THE NEW FRONTIER: WEB-BASED EDUCATION IN US CULTURE

The USA has always prided itself on the defence of freedom for all its peoples, democracy as well as being on the leading edge of innovations. The USA, therefore, is a particularly unique setting for an examination of the rhetoric associated with the politics of adopting online learning technologies. This paper examines the context of the US on-line learning system with a particular focus on those aspects of the movement which appeal so keenly to Americans. Certain values are expressed in this movement which are almost uniquely American such as democracy, freedom, efficiency, independence, the vocational nature of education, and meritocratic schemes for education as a sorting mechanism for the society.     

IRELAND: DISTANCE EDUCATION IN AN EXPANDING DEMOCRACY

The recent and explosive development of the Irish economy has earned the Republic the popular accolade, CelticTiger . Enticed by government subsidies and tax incentives, foreign investors favour location in Ireland in order to penetrate the Single European Market (SEM). Commensurate with the demands of foreign investors for a fully developed infrastructure, the deregularization of the Irish Telecoms market (1998) has afforded new opportunities for the transformation of education and training in Ireland. This paper explores the democratizing potential of distance education within the Irish Republic. It focuses on awareness programmes and initiatives for the promotion of information technology (IT) access, and considers particular challenges in ensuring equal access to the benefits of new technologies, for all.     

PARTY DEMOCRACY ON-LINE: UK PARTIES AND NEW ICTS

This paper examines the impact of new information and communications technologies (ICTs) on levels of intra-party democracy in the UK in light of recent claims of increasing centralization of power and marginalization of members within West European political parties. Specifically, it examines whether parties adoption of the internet, in the shape of an internal computer communication system (ICCS) and internal party groups' use of the World Wide Web (WWW), is promoting intra-party democracy in two areas: (1) the vertical distribution of power between members and elites; (2) the spatial concentration of power between intra-party groupings and central party elites. The findings show that while many parties have made use of the internet for internal communication there is no concerted effort being made by parties to harness its potential to promote members input into decision-making and elite accountability.     

THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC MEDIA CULTURES

This paper seeks to tie in the arguments that can be connected to the development of a global media culture and concerns around cosmopolitan forms of democracy. This is done by considering arguments for: (i) a global human right initiative in respect of global media conglomerates; (ii) technological change in respect of digital cultures; and (iii) the arrival of what Castells'shas described as the culture of 'real virtuality'. These views and perspectives are assessed in terms of the contributions they are likely to make towards what I call a 'cautious cosmopolitanism'. Finally I seek to make some definite policy recommendations that might help foster conditions in which cosmopolitan democracy could flourish.     

JUNK-KING EDUCATION

The author examines the political and pedagogical implications of the rise of the education conglomerate by focusing on Michael Milken's Knowledge Universe. The discussion includes the increasing corporate control over knowledge production in both education and mass media exploring effects in varied fields including child care, online education, and entertainment.     

DEMOCRACY AND INFORMATION : A CASE STUDY OF NEW LOCAL GOVERNACE STRUCTURES IN BANGALORE

The phenomenon of rapid urbanization is posing challenges to planners in developing countries. As it becomes harder and harder for planners to disentangle the global from the local, it is increasingly recognized that without a solid local base, city governments will not have the strength that is needed to navigate global circuits. This social integration requires democratized political mechanisms based on administrative decentralization and the participation of citizens in municipal management. Our paper focuses on the role of information in the democratic process looking at a case study of new local governance structures in Bangalore. The city has become a focal point for software development regionally and globally.Such regional and global interconnections are taking place simultaneously with a number of local level initiatives aimed at encouraging democratic decisionmaking via legislation and by introducing new local governance structures.     

DEMOCRACY IN THE INFORMATION AGE: THE ROLE OF THE FOURTH ESTATE IN CYBERSPACE

Journalism faces attack from two areas. From one direction it has to repel the pressures from its new owners, the media conglomerates, that have exacerbated the traditional problems of professional news. From another, new forms of political and government communication with the public are emerging. The Internet is displacing the journalistic role of providing information and interpretation for the citizen. This article assesses the future for journalism within the public sphere and asks whether journalism can perform its normative functions in the digital age.     

THE IMPURITY OF REPRESENTATION AND THE VITALITY OF DEMOCRACY

This article compares the conceptions of democratic representation found in the work of Ernesto Laclau and Hanna Pitkin. Whereas Laclau takes Pitkin as his foil, I contend that her treatment of representation has much more in common with Laclau's than he gives her credit for. Pitkin made a bold critique of foundationalist notions of responsiveness and acknowledged representation's constitutive function. Yet, her antipathy to symbolic representation made Pitkin recoil from the most radical implications of her argument: she would see as a threat to democratic politics that which Laclau casts as its vitality. Laclau's work, then, does not merely refute Pitkin's but advances a line of argument that she set into motion.     

