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International Relations

International relations

International relations (IR), a branch of political science, is the study of foreign affairs of and relations among states within the international system, including the roles of inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and multinational corporations (MNCs). It is both an academic and public policy field, and can be either positive or normative as it both seeks to analyze as well as formulate foreign policy. Apart from political science, IR draws upon such diverse fields as economics, history, law, philosophy, geography, sociology and cultural studies. It involves a diverse range of issues, from globalization and its impacts on societies and state sovereignty to ecological sustainability, nuclear proliferation, nationalism, economic development, terrorism, organized crime and human rights.

International relations theory

International relations theory attempts to provide a conceptual model upon which international relations can be analyzed. Each theory is reductive and essentialist to different degrees, relying on different sets of assumptions respectively. As Oli Holsti describes them, international relations theories act as a pair of colored sunglasses, allowing the wearer to see only the salient events relevant to the theory. An adherent of realism may completely disregard an event that a constructivist might pounce upon as crucial, and vice versa. The number and character of the assumptions made by an international relations theory also determine its usefulness. Realism, a parsimonius and very essentialist theory, has less explanatory power, but greater predictive power. Liberalism, which examines a very wide number of conditions, is less useful in making predictions, but can be very insightful in analyzing past events. Traditional theories may have little to say about the behavior of former colonies, but post-colonial theory may have greater insight into that specific area, where it fails in other situations. Major schools of thought include:
- Realism
- Neo-realism
- Liberalism
- Neo-liberalism
- Neoconservatism
- Isolationism
- Functionalism
- Neofunctionalism
- Marxism
- Leninism
- Constructivism
- Feminism
- Post-colonialism

History

The history of international relations is often traced back to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 where the modern states system was developed. The Westphalia settlement marked the start of a novel premise in international affairs: armed struggle was no longer defined as a contest between varieties of confessional truths, but rather, a dispute among secular "sovereigns". The final settlement of armed disputes, after Westphalia, was no longer the province of military contractors and theologians - but the termination of war fell within the purview of an identifiable coterie of a new class: Professional diplomats and warriors sworn to the service of a state. Before the Westphalia settlement, there was no recognizable diplomatic profession. Spies, irregular envoys, and heralds citing scripture or handing out ringing declamations were the usual route that princes chose to alert one another to each other's demands and to sound the start of war. After Westphalia, the diplomatic craft was practiced by a kind of well-born guild, with members who were adept at melding reason, precedent, and law with quiet allusion to the implication of armed compunction. Before Westphalia, soldiers were led by contractors, private entrepreneurs who garnered pay from their won estates or from the lands they plundered. After Westphalia, soldiers were led by military bureaucrats who raised armies year-round and paid for their keep through levies and taxes. After Westphalia, diplomats and warriors began to share a kind of regulatory synergy. Both diplomat and warrior sought less "victory," and more, the achievement of a favorable peace. War, after Westphalia, as the great observer Carl von Clausewitz put it, came to be a "stronger form of diplomacy," and the battlefield an extension of the conference chamber. Initially, International Relations as a distinct field of study was almost entirely English-centered. The first two schools to form academic divisions directly focused on the study of IR were: in 1919, the first Chair in International Politics established at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth from an endowment given by David Davies; and in the early 1920s the London School of Economics's department of International Relations, founded at the behest of Nobel Peace Prize winner Philip Noel-Baker.

Criticisms

Critics of this interpretation of history argue that it is inherently eurocentric; some non-European territories recognized states in a manner resembling the Westphalian system before 1648 whereas others had wildly different systems. Others (such as Andrew Linklater) argue that today's system is post-Westphalian due to the expansion of the political community into supranational governance through projects such as the European Union. Barry Buzan and Richard Little find that theories modelling their conceptualizations of international society on the Westphalian system are unable to grasp both the premodern international systems and answer the most important questions about international society today. Buzan and Little therefore define an international system as a system in which it is possible to distinguish between an "inside" and an "outside" in political realms and consider an international system to have existed since the rise of civilisation in Sumeria.

Mechanisms of international relations

International relations do not exist in an abstract vacuum—each state (and sometimes sub-state actor) utilizes institutions, traditions, identity, force, rhetoric, and other channels to influence the other actors in the international system.

Official

- Summits, diplomacy, international organizations, supranational organizations, armed conflict, treaties, trade policy, visa policy.

Unofficial

- Business communities, cultural exchange, ethnic diasporas, transnational groups, NGOs, epistemic communities.

Covert

- Coups, espionage, subterfuge, sabotage, terrorism.

