The Parable of Matthew: Identity Politics, Politics of Desire, and the Politics of Performance

Matthew Shepard's murder in October 1998 provides an opportunity to examine and reconsider identity politics as they play out around Matthew's body. After a sustained critique of identity politics, the author proposes, in their stead, a politics of performance, which offers a constructive alternative to current political agendas by allowing the simultaneous preservation and erasure of difference.     

Reason, Politics, and the Politics of Truth: How Science Is Both Autonomous and Dependent

The concept of "science" usually includes commitments to reason, objectivity, and disinterest in the search for truth about the nature of the world. In this view, politics, in the sense of maneuvering to gain power, corrupts both the process and the product of science. However, we show that science is political through and through—in the process of constructing scientific knowledge, in maintaining disciplines, and in being responsive to partisan sponsorship. Nevertheless, the practitioners of both science and politics maintain the boundary between the two fields; in fact, the disciplines most dependent upon government support tend also to be the most autonomous. This situation becomes understandable when both fields are considered as discursive practices. Then, scientific debates can be seen as productive precisely because they derive from an objective agreement about science as an autonomous intellectual enterprise, and science itself can be seen as a politics of truth .     

Assessing Performance Budgeting at OMB: The Influence of Politics, Performance, and Program Size

This article investigates the impact of performance, as measuredby the OMB performance budgeting initiative called PerformanceAssessment Rating Tool (PART), on recommendations in the President'sbudget. In a multivariate analysis using data from the FY 2005budget, with appropriate controls for the political contentof programs, we find that the PART scores have a statisticallysignificant impact on budget decisions within OMB. We find thatPART scores have a larger impact on small and medium sized programsthan on large programs. We also find that the "results" componentof PART scores has a smaller impact on budget decisions thanthe "program purpose" component, a finding which tends to contradictthe goal of performance budgeting to redirect resources to programsthat produce results. The relative unimportance of the "results"component may be due to the lack of good outcome measures formost programs in PART.     

Book Review: Mass Media,Politics and Democracy,by John Street. Basingstoke,Palgrave, 2001

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Finding the Truth in Politics: An Empirical Validation of the Epistemic Political Efficacy Concept

Self-efficacy theory suggests that one’s perceived ability to successfully find facts may motivate political information seeking. A telephone survey of voters in a presidential campaign attempted to further validate the concept of epistemic political efficacy (EPE), or belief one can discover the “truth” in politics, and applied it to modern information-seeking behaviors. This study of North Carolina registered voters (N = 605) demonstrates that EPE adds predictive power beyond commonly used measures such as individual political efficacy for contemporary media use variables like online information seeking and partisan cable viewing. EPE was a stronger positive predictor of online information seeking than individual political efficacy. In addition, viewing partisan cable shows had a stronger relationship with EPE than mainstream TV news viewing, and EPE significantly predicted MSNBC viewing, even after controlling for partisanship. In a word, voters who are high in the belief that political facts or “truths” exist take steps to find and understand them.     

Population Migration and Urbanization in China: A Comparative Analysis of the 1990 Population Census and the 1995 National One Percent Sample Population Survey

This article examines the changing pattern of population migration and its implications for the urbanization process in China as revealed by the 1990 Population Census and the 1995 National One Percent Sample Population Survey. It is found that, in comparison with the period 1985–90, migration in the period 1990–95 tended to be more distance sensitive, reflecting the increase in the number of migration foci resulting from the policy of opening on all fronts. Foreign investment also appears to have a greater effect on migration flow. Proportionately, there was an increase in both village‐to‐village and city‐to‐city migrations. The former was most sensitive to increase in distance while the latter was least sensitive. As for rural‐to‐urban flows, which include both village‐to‐town and village‐to‐city flows, migrants in China increasingly bypassed the towns and ended up in the cities.     

The Guijin Therapist and the Nature of Therapeutic Truth: A Relational Perspective

The professional literature is replete with examples of the benefits of the client–clinician dyad being of the same ethnic group. Noted advantages include a perceived implicit understanding of the clients subjective experience and a furthering of the therapists personal and professional growth as a result of the therapeutic interaction. This paper suggests that there are also benefits to the clinician being considered a guijin or outsider to the clients culture of origin. Utilizing a relational perspective with an emphasis on multiple self-state theory, this paper will discuss the advantages of being perceived as an outsider when working with an Asian bicultural client.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual International Conference for the Advancement of Private Practice in Clinical Social Work in Lisbon, Portugal on June 8, 2002.     

