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Reconsideration
Selected AbstractsTHE ENDURING POWER OF RACISM: A RECONSIDERATION OF WINTHROP JORDAN'S WHITE OVER BLACKHISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 2 2005LAURENCE SHORE ABSTRACT As a history of the origins and development of American racism, White over Black received great acclaim upon its publication in 1968. Deeply researched and covering some 650 pages, it eschewed professional jargon and offered a deft prose style and close attention to matters of sexuality in revealing the origins and lasting influence of racist attitudes arising from Englishmen's impressions of blacks before they became, preeminently, slaves in North America. Jordan's careful weighing of evidence and causation made readers appreciate what he believed his evidence repeatedly demonstrated about white Americans' attitudes toward African-Americans: "the power of irrationality in men." Despite the initial acclaim and scholarly achievement, White over Black soon lost pace with the curve of politics and academic fashion. By the mid-1970s, the post-World War II liberal consensus on racial issues had disintegrated, and professional historians were writing principally for other professional historians. Within a decade after its publication, White over Black was relegated to the wasteland of the "suggested supplemental reading list." However, the book's grasp of the fundamental historical issues requiring explanation has received recent affirmation from influential scholarly and political quarters. A dispassionate review of the literature leading up to and following White over Black's publication indicates that Jordan's emphasis on the causal contribution of racist attitudes to the rise of African slavery in British North America was on target. Moreover, Jordan's appreciation that academic historians should write for nonprofessionals is now widely held inside the academy. The historical accuracy and cogency of expression of Jordan's perspective on race and slavery make White over Black worth reexamining. [source] HOUSES FOR THE DEAD AND CAIRNS FOR THE LIVING; A RECONSIDERATION OF THE EARLY TO MIDDLE BRONZE AGE TRANSITION IN SOUTH-WEST ENGLANDOXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 2 2008ANDY M. JONES Summary. The Early to Middle Bronze Age transition period has often been interpreted as involving a move to ,rational' food-producing societies. More recently, models have been advanced which have highlighted the presence of ritualized practices within Middle Bronze Age society. However, many of these interpretations have largely been based upon evidence from excavated settlements in central southern England. This paper examines the need to consider the transition period at a more localized level and presents the evidence from south-west England. [source] Reconsideration of Rorty's View of the Liberal Ironist and its Implications for Postmodern Civic EducationEDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY AND THEORY, Issue 4 2004Duck-Joo KwakArticle first published online: 25 AUG 200 First page of article [source] Linking Purpose and Tactics: America and the Reconsideration of the Laws of War During the 1990sINTERNATIONAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVES, Issue 2 2008Stephanie Carvin The critique of the laws of war (and international law in general) coming out of America as the war on terror began seemed to have emerged as a response to the horror of 9/11 and the belief that the United States was now engaged in a "new paradigm" of warfare. However, the Bush administration's argument needs to be situated in a wider historical context. The source of the arguments against applying the Geneva Conventions to the prisoners caught in Afghanistan emerged well before 9/11 and can be traced to the end of the Cold War. These doctrines emerged out of the work of the "new sovereigntists" and out of the frustrations guided by coalition warfare. This paper seeks to trace the origin of these arguments which challenge the traditional division between jus ad bellum (the law governing the resort to force) and jus in bello (the law governing tactics in warfare). [source] Women's Place in the Family and the Convent: A Reconsideration of Public and Private in Renaissance FlorenceJOURNAL OF ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION, Issue 2 2001Saundra Weddle The public-private dichotomy has traditionally been defined by contrasting spaces that are open to those that are enclosed. Historical studies of Renaissance Italian architecture and cities have generally accepted this categorization and have relegated women of the period to the private realm,the domestic or the conventual setting. An examination of contemporary writings and of the function of so-called private spaces of a Florentine convent demonstrates that our understanding ofpublic andprivate must go beyond a consideration of formal criteria, and must also consider the identity and activities of the individuals who occupy the spaces in question. [source] 20th Century Contributions in Chinese Philosophy of Religion(s): From Deconstructive Contradiction to Constructive ReconsiderationJOURNAL OF CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, Issue 3-4 2003Lauren Pfister [source] Smoking as a Weight-Control Strategy among Adolescent Girls and Young Women: A ReconsiderationMEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2004MIMI NICHTER