References

# Edward Said (1979), Orientalism, New York: Vintage Books (see also: [http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1010417,00.html]) # The United States and the Discipline of International Relations: Hegemonic Country, Hegemonic Discipline?, International Studies Review, Vol 4 (2), 2002, pp 67-86

External links

- [http://www.isn.ethz.ch International Relations and Security Network]
- Global Public Policy Institute, Berlin & Geneva. Independent non-profit think tank that covers a variety of global governance issues from a Global Public Policy perspective. [http://www.globalpublicpolicy.net GPPi] For an excellent collection of articles on IR and GPP, follow this [http://www.globalpublicpolicy.net/index.php?id=11 link.]
- [http://www.eufpc.org/ EUFPC European Foreign Policy Council] - Interdisciplinary Think-tank and Network
- [http://www.tamilnation.org/intframe/ International Relations in the Age of Empire]
- [http://future.wikicities.com/wiki/Scenario Wikifutures Geopolitical Scenarios]
- [http://hir.harvard.edu/articles/1252/1/ Article on Realism x Liberalism] - Harvard International Review article promoting virtues of Liberalism over Realism
- [http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS The Foreign Relations of the United States] : The Foreign Relations of the United States series is the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions that have been declassified and edited for publication. The series is produced by the State Department's Office of the Historian and printed volumes are available from the Government Printing Office. This digital collection has been digitized and is publically accessible from the [http://uwdcc.library.wisc.edu University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center]. ja:国際関係論

Political science

Political science is a social science discipline that deals with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. It is academic, theoretical and research oriented. Fields and subfields of political science include political theory and philosophy, civics and comparative politics, national systems, cross-national political analysis, political development, international relations, foreign policy, international law and politics, public administration, administrative behavior, public law, judicial behavior, and politics and public policy. Approaches to the discipline include classical political philosophy, structuralism, and behavioralism, realism, pluralism, and institutionalism. Political science, as one of the social sciences, uses methods and techniques that relate to the kinds of inquiries sought: primary sources such as historical documents and official records, secondary sources such as scholarly journal articles, survey research, statistical analysis, and model building. Herbert Baxter Adams is credited with coining the phrase "political science" while teaching history at Johns Hopkins University.

History of political science

Main Article: History of political science

Antecedents of political science

While the study of politics is first found in the Western tradition in Ancient Greece, political science is a late arrival in terms of social sciences. However, the discipline has a clear set of antecedents such as moral philosophy, political philosophy, political economy, history, and other fields concerned with normative determinations of what ought to be and with deducing the characteristics and functions of the ideal state. In each historic period and in almost every geographic area, we can find someone studying politics and increasing political understanding. The antecedents of politics trace their roots back even earlier than Plato and Aristotle, particularly in the works of Homer, Hesiod, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Euripides. Later, Plato analyzed political systems, abstracted their analysis from more literary- and history- oriented studies and applied an approach we would understand as closer to philosophy. Similarly, Aristotle built upon Plato's analysis to include historical empirical evidence in his analysis. During the rule of Rome, famous historians such as Polybius, Livy and Plutarch documented the rise of the Roman Republic, and the organization and histories of other nations, while statesmen like Julius Caesar, Cicero and others provided us with examples of the politics of the republic and Rome's empire and wars. The study of politics during this age was oriented toward understanding history, understanding methods of governing, and describing the operation of governments. With the fall of the Roman Empire, there arose a more diffuse arena for political studies. The rise of monotheism and, particularly for the Western tradition, Christianity, brought to light a new space for politics and political action. During the Middle Ages, the study of politics was widespread in the churches and courts. Works such as Augustine of Hippo's The City of God synthesized current philosophies and political traditions with those of Christianity, redefining the borders between what was religious and what was political. Most of the political questions surrounding the relationship between church and state were clarified and contested in this period. In the Middle East and later other Islamic areas, works such as the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Epic of Kings by Ferdowsi provided evidence of political analysis, while the Islamic aristotelians such as Avicenna and later Maimonides and Averroes, continued Aristotle's tradition of analysis and empiricism, writing commentaries on Aristotle's works. During the Italian Renaissance, Niccolò Machiavelli established the emphasis of modern political science on direct empirical observation of political institutions and actors. Later, the expansion of the scientific paradigm during the Enlightenment further pushed the study of politics beyond normative determinations.

