Social Research articles from December 2000

Social Research archives from December 2000

Editor's Note.(letter)
December 22, 2000... I would like to call the reader's attention to the statement appearing on page v, sent to Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi by Hanny Megally, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, in protest...

Erratum.
December 22, 2000... Robert Dahl's article, "Shifting Boundaries of Democratic Governments" (Social Research 66:3, Fall 1999), contains an error in Table 6 (p. 923). Due to a mistaken transcription of the population of Britain, the population total for the older...

An Open Letter to Ayatollah Hashemi-Shahroudi from Human Rights Watch.(Abstract)
December 22, 2000... NOVEMBER 2, 2000, NEW YORK--In an open letter sent to Iran's chief judicial official, Human Rights Watch called for an end to the prosecution of prominent independent and reformist figures who attended an international conference last April....

Is Patriotism a Mistake?(*).(Abstract)
December 22, 2000... Is patriotism a mistake? I think that it is a mistake twice over: It is typically a grave moral error and its source is typically a state of mental confusion. But the mistake of patriotism is an inevitable mistake. It cannot be avoided; almost...

Good-bye to Dictatorships?(democracies on the rise push dictators out)
December 22, 2000... WITH the end of one-party rule in Mexico, the longest transition to democracy is apparently completed; the world's oldest surviving authoritarian regime is now dying. While the twentieth was a century that saw a variety of dictatorships, we...

The Role of Civil Nations in the Making of Europe(*).
December 22, 2000... IN some circles, the formation process of the European Union is discussed as if it should go ahead whatever the cost to member states on the assumption that we may conceive of them, Europe, and the different European nations as separate...

A Sociological Theory of Publics: Identity and Culture as Emergent Properties in Networks(*).(Abstract)
December 22, 2000... Introduction Is the Habermasian model of the public sphere useful in analyzing non-Western societies? The emergence of new democracies in the post-Soviet bloc has encouraged the transfer of the Habermasian model eastward to help explain...

Psychiatric Categories as Natural Kinds: Essentialist Thinking about Mental Disorder.(Abstract)
December 22, 2000... IN a penetrating ethnographic study of American psychiatry, Tanya Luhrmann (2000) comes to a troubling diagnosis. At the end of the century, psychiatric practice, theory, and training are riven by a deep divide between two ways of understanding...

One-Self: A Meditation on the Unity of Consciousness.(Abstract)
December 22, 2000... I AM looking at my baby son as he thrashes around in his crib, arms flailing, hands grasping randomly, legs kicking the air, head and eyes turning this way and that, a smile followed by a grimace crossing his face, and I wonder: What is it like...

How a Social Construct Caused Scientific Stagnation: A Neuro Case History.(Abstract)
December 22, 2000... Scientific Revolution WHAT does it take to revolutionize a science? Before someone has the seminal idea, there are telltale findings, anomalous results that challenge the status quo. Yet the anomalies alone are not sufficient to overthrow...

Fear: A Genealogy of Morals(*).(feelings of vulnerability)(Abstract)
December 22, 2000... FEAR is an ancient topic in the history of political thought. According to Thucydides, the Athenians claimed it was one of the three "strongest motives" for human action--the other two being honor and interest (1982, p. 44). Aristotle devoted a...

Nature, Freedom, and Responsibility: Ernst Mayr and Isaiah Berlin.(eminent scientists from early 20 century)(Abstract)
December 22, 2000... As moral beings, we humans are faced with an increasingly urgent theoretical and practical task for which we are singularly ill prepared: thoughtfully considering as one human communities, nature, and our long-term ethical responsibilities to...

Must Privacy and Sexual Equality Conflict? A Philosophical Examination of Some Legal Evidence(*).(Abstract)
December 22, 2000... ARE rights to privacy consistent with sexual equality? In a brief but influential article, Catherine MacKinnon trenchantly laid out feminist criticisms of the right to privacy. In "Privacy v. Equality: Beyond Roe v. Wade," she outlined familiar...