Many studies have reported that adolescent girls and young women smoke to control their weight. The majority of these studies are cross-sectional and report on correlational data from quantitative surveys. This article presents data from ethnographic interviews with 60 smokers, interviewed in high school and in follow-up interviews at age 21. Contrary to previous research, this study found little evidence for the sustained use of smoking as a weight-control strategy. In high school, smokers were no more likely than nonsmokers to be trying to lose weight. In the follow-up study, 85 percent of informants replied that they had never smoked as a way to control their weight. One-half of informants at age 21 believed that smoking as a weight-control strategy would be ineffective, while the other one-half had no idea whether it would work or not. Researchers need to exert caution in propagating the idea that smoking is commonly used as a conscious and sustained weight-control strategy among adolescent females and young women. [source] Milton's Meeting with Galileo: A ReconsiderationMILTON QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2005George F. Butler First page of article [source] Reconsideration of Economic Views of a Classical Empire and a Nation-State During the Mercantilist AgesAMERICAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY, Issue 3 2009Article first published online: 3 JUN 200, Mehmet Bulut While the main aim of the economic policies of European nation-states was to use the power of the state to promote trade and economic growth and to build up national industries and manufacture, the Ottoman Empire continued to follow its provisionist, fiscalist, and traditional economic policies of land expansion in the early modern period. In Western Europe, this experience gave birth to a new class that gradually improved its trade ability and expanding industries and markets under a capitalist system. The Ottoman imperial policy was mostly concerned about the continuity of strong central authority and land expansion, which never meant improving the industry or trade concerns. Instead, the economic policies of the Ottomans were subsistence of the people, provisioning the major population centers, collection of taxes, and maintaining freedom of trade. The balance and stability in society explain the priority for the Ottomans in the economy. However, commercialization and profit explain the priority for the Dutch nation in the economy. This article elaborates the economic views of the Dutch Republic and the Ottoman Empire in the mercantilist ages. [source] Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers: A Reconsideration of William Howard Taft's "Whig" Theory of Presidential LeadershipPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2003MICHAEL J. KORZI This article discusses William Howard Taft's theory of presidential leadership. Often seen as embodying a passive or weak conception of the presidency and dismissed as anachronistic, the author argues that Taft's theory merits a second look. First, through analysis of Taft's presidential actions and academic writings, the author shows that his theory is far more nuanced and substantial than traditional accounts allow. Taft's theory is best characterized as a "party agency" Whig theory of the presidency because of its simultaneous concern with popular democracy (via political parties) and presidential moderation. Second, the author argues that Taft's theory of the presidency is rooted in nineteenth-century Whig and Republican ideas of presidential leadership, which, appropriately understood, embody most of the same principles and values. Thus was Taft in many ways a conservator of a nineteenth-century notion of presidential leadership. Finally, the author concludes that Taft's Whiggish theory of the presidency (as well as the nineteenth-century Whig/Republican theory of the presidency) has much to contribute to contemporary debates on presidential leadership. [source] Radbruch and Hart on the Grudge Informer: A ReconsiderationRATIO JURIS, Issue 2 2002Thomas Mertens Hart's defense of the separation of law and morality is partly based on his refusal to accept Radbruch's solution of the well-known grudge informer case, in his famous article "Statutory Injustice and Suprastatutory Law." In this paper, I present a detailed reconstruction of the "debate" between Radbruch and Hart on this case. I reach the conclusion that Hart fails to address the issue that was Radbruch's primary concern, namely the legal position of the judiciary when dealing with criminal statutes. I suggest that Hart's separation thesis cannot be upheld in the face of this concern. In my argument, Hart's mistaken understanding of the verdict of the Oberlandesgericht Bamberg that he refers to plays a crucial role. [source] Augustine's Christian,Platonist Account of Goodness: A ReconsiderationTHE HEYTHROP JOURNAL, Issue 3 2002F.B.A. Asiedu Augustine's metaphysics is a subject little studied, but often much criticized. Among the recent studies of Augustine's metaphysics, Scott MacDonald's interpretation of Augustine's notion of goodness claims that Augustine's account is incoherent. This suggests a reading of Augustine that is somewhat problematic. This article argues that much of the difficulty that MacDonald claims rests on a misunderstanding of Augustine's views about the goodness of creation and existence and the corruptibility of created