liberal Bias Distorts The American Mind, Tim Groseclose argues that media effects play a crucial role in American politics. His case rests on three arguments: (1) that journalists tend overwhelmingly to be liberal rather than conservative; (2) that their innate political bias slants their views in empirically measurable ways; and (3) that this bias fundamentally shapes American politics, by bringing US citizens further to the left than they would naturally be. According to Groseclose, in a world where media bias did not exist, American citizens would on average hold views close to those of Ben Stein or Bill O'Reilly. In such a world, John McCain would have defeated Barack Obama by a popular vote margin of 56%—42% in the 2008 presidential election.In making these claims, Groseclose draws on his own research, and on recent media scholarship by both political scientists and economists, making the broader claim that peer-reviewed social science—which seeks to deal with problems such as endogeneity and selection bias—should be the starting point for public arguments about the role of the media. His book, then, is clearly an effort to bring social scientific arguments into mainstream debates. Groseclose makes no secret of his conservative political leanings—but recent books from left-leaning political scientists such as Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson are equally unapologetic. It is at least plausible that political scientists' typical unwillingness to engage directly in political arguments has weakened the discipline's capacity for public engagement.In this symposium a diverse group of contributors have been invited to engage with Groseclose's arguments in ways that bring together specific empirical and/or theoretical points and arguments aimed at the broader “political science public sphere” that Perspectives on Politics seeks to nurture. Contributors were asked to consider these five questions: (1): How do we best measure media effects? (2): If media bias exists, what are its plausible sources? (3): Can one use work on media effects to determine what people's views would be in the absence of such bias? (4): Do you agree that American politics is insufficiently representative, and if so what do you consider the primary sources of this problem? (5): What kinds of political and/or media institutions or practices might enhance democratic discourse?—Henry Farrell, Associate Editor

Does the US Media Have a Liberal Bias?

In Left Turn: How Liberal Bias Distorts The American Mind, Tim Groseclose argues that media effects play a crucial role in American politics. His case rests on three arguments: (1) that journalists tend overwhelmingly to be liberal rather than conservative; (2) that their innate political bias slants their views in empirically measurable ways; and (3) that this bias fundamentally shapes American politics, by bringing US citizens further to the left than they would naturally be. According to Groseclose, in a world where media bias did not exist, American citizens would on average hold views close to those of Ben Stein or Bill O'Reilly. In such a world, John McCain would have defeated Barack Obama by a popular vote margin of 56%—42% in the 2008 presidential election.In making these claims, Groseclose draws on his own research, and on recent media scholarship by both political scientists and economists, making the broader claim that peer-reviewed social science—which seeks to deal with problems such as endogeneity and selection bias—should be the starting point for public arguments about the role of the media. His book, then, is clearly an effort to bring social scientific arguments into mainstream debates. Groseclose makes no secret of his conservative political leanings—but recent books from left-leaning political scientists such as Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson are equally unapologetic. It is at least plausible that political scientists' typical unwillingness to engage directly in political arguments has weakened the discipline's capacity for public engagement.In this symposium a diverse group of contributors have been invited to engage with Groseclose's arguments in ways that bring together specific empirical and/or theoretical points and arguments aimed at the broader “political science public sphere” that Perspectives on Politics seeks to nurture. Contributors were asked to consider these five questions: (1): How do we best measure media effects? (2): If media bias exists, what are its plausible sources? (3): Can one use work on media effects to determine what people's views would be in the absence of such bias? (4): Do you agree that American politics is insufficiently representative, and if so what do you consider the primary sources of this problem? (5): What kinds of political and/or media institutions or practices might enhance democratic discourse?—Henry Farrell, Associate Editor

Does the US Media Have a Liberal Bias?

