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The author considers Jurgen Habermas's conceptualization of & concern about the "pressure of the street." In the realm of the street, force or violence often overwhelm reason. In Habermas's theory, both civil society & the state hover precariously above an abyss symbolized by the street. 22 References. A. Funderburg

The author considers Jurgen Habermas's conceptualization of & concern about the "pressure of the street." In the realm of the street, force or violence often overwhelm reason. In Habermas's theory, both civil society & the state hover precariously above an abyss symbolized by the street. 22 References. A. Funderburg

The author focuses on Kant's response to a question posed by Rousseau: What is a citizen? The analysis investigates the reciprocal & pathological tensions between the individual & the state. The author discusses the conceptualization of the people, the divided subject, the presentation of the other, the idea of organization, & the state as master. 51 References. A. Funderburg

The author focuses on Kant's response to a question posed by Rousseau: What is a citizen? The analysis investigates the reciprocal & pathological tensions between the individual & the state. The author discusses the conceptualization of the people, the divided subject, the presentation of the other, the idea of organization, & the state as master. 51 References. A. Funderburg

Offers a world-systems explanation for the postmodernist movement in contemporary culture & thought that attributes this development to the influence of the capitalist world economy. It arose in the 1970s, a time when US hegemony within the world system had started to decline & a plurality of national powers (& international rivalries) was developing. Cyclical shifts between political conflict/economic crisis & periods of imposed peace/economic expansion are analyzed using a global version of Erving Goffman's frame analysis. Assumptions underlying the postmodern frame are explicated, with emphasis on its ideological influence on hegemony & rivalry. Shifts in art that parallel these political & economic cycles are identified, identifying different movements in different countries. 22 References. K. Hyatt Stewart

Offers a world-systems explanation for the postmodernist movement in contemporary culture & thought that attributes this development to the influence of the capitalist world economy. It arose in the 1970s, a time when US hegemony within the world system had started to decline & a plurality of national powers (& international rivalries) was developing. Cyclical shifts between political conflict/economic crisis & periods of imposed peace/economic expansion are analyzed using a global version of Erving Goffman's frame analysis. Assumptions underlying the postmodern frame are explicated, with emphasis on its ideological influence on hegemony & rivalry. Shifts in art that parallel these political & economic cycles are identified, identifying different movements in different countries. 22 References. K. Hyatt Stewart

The authors explore how books by African American & Asian American women are challenging the traditional boundaries of the public sphere. Their textual analysis focuses on four books: The Street by Ann Petry, Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks, Floating World by Cynthia Kadohata, & Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee. They investigate how minority literature depicts the boundaries of the public & private spheres, how those boundaries reinforce & overlap with class & gender, & how the nation-state became involved in dictating those boundaries. They analyze how the private & public spheres are portrayed in the four texts, how females negotiate their positions within & between the public & private spheres, & how literary texts locate & represent the political & economic powers that shape women's lives. 22 References. A. Funderburg

The "virtues & vulnerabilities" of constitutional democracy are examined in the context of social & culture issues affecting the postmodern, multicultural world system, focusing on issues of citizenship, social justice, & rights. Several types & symptoms of difference, conflict, fragmentation, & heterogeneity between & among particular groups are discussed & related to some longstanding issues in political theory & philosophy. Four primary strategies available to democracies to consolidate a homogeneous demos & implement the ideal of citizenship are identified -- civil, social, political, & identity group. A critical review is offered of contemporary political group rights efforts to equalize citizenship by granting special group rights to minorities, arguing that the concepts of what constitutes a "group" & "rights" are too ambiguous for such efforts to be valid, & that they only end up increasing inequalities. 22 References. K. Hyatt Stewart

The author focuses on E. P. Thompson's The Poverty of Theory, especially Thompson's criticism of Louis Althusser. The author begins with a critique of Thompson's interpretation of the 18th-century English crowd & questions whether the crowd's moral economy was resistant to the assent of capitalist market relations as codified in Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. He then demonstrates that Smith's legacy haunts Thompson's concept of the crowd. Finally, he looks at Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class, especially the connection between the early 18th-century food rioters & the more enlightened crowd of the 1790s. 46 References. A. Funderburg