things. Augustine's position takes for granted an understanding of existence (or being) as a good and the participation of all things in the pre,eminent good, that is God. [source] Reconsideration of the physical and empirical origins of Z,R relations in radar meteorologyTHE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY, Issue 572 2001A. R. Jameson Abstract The rainfall rate, R, and the radar reflectivity factor, Z, are represented by a sum over a finite number of raindrops. It is shown here and in past work that these variables should be linearly related. Yet observations show that correlations between R and Z are often more appropriately described by nonlinear power laws. In the absence of measurement effects, why should this be so? In order to justify this observation, there have been many attempts to create physical ,explanations' for power laws. However, the present work argues that, because correlations do not prove causation (an accepted fact in the statistical sciences), such explanations are suspect, particularly since the parametric fits are not unique and because they exhibit fundamental physical inconsistencies. So why, then, do so many correlations fit power laws when physical arguments show that Z and R should be related linearly? It is shown in the present work that physically based, linear, relations between Z and R apply in statistically homogeneous rain. (Note that statistical homogeneity does not mean that the rain is spatially uniform.) In contrast, nonlinear power laws are empirical fits to correlated, but statistically inhomogeneous data. This conclusion is proven theoretically after developing a ,generalized' Z,R relation based upon physical consideration of R and Z as random variables. This relation explicitly incorporates details of the drop microphysics as well as the variability in measurements of Z and R. In statistically homogeneous rain, this generalized expression shows that the coefficient relating Z and R is a constant resulting in a linear Z,R relation. In statistically inhomogeneous rain, however, the coefficient varies in an unknown fashion so that one must resort to statistical fits, often power laws, in order to relate the two quantities empirically over widely varying conditions. This conclusion is independently verified using Monte Carlo simulations of rain from earlier work and is also corroborated using disdrometer observations. Thus, the justification for nonlinear power-law Z,R relations is not physical, but rather statistical, in that they provide convenient parametric fits for estimating mean R from measured mean Z in statistically inhomogeneous rain. Finally, examples based upon disdrometer data suggest that such generalized relations between two variables defined by such sums are potentially useful over a wide range of remote-sensing problems and over a wide range of scales. The examples also offer hope that data collected over disparate sampling-volumes and sampling-frequencies can still be combined to yield meaningful estimates. Although additional testing is required, this allows us to write programs which combine estimates of R using remote-sensing techniques with sparse but direct rainfall observations. [source] Prospects for the Survival of the Navajo Language: A ReconsiderationANTHROPOLOGY & EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2002Professor Bernard Spolsky What is the role of schools in the loss of indigenous languages? A study 25 years ago of prospects for the survival of Navajo placed most of the blame for the spread of English on increasing access to schools. Reconsidering that evidence and recent developments, the central role of the introduction of Western schooling is seen still to be highly relevant. But other factors have worked through the school, the major effect of which has been the ideological acceptance of English. Vernacular literacy, traditional or introduced religion, and political structure all have failed to establish a counterforce. Economic changes also led to new living patterns that, together with improved communication, broke down isolation and supported the threat to the survival of language. This study confirms the importance of seeing language and education in the full social, cultural, religious, and political context recognized by educational anthropology. [source] A Reconsideration of the Political Significance of Shared Responsibility AgreementsAUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND HISTORY, Issue 1 2009Elizabeth Strakosch The 1996,2007 Howard Coalition government introduced Shared Responsibility Agreements in 2005 to allocate discretionary funding to indigenous communities in a "mutually responsible" way. The policy was widely criticized as an ineffective and ideologically driven "showpiece". Its significant governance-building dimensions went without comment. Through the deployment of the conceptual tools of contract and governance, SRAs established new and depoliticised relationships between government and indigenous peoples, replacing the centralized political structure of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. The future of the policy under the Rudd Government is uncertain, but understanding the impacts and implications of SRAs remains important. [source] State Socialism in Australian Political Thought: A ReconsiderationAUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND HISTORY, Issue 1 2006Tod Moore In understanding the origins