Political Necessity Research Articles

“A Constitutional Conveyance of Intelligence, Public and Private”: The Post Office, the Business of Printing, and the American Revolution

This essay argues that American printers motivated by a deep commercial interest in fast and effective communication worked to overturn the British imperial postal service in 1774 and 1775. Printers enlisted merchants and members of the revolutionary elite, who also relied on long-distance communication through the post office for their own commercial and political purposes, to provide financial and political support. In making their case, printers mobilized a broad array of political ideology and imagery already familiar to colonists during the decade-long imperial crisis, emphasizing the political necessity of replacing the imperial institution. At the same time, they uncontroversially asserted that a new American post office would safeguard their precarious commercial ventures. The essay therefore demonstrates that printers were not “mere mechanics” but actively shaped the political debates leading to the American Revolution as part of a process that scholars have recently highlighted in a work on the economic and commercial influences on the Revolution. Furthermore, it grants the post office its due as part of the Habermasian public sphere; although understudied, the post office—both as a physical space and as a network through which information could travel—was a crucial means by which Americans developed a national infrastructure for political communications. Exploring the overthrow of the British post office, and the creation of an American post office, reveals an understudied but crucial episode to explain the symbiosis between politics and commerce during the American Revolutionary era.

“A Constitutional Conveyance of Intelligence, Public and Private”: The Post Office, the Business of Printing, and the American Revolution

This essay argues that American printers motivated by a deep commercial interest in fast and effective communication worked to overturn the British imperial postal service in 1774 and 1775. Printers enlisted merchants and members of the revolutionary elite, who also relied on long-distance communication through the post office for their own commercial and political purposes, to provide financial and political support. In making their case, printers mobilized a broad array of political ideology and imagery already familiar to colonists during the decade-long imperial crisis, emphasizing the political necessity of replacing the imperial institution. At the same time, they uncontroversially asserted that a new American post office would safeguard their precarious commercial ventures. The essay therefore demonstrates that printers were not “mere mechanics” but actively shaped the political debates leading to the American Revolution as part of a process that scholars have recently highlighted in a work on the economic and commercial influences on the Revolution. Furthermore, it grants the post office its due as part of the Habermasian public sphere; although understudied, the post office—both as a physical space and as a network through which information could travel—was a crucial means by which Americans developed a national infrastructure for political communications. Exploring the overthrow of the British post office, and the creation of an American post office, reveals an understudied but crucial episode to explain the symbiosis between politics and commerce during the American Revolutionary era.

Creating Awareness

I read the article about indoor radon with great interest and noted that the topic was comprehensively dealt with: in addition to health political aspects, construction interventions, and political necessities—such as a radon protection law—were mentioned. About a month after the manuscript had been accepted the World Health Organization published a handbook on the topic (1), in which a reference value of 100 Bq/m3 is recommended, as it is justified from an epidemiological perspective. Deutsches Arzteblatt reported this on 22 September 2009 (2).

Brick Lane: a materialist reading of the novel and its reception

Monica Ali’s 2003 novel Brick Lane was feted by the literary establishment but prompted protests on Brick Lane itself. In a now familiar pattern, such protests were generally regarded as reflecting a conflict between creative freedom and religious or cultural minority rights. In this article, the underlying assumptions of such an interpretation are challenged, suggesting that, in a context of racial and religious inequality, where access to the public sphere is unevenly distributed, the protests are better understood as symptomatic of a subordinate social position. The occlusion of social and historical context in the mainstream response to the protests is mirrored in the novel’s obscuring of the power relations between the Bangladeshi community it focuses on and wider British society. It is argued that, by focusing on the patriarchy of that community in isolation, the novel fosters a culturalism that allows it to be read as an allegory of a woman’s individual liberation from community oppression and her journey into the neutral space of an ‘inclusive’ multicultural Britain. The necessity of a collective politics of self-representation is thus elided.

Jeff Waage—building a coalition of disciplines for global health

Jeff Waage—building a coalition of disciplines for global health

Tartaglia Effect: Understanding Berlusconi's Politics Behind The Curtains Through Media Analysis

This article analyzes the Italian media debate related to the event of December 13, 2009, when an Italian citizen, Mr. Massimo Tartaglia, hit the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi during a political rally. The paper presents a careful analysis of the political necessities of the various subjects involved in that tense season of national politics and it analyzes the media discourse related to the event in order to highlight how Mr. Tartaglia and the media coverage of his action in reality helped Berlusconi in applying his politics in that context.

