Tone Of Debate Research Articles

The tone of Black Theology debates towards democratic dispensation in South Africa: 1985–1994

The tone of the Black Theology debates took different forms depending on the relevant political processes and dispensations in which they were debated. This situation played itself out in South Africa over the years, from the introduction of Black Theology in the late 1960s to the introduction of the democratic order in 1994. The changing socio-political context in South Africa over the years determined the shape or tone of these debates. This article examines the history of Black Theology debates in South Africa, covering the almost 10-year period between 1985 and 1994. The nature of the debate took a different turn during this period than before and after. The author will therefore highlight the political climate in South Africa that shaped the debates, examine the genesis of Black Theology and historically examine the debate about it over the period under review. Ultimately, a path forward should be developed. The study draws on existing literature through a qualitative review method for carrying out this project.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article examines the tone of Black Theology debates between 1985 and 1994 towards the transition to democracy in South Africa. Although it is located in the field of missiology, it also has interdisciplinary implications for disciplines such as history, sociology and practical theology.

More power, less influence: European union actors in media debates on fiscal policy after the eurocrisis

ABSTRACT Stronger European Union (EU) competencies come with greater media presence, according to existing cross-sectional comparisons. While presence comes with the power to influence public discourse, we know little about how it affects the overall tone of public discourse. This article investigates the effect of the empowerment of EU institutions on media presence and the tone of debate in the EU. It does this through an original claims analysis of newspaper articles in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, and Poland during the height of the Euro crisis (2011–2012), the Greek bailout crisis (2015), and the Italian budget crisis (2018). EU media presence indeed increases following empowerment. However, this does not result in a more pro-European debate, because pro-European national voices are crowded out. While this does not affect the desirability of austerity, it does harden Eurosceptic public discourse.

Cast your eye over the RCN election manifesto before you vote on 8 June

The general election is as much about the future of the NHS as it is about Brexit. You may be feeling swayed by the offers, promises or threats from one political party, or frustrated with the tone of debate, and undecided on how to vote. But, as the RCN says in its manifesto, all nursing counts – so make your opinions heard.

Understanding conservationists' perspectives on the new-conservation debate.

A vibrant debate about the future direction of biodiversity conservation centers on the merits of the so‐called new conservation. Proponents of the new conservation advocate a series of positions on key conservation ideas, such as the importance of human‐dominated landscapes and conservation's engagement with capitalism. These have been fiercely contested in a debate dominated by a few high‐profile individuals, and so far there has been no empirical exploration of existing perspectives on these issues among a wider community of conservationists. We used Q methodology to examine empirically perspectives on the new conservation held by attendees at the 2015 International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB). Although we identified a consensus on several key issues, 3 distinct positions emerged: in favor of conservation to benefit people but opposed to links with capitalism and corporations, in favor of biocentric approaches but with less emphasis on wilderness protection than prominent opponents of new conservation, and in favor of the published new conservation perspective but with less emphasis on increasing human well‐being as a goal of conservation. Our results revealed differences between the debate on the new conservation in the literature and views held within a wider, but still limited, conservation community and demonstrated the existence of at least one viewpoint (in favor of conservation to benefit people but opposed to links with capitalism and corporations) that is almost absent from the published debate. We hope the fuller understanding we present of the variety of views that exist but have not yet been heard, will improve the quality and tone of debates on the subject.

Feeding the Beast: Nourishing Nativist Appeals in Sweden and in Denmark

Sweden and Denmark share a similar socio-political structure, yet these two countries demonstrate two distinct discourses on immigration. This article focuses on the tone of the debate in Denmark and Sweden concerning immigration and national identity. If the tone of debate is shaped by a language of fear, we argue, this predisposes people to vote for anti-immigration parties. Our analysis highlights the position of anti-immigration parties; hence, the Sweden Democrats (SD) in Sweden and the Danish People’s Party (DPP) in Denmark. We use frame analysis to detect recurrent frames in the media debate concerning the SD and the DPP in the political competition over votes. Our material concentrates on the run-up to the European Parliamentary (EP) elections of 2004 and 2009, in total 573 articles in ten major Danish and Swedish newspapers. We show that the harsh tone of the debate and the negative dialogue risks leading to the construction of beasts that are impossible to negotiate with. In the Swedish political debate, the SD is highly stigmatized as the beast (the extreme other) in Swedish politics and this stigma is used by the SD in the mobilization of votes. In Denmark the religion of Islam as such plays a similar role and provides the DPP with an identity. We conclude that we are confronted with a two-faced beast that feeds on perceptions of the people as ultimately afraid of what are not recognized as native goods.