of conventional tenets in political thought, we should attend to cross-spectrum analysis of usage. Taking state socialism as an instance, this paper argues that the practice of treating it historically either as an element within a radical tradition (by Labour historians) or as a discredited part of a socialist agenda (by liberals) ignores the ways in which it was it was deployed across the political spectrum. Outsiders (such as the Webbs and Métin) skewed the record, describing the pragmatic accommodations they saw as "socialism without doctrines", unconscious of the debates amongst Australian political elites. We need to explore anew where ideas came from, how they were taken up and adapted in the Australian context (by all sides) and the circumstances that determined their duration within everyday discourse. [source] A Facile Synthetic Route to 2H-Chromenes: Reconsideration of the Mechanism of the DBU-Catalyzed Reaction Between Salicylic Aldehydes and Ethyl 2-Methylbuta-2,3-dienoate.CHEMINFORM, Issue 35 2007Lun-Zhi Dai Abstract ChemInform is a weekly Abstracting Service, delivering concise information at a glance that was extracted from about 200 leading journals. To access a ChemInform Abstract, please click on HTML or PDF. [source] A Facile Synthetic Route to 2,H -Chromenes: Reconsideration of the Mechanism of the DBU-Catalyzed Reaction between Salicylic Aldehydes and Ethyl 2-Methylbuta-2,3-dienoate,CHEMISTRY - A EUROPEAN JOURNAL, Issue 13 2007Lun-Zhi Dai Abstract Reactions of salicylaldehydes with ethyl buta-2,3-dienoate or penta-3,4-dien-2-one catalyzed by a catalytic amount of potassium carbonate produce the corresponding 2,H -chromene products in moderate to good yields under mild conditions. A plausible reaction mechanism is discussed in the light of the results of an 18O-labeling experiment. In addition, in view of these findings, the catalytic function of DBU in reactions of this kind is reconsidered. [source] EXECUTING THE INNOCENT AND SUPPORT FOR CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC POLICYCRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2005JAMES D. UNNEVER Research Summary: The issue of whether innocent people have been executed is now at the center of the debate concerning the legitimacy of capital punishment. The purpose of this research was to use data collected by the Gallup Organization in 2003 to investigate whether Americans who believed that an innocent person had been executed were less likely to support capital punishment. We also explored whether the association varied by race, given that African Americans are disproportionately affected by the death penalty. Our results indicated that three-quarters of Americans believed that an innocent person had been executed for a crime they did not commit within the last five years and that this belief was associated with lower levels of support for capital punishment, especially among those who thought this sanction was applied unfairly. In addition, our analyses revealed that believing an innocent person had been executed had a stronger association with altering African American than white support for the death penalty. Policy Implications: A key claim of death penalty advocates is that a high proportion of the public supports capital punishment. In this context, scholars opposing this sanction have understood the importance of showing that the public's support for executing offenders is contingent and shallower than portrayed by typical opinion polls. The current research joins this effort by arguing that the prospect of executing innocents potentially impacts public support for the death penalty and, in the least, creates ideological space for a reconsideration of the legitimacy of capital punishment. [source] Modernism and democracy: a reconsiderationCRITICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2002Rachel Potter [source] Compassion and Repression: The Moral Economy of Immigration Policies in FranceCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 3 2005Didier Fassin Immigration policies in Europe in the last three decades have become increasingly restrictive. During the 1990s, political asylum lost much of its legitimacy, as new criteria based on humanitarian claims became more common in appeals for immigration. Asylum seekers were increasingly identified as illegal immigrants and therefore candidates for expulsion, unless humanitarian reasons could be found to requalify them as victims deserving sympathy. This substitution of a right to asylum by an obligation in terms of charity leads to a reconsideration of Giorgio Agamben's separation of the humanitarian and the political, suggesting instead a humanitarianization of policies. Sangatte Center, often referred to as a transit camp, became a symbol of this ambiguous European treatment of the "misery of the world" and serves here as an analytical thread revealing the tensions between repression and compassion as well as the moral economy of contemporary biopolitics. [source] State Collapse and Fresh Starts: Some Critical ReflectionsDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 5 2002Martin Doornbos In examining the incidence of state collapse, two central themes emerge, one concerned with the search for causalities and the other concerned with appropriate responses. There is often a misplaced tendency to look for single causes and explanations of state collapse, and similarly to propose single, preferably ,quick,fix' solutions. Instead, what seems to be called for is a more nuanced scrutiny which differentiates the factors leading to collapse in specific instances, and a reconsideration, in the light of this scrutiny, of responses and possible external actor involvement. This article addresses these two themes. Firstly, it takes a preliminary look into the complex web of conditioning and facilitating factors that may or may not set in motion a chain reaction eventually leading to state collapse, examining the extent to which any emerging patterns can be identified. Secondly, it looks more closely at the response side to incidences of state collapse, specifically external responses. Whilst external actors, notably the ,donor community', are trying to better prepare themselves for the eventualities of crises of governance and state collapse in various countries, and to design more effective strategies and instruments, it remains to be seen to what extent there is a ,fit' between the determinants and dynamics of state collapse and the responses and solutions for restoration which are offered. [source] Cytopathology proficiency testing: Where do we go from here?,DIAGNOSTIC CYTOPATHOLOGY, Issue 4 2006George K. Nagy M.D. Abstract With the recent introduction of nationwide proficiency testing in cytopathology (PTC), reconsideration of several aspects of this controversial quality assurance method becomes justified. This paper discusses various merits and demerits of the PTC system currently prescribed by federal regulations, points out perceived deficiencies, and suggests methods for improvement. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2006;34:257,264. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Comparison of four groups of substance-abusing in-patients with different psychiatric comorbidityACTA PSYCHIATRICA SCANDINAVICA, Issue 1 2001J. Hättenschwiler Objective: ,Comparisons of different groups of dual patients are rare, yet potential differences could have therapeutic implications. In this study, four groups of psychiatric in-patients with substance use disorder were compared to each other: patients with no psychiatric comorbidity, patients with comorbid schizophrenia and patients with affective and personality disorder. Method: ,Apart from sociodemographic, therapy-related variables and a detailed survey of their substance use, all subjects were assessed with BPRS and SCL-90-R. Results: ,No differences were found in the patients' demography, psychosocial adjustment and substance consumption career. Significant differences were found in regard to some therapy variables reflecting adherence to treatment and global outcome and to the level of psychopathology. Conclusion: ,Both substance use and comorbid psychiatric disorder have a variable impact on distinct areas of patients' general condition and functioning. The group with comorbid affective disorder appeared to be the most difficult to treat and the therapeutic approach to this disorder deserves reconsideration. [source] Activist Macroeconomic Policy, Election Effects and the Formation of Expectations: Evidence from OECD EconomiesECONOMICS & POLITICS, Issue 2 2000David Kiefer We examine the explanatory power of a political,business cycle theory in which governments practice short-run policy to lessen the impact of exogenous shocks. Governments have ideological objectives with respect to macroeconomic performance, but are constrained by an augmented Phillips curve. The most prominent version, the rational partisan model, incorporates forward-looking expectations. This model can be compared to a competing model based on backward-looking expectations. Alesina and Roubini's recent advocacy of the rational model uses OECD data. Our reconsideration of the same data, updated to 1995, suggests that the adaptive expectations version offers a better explanation than the rational one. [source] Perirhinal cortex resolves feature ambiguity in complex visual discriminationsEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, Issue 2 2002Timothy J. Bussey Abstract The present experiment tested predictions of a ,perceptual,mnemonic/feature conjunction' (PMFC) model of perirhinal cortex function. The model predicts that lesions of perirhinal cortex should disrupt complex visual discriminations with a high degree of ,feature ambiguity', a property of visual discrimination problems that can emerge when features of an object are rewarded when they are part of one object, but not when part of another. As feature ambiguity is thought to be the critical factor, such effects should be independent of the number of objects to be discriminated. This was tested directly, by assessing performance of control monkeys and monkeys with aspiration lesions of perirhinal cortex on a series of concurrent discriminations in which the number of object pairs was held constant, but the degree of feature ambiguity was varied systematically. Monkeys were tested in three conditions: Maximum Feature Ambiguity, in which all features were explicitly ambiguous (AB+, CD+, BC,, AD,; the biconditional problem); Minimum Feature Ambiguity, in which no features were explicitly ambiguous (AB+, CD+, EF,, GH,); and Intermediate Feature Ambiguity, in which half the features were explicitly ambiguous (AB+, CD+, CE,, AF,). The pattern of results closely matched that predicted by simulations using a connectionist network: monkeys with perirhinal cortex lesions were unimpaired