Adopting the More Likely than Not Standard for Tax Returns

Under current law, a taxpayer may generally take a tax return position without penalty or disclosure if there is substantial authority that the position will be sustained if challenged. Taxpayers can therefore take positions that they believe are unlikely to be right, but might be. The disclosures under Financial Accounting Standards Board Interpretation No. 48, ‘‘Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes,’’ show that companies have failed to pay billions of dollars of taxes they think are legally owed according to their tax returns. A country needing tax revenue should collect the taxes that are rightfully owed before it seeks to raise additional taxes, and the FIN 48 disclosures reveal billions of dollars lost to noncompliance. This proposal would require taxpayers to report on their tax return only positions that they believe are more likely than not correct. With this new higher standard, the tax system could rely on financial reporting standards to better enforce compliance with the tax law. For a more detailed discussion of this proposal, please see ‘‘Voluntary Compliance: This Return Might Be Correct, but Probably Isn’t,’’ in the spring 2010 issue of the Virginia Tax Review.The proposal is made as a part of the Shelf Project, a collaboration among tax professionals to develop and perfect proposals to help Congress raise revenue without raising tax rates. The deficit is now at $1.6 trillion or 11.2 percent of GDP, and government debt is projected to increase to 68 percent of GDP by 2019. In an impending revenue crisis, base-protecting revenue provisions that are ordinarily politically impossible become political necessities. Tax rates can’t be raised on this loophole-ridden tax base. Shelf Project proposals defend the tax base and improve the rationality and efficiency of the tax system. They are intended to raise revenue without raising rates, because the best tax systems have the broadest possible base to reach the lowest feasible tax rates. Shelf Project proposals are intended to eliminate the alternatives of 85 percent individual income tax rates or 35 percent federal sales tax rates. Alonger description of the Shelf Project and an inventory of its proposals after two years may be found at ‘‘Two Years of the Shelf Project,’’ Tax Notes, Jan. 25, 2010, p. 513, Doc 2010-150, or 2010 TNT 17-12.

The Politics of Necessity: Doctrines and Discourses of the 'Salus Populi' in Public International Law

This is an early draft of an uncompleted dissertation unpacking doctrines of necessity in public international law from 1919 to present. Please do not quote or cite.

Franco Venturi's Russia

Ia pamiatnik sebe vozdvig nerukotvornyi.--Aleksandr Pushkin, Pamiamik, 1836 (1) There are many remarkable features in Franco Venturi's historical work on Russia and in his attitude toward its people. Only a few of them will be touched upon in this essay. Others have been the object of valuable articles on Venturi's life and scholarship by distinguished authors. (2) But although limited in scope, this essay examines issues that deserve to be seen in a wider context in the hope that this may clarify some major aspects of Venturi's work on Russian and European history. The Historian Like a number of historians of his generation and of a younger one like mine, Franco Venturi (1914-94) did not come to the practice of history and to the professorial chair at the university after quiet and undisturbed years of study along the traditional and uneventful cursus honorum of higher learning and students' pastimes? He came to Clio and to the world of academe after years of opposition to fascism, exile in France, prison in Franco's Spain, internment in Avigliano in the Basilicata, underground activity in the Resistenza--the armed struggle against the German occupation in 1943-45, political participation in the movement Giustizia e Liberta and in the Partito d'Azione, and diplomatic service in Moscow. To his historian's craft he brought a considerable amount of life experience and a reflection on human nature, on the inner logic of institutions, on political strife, on contingency and necessity, on collective mentalities and group dynamics, and on the hidden springs and apparent interests that make men and women act as they do. By his profession and aptitudes Venturi was an intellectual, but he was also, from the very start, a man of action. The simultaneous existence of these two traits was one of his specific characteristics at all times. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] At the same time, his decision to devote himself entirely to the field of study and research did hOt diminish his awareness of the fact that social and political life--in Italy, in Russia, and elsewhere--and historical events and processes are always ambiguous and contradictory and often generate tragic and insoluble dilemmas. He knew, and not only from books, that history and history writing were indeed not a simple matter like a walk on Nevskii Prospekt or on Via Roma in Turin. It has been rightly pointed out that Venturi's exile and study in France in the 1930s and his diplomatic mission in Moscow in 1947-50 were formative periods in his life. This horizon of his may be widened: the people of his generation lived through the Spanish Civil War, the show trials and the Great Terror in Soviet Russia, the Munich agreements, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, World War Il, Hiroshima, the Holocaust, the exhilaration of the victory and newly won liberty, the great hopes, immense optimism, and ideological effervescence in the aftermath of the 1945 victory, and the insidious disenchantments that followed. Those were events never to be forgotten; they, too, represented formative years in one's life, and they left their mark forever. During these years, Venturi and the truly remarkable group of Italian intellectuals to which he belonged lived and actively participated in history in the making. This involvement and its lessons and memories were not lost when he began to write the history of other places in other times. Venturi abandoned political activity--as happened in Europe to many intellectuals of his generation and of mine--a few years after the end of the war. The reasons for that existential decision were different for different persons in different places. For Venturi, the decision to devote himself entirely to study and research was a process that began sometime between 1947 and 1950 and became final around 1956, after doubts, hesitations, and soul-searching. It was prompted neither by disillusionment nor by cynicism, nor by despair in the righteousness of the struggle for justice and liberty. …

