Marc Howard Ross

Agenda Building as a Comparative Political Process

Agenda building is the process through which demands of various groups in a population are translated into issues which vie for the attention of decision makers (formal agenda) and/or the public (public agenda). This paper presents three models for the comparative study of agenda building. The outside initiative model describes groups with minimal prior access to decision makers, who must consequently first expand their issues to a public agenda before they can hope to reach the formal agenda. The mobilization model accounts for issues which are placed on the formal agenda by political leaders, who subsequently attempt to expand these issues to the public agenda to obtain the support required for implementation. The inside access model refers to leaders, or to those having close contact with these leaders, who seek to place issues on the formal agenda directly, and for whom expansion to the public agenda is both unnecessary and undesirable. Propositions are stated about intergroup variation in patterns of agenda building within societies; about variations in success rates for different strategies and probabilities of occurrence for the three models in different types of societies; and about characteristics of the agenda-building process which hold in all three models and in any social setting.

The culture of conflict : interpretations and interests in comparative perspective

In this book, Ross develops a broad theoretical explanation for cross-cultural conflict, claiming that both social-cultural interests and psychocultural dispositions must be taken into account to explain why some societies are especially prone to conflict and others are more peaceful.

Galton's Problem in Cross-National Research

Galtons problem raises questions about the nature of explanation in cross-national research using aggregate data. When political units such as states interact, to what extent can correlations between two traits or behaviors, such as socioeconomic development and political stability, be explained in terms of functional relationships within political systems, and to what extent are they the result of diffusion or borrowing among them? This article explores the logic of Galtons problem and then evaluates several empirical solutions to it, using data drawn from three different types of crossnational samples. The solutions juxtapose explanations based on internal (functional) relationships and external (diffusion) patterns, and suggest that previous research which has ignored diffusion may have led to incomplete or incorrect conclusions.

Culture and Identity in Comparative Political Analysis

Ross’s lengthy article represents a thorough and broad-ranging assessment of contemporary political culture theory. (See also Lane 1992.) After defining culture somewhat differently from either Almond or Elkins and Simeon (as a system of meaning and identity), Ross takes up four topics in turn. First, he outlines five distinctive contributions that political culture theories make to the study of comparative politics. Second, he isolates five central themes of contemporary political culture applications. Third and perhaps most interesting, he culls five important criticisms of political culture theories from the contemporary literature of comparative political analysis. Fourth, Ross shows how political culture theories might enrich studies focusing on topics beyond explicitly political subjects (e.g., government institutions) such as the economy. Like Almond as well as Elkins and Simeon, Ross concludes that political culture theory holds much promise for helping us to explain social life in a fashion consistent with the demands of empirical social science.

Creating the conditions for peacemaking: theories of practice in ethnic conflict resolution

Establishing the conditions for effective intergroup peacemaking is a formidable task in severe ethnic conflicts. Conflict resolution practitioners argue that a critical first step is developing preconditions which convince competing groups that there are opponents to whom it is worth talking, that it is possible to create structural changes conducive to a stable peace, and that an agreement is possible which can meet each sides basic concerns and needs. This article compares six theories of practice of ethnic conflict resolution: community relations, principled negotiation; human needs; psychoanalytically rooted identity; intercultural miscommunications and conflict transformation, examining how each understands ethnic conflict; the goals it articulates; the effects of good practice on participants in interventions; the mechanisms by which the project achieves its impact; and the dynamics of transfer affecting the course of a wider conflict. It is argued that clearer articulation of these assumptions will improve both theory and practice in the search for settlements to severe ethnic conflict.

The Relevance of Culture for the Study of Political Psychology and Ethnic Conflict

There is a powerful tension between the context-specific analyses which figure prominently in the social sciences in recent years and the emphasis on universal human dynamics which characterizes cross-cultural psychology. Using the example of ethnic conflict, I seek to bridge the two and suggest that underlying the thick description of single conflicts as the parties understand them is what an earlier generation of psychological anthropologists called “the psychic unity of mankind,” referring to deep structural similarities in all cultures, which make us human (Spiro, 1987). I propose that a cultural analysis of ethnic conflict can effectively build an explanation putting each conflict in a context which highlights what the parties believe is at stake; identifying both the concrete interests and threats to identity crucial to the disputants; linking interests and identities to psychocultural interpretations and the motives underlying them; and proposing that successful settlement of ethnic conflicts means that the parties themselves must actively work toward proposals which address both their competing interests and core identity needs.