The author describes major ultra-nationalist movements (fascism & national socialism) in contemporary Russia. These movements have arisen largely in response to the perceived failure of neoliberalist reforms since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia is a "torn country" that is undergoing political & economic Westernization -- an irreversible process that has brought severe economic problems & a declining standard of living for the majority. The new regime is described as a mixture of liberal democracy, authoritarianism, & capitalism. The author concludes that the shift from Russian communism to national patriotism is a key feature of modernization in post-Soviet Russia, & that the nation's current problems are similar to those caused by globalization & Westernization elsewhere. 1 Table, 34 References. J. R. Callahan

The author revisits the theory of print capitalism & the origins of nationalism as explained in Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities. Anderson, by reducing Marxism & liberal theory to a perspective, elided the sharp disconnection between Marxism & liberalism. This elision effectively permitted the operation of a theoretical discrepancy, which formed the foundation of Anderson's theory of nationalism. This allowed the substitution of non-Marxist concepts of capitalism for the Marxist & permitted capital to represent the capitalist mode of production. In this essay, the author develops his argument by examining the relationship between print capitalism & the demise of the Latin language, nationalism & the consumption of the print commodity, & the role of Christopher Plantin as an early print capitalist. 11 References. A. Funderburg

Land reform has been vital to the reconstruction of China because it gave peasants the opportunity to equal distribution of land to all who farmed it. The author outlines the history of this land reform & points out aspects of its success & reasons for declines during the hardship years of 1959 to 1961. Despite revanchist forces that deny the success of the New Democratic Revolution, peasant communities expanded crop production, achieved village government, empowered women, & started primary education & literacy campaigns. Deng reformers dissolved many collectives, starting with the least profitable & offering incentives & pressures for the others to follow until they had again privatized agriculture & undone 30 years of cooperatives efforts. The vast majority of the family contracts that were established have stagnated due to lack of capital, fragmentation of land, & an attitude of self-centered anarchy. The author encourages a return to the more productive approach of collective agriculture. L. A. Hoffman

Land reform has been vital to the reconstruction of China because it gave peasants the opportunity to equal distribution of land to all who farmed it. The author outlines the history of this land reform & points out aspects of its success & reasons for declines during the hardship years of 1959 to 1961. Despite revanchist forces that deny the success of the New Democratic Revolution, peasant communities expanded crop production, achieved village government, empowered women, & started primary education & literacy campaigns. Deng reformers dissolved many collectives, starting with the least profitable & offering incentives & pressures for the others to follow until they had again privatized agriculture & undone 30 years of cooperatives efforts. The vast majority of the family contracts that were established have stagnated due to lack of capital, fragmentation of land, & an attitude of self-centered anarchy. The author encourages a return to the more productive approach of collective agriculture. L. A. Hoffman

The author looks at organized labor's shrinking public sphere & seeks to identify the underlying causes of labor's decline in the US. He finds the potential for a revitalized, vigorous counter-public sphere for labor in the new rank-&-file union movements & the local union leaders affiliated with them. 11 References. A. Funderburg

Among the staggering changes of the 20th century, a fundamental change has been the displacement of the peasant. In the past 50 years, those in the agriculture labor force have dropped by 33% overall, but 40% in the Third World; urbanization has grown with those living in Third World cities of over a million in population increasing by 252% worldwide & by 447% in the Third World. The author links the displacement of the peasant to the social developments of this era. Dispossession of the peasantry has come through differentiation & displacement. Differentiation results from attempts to protect home markets & national agricultures from competition from the superpowers, which results in the gradual rural differentiation into capitalists & proletarians in the home market. The policies of displacement result from the massive active movement of peasants to the city as they are proletarianized into the urban environment. The author argues that globalization & market liberalization have left differentiation for wide scale displacement, & he discusses the implications of this massive social change. L. A. Hoffman