Lions under the Throne: the Constitutional Implications of the Debate on Prisoner Enfranchisement

This article considers the constitutional implications of the tenor of the enduring debate on the United Kingdom's compliance with the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Hirst v United Kingdom (No. 2) [2005] ECtHR 74025/01. Discussion of the enfranchisement of prisoners has been characterised by parliamentary reluctance to engage with the nexus between law and politics, and a strong tendency for concerns about the ECtHR to spill over into reckless denigration of the legal sphere as a whole. As such, the tone of debate on this high-profile issue is liable to erode mutual respect between the legislature and the courts, and to diminish the perceived legitimacy of the legal system. In a nation with an uncodified constitution, the effect of such erosion should not be underestimated. The true danger of the Hirst debate, this article contends, is that continued non-compliance will entrench mistrust of law, the rule of law and the judiciary, thereby allowing concerns about the Strasbourg court not only to undermine the UK's international standing, but also to destabilise the constitutional balance closer to home.

“In Bacteria Land”: The Battle over Raw Milk

Beginning at around 1893, America’s initial raw milk wars pitted proponents of pasteurized milk against advocates of a complex scheme for “certifying” clean, uncontaminated raw milk. The certification program, unsuited to modern commercial economies of scale, soon faded into obscurity. When a new version of the raw milk movement began gathering strength in the 1970s, scarcely anyone remembered the terms on which a certain amount of rational debate had once taken place. Part of the reason is that over the course of the twentieth century, the scale and structure of the fluid milk industry had undergone drastic changes that turned a highly variable, fragile product into a nearly featureless one poorly understood by consumers, regulators, or polemicists. Meanwhile, new dairying and processing practices had begun creating hospitable conditions for pathogens that were unknown during the first controversies but that urgently need to be considered today. Unfortunately, discussion of the raw milk question is now almost wholly dictated by intolerant ideologues on both sides, in an atmosphere of profound historical amnesia. Given the great complexity of the issues involved and the serious implications for public health, the general tone of debate is at best counterproductive.

Dark clouds on the urban horizon: petroleum and Australian planning

This paper reviews and examines the recent evidence on petroleum depletion and liquid energy supply security as a background to the special issue on oil vulnerability. The paper charts a change in the tone of debate about an oil supply shock from possibility to probability as signalled by the growing concerns of global risk assessors. The paper notes shifting global political relations between supplier and consumer nations. The discussion concludes by positioning Australia's national energy consumption and energy policies within this rapidly changing global frame.

"The White Women All Go for Sex": Frances Harper on Suffrage, Citizenship, and the Reconstruction South

For brief period immediately after Civil War, American reformers optimistically imagined a reconstructed republic would incorporate woman suffrage and abolitionist interests. An 1865 pamphlet entitled Convention for New York State conveys this optimism nobly, imagining reforms in state would elevate national politics. It endorses the right of suffrage to all citizens, without distinction of race or and envisions reconstruction of this Union [as] a broader, deeper work than restoration of rebel States. It is lifting of entire nation into practical realization of our Republican Idea (Equal Rights n. pag.). Below this appeal to make New York a genuine republic, pamphlet also advertises a group of convention speakers--including Henry Blackwell, Frederick Douglass, Frances Watkins Harper, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton--all of whom represent permutations of race and gender would constitute New York's new citizens (Equal Rights n. pag.). By end of decade, however, colorful optimism of this noble consensus would fade; men and women, black and white, would excoriate one another's views on race, gender, and class in debates over Fifteenth Amendment. While list of speakers at Equal Convention depicted a unified front, signs of disillusionment quickly appeared. For example, Frances Harper's 1866 speech We Are All Bound Up Together declared: I tell you if there is any class of people who need to be lifted out of their airy nothings and selfishness, it is white women of America (qtd. in Sklar 196). The debate grew even uglier at 1869 meeting of American Equal Association (AERA) led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, often called schism in woman suffrage movement. (1) Woman suffrage clashed with interests of black suffrage as a cohort of reformers who had previously collaborated fought bitter public battles over whether black men should attain voting rights before women. The animosity caused a split in racial and gender reform interests left black women like Harper at intersection of a divided community. Harper's somewhat infamous statement at convention, when it was a question of race she let question of sex go, seems to make a transparent choice of racial loyalty over her commitment to woman suffrage (Annual Meeting 247). If her comment was accurately recorded which is not certain it seems to conflict with more balanced arguments for black women's rights in her letters, speeches, and fiction. These sources tell us a great deal more about Harper's views during this critical historical moment than a brief AERA transcript can, and they also shed light on her distinct vision of political activism. Harper's AERA comment named two major points--race and sex coincide with two major problems she had with AERA: first, it reveals her frustration with sexual politics white women engaged to attack Fifteenth Amendment and anti-reformers had used persistently to deny African American citizenship; second, it indicates that, although both African Americans and women were under scrutiny as potential citizens, women's rights offered her nothing if they did not acknowledge her rights as a black woman. While one might infer Harper's lesser question of merely refers to gender and woman suffrage, tone of debate over Fifteenth Amendment and novel Harper was writing in 1869, Minnie's Sacrifice, indicate this question of sex also had to do with sexuality. Sexual politics, in this context, had much to do with stereotypes about sexual behavior rather than mere difference between men and women. Stanton and Paulina Davis, for example, insisted Fifteenth Amendment would place them in sexual jeopardy at hands of black tyrants ('[Annual Meeting 247). Davis even implied enfranchised black men would use their political power to pursue helpless white women, arguing, that sort of men should not have makings of laws for governance of women throughout land. …