InLeft Turn: How Liberal Bias Distorts The American Mind,Tim Groseclose argues that media effects play a crucial role in American politics. His case rests on three arguments: (1) that journalists tend overwhelmingly to be liberal rather than conservative; (2) that their innate political bias slants their views in empirically measurable ways; and (3) that this bias fundamentally shapes American politics, by bringing US citizens further to the left than they would naturally be. According to Groseclose, in a world where media bias did not exist, American citizens would on average hold views close to those of Ben Stein or Bill O'Reilly. In such a world, John McCain would have defeated Barack Obama by a popular vote margin of 56%—42% in the 2008 presidential election.In making these claims, Groseclose draws on his own research, and on recent media scholarship by both political scientists and economists, making the broader claim that peer-reviewed social science—which seeks to deal with problems such as endogeneity and selection bias—should be the starting point for public arguments about the role of the media. His book, then, is clearly an effort to bring social scientific arguments into mainstream debates. Groseclose makes no secret of his conservative political leanings—but recent books from left-leaning political scientists such as Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson are equally unapologetic. It is at least plausible that political scientists' typical unwillingness to engage directly in political arguments has weakened the discipline's capacity for public engagement.In this symposium a diverse group of contributors have been invited to engage with Groseclose's arguments in ways that bring together specific empirical and/or theoretical points and arguments aimed at the broader “political science public sphere” thatPerspectives on Politicsseeks to nurture. Contributors were asked to consider these five questions: (1): How do we best measure media effects? (2): If media bias exists, what are its plausible sources? (3): Can one use work on media effects to determine what people's views would be in the absence of such bias? (4): Do you agree that American politics is insufficiently representative, and if so what do you consider the primary sources of this problem? (5): What kinds of political and/or media institutions or practices might enhance democratic discourse?—Henry Farrell, Associate Editor

‘What part of illegal don't you understand?’: bureaucracy and civil society in the shaping of illegality

While unauthorized immigration has existed in the USA since the inception of immigration laws in the early twentieth century, ‘illegality’ did not become a central concern in mainstream debate until the late 1970s. Existing scholarship has developed two lines of argument to explain the salience of illegality: a state-centred approach that sees bureaucrats pushing forth the category, and a ‘bottom-up’ approach that emphasizes the grass-roots activism of restrictionist organizations effectively disguising their nativism by appealing to law and order. The data collected here builds on but complicates the state-centred explanation, and points away from the ‘bottom-up’ approach. I locate a critical juncture in the immigration debate during the early 1970s and argue that the shift towards the focus on illegality as a point of concern was due to an alignment of interests that brought an array of civil society organizations commonly understood as progressive to coincide with sectors of the bureaucracy.

Voluntary Organizations as New Street‐level Bureaucrats: Frontline Struggles of Community Organizations against Bureaucratization in a South Korean Welfare‐to‐Work Partnership

AbstractIn recent years, the role of voluntary organizations in welfare partnership has received considerable critical attention from scholars working in the field. While mainstream debates have valued state–voluntary sector partnership as participatory governance, critical studies have argued that it leads voluntary organizations to serve as a shadow state. The present study, however, contends that partnership does not necessarily entail participatory welfare or the complete subordination of the voluntary sector to the state's bureaucratic system. Rather, as new street‐level bureaucrats, voluntary organizations can exercise a degree of autonomy on the frontline despite the bureaucratic constraints engendered by partnership. Through an ethnographic analysis of Korean community organizations engaged as frontline agencies in a welfare‐to‐work partnership, this study unveils how the former have recreated democratic and inclusive environments in a particular policy setting by organizing non‐work activities and transferring administrative authority to recipients. Delineating such street‐level practices, this article demonstrates that state–voluntary sector partnerships may be sites of struggle where voluntary organizations continuously strive to actualize participatory governance in diverse and indirect ways.

Addressing the ‘Dismal Disconnection’: Normative Theory, Empirical Inquiry and Dialogic Research

This article engages with recent methodological debates in political theory concerning the role of political theory and in particular the criticism that ideal normative theorising is too abstracted from the real-world circumstances that it hopes to change. These debates raise questions concerning the proper relationship between normative political theory and empirical inquiry. We suggest that feminist research has an important contribution to make to these questions, which has tended to be under-recognised within mainstream debates. Specifically, feminist critical theory points to important limitations within both ideal political theory and orthodox empirical social science. Rather than trying to combine these two approaches, feminist critical theory offers an alternative approach to standard political research methods. The central concerns of critical feminists with the social conditions of inclusion and democratic participation, the forms of power that can invade theory and practice in politics, and the need to create an ‘undistorted space’ in which the voice of those subjected to injustice can be heard, predispose it towards an applied approach to normative theory, while at the same time remaining highly attuned to the possible conservative implications of such a move. This dual focus has led many feminist critical theorists to endorse a dialogical approach. In this article, we detail this approach and recommend it as a resource to mainstream political theorists.