Cleaning Compensation for Services Out of Capital Gain

In general, preferential capital gains rates are not and should not be available for compensation for services. The tax bracket system attempts to adjust the level of tax to the standard of living for which the money is spent. Allowing some taxpayers to avoid the higher tax brackets for their compensation when the rest of the nation is subject to the ordinary rates is a kind of favoritism or caste system. The value of services should be set by market demand derived from real consumer utility. Tax should not distort the relative pretax values of services. Compensation for services is also not what is traditionally thought of as capital gain. Capital gain is gain from the appreciation of invested capital because of market forces beyond the taxpayer’s control. The lower rate on capital gain offsets perceived over-taxation of invested capital. There is a double tax under the income tax of both invested amounts (orchard) and profit from investments (apples). Tax on compensation, however, is a first and only tax; compensation has no basis because there has been no prior taxation of an investment. Capital gain rates, moreover, arose out of a tradition that capital gain had to be preserved for the benefit of heirs. The castle and manor were supposed to be part of the inheritance no matter what they were worth. Compensation has never been thought of as a necessary part of a taxpayer’s inheritance. This proposal would codify the general ideal that compensation for services is ordinary income, not capital gain, and apply it uniformly. It would amend section 1221 to provide that capital asset does not include gains attributable to labor input, compensation for services, no matter by what the form realized, and property whether tangible or intangible, held by the taxpayer whose personal effort created the asset or added substantially to its value. The proposal would eliminate capital gains rates now available for songwriters, inventors, and amateurs who make an asset for the first time. The proposal would, however, make C corporation stock a capital asset even when the shareholder creates or improves corporate assets as an amelioration of the double tax on corporate income. Sweat equity put into unincorporated sole proprietorships and partnerships, however, would be taxed as ordinary income when realized. If a taxpayer has basis in an asset, the proposal would allow the taxpayer to elect to allocate gain from a single asset between compensation, which would be ordinary, and appreciation of basis, which could qualify as capital gain, using a general index of appreciation, the taxpayer’s history of basis, and withdrawals from the asset of at least going interest rates. However, the accounting would be complicated, sometimes adverse to the taxpayer, and limited in value, so taxpayers might not make the election. This proposal is made as a part of the Shelf Project, which is a collaboration among tax professionals to develop and perfect proposals to help Congress raise revenue without raising tax rates. The deficit is $1.6 trillion or 11.2 percent of GDP, and federal spending over the next decade will be twice that. In the impending revenue crisis, base-protecting revenue provisions that were not possible under ordinary politics become political necessities. Tax rates cannot be raised on this loophole-ridden tax base. Shelf Project proposals defend the tax base and improve the rationality and efficiency of the tax system. They are intended to raise revenue without raising rates because the best tax systems have the broadest possible base to reach the lowest feasible tax rates. A longer description of the Shelf Project is found at The Shelf Project: Revenue-Raising Projects That Defend the Tax Base, Tax Notes, Dec. 10, 2007, p. 1077, Doc 2007-22632, or 2007 TNT 238-37.

The Law of Holocaust Denial in Europe: Towards a (Qualified) EU-Wide Criminal Prohibition

A majority of EU countries have long considered that the right to freedom of expression precludes the criminalization of Holocaust denial per se. The full implementation of the 2008 EU Framework Decision on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law (hereinafter: the EU FD on racism) will, however, considerably harmonize the law of Holocaust denial in Europe. While several provisions of the EU FD on racism offer a series of legal options enabling any EU country to limit the scope of national provisions criminalizing “genocide denial,” it remains that all EU Member States are now under the legal obligation to criminalize genocide denial when it is carried out either in a manner likely to incite to violence or hatred or in a manner likely to disturb public order or which is threatening, abusive or insulting. Before offering a critical review of the EU FD on racism and arguing that the political necessity of laws punishing genocide denial and the legal need for an EU-wide prohibition may be seriously questioned, this paper will contend that the legal reasoning developed by national courts in “militant democracies” is far from convincing and that the European Court of Human Rights should have refrained from labeling the Holocaust a clearly established historical fact whose denial constitutes ipso facto an “abuse of right”.

