Unexceptionalism

2020 ◽  
pp. 87-90
Author(s):  
Alasdair Roberts
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mistaken Belief ◽  
Governance Strategies ◽  
State Governance

This chapter highlights another habit of thought that compromises one's ability to think clearly about strategies for governing in the United States: the doctrine of exceptionalism—the idea that there is something unique about governance in the American context. This mistaken belief makes it harder to learn from the experience of other states. There is a temptation to suggest that the United States is exceptional only because of the emphasis that Americans put on their own exceptionality. But even this is not true. People in most countries see something special about their own circumstances. Indeed, the feeling of exceptionality is shared almost universally, and rightly so. Conditions facing leaders in any one state are different from those facing any other state. Governance strategies must fit those conditions, and consequently one should expect policies and institutions to vary as well. This is why one should be wary about “one size fits all” prescriptions for governmental reform. Still, one should not get too carried away with this emphasis on variation. Even if circumstances change, there is one important commonality: leaders in all states, at all points in time, deal with the realities of building and maintaining a state.

Planning or Improvisation

2020 ◽  
pp. 116-120
Author(s):  
Alasdair Roberts
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Governance Strategies ◽  
The Face ◽  
Imperfect Knowledge

This chapter assesses the role of planning in the design of governance strategies. Enthusiasm for large-scale planning—also known as overall, comprehensive, long-term, economic, or social planning—boomed and collapsed in twentieth century. At the start of that century, progressive reformers seized on planning as the remedy for the United States' social and economic woes. By the end of the twentieth century, enthusiasm for large-scale planning had collapsed. Plans could be made, but they were unlikely to be obeyed, and even if they were obeyed, they were unlikely to work as predicted. The chapter then explains that leaders should make plans while being realistic about the limits of planning. It is necessary to exercise foresight, set priorities, and design policies that seem likely to accomplish those priorities. Simply by doing this, leaders encourage coordination among individuals and businesses, through conversation about goals and tactics. Neither is imperfect knowledge a total barrier to planning. There is no “law” of unintended consequences: it is not inevitable that government actions will produce entirely unexpected results. The more appropriate stance is modesty about what is known and what can be achieved. Plans that launch big schemes on brittle assumptions are more likely to fail. Plans that proceed more tentatively, that allow room for testing, learning, and adjustment, are less likely to collapse in the face of unexpected results.

What’s in a Word?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy A. Naples
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
State Governance ◽  
The Media ◽  
Materialist Feminist

Drawing on a materialist feminist analysis of austerity discourse, this chapter foregrounds the dynamics of gender, race, nation, and class to put into sharp relief the “relations of ruling” that contour the everyday lives of diverse individuals, families, communities, and nations during and following the Great Recession of 2008–9. This approach allows for a comparison of the role of the state in the United States and Europe and considers the intersection of the media, state actors, and economic analysts in post-liberal state governance. This multi-institutional approach enhances our understanding of general patterns across the United States and the European Union as well as differences between nations.

Hazards of Clove Cigarettes

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-396
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Carbon Monoxide ◽  
Young People ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
The United States ◽  
Anesthetic Agent ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Cigarette Smoker ◽  
Mistaken Belief ◽  
10Th Grade

In recent years, the development of a dangerous fad in which young people use clove cigarettes as an alternative to conventional cigarettes has occurred in several areas of the United States and Canada. Many users have the mistaken belief that clove cigarettes are an herbal, "natural," nontobacco alternative. Others are attracted to their use because of the association of clove cigarettes with the image of surfing, New Wave music, and the search for "exotic" and unusual experiences. More than 170 million clove cigarettes were sold at the height of their popularity in 1984, and sales were still averaging more than 40 million per year in 1985, 1986, and 1987.1(p3) This is even more remarkable when one considers that a significant portion of the consumers are under the legal age of purchase and that these sales have been achieved without the assistance of overt advertising. Indeed, a recent report of California youth in the 10th grade showed that 23% had tried clove cigarettes at least once. Furthermore, one third of those, approximately 8.5%, had used them at least once per month.2 Clove cigarettes are imported from Southeast Asia, principally from Indonesia, and are composed of approximately one third shredded cloves and two thirds tobacco. The type of tobacco in a clove cigarette delivers approximately twice as much tars, nicotine, and carbon monoxide as does tobacco in ordinary American cigarettes.1(pvi) In addition, substantial amounts of eugenol, an anesthetic agent, are found in cloves and in the smoke of clove cigarettes. The typical clove cigarette smoker inhales approximately 7 mg of eugenol per clove cigarette.

