scholarly journals Casting the atomic canon: (R)evolving nuclear strategy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Kjølv Egeland ◽  
Thomas Fraise ◽  
Hebatalla Taha
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
Nuclear Policy ◽  
Nuclear Security ◽  
Vested Interests ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come

Abstract Looming decisions on arms control and strategic weapon procurements in a range of nuclear-armed states are set to shape the international security environment for decades to come. In this context, it is crucial to understand the concepts, theories, and debates that condition nuclear policymaking. This review essay dissects the four editions of The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, the authoritative intellectual history of its subject. Using this widely acclaimed work as a looking glass into the broader field of nuclear security studies, we interrogate the field's underlying assumptions and question the correspondence between theory and practice in the realm of nuclear policy. The study of nuclear strategy, we maintain, remains largely committed to an interpretive approach that invites analysts to search for universal axioms and to abstract strategic arguments from the precise circumstances of their occurrence. While this approach is useful for analysing the locutionary dimension of strategic debates, it risks obscuring the power structures, vested interests, and illocutionary forces shaping nuclear discourse. In the conclusion, we lay out avenues for future scholarship.

Authentication Studies (辨偽學) Methodology and the Polymorphous Text Paradigm

Early China ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 1-43 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Textual Criticism ◽  
Han Dynasty ◽  
Chinese Intellectual ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chinese Scholars ◽  
Chinese Texts ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Last Two Millennia ◽  
Made In

The foundation of Chinese intellectual history is a group of texts known as “masters texts” (子書). Many masters texts were authored in the Han dynasty or earlier and many of these have as their title the name of a master who was generally regarded as the author. The inclination to treat a given book as the product of a single writer is apparently a strong one. Nevertheless, from the very beginning there were Chinese scholars who doubted the veracity of the putative authorship of some of these works and suggested that they may in fact have been the product of several authors. Over time, such scholars developed criteria by which to judge the authenticity of ancient masters texts. But as such textual criticism grew more penetrating, the object of its scrutiny began to come apart at the seams. In the last two decades there has been a growing consensus that most early Chinese masters texts were originally quite permeable and that only later were their received forms settled upon.The branch of textual criticism that deals with authenticating early Chinese texts is called “Authentication studies.” This paper is a survey of the methodological advances made in the field of Authentication studies over the last two millennia. It is not a history of the field, as such a history would be a much longer project. The survey concludes with the idea of the “polymorphous text paradigm,” a paradigm that paradoxically obviates much of the preceding scholarship in its own field. Simply put, if authentication relies largely on anachronism, and anachronism relies largely on the dates of the putative author, then a multi-author work with no known “last author” will be impossible to authenticate. Furthermore, the polymorphous text paradigm does not posit these texts as necessarily having earlier and later “layers,” but rather as having had no set structure over the course of their early redactional evolution.This survey examines the contributions of seventeen scholars to Authentication studies methodology, and concludes with how the changes in this field have influenced the work of three modern, Western scholars.

“Innovation” Discourse and the Neoliberal University: Top Ten Reasons to Abolish Disruptive Innovation

2019 ◽  
pp. 244-268
Author(s):  
Christopher Newfield
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Research University ◽  
Disruptive Innovation ◽  
Western Development ◽  
Hard Limit ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come ◽  
University Officials ◽  
Privileged Site

Innovation is a core neoliberal economic strategy, and the research university is a privileged site for its incubation and practice. Most senior university officials believe that the university’s stature, funding, and fate depend on maintaining its reputation as a primary innovation source and look to purge elements that do not appear to fit that purpose. This chapter argues that this neoliberal policy agenda is, in effect, fighting the latest and possibly the last economic war. The chapter begins with a brief intellectual history of innovation as a business concept, focusing on the development and influence of Clayton Christensen’s innovation theory. It then offers a critical analysis of the role of innovation in the contemporary global research university. In turn, it presents the argument of Giovanni Arrighi and others that the “Western development pathway” has reached a hard limit. Finally, the chapter posits that the sustainable, post-neoliberal economy-to-come will depart from the current pathway by replacing energy-intensive technology with skilled and educated labor.

scholarly journals Parliamentary Representation in Modern Britain: Past, Present, and Future

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Miles Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Spatial Dimension ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Good Shape ◽  
History Of ◽  
Women In Parliament ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Parliamentary Procedure ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Modern Era

Abstract A series of recent books all attest to a revival of interest in the theory and practice of parliamentary representation in the modern era as a scholarly discipline. This review surveys eight different aspects of that history since the early nineteenth century: the spatial dimension of the Palace of Westminster; the comparative framework offered by the history of parliaments in Europe; ideas of parliamentary representation; the history of parliamentary procedure; women in parliament; the House of Lords; the history of corruption; and the Brexit crisis. Insights and perspectives are drawn from recent historical research as well as from political science and intellectual history. The review concludes by observing that the history of parliamentary representation in the modern era is in good shape. Some older interpretive paradigms still lurk, especially an obsession with ‘democratization’. However, more is now known about individual MPs and constituencies than ever before. The digitization of the records of parliament is expediting the kind of longitudinal analysis which was impossible back in the 1960s and 1970s. And the intellectual history and public policy literature around the idea of representation is enjoying a renaissance.