„an die besten Traditionen der Ersten und Zweiten Republik anknüpfend“ : Polnische Erinnerungskultur im öffentlichen Raum nach 1989

In the early years of what is generally known as the Third Republic, which was brought to an end by the 1997 Constitution, the politics of history and memory reflected the new Polish society’s search for a fresh conception of itself, a conception that would displace that of communist times. To this end a specific effort towards the creation and search for historical continuities was characteristic of this stage: new and renewed national themes, new and renewed rituals, symbols and political myths formed important elements in political psychology and political culture. These were not only used to create a new identity, but also to legitimise the revolution and the new political system. As will be shown, the historical memory of the Second Republic, in particular of its founder and dictator Jozef Pilsudski, as well as of the (negatively perceived) Soviet occu-pation and hegemony over Poland, became the focus of the politics of memory in public discourse. In this process, the problematic history of German-Polish relations was all but excluded, in order to build up a new, positive national image, as well as from political necessity, in the efforts to join NATO and the EU. The memory of the German crimes committed during the Second World War was now – in contrast to position in the communist era – just one element in historical conscious¬ness and collective memory. Hence the culture of memory as a whole was characterised on the one hand by linking up with the historical traditions of the Second Republic, and on the other by attempts to remove the boundaries to the culture of memory set under communism. Thus the change in the culture of memory reflects political change, i.e. the change of system, as Poles were now able to set their own markers in the culture of memory. Since the end of the 1990s, it has become ever clearer that what was really happening was a form of suppression of historical memory, especially with regard to German-Polish relations.

マキァヴェリズムの本質

Today, Machiavellism is generally regarded as a specific rule of political action stemming from the necessity and autonomy of politics. In other words, the problem of Machiavellism is raised as one related to the tragic antinomy between politics and ethics. However, such an interpretation has its roots in 19th-century German Historicism. Here, it should be noted that the term Machiavellism itself was generated and spread in the mid-16th century. The word has its genesis in the old interpretation of Machiavelli's political science, which accused Machiavelli of being a teacher of evil. The purpose of this paper is to rediscover the essence of Machiavellism in terms of its original meaning. First, the fundamental character of the present-day interpretation of Machiavellism must be articulated by analyzing German Historicism. Then, intentionally avoiding ideas that are related to German Historicism, the original meaning of Machiavellism must be grasped by analyzing the interpretation of Machiavelli's political science as raised by his first readers in the 16th century.

Rivals or Friends?: Anne de Bourbon and Anne de Bretagne

Brantôme, a renowned biographer and gossip-monger, depicted Anne de Bourbon (1461-1522) and Anne of Brittany (1477-1514) as rivals. This interpretation, advanced seventy-five years after their deaths, has shaped interpretation to this day. I argue that accounts of their interactions must be understood in the context of the extensive networks of family relationships in which they functioned as intermediators. What have been taken as traces of innate personal qualities rendering the Annes incompatible must instead be recognized as traces of carefully enacted strategies of self-presentation aimed at specific political goals. Contemporary accounts, and two recorded interactions between the women, show no evidence of rivalry. Their continued contact, long after Charles VIII's death freed them from any mutual obligation, indicates that their relationship had grown affectionate. They continued to construct and cultivate their friendship in the absence of any political or social necessity.

“Like the Army of God’s Camp”: Political Theology and Apocalyptic Warfare at Charlemagne’s Court

The political theology of Charlemagne’s court drew upon theological concepts to interpret contemporary events and fashion an identity for the populus christianus of the Frankish empire. The formulation of this political theology occurred against a background of political and military crises. A number of sources written by his ecclesiastical courtiers refer to the castra Dei, the militant ecclesia, or “assembly of God’s people,” commanded by Charlemagne, on pilgrimage through the dangerous last days of world history. These apocalyptic dangers called for enhanced royal authority to defend the castra Dei through a program of correction. Correction supported consensus among the king and his ecclesiastical and lay magnates, stabilizing the kingdom internally. Correction also established “liturgical frontiers” separating the orderly and peaceful castra Dei from the world’s chaotic paganism and heresy. This attempt to distinguish the castra Dei from its spiritual enemies gave Charlemagne’s empire coherence in its political and military conflicts with enemies over contested frontier zones. The apocalyptic rhetoric surrounding references to the castra Dei was connected to political necessity, rather than expectation of an imminent apocalypse.

Hope and hopelessness: A dialogue

This article is a critical dialogue between Lisa Duggan and José Esteban Muñoz that meditates on questions of public feelings and politics. The authors approach hope and hopelessness as a dialectical formation, ultimately calling for both a critical modality of hope and insisting on the political necessity of engaging feelings of hopelessness that do not simply lead to complacency. The essay melds social theory with concepts from the psychological.

