The Growth of the Seniority System in the U. S. House of Representatives

1969 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 787-807 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nelson W. Polsby ◽  
Miriam Gallaher ◽  
Barry Spencer Rundquist

Popular discussions of the internal management of the U.S. House of Representatives in the present era generally give great weight to the ubiquity and arbitrariness of the seniority system as a significant determinant of outcomes there. Careful attention to the scholarly literature, however, should long since have modified this view. For it appears that except for relatively unimportant matters such as the allocation of office space on Capitol Hill, the criterion of seniority is generally intermingled in House decision-making with a great many other crite ria of choice, and the business of choosing is not automatic, but remains in the hands of persons having some considerable discretion. This, apparently, is the case with respect to such decisions as the allocation of Capitol Hill patronage, the initial assignment of Representatives to committees, the distribution of responsibilities within committees, and the choice of party leaders. The one important area in which seniority seems to play a role of overwhelming significance is in the matter of succession to the chairmanship of committees; this is in turn governed by the custom (not a formal rule) of seniority that guarantees members reappointment to committees at the opening of each new Congress, in rank order of committee service. It is the growth of this method of selecting committee chairmen in the House that is the subject of this paper.

Author(s):  
Iryna Rusnak

The author of the article analyses the problem of the female emancipation in the little-known feuilleton “Amazonia: A Very Inept Story” (1924) by Mykola Chirsky. The author determines the genre affiliation of the work and examines its compositional structure. Three parts are distinguished in the architectonics of associative feuilleton: associative conception; deployment of a “small” topic; conclusion. The author of the article clarifies the role of intertextual elements and the method of constantly switching the tone from serious to comic to reveal the thematic direction of the work. Mykola Chirsky’s interest in the problem of female emancipation is corresponded to the general mood of the era. The subject of ridicule in provocative feuilleton is the woman’s radical metamorphoses, since repulsive manifestations of emancipation becomes commonplace. At the same time, the writer shows respect for the woman, appreciates her femininity, internal and external beauty, personality. He associates the positive in women with the functions of a faithful wife, a caring mother, and a skilled housewife. In feuilleton, the writer does not bypass the problem of the modern man role in a family, but analyses the value and moral and ethical guidelines of his character. The husband’s bad habits receive a caricatured interpretation in the strange behaviour of relatives. On the one hand, the writer does not perceive the extremes brought by female emancipation, and on the other, he mercilessly criticises the male “virtues” of contemporaries far from the standard. The artistic heritage of Mykola Chirsky remains little studied. The urgent task of modern literary studies is the introduction of Mykola Chirsky’s unknown works into the scientific circulation and their thorough scientific understanding.


Author(s):  
Elena Kravtsova

L. S. Vygotsky’s principal idea, lying in the base of cultural-historical theory, is the primacy of sense over meaning. There are serious reasons to believe that this part of cultural-historical theory was not completely understood both by his disciples and his opponents. That’s why many Vygotsky’s conclusions and discoveries remained untapped. while others were implemented in science and practice quite di˙erently from what he suggested. Vygotsky once wrote that features of the particular science deeply related to its method. That’s why he introduced the experimental-genetic method (projective method in modern psychology), which allows modeling the processes of development. One of the basic concepts of cultural-historical theory is the concept of “cultural de-velopment”. A Cultural person, for Vygotsky, is the person, who can control not only their own behavior and actions but also their own psychic processes. On the one hand, modern psychology doesn’t deny the role of volition in child’s development. But on the other hand, the volition itself is typically understood as one’s ability to submit to laws and rules. More than that – it’s rather easy to create conditions where a person will submit to laws and rules, but it doesn’t develop his ability to control himself. In Vygotsky’s opinion, there are natural psychic functions, which in the process of learning transform into cultural ones. In this context, the main goal of learning is to create conditions for developing person’s ability to be the subject of his own behavior, activity and psychic.


1993 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Kruger

Business ethics in business training: Oratory or the actuality. This article is the culmination of an in-depth literature study. On the one hand an attempt is made to incorporate the views of different authors, while on the other hand an attempt is made to take part in the debate which is initiated by the current renewal of interest in the subject Business Ethics. Within this framework attention is paid to the question of whether business ethics can be taught and if so, to what extent it's influence will be felt. Secondly, an insight into the teaching of business ethics in the future is provided. Within this context the approach to the teaching, the content, the role of the student and the responsibility of the educator in particular are addressed. Opsomming Hierdie artikel is die resultaat van 'n indringende literatuurstudie. Daar word gepoog om enersyds verskillende skrywers se standpunte saam te vat, maar andersyds ook kritiese kommentaar te lower en deel te neem aan die debat wat deur die huidige opiewing in die belangstelling in Bestuursetiek bestaan. Binne die raamwerk sal aandag aan die volgende geskenk word: Die beantwoording van die vraag of Bestuursetiek onderrig kan word en indien wel die trefwydte daarvan. Tweedens 'n toekomsblik op die onderrig van Bestuursetiek. Binne die konteks word die benadering tot die onderrig/ die inhoud en die rol van die student en die verantwoordelikheid van die dosent bekvk.


