Minerva and the Crane (Tsuru): Birds of a Feather? Comparative Research and Japanese Political Change—A Review Article

1980 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Benjamin

Recent work on Japanese politics, as presented in five representative works reviewed here is based increasingly on comparative (cross-national) frameworks of analysis. The studies allow us to consider once again the relationship between area-based (contextual) and comparative-based knowledge. This essay argues that we are further ahead in our understanding of Japanese politics if we move toward strategies of theory construction that place Japanese and comparative research in explicit juxtaposition. Arguments both for and against area-based and comparative-based explanations form the foundations of the conclusions developed.

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rahul Rao

This review article surveys recent work on time and temporality in international relations. It begins with an overview of Kimberly Hutchings’s influential history of ideas exploring the relationship between chronos (quantitative experience of time) and kairos (qualitative conceptualisation of time). Building on the architecture of Hutchings’s argument, it surveys more recent scholarship that supplements, extends and complicates her insights in two ways. First, while Hutchings focuses on the way in which theorisations of kairos shift over time, the development of a unified global chronotic imaginary was itself a contested process, frequently interrupted by kairotic considerations. Second, while Hutchings is interested in western conceptualisations of kairos, recent work has shifted the analytical focus to those subject positions marginalised by such kairotic imaginaries.


2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Hug

Selection bias is an important but often neglected problem in comparative research. While comparative case studies pay some attention to this problem, this is less the case in broader cross-national studies, where this problem may appear through the way the data used are generated. The article discusses three examples: studies of the success of newly formed political parties, research on protest events, and recent work on ethnic conflict. In all cases the data at hand are likely to be afflicted by selection bias. Failing to take into consideration this problem leads to serious biases in the estimation of simple relationships. Empirical examples illustrate a possible solution (a variation of a Tobit model) to the problems in these cases. The article also discusses results of Monte Carlo simulations, illustrating under what conditions the proposed estimation procedures lead to improved results.


Author(s):  
Rainer Forst

This chapter addresses the classical question of the relationship between enlightenment and religion. In doing so, the chapter compares Jürgen Habermas's thought to that of Pierre Bayle and Immanuel Kant. For, although Habermas undoubtedly stands in a tradition founded by Bayle and Kant, he develops a number of important orientations within this tradition and has changed his position in his recent work. The chapter studies this change to understand Habermas's position better. It also draws attention to a fundamental question raised by the modern world: what common ground can human reason establish in the practical and theoretical domain between human beings who are divided by profoundly different religious (including antireligious) views?


Author(s):  
Christopher Hilliard

At this point the chapters catch up in time with the events narrated in the prologue. Chapter 5 begins by recounting George Nicholls’ discoveries in June 1921. The detective searched the Goodings’ and Swans’ houses and took from the Swans’ a quantity of blotting paper that bore the imprint of some of the libels. Rose Gooding’s handwriting was very different. When Sir Archibald Bodkin, the Director of Public Prosecutions, read Nicholls’ report, he declared that this was fundamentally ‘a case of handwriting’. How, Bodkin mused, could an ‘uneducated’ woman develop such a distinctive style? The chapter uses Bodkin’s reaction to Rose Gooding’s letters, the evidence provided by spelling and misspelling, and the inventory of writing paraphernalia in the Gooding and Swan households, to explore the relationship between popular literacy and agency, engaging with the recent work of Jane Caplan and Patrick Joyce.


Author(s):  
Dennis C. Spies

The chapter summarizes the New Progressive Dilemma (NPD) debate, identifying three arguments from comparative welfare state and party research likely to be relevant to the relationship between immigration and welfare state retrenchment: public opinion, welfare institutions, and political parties. Alignment of anti-immigrant sentiments and welfare support varies considerably between countries, especially between the US and Europe, leading to different party incentives vis-à-vis welfare state retrenchment. The chapter introduces insights from comparative welfare state and party research to the debate, discussing inter alia, political parties in terms of welfare retrenchment, immigrants as a voter group, and cross-national variation of existing welfare institutions. It addresses the complex debates around attitudinal change caused by immigration, levels of welfare support, voting behavior, and social expenditures. Combining these strands of literature, a common theoretical framework is developed that is subsequently applied to both the US and Western European context.