Political science

The advent of political science as a university discipline is evidenced by the naming of university departments and chairs with the title of political science arising in the 1860s. Integrating political studies of the past into a unified discipline is an ongoing project, and the history of political science has provided a rich field for the growth of both normative and positive political science, with each part of the discipline sharing some historical predecessors. In the 1950s and the 1960s, a behavioral revolution stressing the systematic and rigorously scientific study of individual and group behavior swept the discipline. At the same time that political science moved toward greater depth of analysis and more sophistication, it also moved toward a closer working relationship with other disciplines, especially sociology, economics, history, anthropology, psychology, and statistics. Increasingly, students of political behavior have used the scientific method to create an intellectual discipline based on the postulating of hypotheses followed by empirical verification and the inference of political trends, and of generalizations that explain individual and group political actions. Over the past generation, the discipline placed an increasing emphasis on relevance, or the use of new approaches and methodologies to solve political and social problems.

Contemporary political science

Political scientists study the allocation and transfer of power in decision-making, the roles and systems of governance including governments and international organizations, political behavior and public policies. They measure the success of governance and specific policies by examining many factors, including stability, justice, material wealth, and peace. Some political scientists seek to advance positive theses by analyzing politics. Others advance normative theses, by making specific policy recommendations. The study of politics is complicated by the frequent involvement of political scientists in the political process, since their teachings often provide the frameworks within which other commentators, such as journalists, special interest groups, politicians, and the electorate analyze issues and select options. Political scientists may serve as advisors to specific politicians, or even run for office as politicians themselves. Political scientists can be found working in governments, in political parties or as civil servants. They may be involved with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or political movements. In a variety of capacities, people educated and trained in Political science can add value and expertise to corporations. Private enterprises such as think tanks, research institutes, polling and public relations firms often employ political scientists. In the United States, political scientists known as "Americanists" look at a variety of data including elections, public opinion and public policy such as Social Security reform, foreign policy, U.S. congressional power, and the Supreme Court to name only a few issues. As a discipline, political science is primarily advanced by articles in scholarly journals and academic books. The major journals, which are published by academic presses and are associated with associations of political science, are the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics and British Journal of Political Science, referred to in the discipline as "APSR," "AJPS," "JoP," and "BJPS" respectively. Countless other journals focus on more specific areas of the discipline, for example Legislative Studies Quarterly and Political Research Quarterly.

Current fields of study

Civics and comparative politics involve the comparison of patterns of political development—including forms of government—and processes of political change in different settings or at different times. In the United States and Canada, it may also include regional studies; that is, work focusing on a particular state, province or region. Political theory involves the study of normative questions of government, ideology, regimes, movements, and the history of political philosophy. International relations focuses on the study of the dynamics of relations between states, and, more recently, on transnational issues such as the environment, human trafficking, trade, social movements, labor like co-operatives, or preventing terrorism. The complex interplay of economic and political choices is reflected in the field of political economy where political science tries to understand the normative implications of economic structures and theories. Public Administration studies the implementation, determination and outputs of public policies. It seeks to explain the role of political structure, bureaucratic politics and interest group activity on the public policy output and the policy performance of public sector entities. Political elites and political behavior, and the interplay between them, are studied in the field of political psychology.

External links

- [http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/psusp.html Political Science Resources]
- [http://www.progressiveu.org/ Progressive U] New media from political science students
- [http://www.admu.edu.ph/depts/polsci/courses.html Courses] Political Science Courses
- [http://essays.org.uk/political-science/ Essays on Political Science] Category:Politics
- Category:Humanities occupations ko:정치학 ja:政治学 th:รัฐศาสตร์

International organization

:For the political science journal, see: International Organization An international organization (also called intergovernmental organization) is an organization of international scope or character. There are two main types of international organizations:
- international intergovernmental organizations, whose members are sovereign states or other intergovernmental organizations (like European Union in the WTO).
- and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which are private organizations. Generally and correctly used, the term international organization is used to mean international governmental organizations only. It is in this sense that the term is used in the remainder of this article. Legally speaking, an international organization must be established by a treaty providing it with legal recognition. International organizations so established are subjects of international law, capable of entering into agreements among themselves or with states. Thus international organizations in a legal sense are distinguished from mere groupings of states, such as the G-8 and the G-77, neither of which have been founded by treaty, though in non-legal contexts these are sometimes referred to as international organizations as well. International organizations must also be distinguished from treaties; while all international organizations are founded on a treaty, many treaties (e.g., the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)) do not establish an international organization and rely purely on the parties for their administration. International organizations can be categorised in two main ways: by their membership, and by their function. International organizations differ in who their members are and in who is permitted to join them. Membership of some organizations (global organizations) is open to all the nations of the world. This category includes the United Nations and its specialized agencies and the World Trade Organization. Some specialized agencies predate all other types. In the nineteenth century, France was the fons et origo of many of them. By this it is meant that much of the driving force to form such bodies (such as those which maintain the SI (metric system)) came from the French, and that their headquarters is in France, often in Paris. Under the Third Republic, the International Exposition of 1878 in that city held a great number of meetings of such international organizations - as opposed to the preceding regimes. The motivation was that to keep France a republic and not slip back into either a monarchist or Bonapartist regime, the republicans would underscore their inheritance of the crusading nature of the French Revolution against feudal cultural remnants within France, which had been generalized to the rest of feudal Europe, eventually to the world. Some conclude from this example that internationalism often has national origins, at the difference of globalism. Other organizations are only open to members from a particular region or continent of the world, like European Union, African Union, ASEAN and so on. Finally, some organizations base their membership on other criteria: cultural or historical links (the Commonwealth of Nations, La Francophonie, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries), level of economic development or type of economy (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC)), or religion (Organization of the Islamic Conference). Were it to come about, the ultimate international organization would be a Federal World Government. The Union of International Associations provides information on international organizations.