2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-170
Author(s):  
Adrijana Marčetič

Just after the end of the Great War Miloš Crnjanski wrote a poem dedicated to Gavrilo Princip, the assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, in Sarajevo, on 28 June 1914. The title of the poem is “A Tribute to Princip” (“Spomen Principu”), and it was first published in Crnjanski’s early book of poetry Lyrics of Ithaca (Lirika Itake, 1919). Forty years later Crnjanski wrote a commentary on the poem, a sort of its prose paraphrase, and entitled it “On the Poem about Princip” (“Uz pesmu o Principu”); it was published in his Commentaries on Lyrics of Ithaca (Komentari uz Liriku Itake, 1959). Although by no means as significant as his famous poem “Sumatra”, and equally famous “Explanation of Sumatra”, that is considered a kind of Crnjanski’s personal poetic manifesto, as well as a poetic manifesto of Serbian modernism in general, “A Tribute to Princip” and its explanation represent an equally important testimony to Crnjanski’s poetic sensibility and his literary inspiration. The subject of the poem, the manner of poetic expression, on the one side, and the prose style of its commentary, on the other, clearly indicate what was considered by young Crnjanski the main role of the new, modern poetry he was advocating for: the break with the tradition, the rejection of the old and no longer productive poetic and national myths, and the affirmation of the new role of poetry in the everyday life. Therefore, opposing the standard interpretation of the poem, in this paper I argue that “A Tribute to Princip” is not a political poem but a “poem about poem”, which we could read as metapoetry or a poetry poem, providing that we apply the term with a little more freedom.


2013 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 156-167
Author(s):  
Susan Royal

The late medieval prophetic tradition played a significant role in how John Bale (1495–1563), England’s first Protestant church historian, formulated his ideas about the nature of revelation, which would become a contentious issue in the course of the Reformation. It is the goal of this essay to examine this first-generation evangelical’s views, which will bring us closer to understanding prophecy and its legitimacy in Reformation-era Europe. In an influential essay, Richard Southern illustrates the important role of the prophetical tradition in premodern historical writing: ‘Prophecy filled the world-picture, past, present, and future; and it was the chief inspiration of all historical thinking.’ But while its significance is easy to pinpoint, the varied nature of prophetic revelation does not make for easy delineations or definitions. Southern names four types of prophecy in the Middle Ages: biblical (Daniel, Revelation); pagan (sibylline); Christian (such as that of Hildegard of Bingen); and astrological (stars and celestial events). Of course, even these are not clearly distinct categories; Southern notes that Merlin is ‘half-Christian, half-pagan’. Lesley Coote points out that the ‘subject of political prophecy is king, people and nation’, separating this from theological, apocalyptic prophecy, though she also asserts that the two are closely related. Bernard McGinn remarks that in the later Middle Ages, prophecy is ‘seen as a divinatory or occasionally reformative activity – the prophet as the man who foretells the future, or the one who seeks to correct a present situation in the light of an ideal past or glorious future’.


2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Svensson

This article concerns the discussions on and use of the Qur'an in the setting of Islamic Religious Education in Kisumu, Kenya. It is based on fieldwork conducted 2003 – 2006. Theoretically it uses a distinction between ritual and cognitive aspects of how the text is addressed. The author finds that the teaching is focused on the latter aspect. Hence, hypothetically the author argues, Islamic Religious Education, through the content and the form of the teaching as well as the position of the subject itself in the overall educational system, promotes a "demystification" of the text, providing it with a character that is quite different from the one dominating in the local Muslim context.