Adjustment and Integration: The Scottish Representation in the British House of Commons, 1707–14*

The small minority of Scots who entered the house of commons in 1707 were slow to make their mark. Besides lack of numbers, they suffered several significant disadvantages. The Westminster scene was strange, and the style and tone of debate more vigorous and informal. Moreover, the aristocracy had dominated the unicameral Scottish parliament, and commoners found it difficult to emancipate themselves from noble tutelage. Most importantly, Scottish politics did not yet reflect the two‐party system dominant in England. Thus in the first sessions the Scots were unable to make headway in the essential business of parliament, legislation. Scotland suffered in comparison with the English provinces, and even the Irish, who were able to muster a more effective lobby. Soon, however, a new generation of debaters appeared, able to use their wit to discomfit English antagonists, and a new class of ‘men of business’ who grasped the rules of the legislative game. The fortuitous deaths of leading magnates and the polarisation of sectarian antagonisms in Scotland permitted the coalescence of the Scottish representation into two broad factions allied with the English parties. It was with English tory support that bills were passed to benefit the sectional concerns of Scottish episcopalians, accompanied by other measures of a more general nature. The combined attempt by Scottish peers and MPs in 1713 to secure the repeal of the union does not point to a lasting breakdown in Anglo‐Scottish relations, since it was also a manifestation of political opportunism by English whigs and discontented tories, and their Scottish allies. But the dawn of a party system in Scotland was dispelled by the death of Queen Anne and the ensuing jacobite rebellion. The complicity of tories in the Fifteen resulted in the destruction of the party in Scotland, and the construction of a whig hegemony.

Title IX: Forced to Wrestle up the Backside

Many doors of opportunity in educational endeavors opened for women following passage of Title IX (1). In 1971, year before enactment of law, women earned only one percent of dental degrees, nine percent of medical degrees and seven percent of law degrees. By 2000 number of women completing these professional programs grew to 40 percent of dental degrees, 43 percent of medical degrees, 46 percent of law degrees. Moreover, 44 percent of doctoral degrees went to women in year 2000, up from 14 percent in 1971 (Digest of Education Statistics, 2001). (2) Yet these impressive educational gains for women have not been focus of public attention regarding Title IX. Rather, impact of Title IX on scholastic athletics has dominated public discourse since passage of law. More specifically, women's success in education has met with a conservative backlash (3) focusing on Title IX and division of resources within collegiate athletics. Whereas Title IX became law thirty years ago, issue of Title IX compliance in athletics remains as hotly contested today as it was in 1972. Most recently, debate has been framed as an either/or division of resources between men's 'minor' (4) sports and women's athletics with Title IX as crux of argument. According to those who view Title IX as a threat to men's minor sports, rise in participation numbers in women's sport not only correlates to a decrease in men's 'minor' sport participation numbers, but is also cause of that decrease. In response, women's sport advocates argue that relationship between men's minor sport and women's sport is a spurious one with confounding factor being development of a big business sport model within collegiate programs. This model is reflected in escalating costs of men's football and basketball along with an 'arms' race for bigger and more elaborate facilities. skewed spending within athletic departments has not only contributed to decreases in opportunities in men's minor sport, but is also reason that women continue to receive less than their full share of athletic pie. In relation to wrestling, issue of Title IX has become more complicated in last decade, as women's grappling participation has grown. focus of this paper is a critical analysis of publicly mediated debates over issues surrounding Title IX and athletics with an attempt to understand cultural climate and far-reaching consequences for women. In this analysis, I examine public discourse surrounding Title IX and wrestling from 1972 through 2002. Sources include daily newspapers, Sports Illustrated, wrestling periodicals, and Chronicle of Higher Education. Using a critical cultural studies approach, I read media representations with an eye to deconstructing underlying intersecting lines of power relationships within broader social context. These mediated debates carry significance far beyond determining allocations of resources between men and women within athletic departments. Ultimately results and tone of debate have potential to bring changes to law that will carry far-reaching effects for gender relations starting with education and extending into professional realms women have accessed through increased opportunities in education. While mediated debates over Title IX may not dictate what people think, they do have power to determine what they think about. To put it simply: mass media have become core systems for distribution of ideology (Gitlin, 1980, p. 2). processed image, Title IX in this case, becomes the thing for a public that has few alternative sources of information, or none at all, for a perspective outside mainstream media. The media--at least in liberal capitalist society--take account of certain popular currents and pressures, symbolically incorporating them, repackaging and distributing them throughout society (Gitlin, 1980, p. …

