Polity articles from June 2002

Polity archives from June 2002

Whose rights? Whose responsibility? Self-help in African-American thought *.
June 22, 2002... A mood of widespread mistrust of and disillusionment with government was one factor that brought the strategy of "self-help" to the forefront of recent public policy debates about race in America, especially debates about the plight of the...

Contact, community context, and public attitudes toward gay men and lesbians *.
June 22, 2002... In recent years, public policy decisions related to equal rights for homosexuals have been among the most hotly debated issues in the United States and other industrial democracies. Matters such as gays in the military, same-sex marriages, and...

Turning the tables: state and society in South America's economic integration *.
June 22, 2002... Latin America's economic performance was extraordinarily uneven during the 1990s. The region saw a return of international capital in the first half of the decade, following the "lost decade" of the 1980s and its punishing debt crisis. Optimism...

Who lost nature? Rousseau and Rousseauism.
June 22, 2002... In this essay, I take up Rousseau's justification of nature, as it is widely understood. That justification entails an account of nature so implausible and even strange that it is hard to believe anyone, let alone one of the most influential...

Justifying empire: Pericles, Polk, and a dilemma of democratic leadership *.(national interest versus justice in foreign policy)
June 22, 2002... Democratic justifications of empire reveal a tension between the demands of the national interest and those of justice that democratic leaders must always face in their conduct of foreign policy. The imperialism of Periclean Athens and the...

Surrogates for deliberation and the United States Constitution *.
June 22, 2002... Here I attempt to understand the circumstances and principles under which nondeliberative political activities may advance the principles and aspirations implicit in the United States Constitution. I take up the questions of what the...

Recasting the left at the "end of history" *.(Critical Essay)
June 22, 2002... Eric Hobsbawn's well-known dictum "The old century has not ended well" captures the amalgam of tragedies and missed opportunities in the twentieth century, and evokes the apparent absence of leftist political alternatives in its aftermath. With...