PUBLIC PEDAGOGY AS CULTURAL POLITICS: STUART HALL AND THE CRISIS OF CULTURE

This article argues that Stuart Hall's work provides an important theoretical framework for developing an expanded notion of public pedagogy, for making the pedagogical central to any understanding of political agency, and for addressing the primacy of public pedagogy and cultural politics in any viable theory of social change. Hall's work becomes particularly important not only in making education crucial to the practice of cultural studies, but also in providing a theoretical and political corrective to recent attacks on cultural politics, which cut across ideological lines and include theorists as politically diverse as Harold Bloom, Richard Rorty and Todd Gitlin.     

INTERNATIONAL OUTSOURCING AND THE PRODUCTIVITY OF LOW-SKILLED LABOR IN THE EU

This article presents first insights into the role of international outsourcing on the productivity of low-skilled workers in EU manufacturing. Whereas in the short run international outsourcing exhibits a negative marginal effect on real value added per low-skilled worker, the long-run parameter estimates reveal a positive impact. This may be explained by imperfections in European labor and goods markets, which prohibit an immediate adjustment in the factor employment and the output structure. The change in the outsourcing intensity since 1993 alone acounts for a long-run increase of about 6.0% in the real value added per low-skilled worker. (JEL C33 , F14 , F15 )     

RE-CANONIZING MARX

In this article, I underline the continuing intellectual force and rhetorical sophistication of The Communist Manifesto. Both in terms of its explanatory and normative strategy, and in terms of the way it handles the discursive balance between monologue and dialogue, there are, remarkably, still fresh things to say about the way Marx's thought works in this text. The favourable reception given to the Manifesto on its sesqui-centenary is also due to the increased awareness in today's audience of the apparently uncontrollable character of global capitalism, and the deep inequalities and uncertainties it continues to produce. Renewed appreciation of Marx's discursive quality, together with the new-found resonance of aspects of his substantive theories, raises again the question of Marx's status in cultural studies and sociological theory. This study discusses Marx in the light of the whole question of canonicity, and argues that Marx's re-canonization, if that is what is happening, is inevitably double-edged. On the one hand, it is indeed salutary to return to Marx after a prolonged phase of reflexivity, while at the same time the shift towards questions of discourse and affect in the human sciences has itself been responsible in part for sensitizing us to the distinctive effect of Marx's words. If the return of Marx properly radicalizes once more our sense of the point and practice of the human sciences, his legacy is nevertheless unlikely to regain exclusive authority among the plurality of sources for critique and action.     

SUSTAINABILITY OF THE FRIEDMAN RULE IN AN INTERNATIONAL MONETARY POLICY GAME

This article develops a two-country monetary economy model in order to analyze the international monetary policy game between governments and the domestic monetary policy game between each government and its private sector. We prove that if governments can commit to their own private sectors, the cooperative equilibrium of the game between governments is for them to follow the Friedman rule. When governments lack such ability to commit, we find that the Friedman rule is more likely to be sustained in our open-economy model than in the closed-economy model of Ireland. ( JEL E31, E52, E61)     

CHINA'S FUTURE WITH DISTANCE EDUCATION: Rhetoric and realities

China has a long history of distance education with one of the largest and longest standing television distance delivery systems in the world. However, with the advent of online learning environments, China must face a brave new world of innovation. This paper examines the political rhethoric surrounding the allocation of funds and energies to online learning and considers critical components of that rhetoric including democracy, market driven education, open access, as well as issues of power, customization, and globalization which affect the ways in which China adopts new online learning technologies.     

ENHANCING DISCOURSE ON NEW TECHNOLOGY WITHIN HIGHER EDUCATION

Universities face challenges in creating and nurturing reflective discourse about ICTs within higher education. Constraints to this discourse include time-space compression caused by ICTs, and changing perceptions of the university's role in an information society. In answering these challenges, a call is made for elevating the role of higher education in public knowledge formation. Such a move reduces the constraints of time pressures by valuing discussion and debate and the time required for these activities, and questions authority and credibility gained solely due to practical and discursive technological competency. Thus, the question is not just to explore how communications technologies are shaping our experience of time and space, but to debate how we wish to use technologies and other means to shape and create the time and space in which meaningful human social and political life is possible. Institutions of higher education should both serve as sites for public knowledge formation, and as contributors to such initiatives in civic society.     

PROBLEMS OF THE POST-WAR PUBLIC: POST-WAR EDUCATION IN ENEMY COUNTRIES

"IT would be better," says Dr. Carr, "to let the children ofGermany and Japan grow up untutored than to have their mindstwisted and their virtue destroyed by the kind of teaching thathas been imposed on them in the past ten years." Few readerswill dispute the point. But what beyond that bare statementcan be proposed? In the last issue of the QUARTERLY, GregorZiemer suggested one program. In the pages which follow, WilliamG. Carr spells out a minimum plan for the international supervisionof education in enemy countries after the war. Dr. Carr is secretary of the Educational Policies Commissionand a veteran in the field of education for democracy. He representsa point of view which is gaining increasing support in thiscountry and in Britain.