Author(s):  
В.В. ДЕГОЕВ

Автор ставил перед собой троякую задачу. Во-первых, определить реальный информационный потенциал европейских сочинений XVIII века как источника исторических знаний о Кавказе. Во-вторых, привлечь внимание исследователей к изучению соотношения между источниковедческой и историографической ценностью этой литературы в контексте процесса зарождения научного кавказоведения. В-третьих, выявить роль приходящих политико-идеологических факторов, обусловленных геополитическими интересами западных государств и их специфическим (так сказать, ориенталистским) восприятием Востока вообще и Кавказа в частности. Авторские выводы требуют дальнейшей проверки с целью подтверждения одних идей, корректировки других и критического переосмысления третьих. The threefold task the author had in mind implies the following. First, to assess informative value of the 18th century European sketches on the Caucasus as a source of the appropriate knowledge. Second, to redirect scholarly attention towards searching for distinct lines between murky facts and their interpretation, oftentimes arbitrary, uncritical, and even openly biased. It would help to reveal what might be called a scientific trend in Western «historiography» on the region`s past. Third, to expose the role of the incoming political and ideological factors determined by geostrategic interests of the concerned States on the one hand and by its largely prejudiced, as it were, orientalistic perception of the East on the other. While the author found his general approach promising he hesitates to claim that all of his conclusions are flawless. Some of them need further arguments either pro or contra to deservedly place the subject in question in a wider context of history.


2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh Brown

The main tendency characterizing the development of language in Lombardy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is the formation of a koiné. The extent to which Milan influenced the Lombard koiné is the subject of ongoing debate. On the one hand, scholars suggest that Milan provided a centralizing force for the “Milanization” of other Lombard vernaculars, similar to what occurred for Piedmont and the Veneto. On the other hand, studies have pointed out that Milan was not a centralizing force for the Lombard koiné and that it remains to be verified whether the prestige of Milanese influenced non-Milanese vernaculars. This paper looks at the extent to which Milan influenced the koiné in fifteenth-century Lombardy. I consider eight linguistic items, previously described as unique to the vernacular of Pavia, to verify their presence or absence in a corpus of religious writings from the fifteenth-century nun Elisabetta of Pavia and whether Milanese items can be identified. I consider aspects of phonology and morphology in Elisabetta’s letters and conclude that her language is best characterized as a pre-koiné. The article concludes by arguing for less emphasis on the role of Milan in histories of the vernacular in Lombardy. This finding has implications for the history of non-literary writing in northern Italy and the importance attributed to capital cities in processes of koineization.


Author(s):  
Olha Petrenko

The article deals with the role of musical images in the poetry of Dmitry Kremen. The subject of study is the music code, which is present in many works of the poet. Musical signs, symbols, links play a significant role in vocabulary, phraseology and other ways of poetic expressiveness. Familiarity with the subject world of D. Kremin's poetic texts includes a wide range of concepts related to the world of sounds. The additional accents of a musical-conceptual thesaurus arise when musical cues form certain speech turns that acquire the meaning of metaphors. Musical signs in the lyrics of Dmitry Kremin imply awareness of a wide range of sound associations, which the poet interprets from the standpoint of his own value attitude to them. Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart are the names-symbols of the world music culture, which occupy a significant place in the thesaurus of Dmitry Kremin's poetic texts. Behind these subject designations lies the vast world of artistic and figurative generalization and lyrical and philosophical reflections that are gaining coded meaning. Familiarity with the poetry of Dmitry Kremin proves that the leitmotif of many of his texts is the image of a violin, which acquires different semantic shades. Thus, in Beethoven's poetry, the poet emphasizes the value of music as a special language, devoid of words, but empowered to embody emotional and semantic richness, and therefore capable of being the language of angels. Music code the poetry of Dmitry Kremen is a multidimensional system in which the concept of "music" acts as a concept as a set of meaningful characters and their semantic meanings. In the process of decoding Dmitry Kremin's poetry, one can discover the deep semantic loads of the musical code, on the one hand – as the embodiment of the categories of high, sublime, valuable and eternal in the human sense, on the other – as a symbol of the extra-material, mystical, language of which the angels speak. Decoding the poet's texts is the process of extracting recognition codes and perception codes. The codes of perception in the poetry of Dmitry Kremenya are meaningful loads of texts, its semantic components, which highlight the deep meanings of texts. Through the musical code, the poet embodies the content of the categories of the sublime and the beautiful. The music code shows the understanding of poetry of Dmitry Kremenin a deeply metaphorical sense.


Author(s):  
Christian Rode

This article examines the role of the mediaeval theory of the propositio in re, as proposed by Walter Burley and others, which bears a striking resemblance to the theory of the “proposition” advocated by G. E. Moore and B. Russell. Burley’s proposition composed of real things has the function of an ultimate significate for every sentence of natural language. The main problems of such a theory are on the one hand absurdities like a bird flying between the subject and predicate of a sentence, on the other hand Burley’s assumption that a relation of identity holds between subject and predicate, which might render propositiones in re tautological. Moreover, the particular nature of this relation is left unexplained. But these difficulties can be solved: The former by applying objective being, being as being cognized, to the terms of a propositio, as did Scotus and Franciscus de Prato, the latter by specifying multiple forms of real predication as being or being-in-something apart from a mere identity-relation (e. g. William Milverley).


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