Dilys M. Hill

The Obama Administration: what can social science offer?

This paper reports on the 2009 Academy of Social Sciences annual debate about prospects for the new United States administration. Just half way into the ‘first hundred days’ of President Barack Obamas term, a panel of social scientists, convened by Philip Davies, Director of the British Librarys Eccles Centre for American Studies, addressed the question of what social science could offer the new president in various areas of policy and government action. Each of the panellists was offered the opportunity to revisit their presentations in the light of the discussion that took place, and this paper brings these thoughts together. Dilys Hill introduces the contributions with an overview commentary on the debate contributions. Andrew Rudaleviges analysis of the scholarship on managing the presidency leads him to state that ‘Presidential leadership lies … in garnering the benefits of centralising without losing the wider expertise brought to bear by a decentralised process. Herein—somewhere!—lies the holy grail of Cabinet Government, American-style.’ George C. Edwards examines presidential strategies for government with the conclusion that ‘Rather than creating the conditions for important shifts in public policy, such as moving public opinion in their direction, effective leaders are the less heroic facilitators who work at the margins of coalition building to recognise and exploit opportunities in their environments.’ Jenel Virden points out that in 2008 the percentage and numerical turnout of women was higher than that for men; women voted more for Obama than did men; and they were strongly hopeful that under the new administration prospects would improve. Having engaged so successfully with this sector of the population, the Obama Administration is under pressure to recognise and address its needs. Robert Singh points out that there are necessary reservations about the utility of social science in informing an Obama foreign policy, but nonetheless elaborates three propositions and seven principles that could usefully frame the administrations approach.

Rethinking Rights in the Twenty-First Century: The Right to Life and the Right to Peace from a Buddhist Perspective

The right to life and the right to peace are examined from a Buddhist perspective on ‘life’. This perspective differs from that of the Judeo-Christian tradition, in that it stresses that at the deepest level, each life is interdependent and interrelated. Awakening to this reality is to realise equality in the most fundamental sense – that of creative coexistence. This is exactly what the Earth Charter aims to do. The paper concludes that based on this realisation, political and economic competition will be transformed into a humanitarian competition, in other words, cooperation.

Democratic theory and practice: An evolving discourse

The New Challenge of Direct Democracy by Ian Budge. London: Polity Press, 1996. Pp.viii + 203. £45 (hardback); £12.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 7456 1231 8 and 1765 4 QUANGOs and Local Government: A Changing World edited by Howard Davis. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1996. Pp.104. £25 (hardback). ISBN 0 7146 4735 7 Extraordinary Politics: How Protest and Dissent are Changing American Democracy by Charles C. Euchner. Boulder, CO: Westview press, 1996. Pp.xiv + 290. £51.50 (hardback); £14.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 8133 2905 1 and 2906 X. Rethinking Local Democracy edited by Desmond King and Gerry Stoker. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996. Pp.x + 254. £40 (hardback); £12.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 333 63852 2 and 63853 0 Local Democracy and Local Government edited by Lawrence Pratchett and David Wilson. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996. Pp.xii + 266. £37.50 (hardback); £11.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 333 66432 9 and 66433 7 Social Democracy in a Post‐Communist Europe edited by Michael Waller, Bruno Coppieters and Kris Deschouwe...

City Walls, City Trenches and the Problem of the Elephant's Foot

The walls of the city are the walls of a coliseum-Weber’s arena of political struggle-an arena which is still, in the view of Elliott and McCrone’ a worthy object of research. The city as such can be defended as a viable focus of study because it is the location of important social conflicts and it thus offers insights into social relationships-and how those relationships are experienced (are lived). Urban studies, however, have experienced a revolution in theory which has brought an inter-disciplinary input from political geographers, political scientists and sociologists, and which has now penetrated to the introductory texts. As the second edition of Pahl’s Patterns of Urban Life puts it, the change in the book’s title ‘reflects a major shift in the focus of urban sociology from the study of patterns of urban life, which were seen as operating autonomously within the city, to a study of wider social processes and structures whose impact is seen in the city.’2 That is, the influence of neoMarxist thinking has forced a re-evaluation of ‘city’ explanations: the walls of the city delimit, but cannot define, what happens there, since it is in the relationships of modern capitalism as such that we must seek truly scientific insights. This debate, developed from the work of Castells and others, has had two important results. First, the debate itself has been a remarkably tolerant one: the works depicted here pay tribute to Marxist analysis, while its supporters point to some of its defects (particularly its lack of comparative empiricism and the difficulty of applying aspects of it-such as Castells’ concept of ‘social movements’-to the British urban scene). Second, this advocation of theoretical pluralism and epistemological tolerance by Saunders and others has fostered a re-evaluation of Weberian approaches and a reexamination of the ideas of managerialism and ‘urban gatekeepers’ which formed an important part of earlier studies. Elliott and McCrone in fact defend their approach as ‘left-Weberianism’; they trace Weber’s contribution and argue that we need to pay greater attention to the city’s historical roots. They believe that there is a pressing need for further work on bureaucratic domination, for a ‘thorough-going sociology of public bureaucracy’. Pahl, Flynn and Buck also stress the insight which historical research offers, and their text sets out very clearly the development