Recent Work on Moore’s Proof

Recently, much work has been done on G.E. Moore’s proof of an external world with the aim of diagnosing just where the Proof ‘goes wrong’. In the mainstream literature, the most widely discussed debate on this score stands between those who defend competing accounts of perceptual warrant known as dogmatism (i.e. Pryor and Davies) and conservativism (i.e. Wright). Each account implies a different verdict on Moore’s Proof, though both share a commitment to supposing that an examination of premise-conclusion dependence relations will sufficiently reveal what’s wrong with the Proof. Parallel to this debate on Moore stands perhaps an equally interesting (though less discussed) debate within which the Proof is critiqued as it stands in the context of the skeptical debate. On this score, Michael Fara and Ernest Sosa have weighed in with a markedly different take on Moore’s anti-skeptical ambitions and on the nature of skeptical challenges more generally. The aim of this paper will be to critically evaluate these two very distinct strands of recent work on Moore’s Proof. Part I of the paper will focus on the mainstream debate, and in Part II of the paper, I’ll focus on the parallel debate about skepticism. My critical discussion will be aimed throughout at showing how the various proposals I’ve taken as representative of these two parallel debates surrounding Moore’s Proof ultimately fall short—each for different reasons—of what a satisfactory diagnosis of the Proof would require.

Preface

preface Feminist scholarship has been long concerned with the terms in which the past is presented and, more specifically, with how women's agency is suppressed or misconstrued. Authors in this issue take up what we call the politics of history and recovery across a range of genres: from historical fiction and literary, film, and art sources to ever-changing electronic archives. The issue opens with the late Diane Middlebrook's experimental exploration of the life and work of the first-century BCE poet Ovid. Middlebrook's provoc ative narrative begins with a fictional account of Ovid's birth from the perspectives of the midwife and mother, and it proceeds to surmise familial details about influences in the young poet's life and how they might have influenced his work. Middlebrook combines a close analysis of the recollection and metaphor that characterized Ovid's writings with extant secondary literature on ancient Rome to paint a vibrant picture of Ovid's early life and the particulars of the ancient Roman household and culture that surrounded him. In the process, Middlebrook persuasively demonstrates that communities of women were central to Ovid's life trajectory and his transforma tion from privileged child to epic poet. These communities of women included his mother, the various female intermediaries that intro duced him to and integrated him into the broader Roman house hold, and the goddesses that were always present to guide, oversee, protect, and inspire. Middlebrook details the myriad ways that Ovid references the "social world" that women created forthemselves within 287 288 Preface the household, a world that was "largely concealed from the atten tion of men." In doing so, Middlebrook's work engages the long standing question of how scholars might find sources for those who did not leave written records. Looking to literature for one answer to this question, Middlebrook finds that through his poetry Ovid illuminates the intimacies and complexities of the worlds of women that were rarely noted or documented in and for ancient Rome. In "Trafficking in Truth: Media, Sexuality, and Human Rights Evidence," Jamie L. Small shows how contemporary international human rights campaigns frequently blur the lines between fact and fiction. Analyzing the production and reception histories of two explicitly fictional movies and one documentary film about girls forced into prostitution, often far from their homes, Small reveals that the narratives constructed in these films are frequently reduc tive and do not allow for the exploration of the complex structural and personal forces that push young women into prostitution. Insist ing on the need to recognize the violence that can be part of sex work, Small is nonetheless critical of how fictional stories become evidence in human rights campaigns that in turn bolster conservative politi cal agendas. She is especially worried about the claims that the Acad emy Award-winning documentary Born Into Brothels makes to realistically represent the rescue of Indian children by a Western woman, the filmmaker/photographer. Voices that question the authenticity of such accounts are unable to enter mainstream debates, Small notes. Rather than recovering the voices and bodies of the oppressed, such filmic narratives and their use in human rights discourses enhance the divides between the First, Second, or Third World while often eliding the power dynamics central to these divides. Diana Barnes takes up questions that scholars have raised over the last two decades about the significance of Lady Mary Wort ley Montagu to the history of inoculations and the history of medi cine. Barnes uses these questions as a starting point for reexamin ing the terms on which an aristocratic woman of the eighteenth century led a public life, gained an education, and influenced medi cal practice in London. Even though British papers did not mention Montagu's move to have her own daughter inoculated for smallpox for several years, oral reports of Montagu's action and her witnessing Preface 289 of inoculations in Constantinople circulated in elite circles. These reports directly influenced both scientific experiments and prac tices at the royal court. Through personal visits and the circulation of knowledge of her activities in influential social circles, Montagu, who had been disfigured by smallpox herself, played a significant role in...