scholarly journals Deconstructing the reinvention of operations management

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Operations Management ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Industrial Engineering ◽  
Scientific Management ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Main Component

Purpose The purpose is to provide an intellectual history of Operations Management, particularly noting recent developments and its underlying continuity with earlier systems and thinking. Operations Management as a discipline identifies its “modern” incarnation as dating from the 1960s when it became more rigorous and managerially focused. This re-invention constructed a “narrative” that the profession still follows, yet a critical perspective reveals significant, though under-appreciated continuity with earlier theory and practice. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents a comprehensive literature review and comparative analysis of historic developments in management and academia. Findings In the early 1900s, F. W. Taylor’s Shop Management established Operation Management, but its main component, Scientific Management, had stagnated by the 1950s. At that point, the rise of Management Science both reinvigorated Operations Management and threatened it with a competing new discipline. To compete Operations Management then modernized by redefining itself, reasserting its interest in several areas and co-opting Operational Research tools for those. It also contracted, withdrawing from areas considered vocational, or more suited to Industrial Engineering. Research limitations/implications This historical overview shows the critical importance of drawing research agenda from practical managerial concerns. Practical implications Practitioners benefit from the intellectual rigor that academics provide and a historical perspective shows that the relationship has been mutually beneficial. Social implications The disciplines of Operations Management, Operations Research and Industrial Engineering are complementary and competitive in addressing many problems that transcend their boundaries, and use common ideas and techniques. The demands of “academic rigor” have had a deleterious effect on the practical managerial relevance of these disciplines. Originality/value A long-term, cross-disciplinary perspective provides a unique understanding of the research interests and practical orientations of these disciplines.

BRITISH COMTISM AND MODERNIST DESIGN

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 1009-1040
Author(s):  
MATTHEW WILSON
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Design Theory ◽  
Le Corbusier ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Auguste Comte ◽  
Different Types ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

Scholars of political thought, sociology, and the arts have yet to fully explore the impact of positivism on modernist design theory and practice. This paper offers an intellectual history of the works of three generations of positivist sociologists who built on each other's works. They are Auguste Comte and Richard Congreve, Frederic Harrison and Charles Booth, and Patrick Geddes and Victor Branford. These actors developed different types of sociological survey, established a network of urban interventions, and proposed a series of planning programs and manifestos. It will be argued that their intention was to systematically reconcile international and domestic issues to realize a modern eutopia. Following this analysis, it will be shown that a similar language and practice appeared in the work of a diverse range of such modernist designers as Patrick Abercrombie, Sybella Gurney Branford, Louis Sullivan, H. P. Berlage, and Le Corbusier, among others.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Randall
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
James Madison ◽  
Modern Conception ◽  
Political World ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Constitutional Thought

The changed conception of conversation that emerged by c.1700 was about to expand its scope enormously – to the broad culture of Enlightenment Europe, to the fine arts, to philosophy and into the broad political world, both via the conception of public opinion and via the constitutional thought of James Madison (1751–1836). In the Enlightenment, the early modern conception of conversation would expand into a whole wing of Enlightenment thought. The intellectual history of the heirs of Cicero and Petrarch would become the practice of millions and the constitutional architecture of a great republic....

We Have Tasted the Powers of the Age to Come: Thinking the Force of the Event—from Dynamis to Puissance

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Clément Mercier
Keyword(s):  
History Of ◽  
To Come ◽  
Interpretative Model

Responding to the provocative phrase ‘The Age of Grammatology’, I propose to question the notion of ‘age’, and to interrogate the powers or forces, the dynameis or dynasties attached to the interpretative model of historical periodisation. How may we think the undeniable actuality of the event beyond the sempiternal history of ages, and beyond the traditional, onto-teleological chain of power, possibility, force or dynamis that undergirds such history?

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Winter
Keyword(s):  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Rich Diversity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Oppression ◽  
The Rich ◽  
To Come

This concluding chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. The book has shown that the multiplicity of lived ʻAlawi experiences cannot be reduced to the sole question of religion or framed within a monolithic narrative of persecution; that the very attempt to outline a single coherent history of “the ʻAlawis” may indeed be misguided. The sources on which this study has drawn are considerably more accessible, and the social and administrative realities they reflect consistently more mundane and disjointed, than the discourse of the ʻAlawis' supposed exceptionalism would lead one to believe. Therefore, the challenge for historians of ʻAlawi society in Syria and elsewhere is not to use the specific events and structures these sources detail to merely add to the already existing metanarratives of religious oppression, Ottoman misrule, and national resistance but rather to come to a newer and more intricate understanding of that community, and its place in wider Middle Eastern society, by investigating the lives of individual ʻAlawi (and other) actors within the rich diversity of local contexts these sources reveal.

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