Criminal Process in the Dual Penal State

2019 ◽  
pp. 2-24
Author(s):  
Markus D. Dubber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Criminal Process ◽  
Comparative Historical Analysis ◽  
Penal State ◽  
Penal Law ◽  
State Governance ◽  
The Ideal

This chapter uses comparative-historical analysis to discuss criminal process in the context of penal power in the modern liberal state as penal law and penal police—the dual penal state. Focusing on Germany and the United States, it considers two ways of thinking about criminal process, from parallel perspectives that correspond to two modes of state governance: law and police. The first is characteristic of the law state (Rechtsstaat) and the second, of the police state (Polizeistaat). The emphasis is on the criminal process that is consistent with the pursuit of the ideal of liberal law to which states that regard themselves—or wish to be regarded by others—as participants in the modern liberal legal-political project are committed.

From Austria-Hungary to the United States: National Minorities and Emigration 1880-1914

1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tibor Frank
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
General Public ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Political Career ◽  
National Minorities ◽  
Mistaken Belief ◽  
Native Tongue

At the beginning of his political career, Count Kuno Klebelsberg, the remarkable future Hungarian Minister of Culture and Education of the 1920s, prepared a statement on emigration from Hungary for Prime Minister Kálmán Széll in 1902. “[W]e must correct a great and general mistake, that might unfortunately lead to disappointment,” Klebelsberg warned the PM. “Unwilling to make a distinction among people from the point of view of nationality, we call everybody residing in Hungary a Hungarian. This is how it became fashionable to speak of 'the emigration of Hungarians' when emigration was discussed, giving the general public, unaccustomed to making distinctions, the mistaken belief that we are talking about the emigration of Hungarians who speak the native tongue. This is why the return of the emigrants and corresponding official arrangements are demanded. The case is different, however. The two largest contingents contributing to the [“Hungarian”] emigration are Slovaks and Ruthenes.”

Foreign Affairs Federalism in the United States

2019 ◽  
pp. 258-275
Author(s):  
Ernest A. Young
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Government ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Political Life ◽  
State Governance ◽  
State And Local ◽  
External Forces ◽  
Domestic Affairs

Although the American Founders intended to centralize power over foreign affairs in the national government, the modern reality is considerably more complex. To be sure, the national government dominates the core of foreign affairs: the conduct of foreign policy toward other nations. Yet even here, states and municipalities intrude from time to time. More broadly, state and local governments remain important players in areas such as immigration and commercial regulation that have important international dimensions. Federalism constrains—legally and especially politically—the international agreements that the national government can enter into, and central authorities remain dependent on state and local officials to implement many important international commitments. Internal and external forces have combined to make a multilayered approach to foreign affairs inevitable in the United States. Internal forces include the constitutional structure itself, which stops short of giving exclusive foreign affairs powers to the national government and reserves important authority to the states, as well as the more contemporary impact of polarization in American political life. On the external side, globalization has blurred the very distinction between foreign and domestic affairs, and international law’s increasing preoccupation with nations’ treatment of their own citizens has rendered many traditional areas of state governance subjects of international concern.

Genomics Governance in the United States and the United Kingdom

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 244-265
Author(s):  
Liza Ireni-Saban
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Private Information ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Genetic Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Instrument ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Genetic Technologies ◽  
State Governance

Technological innovation in the area of personalised genetic data poses novel regulatory concerns for state governance. Since personalised genetic data reveals highly sensitive and private information about a person’s susceptibility to illness, it may lead to stigmatisation, discrimination, and breach of privacy. Although legal arrangements for personal or medical data have always been governmental and legal concerns, the introduction of genetic technologies over the past two decades has breathed new life into the idea of privacy and non-discrimination protection for individuals and communities, leading to possible new types of social relationships that circulate in a global biomedical arena. Thus, our analysis of genetic information regulation is based on a comparative analysis of policy instruments by examining the appropriateness of various policy instrument choices made in the United States and in the United Kingdom for securing the rights for privacy, non-discrimination, and access to research benefits for individuals and communities.

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