American Discontent

1996 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-148
Author(s):  
Theodore Caplow

Never before in the history of the American republic has there been such a loud chorus of complaint. Here is a representative selection of recent (1993 to 1996) books about public policy in the United States

Author(s):  
W. Andrew Collins ◽  
Willard W. Hartup

This chapter summarizes the emergence and prominent features of a science of psychological development. Pioneering researchers established laboratories in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century to examine the significance of successive changes in the organism with the passage of time. American psychologists, many of whom had studied in the European laboratories, subsequently inaugurated similar efforts in the United States. Scientific theories and methods in the fledgling field were fostered by developments in experimental psychology, but also in physiology, embryology, ethology, and sociology. Moreover, organized efforts to provide information about development to parents, educators, and public policy specialists further propagated support for developmental science. The evolution of the field in its first century has provided a substantial platform for future developmental research.


Author(s):  
Michael O’Hare

Training for policy analysis practice has evolved over forty years to a standardized core, including economics, statistics, management, politics/political science, and a practicum. The original model applied disciplinary methodology to the selection of better alternatives among possible policies for governments and nonprofit organizations. The most important mid-course correction in MPP history was the introduction of public management requirements in recognition that MPP alumni would (i) manage ‘policy shops’ and operating agencies as their careers advanced, and (ii) should advise on policy with awareness of implementability and manageability issues. Variations on this model include courses in law and public administration, concentrations in issue areas like health or environmental policy, and joint degrees with other professional schools. Current issues from which future evolution of the MPP enterprise is likely to flow include tensions between methodologies used by MPP faculty in research and inclusion of models like Bayesian inference and behavioral economics that may be more applicable in professional practice. Another source of variation is pedagogical: some courses offer the familiar ‘Theory T [for telling]’ model whereby content is presented didactically in lectures with discussion assigned to sections, while others move to ‘Theory C [for coaching]’ convention where content presentation is left to readings, and meetings are devoted to using the content to analyze policy questions.


2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELIZABETH HUTCHINSON

Between 1821 and 1842, Charles Bird King painted a series of portraits of Native American diplomats for Thomas L. McKenney, founding Superintendent of Indian Affairs. These pictures were hung in a gallery in McKenney's office in the War Department in Washington, DC, and were later copied by lithographers for inclusion in McKenney and James Hall's History of the Indian Tribes of the United States (1836–44). Significantly, the production and circulation of these portraits straddles a period of tremendous change in the diplomatic interactions between the United States and Native tribes. This essay analyzes a selection of these images for their complex messages about the sovereignty of Indian people and their appropriate interactions with European American culture. Paying particular attention to pictures of leaders of southern nations, including the Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole, I discuss the sitters' strategies of self-fashioning within the context of long-standing cultural exchange in the region. In addition, I offer a reading of the meaning of the Indian gallery as a whole that challenges the conventional wisdom that it is an archive produced exclusively to impose US control on the subjects included, arguing instead for the inclusion of portrait-making within this history of interaction.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-120
Author(s):  
Łukasz Jureńczyk

The aim of the paper is to analyze and assess the legitimacy of the implementation of a civil nuclear program in Poland and the selection of the United States as the main external partner. The considerations are carried out in the context of ensuring Poland’s energy security. The introduction contains the main methodological assumptions and synthetically outlines the history of nuclear projects in Poland. The first part of the paper analyzes the impact of the nuclear program on Poland’s energy security. The second part is devoted to Polish-American cooperation in the implementation of the nuclear


Author(s):  
Hugh Lafollette

The gun control debate is often cast as if there were two options: we either have it or we don’t. This is a mistake. Our real options lie along five different, albeit overlapping, continua. The first three concern public policy: who should be permitted to have which firearms, and how should we regulate the guns we permit people to have. The fourth and fifth continua concern prudential and moral judgments: whether it would be wise or moral for people to own firearms independently of the how we answer the policy questions. I outline the history of firearms from their inception into the early twentieth century. I explain when and where they were initially used, how they were refined and developed, and why they played a special role in the history of the United States. This history isolates three key facts about firearms that inform the gun control debate.


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