Improving the EU Immigration System: Reflections in the Light of the Return Directive

This paper focuses on the current state of EU immigration legislation and aims to provide a critical analysis and suggestions for improvement in the future. Over the past ten years, EU Summits have emphasized the need for the adoption of new legislative measures in order to converge to a true European common policy on immigration. Nowadays, the mainstream debate on immigration in Europe focuses on several different topics. On the one hand, there is the need to secure the borders and control undocumented immigration, while on the other hand there is the question of the protection of migrants’ human rights and the improvement of the EU immigration system. There is also a third element, which concerns the EU relations with the immigrants’ countries of origin. I intend to examine the new return Directive in the light of EU law and of international human rights law. This Directive sets out the rules and principles to be applied by Member States in cases of illegal immigration, and the measures to be taken by the EU Members. The Directive covers different areas and it applies to third country nationals who do not fulfil, or no longer fulfil, conditions of entry in accordance with EU legislation. In addition, the paper will discuss whether it is possible for the EU to adopt a policy to contribute to the local development of the countries of origin. Within this framework, I will try to answer the following questions: Is the new EU legislation compatible with international human rights law (in particular, the 1951 Geneva Convention and the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child)? Does this new Directive preserve compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights? What are the implications for the EU immigration system? What is the possible effect of this new EU directive on relationships with the countries of origin of the immigrants?

Virtue, progress and practice

Reader in Applied Philosophy, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, MMU Cheshire, Crewe, UK and Visiting Professor of Philosophy as Applied to Medicine, University of Buckingham, Uk Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA Associate Professor, Department of General Practice, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Director, University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics, Toronto, ON, Canada Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada Professor of Values in Health Care, Associate Director, Social Dimensions of Health Institute, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK

Decision-Making and Dissensus: Policy Uncertainty, the Media, and the Iraq Surge Debate

This paper examines national security policymaking under conditions of elite dissensus and how this policy uncertainty is reflected in the mass media. Previous research suggests that the American mass media tends to index the range of voices and viewpoints according to the views expressed in the mainstream government debate; much of this scholarship focuses on times of elite consensus. Policy uncertainty, however, provides the opportunity for other voices from outside of government to come into the mainstream debate. The often conflicting goals of political and bureaucratic actors, in conjunction with the immediacy associated with national security decisions, tend to exacerbate policy uncertainty. We evaluate the 2007 Iraq troop surge to explore policymaking and media sourcing during a period of elite dissensus, moving toward a better understanding of the interaction between policy entrepreneurs and the media. Examining congressional testimony and mass media accounts, we find that the composition of policy entrepreneurs in national security debates changes as elite consensus dissolves. The media reflects this dissensus, enriching the debate over foreign policy by giving space to non-governmental sources. From these findings, we derive broader implications regarding the role of policy entrepreneurs and the media in national security policymaking.

What’s Wrong with American Principles of Economics – According to Mainstream Economists?

Heterodox economists have ‘always’ criticized mainstream economic textbooks, but what about criticisms put forward by mainstream economists? A limited but lively and rather overlooked mainstream debate is identified in this essay, in which the general message is that there is a critical gap between textbooks and the real world. The criticisms aired in this debate almost seem to be forgotten, although most of them are still highly relevant and, if taken seriously, might lead to significant changes of economics textbooks.