Examples of global organizations

- United Nations, its specialized agencies, and associated organizations
- International Hydrographic Organization
- World Trade Organization
- Universal Postal Union

Examples of regional organizations

Universal Postal Union Europe:
- European Union (EU)
- Council of Europe
- European Free Trade Association
- European Space Agency
- European Patent Organisation Asia:
- Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD)
- Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
- South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)
- Gulf Cooperation Council Eurasia:
- Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
- Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)
- Eurasian Economic Community
- Central Asian Cooperation Organization
- GUAM Africa:
- African Union
- Conseil de l'Entente
- Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
- Southern African Development Community (SADC)
- Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)
- Arab Maghreb Union Western Hemisphere:
- Organization of American States (OAS)
- South American Community of Nations
- Mercosur
- Andean Community
- Caribbean Community (CARICOM)
- Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS)
- Central American Parliament
- Rio Group
- NAFTA Trans-atlantic:
- North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)
- Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Pacific:
- Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
- Pacific Islands Forum
- Secretariat of the Pacific Community

Organizations formed on miscellaneous membership criteria

- Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
- Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC)
- Commonwealth of Nations
- La Francophonie
- Comunidade dos países de língua portuguesa (CPLP)
- Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI)
- Unión Latina
- Non-Aligned Movement
- Arab League
- Organization of the Islamic Conference
- Sister Cities International

Financial international organizations

- Bank for International Settlements
- International Monetary Fund (IMF)
- World Bank Group

Multinational corporation

A multinational corporation (MNC) or multinational enterprise (MNE) or transnational corporation (TNC) is an corporation/enterprise that manages production establishments located in at least two countries. Multinational corporations (MNC) are often divided into three broad groups:
- Horizontally integrated multinational corporations manage production establishments located in different countries to produce same or similar products.
- Vertically integrated multinational corporations manage production establishment in certain country/countries to produce products that serve as input to its production establishments in other country/countries.
- Diversified multinational corporations manage production establishments located in different coutries that are neither horizontally or vertically integrated. ---- Very large multinationals have budgets that exceed those of many countries. They can have a powerful influence in international relations, given their large economic influence in politicians' representative districts, as well as their extensive financial resources available for public relations and political lobbying. Given the international reach and mobility of these corporations, prospective countries, and sometimes regions within countries, must compete with each other to have MNCs locate their facilities (and subsequent tax revenue, employment, and economic activity) within. To compete, countries and regional political districts will offer incentives to MNCs such as tax breaks, pledges of governmental assistance or improved infrastructure, or lax environmental and labor standards. This process of becoming more attractive to foreign investment can be characterised as a race to the bottom. The first multinational, appearing in 1602, was the Dutch East India Company.

Examples

ja:多国籍企業

Academic

Academia is a collective term for the scientific and cultural community engaged in higher education and research, taken as a whole. The word comes from the akademeia just outside ancient Athens, where the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning. The sacred space had formerly been an olive grove, hence the expression "the groves of Academe". By extension Academia has come to connote the cultural accumulation of knowledge, its development and transmission across generations and its practitioners and transmitters. In the 17th century, English and French religious scholars popularized the term to describe certain types of institutions of higher learning. The English adopted the form academy while the French adopted the forms academe and academie. An academic is a person who works as a researcher (and usually teacher) at a university or similar institution. In the United States, the term is approximately synonymous with professor. In the United Kingdom, various titles are used, typically fellow, lecturer, reader and professor (see also academic rank), though the loose term don is often popularly substituted. In other parts of the world, the term scholar is probably closer. Academic administrators are not typically included in this use of the term. Some sociologists have divided, but not limited, academia into four basic historical types: ancient academia, early academia, academic societies and the modern university. There are at least two models of academia: a European model developed since ancient times, as well as an American model developed by Benjamin Franklin in the mid-18th century and Thomas Jefferson in the early 19th century.

