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Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction. Reordering the world -- Part I: Frames -- 2. The Dream Machine -- 3. What Is Liberalism? -- 4. Ideologies of Empire -- Part II: Themes -- 5. Escape Velocity -- 6. The Idea of a Patriot Queen? -- 7. Imagined Spaces -- 8. The Project for a New Anglo Century -- Part III: Thinkers -- 9. John Stuart Mill on Colonies -- 10. International Society in Victorian Political Thought -- 11. John Robert Seeley and the Political Theology of Empire -- 12. Republican Imperialism -- 13. Alter Orbis -- 14. Democracy and Empire -- 15. Coda -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX

Written by an eminent and original thinker in the philosophy of science, this book takes a fresh, unorthodox look at the key philosophical concepts and assumptions of the social sciences. Mario Bunge contends that social scientists (anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, economists, and historians) ought not to leave philosophy to philosophers who have little expertise in or knowledge of the social sciences. Bunge urges social scientists to engage in serious philosophizing and philosophers to participate in social research. The two fields are interrelated, he says, and important advances in each can supply tools for solving problems in the other.Bunge analyzes such concepts as fact, cause, and value that the fields of philosophy and social science share. He discusses assumptions and misassumptions involved in such current approaches as idealism, materialism, and subjectivism, and finds that none of the best-known philosophies helps to advance or even understand social science. In a highly critical appraisal of rational choice theories, Bunge insists that these models provide no solid substantive theory of society, nor do they help guide rational action. He offers ten criteria by which to evaluate philosophies of social science and proposes novel solutions to social science's methodological and philosophical problems. He argues forcefully that a particular union of rationalism, realism, and systemism is the logical and viable philosophical stance for social science practitioners

Intro -- À propos de Collection XIX -- Titre -- Dédicace -- INTRODUCTION -- PREMIÈRE PARTIE - LE FAIT -- LES DONNÉES DE L'HISTOIRE DE LA PHILOSOPHIE -- 1° LA RECHERCHE DE L'ÊTRE - ou interprétation de l'univers par la notion de substance -- 2° LA RECHERCHE DE L'ATTRIBUT - ou interprétation finaliste des choses -- 3° LA RECHERCHE DE LA RELATION - ou interprétation mécaniste -- DEUXIÈME PARTIE - EXPLICATION DU FAIT LA LOI DE L'ÉVOLUTION DE LA SCIENCE ET SA NÉCESSITÉ -- CHAPITRE I - LA PERCEPTION -- I - IDÉALITÉ DU MONDE TEL QU'IL EST PERÇU -- LE MONDE SELON LA PERCEPTION -- UN TEL MONDE NE PEUT EXISTER EN SOI -- II - CONSTRUCTION DU MONDE PAR L'ESPRIT -- LA FORME ET LA MATIÈRE DE LA CONNAISSANCE -- ÉLABORATION DE LA MATIÈRE PAR L'ESPRIT -- CONSTITUTION D'UN SUJET ET D'UN OBJET -- LES CATÉGORIES DE DISTINCTION - LES FORMES DU TEMPS ET DE L'ESPACE -- CONSTITUTION D'UNE PENSÉE ET D'UN UNIVERS -- LES CATÉGORIES DE LOGICITÉ - LES LOIS DE CAUSALITÉ ET DE FINALITÉ -- LES CATÉGORIES DE STABILITÉ ET DE RÉALITÉ - LES CATÉGORIES DE SUBSTANCE ET D'INDIVIDUALITÉ -- CONCLUSION -- CHAPITRE II - LA SCIENCE -- I - NÉCESSITÉ DE LA SCIENCE ET DE SON ÉVOLUTION -- II - NÉCESSITÉ D'UNE ÉVOLUTION DANS LA CONCEPTION DE LA MÉTHODE DE LA SCIENCE -- III - NÉCESSITÉ D'UNE ÉVOLUTION DANS LA CONCEPTION DE L'OBJET DE LA SCIENCE -- 1° INTERPRÉTATION SUBSTANTIALISTE -- 2° INTERPRÉTATION FINALISTE -- 3° INTERPRÉTATION MÉCANISTE -- CONCLUSION -- TROISIÈME PARTIE - VÉRIFICATION DE LA LOI PAR L'ÉTUDE DES SCIENCES POSITIVES DE LA NATURE -- NÉCESSITÉ D'UNE VÉRIFICATION DE LA LOI -- ASTRONOMIE -- PHYSIQUE -- SCIENCE DE LA VIE -- CONCLUSION -- Note au lecteur -- Page de titre de l'édition imprimée -- Copyright