Integrating Different Biological Evidence Around Some Microevolutionary Processes: Bottlenecks and Asian-American Arctic Gene Flow in the New World Settlement

Excepting some specific efforts, most of the mainstream debate around the Americas’ settlement has been directed by specialists dealing with partial evidence. Thus, discussions have been confined to particular academic and scientific environments with limited interchange among archeologists, physical anthropologists, linguists, geneticists, geologists, paleontologists, and so on. As a consequence, integrative views about a process that is complex by definition have been scarce and driven by confrontation rather than by a search for common results. Still, an increasing number of specialists are attempting to integrate different types of data. In our view, a proper way to do this is to focus the discussion around evolutionary or cultural processes and the putative patterns that such processes could have generated in the different types of data, which in turn, depend on the nature of the data. In this way, the analyses and conclusions can be interpreted as “model-bound” rather than purely inferential. In this paper, we first provide a brief summary of main differences among the two main sources of biological information—genetics and craniofacial size and shape—along with the main conclusions that the patterns of genetic and craniofacial variation provide. Furthermore, we exemplify the above-mentioned notion by discussing two particular processes and their hypothetical impact on genetic and craniofacial data: the influence of bottlenecks during the early dispersal and a putative zone of gene flow among Asian and American Circum-Arctic populations.

Studying Political Islam

Over the past two decades, scholars of the Middle East have produced an impressive body of scholarship that seeks to understand diverse groups and practices that are together called political Islam. Much of our work has drawn little attention outside of academia despite the obsession with Islam shared by policymakers and the general public. The many careful studies produced by academics and some journalists—typically based on extensive field research and use of primary sources in Arabic, Turkish, and Persian—have to contend with bestselling books that trade in fears about the irrational, West-hating Muslim fanatic. Unfortunately, serious scholarship on political Islam cannot ignore this terrain of stereotypes and fearmongering, as it dominates mainstream debates about Islam and the Middle East. But in responding to these discourses, we often allow them to dictate our analytic starting point, resulting in less theoretical innovation and empirical insight than might emerge if we moved beyond the focus on Islamist groups and whether most are moderate or radical. Indeed, we might do well to abandon altogether the idea that “political Islam” represents a tangible object of study.

“No accounting for these people”: Shell in Ireland and accounting language

Abstract Accounting lays claims to be the language of business: a clear, technical, unambiguous means of communication for decisions on investment and economic development. Accounting concepts have increasingly entered mainstream debate on issues affecting society at large. This makes the fairness and effectiveness of accounting as a mode of communication more important for social justice than ever before. In a contentious development, if the discussion is framed primarily in accounting terms, this may disenfranchise those parties to the dispute whose issues are not readily expressed in the common vocabulary of business. Their concerns may become invisible in the debate. If this happens, then accounting has failed as a means of communication, and that failure is non-neutral in that it favours those whose position is best supported by economic arguments. This paper explores this phenomenon using the case of a dispute between Royal Dutch Shell and a local community in Ireland concerning a gas refinery located in an environmentally sensitive area. The issues in conflict are complex and at times intangible. I explore how the limitations of accounting as a language blinded the protagonists to an understanding of each other's concerns, marginalised the concerns of protestors from the public discourse, shifting power from objectors within the local community to those whose primary concern was the economic exploitation of natural resources. I argue that accounting failed as a mode of communication to progress a resolution of the dispute, and that this failure was both unnecessary, and systematic in its support of economic interests.