Psychocultural Interpretations and Dramas: Identity Dynamics in Ethnic Conflict

Ethnic identity connects individuals through perceived common past experiences and expectations of shared future ones. Identity is concerned with group judgments and judgments about groups and their motives. This article explores identity through the case of Loyal Order Protestant parades in Northern Ireland and the concepts of psychocultural interpretations (shared, deeply held worldviews found in group narratives) and psychocultural dramas (conflicts over competing, and apparently irresolvable, claims that engage the central elements of a group’s historical experience). Psychocultural dramas are polarizing events whose manifest content involves non-negotiable cultural claims, threats, and/or rights that become important because of their connections to core metaphors and group narratives that embody a group’s identity. In ethnic conflicts, psychocultural dramas arise over competing claims that evoke deeply rooted dimensions of the conflict which cannot be settled by reference to more general rules or higher authority. Psychocultural dramas are tools of analysis for understanding the centrality of cultural identity and ritual in ethnic conflict and for the redefinition of such conflicts in ways that increase the chances for managing them constructively. Examining the psychocultural dramas surrounding parades disputes in Northern Ireland suggests why and how some conflicts are more amenable to constructive outcomes than others.

Problems of Measurement in Cross-Cultural Research Using Secondary Data

Measurement, the process of linking abstract concepts to empirical indicants (Blalock 1968:12; Zeller and Carmines 1980: 2), is critical in the testing of theory. No matter how sophisticated the derivation of hypotheses, sampling design, and statistical analysis, theory-testing may fail if measurement is inadequate. After briefly examining basic measurement concepts, we review a number of problems of measurement in the use of secondary data in cross-cultural research. We order our review by stages of the research process, from the design of measures to the data analysis, and we suggest some possible solutions to a variety of measurement problems. Since researchers face problems that vary with the research question, the type of theory, and the resources available, we hope that our discussion builds awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of various solutions to the different problems of measurement usmg secondary data and, in the process, improves the quality of cross-cultural research. By &dquo;research using secondary data&dquo; we are referring here to studies that code data from ethnographic reports and then use these codes to develop quantitative generalizations across a sample of cases within a region or throughout the whole world. Although we focus on measurement here, one of our central premises is that measurement concerns cannot be separated from questions of theory. Theory specifies which variables are of interest and models how variables may be interrelated. Ultimately, we argue, theory is critical not only in the selection of concepts of interest but also in our evaluation of the adequacy of the measures that are employed and in the interpretation of results. Finally, although it is not a point we develop here, cross-cultural studies using secondary data represent only one way of evaluating propositions about human behavior; propositions also need to be

Internal and external conflict and violence: cross-cultural evidence and a new analysis

A general theory of conflict and violence (Ross, forthcoming) can help in understanding the relationship between internal and external conflict. Looking at a sample of 90 preindustrial societies supports the proposition that the two have a moderate, positive relationship. More important, however, the analysis identifies conditions under which the two forms of political conflict are associated, and those under which they are differentiated. The strength and patterns of cross-cutting ties are very different in societies in which internal and external conflict covary and societies in which internal and external conflict are independent. Similarly, the structural features of society are central determinants of whether targets of overt aggression are within a society, located outside it, or both. Finally, dispositional (psychocultural) characteristics found in a society are the best predictors of overall conflict levels, but are not useful in distinguishing between internal and external targets. In the conclusion the elements of a general theory of conflict involving both structural and dispositional considerations are elaborated.

Culture and Belonging in Divided Societies: Contestation and Symbolic Landscapes

Preface 1. Cultural Contestation and the Symbolic Landscape: Politics by Other Means? -Marc Howard Ross 2. The Rise and Fall of a Sacred Place: Ayodhya over Three Decades -Richard H. Davis 3. Social Lives of the Dead: Contestation and Continuities in the Hawaiian Repatriation Context -Greg Johnson 4. Flagging Peace: Struggles over Symbolic Landscape in the New Northern Ireland Dominic -Bryan Clifford Stevenson 5. Conflict Transformation, Cultural Innovation, and Loyalist Identity in Northern Ireland -Lee A. Smithey 6. Islamic Headscarves in Public Schools: Explaining Frances Legal Restrictions -Elaine R. Thomas 7. Minority Language Policy in France: Jacobinism, Cultural Pluralism, and Ethnoregional Identities -Britt Cartrite 8. Symbols of Reconciliation or Instruments of Division? A Critical Look at New Monuments in South Africa -Sabine Marschall 9. Emerging Multiculturalisms in South African Museum Practice: Some Examples from the Western Cape -Crain Soudien 10. Strategies for Transforming and Enlarging South Africas Post-Apartheid Symbolic Landscape -Marc Howard Ross 11. Invisible House, Invisible Slavery: Struggles of Public History at Independence National Historical Park -Charlene Mires 12. Politicizing Chinese New Year Festivals: Cold War Politics, Transnational Conflicts, and Chinese America -Chiou-Ling Yeh 13. Paddy, Shylock, and Sambo: Irish, Jewish, and African American Efforts to Ban Racial Ridicule on Stage and Screen -M. Alison Kibler Epilogue -Edward T. Linenthal List of Contributors Index