The Tone of Debate in the Forum

The Tone of Debate in the Forum

The Tone of Debate in the Forum

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Live Bureaucrats and Dead Public Servants: How People in Government Are Discussed on the Floor of the House

This article examines how members of Congress refer to individuals in government on the House floor. Using content analysis, floor speeches from the 103rd and 104th Congresses were examined to determine the way in which terms such as “bureaucrats” and “public servants” were manipulated in floor speeches, and the political gain members seek to achieve from these moves. The data show that the Republican takeover of Congress led to a marked change in the tone of debate, and a sharp increase in pejorative discussions of individuals in government. Republicans tended to use bureaucrats in legislative debate in their efforts to shape the debate over the size and role of government.

South Africa's foreign policy: From international pariah to leader of the African renaissance

Although most observers have focused on the domestic impacts of South Africa's transition to democracy, most notably the dismantlement of its apartheid political system, this process has also entailed the transformation of South African foreign policy. As former President Nelson Mandela aptly explained in Foreign Affairs several months prior to victory in the presidential and legislative elections of 1994, he considered the charting of a new foreign policy as a 'key element' in the creation of a 'peaceful and prosperous' South Africa. The primary purpose of this article is to offer an assessment of the foreign policy adaptation strategies adopted by the Mandela and Mbeki administrations in their quest to further strengthen South Africa's ongoing transformation from an isolated international pariah to leader of the African renaissance. An initial section outlines five strategies designed to adapt South African foreign policy to the new realities of the post-apartheid era: restoring civilian control over the security apparatus; restructuring the foreign policy establishment; self promotion as the leader of the 'African renaissance'; adherence to the foreign policy principle of 'universality'; and assuming a leadership rôle in international organizations. Section two explores how the process of democratization has favoured the reemergence and strengthening of the rôles played by a wide variety of state and non-state actors within the foreign policymaking process. A final section sets out five issues that will continue to set the tone of debates over South African foreign policy well into the first decade of the new millennium. An important conclusion of the article is that although the case study of South Africa in many respects constitutes a microcosm of the foreign policy challenges confronting other African countries, it also offers insights into the foreign policy adaptation strategies pursued by emerging powers in other regions of the world.

Distributive justice and rationing in the NHS: framing effects in press coverage of a controversial decision.

Despite moves towards more openness over the allocation of treatment in the National Health Service (NHS), the public remains dependent upon the media for most of its information. This paper concerns the issue of rationing and how this was represented in newspaper articles following a controversial decision by a health authority to withhold a particular treatment from a 10-year old girl suffering from leukaemia. Relevant articles on this issue from a cross-section of newspapers were subjected to analysis using the method of Grounded Theory. Three major themes emerged: (i) the criteria for allocating treatment; (ii) who should make the decisions; and (iii) the consequences of transparency in the context of the current ‘market’ ethos in the NHS. Views diverged depending upon how the issue was framed, with some taking a patient-centred perspective and others emphasizing the dilemma of priority-setting. Some welcomed greater transparency, but for others this underlined the incompatibility of two distributive domains, namely, the delivery of care and compassion vs. the more ‘rational’ cost–benefit calculations associated with the economic domain. Overall, the tone of debate was at a fairly superficial level with little consensus about how to begin to address these issues. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.