Claiming a Stake in the Videogame

This article explores the rationalizations and normalizations adult gamers offer in their justifications of both gaming 'itself', and the possession of a videogame console. While there has been a proliferation in research on the videogame recently in terms of what Kerr et al. describe as the 'productive use of new media' (in their 2006 article 'New Media — New Pleasures?' p. 64), which includes issues relating to gender, pleasure, production and gameplay as well as more ethnographic research relating to young people and games, there has been a significant gap in research around adult gamers. This article is the result of four years' ethnographic research, which followed 11 participant gaming households (along with the questionnaire of over 100 respondents), recording, interviewing and observing them prior to, during and after gameplay. Included in this demographic are all-female and all-male households, mixed gender, sexuality and ethnicity, and diverse geographical intake from Northern Ireland to southern England. Throughout my research and this article, I argue the political and social necessity of including gamers and their discourses into research on gaming in order to better understand the significance of gaming and gaming discourses on our social and political lives.

Science in the Obama Administration

President Obama has stated his intent to reclaim science as a political and social necessity, and has backed words with action: highlighting scientific issues that impact all of us, appointing prominent scientists to his administration, and using public policy and funding to further scientific studies. These and similar initiatives may provide museums and science educators with increasing opportunities to facilitate meaningful dialogue about science and technology-related issues. The socially sensitive nature of many of these issues and the need for public engagement require public programs to move beyond education to discussion. Centers of informal learning are especially apt institutions to meet these needs and to empower society around science. Science centers and museums have begun to encourage citizens to participate actively in dialogues and debates; and as science blossoms at all levels of U.S. society, this role should only grow.

A co-infecção AIDS/Hepatite C e a equipe de enfermagem em um hospital especializado

A Hepatite C é uma doença que afeta cerca de 30% das pessoas com HIV/aids em todo o mundo. Este trabalho teve por objetivo caracterizar o grau de conhecimento, de percepção, questões correlacionais e de segurança dos profissionais de enfermagem sobre a co-infecção aids/hepatite C, em um hospital especializado em doenças transmissíveis, localizado no interior do Estado de São Paulo – Brasil, no período de outubro de 2005 a novembro de 2006. Trata-se de um estudo exploratório de natureza qualitativa, realizado com 14 profissionais de enfermagem que atuam no referido hospital. Avaliou-se, também, a caracterização dos mesmos quanto à idade, sexo, tempo na profissão e tempo na instituição, por meio de perguntas fechadas. Pôde-se identificar a falta de informação dos profissionais sobre a doença; ausência de política de treinamento e capacitação dos mesmos pela instituição e ainda o desconhecimento das formas de transmissão, gerando a utilização exagerada e sem critério de equipamentos de proteção. É necessária a capacitação e atualização das equipes de enfermagem sobre a doença, em especial os profissionais com mais tempo de formados, contribuindo assim para melhora das condições de trabalho e da qualidade da assistência de enfermagem oferecida.

Nonconventional Fuels for High-Temperature Fuel Cells: Status and Issues

The pressing environmental and political necessities of modern international society call for a suitable array of contingency solutions to the energy question. One valid alternative to fossil fuels, for example, is the use of alternative or nonconventional fuels, derived from waste or biomass. Combining these resources with fuel cell applications would provide a significant contribution to environmentally friendly and efficient energy use. Through a comprehensive literature survey and the collection of practical case studies and operational experience, an assessment of the potential for coupling with high-temperature fuel cells of three technologies of alternative fuel production—landfill, anaerobic digestion, and gasification—has been attempted. Though landfill is the easiest technology, anaerobic digestion produces superior quality gas and has the benefit of yielding extra fertilizer, in the form of digestate. Gasification is the most demanding of the technologies but is very flexible in its feedstock. Furthermore, using steam as a gasifying agent produces high quality syngas. However, the main issue with all three technologies is the removal of contaminants, in particular, sulfur. The application of high-temperature gas cleanup is demonstrated to bring considerable advantages on system level when gasification of nonconventional fuels is considered. Ultimately, the reforming step is a key aspect for optimal cost-effective integration of these alternative systems. The review provided establishes the key characteristics of alternative fuel conversion by landfill, anaerobic digestion, and gasification, and exposes the major points of attention for their subsequent application in high-temperature fuel cells. Indications of the measures required and the developments in the field of basic research and system integration are given to provide clear paths of activity, which should bring about the wide-scale implementation of a truly promising application of fuel cell systems.