Decentralization has dramatically altered governance in developing countries. However, the empirical evidence regarding its effects on the provision of public goods has been limited and ambiguous. In the first chapter I argue that this ambiguity stems from insufficiently disentangling partial from full decentralization. I differentiate between these two types by comparing administrative decentralization, political decentralization, and their complementarities in Indonesia. The paper employs a unique Indonesian panel of village level outcomes and a difference-in-differences estimation strategy with village level fixed effects. I show that use of a naïve specification that only considers political or administrative decentralization as separate treatments while neglecting their complementarities leads to an omitted variable bias problem. Results from a more complete specification suggest that districts that were treated with both types of decentralization, i.e. full decentralization, display significantly greater provision of public goods compared to those that experienced partial decentralization in the form of only political or administrative decentralization. The second chapter of this thesis contributes to a related literature. It focuses on the causal effect of occupational transitions on consumption changes and poverty. Recent research has pointed out that sectoral transitions from the agricultural to the non-agricultural sector could be a successful pathway out of poverty due to higher productivity in the non-agricultural sector. But these studies face several limitations, such as the use of cross sectional or short panel data. We address some of these gaps and introduce two novel ways of defining sectoral transitions. Each of these definitions is used to exploit a fixed effects and an instrumental variable strategy with long run panel data on Indonesian households. Under both strategies we find that consumption growth is conditional on initial economic status and the nature of the transition---the growth was relatively higher only for those households who were either poor and agricultural in the baseline, or non-poor and non-agricultural. In terms of poverty, we find longer non-agricultural employment resulted in a positive probability of exiting poverty and a negative probability of becoming poor. Based on these findings we propose that pro-poor policies must be tailored to the agricultural or non-agricultural status of a household. The third chapter is a natural extension of the first one. In this chapter I test whether individual outcomes associated with publicly provided goods, such as schools and health-centers, depend on decentralization complementarities. Based on three different datasets I conclude that individual welfare outcomes were significantly better for those belonging to fully decentralized districts compared to those in partially decentralized districts.

The paper takes the case study on policy programmes of the European Forum on Integrated Environmental Assessment (EFIEA) as starting point for a more general reflection on science-policy interfaces in the context of European policymaking. First, the European Union is described as a challenging context in which scientific expertise is met with changing expectations by the public, the policymakers, and by scientists. Second, the paper analyses the challenges of science-policy interfaces and suggests criteria for evaluating organised attempts to create such interfaces. Finally, the experiences of the EFIEA policy programmes are analysed with the aim to suggest options to institutionalise Integrated Environmental Assessment as a tool for improved policymaking at the EU level.

Cover -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Series Introduction -- Volume Introduction -- Creating New Institutions -- Urban Politics in Jacksonian St. Louis: Traditional Values in Change and Conflict -- The Politics of Charter Revision in New York City, 1845-1847 -- The Distribution of Power -- Who Has Power in the Democratic Capitalistic Community? Reflections on Antebellum New York City -- Community Leadership: Baltimore during the First and Second Party Systems -- Black Political Representation in Southern Cities: Election Systems and Other Causal Variables -- Bosses and Machines -- Matthew Livingston Davis and the Political Legacy of Aaron Burr -- Rising Democratic Spirits: Immigrants, Temperance, and Tammany Hall, 1854-1860 -- The Gray Wolf: Tom Dennison of Omaha -- The Last of the Good Old Days: Politics in Baltimore, 1920-1950 -- Reform and Reformers -- On Bosses, Reformers, and Urban Growth: Some Suggestions for a Political Typology of American Cities -- Politics and Reform: The Dimensions of Baltimore Progressivism -- Municipal Reform and the Changing Pattern of Urban Party Politics -- The Reform of Municipal Government in New York City: From Seth Low to John Purroy Mitchel -- Changing Government -- The Galveston Plan of City Government by Commission: The Birth of a Progressive Idea -- Reformers, Factionalists and Kansas City's 1925 City Manager Charter -- The Evolution of Municipal Accounting in the United States: 1900-1935 -- The City, Its Region, and the State -- Suburban Growth and Municipal Annexation in Baltimore, 1745-1918 -- The State and the City -- City Versus State: The Struggle for Legal Ascendancy -- The City and the Federal Government -- The City and the Sword: San Francisco and the Rise of the Metropolitan-Military Complex, 1919-1941.

A Cape of Asia collects eighteen of Wesseling's finest essays on European History, clustered around three concerns: The Wider View, or the historical European perspective on globalization, migration and decolonization; Europe's Identity, reflecting the shift from Eurocentrism to Americanization and Europe's acceptance of Japan, China and India as new key players in the global economy; and European Ideas about Education, Science, and Art. The third section includes the articles 'Johan Huizinga and the Spirit of the Nineteen Thirties' and 'The Expansion of Europe and the Development of Science and Technology'. A small cape of Asia was how Paul Valéry described Europe in 1919 – a pointed summary of the new mood that came over Europe in the interbellum years. Wesseling's essays hold to the original sense of the word: personal reflections on vast subjects written for an intellectual and interested but not necessarily specialized readership.