in the Minimum Feature Ambiguity condition, mildly impaired in the Intermediate Feature Ambiguity condition and severely impaired in the Maximum Feature Ambiguity condition. These results confirm the predictions of the PMFC model, and force a reconsideration of prevailing views regarding perirhinal cortex function. [source] Engaged Elites Citizen Action and Institutional Attitudes in Commission EnforcementEUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 1 2000Richard Rawlings The subject of this article is a classic one in European law and administration: the general powers of the Commission to take infringement proceedings against the Member States. The topic merits a basic reconsideration by reason of contemporary developments that put in question the role and nature of the process. Emphasis is laid on the challenges to an e´lite model of regulatory bargaining, in the form both of demands for citizen ,voice' and pressures for a firmer and more formal approach to Commission enforcement. The dynamic character of the process is seen in part to reflect different institutional attitudes, with particular attention being paid to the stance of the European Ombudsman. Practical proposals include a re-balancing of Commission procedures to improve the position of complainants, a central role for the principle of complementarity in terms of public and private legal action, and a creative application to the Commission of the disciplines of the New Public Management. A further aim of the article is to demonstrate the utility of socio-legal studies in European administrative law: for many years a retarded, insufficiently theorised discipline, with too narrow a court-oriented focus. [source] Neandertals, competition, and the origin of modern human behavior in the LevantEVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 4 2003John J. Shea Abstract The East Mediterranean Levant is a small region, but its paleoanthropological record looms large in debates about the origin of modern humans and the fate of the Neandertals. For most of the twentieth century, the Levantine paleoanthropological record supported models of continuity and evolutionary transition between Neandertals and early modern humans. Recent advances in radiometric dating have challenged these models by reversing the chronological relationship between Levantine Neandertals and early modern humans. This revised chronostratigraphy for Levantine Middle Paleolithic human fossils raises interesting questions about the evolutionary relationship between Neandertals and early modern humans. A reconsideration of this relationship moves us closer to understanding the long delay between the origin of morphologically modern-looking humans during the Middle Paleolithic (>130 Kyr) and the adaptive radiation of modern humans into Eurasia around the time of the transition from the Middle to Upper Paleolithic (50 to 30 Kyr). [source] Products of the Imagination: Mining, Luxury, and the Romantic Artist in Heinrich von OfterdingenGERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS, Issue 1 2007Matt Erlin ABSTRACT Scholars have long been interested in the relationship between capitalism and early romantic aesthetics. The following investigation offers a fresh perspective on this topic through a reconsideration of the figure of the miner and the representation of mining in Friedrich von Hardenberg's Heinrich von Ofterdingen. Rather than elucidating this representation on the basis of general concepts like alienation and instrumental rationality, as has often been the case, the essay situates mining within the context of the wide-ranging late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century debates about luxury. When contextualised along these lines, it becomes clear that Hardenberg's representation of mining is best understood as part of an effort to defend the legitimacy of literature, especially the still fragile legitimacy of the novel. Re-framing the representation of mining in the work in this way also necessitates a re-evaluation of other key aspects of the novel, most significantly, its negotiation with processes of economic modernisation and especially its stance toward an incipient consumer culture in which reading and literature play a paradigmatic role. [source] Governing in the Media Age: The Impact of the Mass Media on Executive Leadership in Contemporary Democracies1GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 1 2008Ludger Helms The effects of old and new media on governing and executive leadership have remained curiously under-studied. In the available literature, assessments prevail that consider the media to have developed a strongly power-enhancing effect on incumbent chief executives. A careful reconsideration of mass media effects on the conditions and manifestations of political leadership by presidents and prime ministers in different contemporary democracies suggests that the media more often function as effective constraints on leaders and leadership. Overall, the constraining effects of the traditional media have been more substantial than those generated by the new media. While there are obvious cross-national trends in the development of government,mass media relations, important differences between countries persist, which can be explained to some considerable extent by the different institutional features of contemporary democracies. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||