Policy Legitimacy,Rhetorical Politics,and the Evaluation of City‐Street Video Surveillance Monitoring Programs in Canada

This article examines the evaluation and legitimization of city‐street video surveillance in Ontario, Canada. We demonstrate how monitoring programs are promoted, designed, and justified based on rhetorical claims about their efficacy. Although program evaluation data do not commonly corroborate or support program objectives, we show how the rhetorical politics of video surveillance evaluation research finds legitimacy by adhering to the Ontario privacy commissioner's best practices guidelines—guidelines that are formulated to minimize rhetoric in system design. The findings raise questions about how city‐street video surveillance remains a viable policy option given the lack of evidence pertaining to its usefulness.     

Just One Click Away: The Politics of E‐Commerce Sales Tax Policy

E‐commerce has altered the relationship between consumers, businesses, and U.S. states. E‐retailers are not required to collect sales tax from their customers, thus depriving fiscally insecure states of tax revenue, and providing a competitive advantage for e‐retailers, like Amazon Inc., in their struggle for market share with brick‐and‐mortar stores, like Walmart. Attempts at e‐commerce sales tax policy by state legislators and brick‐and‐mortar lobbyists failed until 2008 when New York successfully passed legislation. A subsequent wave of legislation ensued, and between 2008 and 2012, e‐commerce sales tax legislation left committee in fourteen states, each experiencing various levels of success. Existing explanatory efforts have not fully accounted for the combinatorial effect of political–institutional structure and market contestation in U.S. state‐level policy creation, as well as the likelihood of multiple pathways to passage. Embracing this framework, I use fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to uncover three sufficient pathways for successful passage of e‐commerce sales tax policy. Two paths highlight the confluence of large retailer pressure and a conductive political–institutional structure facing fiscal stress, while the third path reflects political–institutional forces. These findings corroborate, as well as build upon, our knowledge of fiscal sociology, policy domains, and corporate power in American politics.     

Politics,institutional structures,and the rise of economics: A comparative study

Theory and Society -     

The Politics of Disability: A New Approach

This paper will argue that the politics of disability has, so far, been narrowly conceived as part of the processes of party and pressure group activity. These approaches will be examined critically and it will be suggested that they are unlikely to produce substantial political gains in terms of ensuring the full participation of disabled people in society or contribute significantly to improving the quality of their lives. Finally, it will be argued that the politics of disability can only be properly understood as part of the newly emergent social movements of all kinds and it is only within this context that their real significance can be grasped.     

The Politics of Migration,Church, and State: A Case Study of the Catholic Church in Ireland

This article investigates the ways in which a shift from post‐colonial nation building to neoliberal state restructuring has shaped church and Irish state relations regarding migrant welfare. It develops the extensive work of Bäckström and Davie (2010) and Bäckström et al. (2011) on how majority churches in European countries are reclaiming a social welfare role as the state relinquishes this responsibility: first, by examining the domain of migrant welfare which is not developed in their work; and second, by arguing that majority church pro‐migrant service provision, as it has evolved in recent decades, can be understood in relation to an emergent neoliberal mode of collective responsibility for migrant welfare. It suggests that in spite of other factors and forces that undermine Irish Catholic Church authority, the marketization of more domains of life in the first decades of the twenty‐first century has given new significance to Catholic Social Teaching and pro‐migrant church initiatives.     

The Mother and the Process of Truth

Beginning with associations on its own origins, this essay reflects on the precocity of “proto-gay” children, those born in the shadow of Stonewall, whose sexuality already imagined a different future. It postulates that there are multiple points of origin for reconstructing what we conventionally call the preoedipal “past.”     

The Legacy of Max Weber: A Non-Metaphysical Politics

Science, said Weber, cannot provide truth (only knowledge) and it cannot validate values (only help to achieve them) since reason, fact, and value are separate and unconnectable realms. In taking this position, Weber sought to remove social science from the metaphysical tradition of the West (in which it is still mired). For Weber, man creates his own meanings in a meaningless universe, a possibly moral creature with neither natural nor supernatural absolutes to guide him. This perspective gave Weber a unique detachment against all views of society, whether Traditional, Marxian, or his own preference, liberal, a detachment which contains unparalleled benefits for the student of contemporary society and its politics.