Paradigms and Paradoxes

A sound foreign policy must be based on the acceptance of paradox. This is true for great powers, but it is especially true for a middle power whose reach ought not to exceed its grasp. However exasperating and however irksome, there is no escaping on the one hand and on the other, even when they are not reconcilable.John W Holmes, 19701There are at least two ways we can read John Holmes's reference to paradox here. Certainly he is thinking about the way foreign policymaking is almost never easy, in the sense that there are always many implications to consider and no way to make everyone happy. But he is also thinking about the way foreign policymaking is almost never obvious, in the sense that the balance between considerations on the one hand and on the other rarely tilts so decisively toward one option that policymakers are driven to pursue a particular course of action. Diplomats and foreign policy bureaucrats stay awake at night worrying, and argue with one another about what to do, because they have real choices to make and many of them are genuinely difficult ones.Holmes's purpose here is to point out that foreign policy is complex and contingent, and therefore not amenable to being explained or predicted with anything approaching certainty. Experienced diplomats and foreign policy bureaucrats do not need to be told this; for them, this supposed paradox is more of a truism. But there are three groups that do need to hear it: politicians, social science academics, and members of the general public. Politicians and social scientists need to hear it because their way of thinking and talking about politics tends to deny these paradoxes, or at least to ignore them. And members of the general public need to hear it because their thinking about foreign policymaking is shaped by what politicians and academics say, not what diplomats and bureaucrats do. Holmes's corrective is just as badly needed today as it was 40 years ago - perhaps more so.But there is also a danger that we will over-learn this lesson and let the acceptance of paradox frustrate the effort to build up a body of theoretically grounded research on Canadian foreign policy. Canadian foreign policy as a field of study has never generated a substantial and coherent social science debate that might serve as an anchor to tie together the disparate policy areas and perspectives revolving around it - either as a foundation for more conventional scholars seeking progress, or as a foil for critical scholars seeking to uncover the power relations and political possibilities underlying the mainstream debate. Without that core debate, the field will languish and could eventually fade away as an academic project.LUMPERS AND SPLITTERSPoliticians deny the existence of paradox because those in office want to convince voters that what they are doing is obviously the best of all possible choices, and those in opposition want to convince voters that there are obviously better choices available. The governing party may allow from time to time that it is faced with a difficult choice, but then tends to pretend otherwise after the choice has been made: what was chosen was the only option, the benefits are certain and substantial, and the risks involved are known and negligible. The opposition also finds the government's choices straightforward, but straightforwardly wrong, reflecting the party's prejudices and pandering. If the government acts decisively and costs are incurred, it lacks judgement. If it seeks to compromise or hedge its bets, it lacks conviction.Social science academics deny the existence of paradox, too, but for different reasons. The essence of the conventional positivist approach is to seek to uncover the configuration of underlying factors that caused particular policy outcomes, as if the circumstances themselves would properly explain the choices that were made. The most prominent kinds of social science paradigms - structural and institutional ones - tend to conceal real-world complexity and contingency, minimize decision-makers' agency, and therefore close off questions about political and moral responsibility. …

Japan: the contested boundaries of alien suffrage at the local level

The provision of local level electoral rights in Japan for tokubetsu eijūsha (special permanent residents) and eijūsha (permanent residents) has sparked an ongoing controversy between opponents and proponents of extending the boundaries of suffrage. Periodically igniting for over a decade, the debate has involved politicians from across the political spectrum as well as local authorities, non-governmental organizations and academic scholars, yet remains locked into a cycle in which a period of optimism is followed by inaction and stagnation. In January 2008 the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan reignited the issue once more. Against this background, the goal of this paper is to highlight and trace the way in which the mainstream debate for and against electoral rights is being played out in the public arena. In so doing this paper makes two claims. First, we need to recognize the way that certain historical–social influences emanating from the processes of state-building since 1945 influence the current debates. Second, this must combine awareness of both legal/constitutional and normative aspects, as well as a sense of intra-party and inter-party political contestation.

The Spaces and Faces of Critical Terrorism Studies

This article explores the burgeoning academic interest in establishing a critical terrorism studies research programme. It begins by reviewing the debates over definition, causation and response that still dominate mainstream discussions of terrorism. The analytical and normative limitations of these debates, it argues, open considerable space for the emergence of a critically oriented body of literature. A second section then explores two distinct efforts at overcoming these limitations: the broadening and interpretivist faces of critical terrorism studies. The broadening face refers to attempts to expand our understanding of terrorism beyond non-state violence alone, while the interpretivist face comprises critical explorations of terror in image and narrative. Although each of these approaches offers scholars a more engaged role than the problem-solving orientation of the mainstream debates, the article argues that only the interpretivist face is capable of addressing their analytical limitations. The article concludes by calling for further attention to the notion of critique within the relevant critical literature.