2010 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Estelle Dannhauser

The article is a lengthy review of the book Jesus’ resurrection in Joseph’s garden by P.J.W. (Flip) Schutte. The book represents a quest to trace the relationship between Jesus’ resurrection, myth and canon. Schutte finds the origin of events underlying the biblical canon in proclamation. His focus in the book is the proclamation of the death and resurrection of Christ, which, in its developmental stages, hinged on the life and death of the historical Jesus. Proclamation developed into a mythical narrative that became the foundational myth for the Christ cult, validating its existence and rituals. With the growth and institutionalisation of the faith community (church), came an increased production of literature, causing the power-wielding orthodoxy to identify a body of literature containing the ‘truth’ and ‘correct teaching’, thus establishing the authoritative canon. In, through, behind and beyond Jesus of Nazareth, Schutte has perceived a canon behind the canon: a God of love. In Jesus, the man of myth with historical roots who has become to us the observable face of God, Schutte confesses the kerygma to open up before him. The proclamation therefore extends an invitation to join in a mythological experience and an encounter with God whose love is preached in the metaphor called Easter.


SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 215824402110101
Author(s):  
Xheni Simaku

The global society which we live in nowadays makes us rethink about media system, global dynamics, and the operation of the influences that these dynamics have on national media systems. Starting from the book by Hallin and Mancini’s (2004) Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics, and under the Polarized Pluralist Model they proposed, the aim of this work is to compare Turkish and Italian journalists’ professionalization. This research has been conducted under the concept of professionalization that these authors suggested in their work and, more specifically, under the Polarized Pluralist Model, in which Hallin and Mancini recognize countries like Italy have the main characteristics described by the model; Turkey can also be included. The main goal of this work is to underline not only the similarities but also the differences that are encountered in these two countries in the journalistic professionalization. The methodology used is in-depth interviews with 10 journalists: five Italian and five Turkish journalists chosen from the biggest journals in their respective countries. Main topics taken into consideration were autonomy, clientelism, and professionalization in journalism based on ethics values. Even if the Polarized Pluralist Model seems to fit in both countries from a macro perspective, with the in-depth interviews, it is clearly seen that different cross-national nuances come out.


1979 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 494-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. McCormick ◽  
Young W. Kihl

In this study, we evaluate whether the increase in the number of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) has resulted in their increased use for foreign policy behavior by the nations of the world. This question is examined in three related ways: (1) the aggregate use of IGOs for foreign policy behavior; (2) the relationship between IGO membership and IGO use; and (3) the kinds of states that use IGOs. Our data base consists of the 35 nations in the CREON (Comparative Research on the Events of Nations) data set for the years 1959–1968.The main findings are that IGOs were employed over 60 percent of the time with little fluctuation on a year-by-year basis, that global and “high politics” IGOs were used more often than regional and “low politics” IGOs, that institutional membership and IGO use were generally inversely related, and that the attributes of the states had limited utility in accounting for the use of intergovernmental organizations. Some of the theoretical implications of these findings are then explored.


1988 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia W. Ingraham ◽  
B. Guy Peters

Despite obvious cross-national political and cultural differences, civil service reform policies exhibit strong similarities. An examination of reform efforts in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia emphasizes the centrality of politics and political processes to administrative reform. This is true for mechanical or procedural reform, structural reform and what we termed “relational reforms,” or, reforms aimed at restructuring the relationship between politicians and career civil servants. The overriding influence of politics reduces policy design considerations and often results in solutions that do not match the problems being addressed. The outcomes are new bureaucratic problems and the need for additional reforms.


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