Polity articles from September 2000

Polity archives from September 2000

Lapsed Memory? The Roots of American Public Opinion Research.
September 22, 2000... We talk of public opinion as a new force in the world, conspicuous only since governments began to be popular. Lord Bryce, 1888(1) Although "public opinion" is a concept with a fairly long and rich history,(2) it became an integral...

The Skeptical Life in Hume's Political Thought(*).
September 22, 2000... I. Introduction David Hume is frequently identified as one of the first modern, "scientific" political philosophers.(1) There is also an extensive literature that reveals him to be a thoroughgoing skeptic.(2) Yet if Hume is indeed a...

Reappraising the Scottish Moralists and Civil Society(*).
September 22, 2000... I. Introduction: Reappraising the Scottish Moralists and Civil Society Discussions of the "public sphere," its relationship to "civil society," and the attenuation of both at the expense of the "private" are common features of contemporary...

The Court's Three Mashalls(*).
September 22, 2000... The battle over federalism on the Supreme Court again intensified in the spring of 1995 with two apparently contradictory decisions.(1) In U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton,(2) the Court ruled that state ballot restrictions on the number of...

The New Federalist Papers: Essays in Defense of the Constitution.(Review)
September 22, 2000... Alan Brinkley, Nelson W. Polsby and Kathleen M. Sullivan, The New Federalist Papers: Essays in Defense of the Constitution. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997. In 1937, after years of striking down New Deal legislation as unconstitutional, the...

We the People, Volume 2: Transformations.(Review)
September 22, 2000... Bruce Ackerman, We the People, Volume 2: Transformations. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. In 1937, after years of striking down New Deal legislation as unconstitutional, the Supreme Court, with the switch of a single vote in the...

Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism.(Review)
September 22, 2000... Peter Berkowitz, Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999). From the early 1980s to the early 1990s, many political theorists despaired about the capacity of liberal political thought to...

Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in Multicultural Democracy.(Review)
September 22, 2000... Stephen M. Macedo, Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in Multicultural Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000). From the early 1980s to the early 1990s, many political theorists despaired about the capacity of liberal...

Civic Liberalism: Reflections on Our Democratic Ideals.(Review)
September 22, 2000... Thomas A. Spragens, Jr., Civic Liberalism: Reflections on Our Democratic Ideals (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999). From the early 1980s to the early 1990s, many political theorists despaired about the capacity of liberal political...

Health and Beauty in the Body Politic: Subjectivity and Urban Space(*).
September 22, 2000... A whole history remains to be written of spaces--which would at the same time be the history of powers... --from the great strategies of geo-politics to the little tactics of the habitat. -- Michel Foucault, "The Eye of Power" People...

The Formation of Character: Mill's "Ethology" Reconsidered(*).(John Stuart Mill)(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2000... In the acrimonious atmosphere of contemporary American politics, conservatives pride themselves on having character, criticize their liberal foes for neither having nor valuing it, and aspire to instill it in the young.(1) For American...