Structure

Academia is usually conceived of as divided into disciplines or fields of study. These have their roots in the subjects of the ancient trivium and quadrivium, which provided the model for Scholastic thought in the first universities in medieval Europe. The disciplines have been much revised, and many new disciplines have formed since medieval times; in general, academic fields have probably become more and more specialized since the Enlightenment, dividing their research into smaller and smaller areas. Because of this, interdisciplinary research is often prized in today's academy. It can also be made difficult by practical matters of administration and funding. In fact, many new fields of study have initially been conceived as interdisciplinary, and later become specialized disciplines in their own right (cognitive science is one recent example). In short, there is a historical process behind the internal differentiation of the academy. Most academic institutions reflect the divide of the disciplines in their administrative structure, being divided internally into departments or programs in various fields of study. Each department is typically administered and funded separately by the academic institution, though there may be some overlap and faculty members, research and administrative staff may in some cases be shared among departments. In addition, academic institutions generally have an overall administrative structure (usually including a president and several deans) which is controlled by no single department, discipline, or field of thought. Also, the tenure system, a major component of academic employment and research, serves to ensure that academia is relatively protected from political and financial pressures on thought.

Qualifications

Main article: Academic degree The degree awarded for completed study is the primary academic qualification. Typically these are, in order of completion, bachelor's degree (awarded for completion of undergraduate study), master's degree, and doctorate (awarded after graduate or postgraduate study). These are only currently being standardized in Europe as part of the Bologna process, as many different degrees and standards of time to reach each are currently awarded in different countries in Europe. In most fields the majority of academic researchers and teachers have doctorates or other terminal degrees, though in some professional and creative fields it is common for scholars and teachers to have only master's degrees.

Academic conferences

Closely related to academic publishing is the practice of bringing a number of intellectuals in a field to give talks on a paper they have written, often allowing for a wider audience to be exposed to their ideas. The papers are usually refereed first and only a smaller number of authors are invited to speak about their writing. The chance to speak can allow fuller explanation of points that may not have been clearly written or fully expanded upon in writing. The greater interactivity that is inherent in the conference format can allow for quicker feedback and criticism on the ideas discussed. Since papers are typically submitted ahead of time, conference attendees have had time to read the paper and be prepared with insightful questions if they wish.

Conflicting goals

Within academia, diverse constituent groups have diverse, and sometimes conflicting, goals. In the contemporary academy several of these conflicts are widely distributed and common. A salient example of conflict is that between the goal to increase services and the goal to reduce costs. The conflicting goals of professional education programs and general education advocates currently are playing out in the negotiation over accreditation standards.

Practice and theory

Academia is sometimes contrasted pejoratively with "practice", such as daily living, employment, and business. Critics of academia say that academic theory is insulated from the 'real world', and thus does not have to take into account the real effects, results, and risks of actually performing the actions which academics study. Academic insularity is sometimes referred to as the ivory tower. This often leads to a real or perceived tension between academics and practitioners in many fields of knowledge, particularly when an academic is critical of the actions of a practitioner. Depending on the degree of criticism, the practitioner's critique of academia could also be seen as anti-intellectualism. The balance to the view from the practitioner is that even if academia is insulated from practice in the real world, that does not mean academic study is valueless. In fact it is often seen that many academic developments turn out only much later to have great practical results. However, given that among practitioners there is a perception of academic insularity, it may increase the value and impact of the academician's studies and or opinion if she takes that insularity into account when discussing or offering criticism of a practitioner or a practice in general.

Town and gown

Universities are often culturally distinct from the towns or cities where they reside. In some cases this leads to discomfort or outright conflict between local residents and members of the university over political, economic, or other town and gown issues. Some localities in the Northeastern United States, for instance, have tried to block students from registering to vote as local residents—instead encouraging them to vote by absentee ballot at their parents' residence—in order to retain control of local politics. Other issues can include deep cultural and class divisions between local residents and university students. The film Breaking Away dramatizes such a conflict.

Commerce and scholarship

The goals of research for profit and for the sake of knowledge often conflict to some degree.

History

Ancient times

Main article: Academy Academia takes its name from the Academy, a sacred sanctuary outside the city walls of ancient Athens. It was dedicated to the legendary hero Akademos and contained several olive groves, a gymnasium and an area suited for intimate gatherings. In these gardens, largely planted and enchanced with statuary by its previous owner Cimon, the philosopher Plato conversed with followers who believed Plato would enlighten them. These informal sessions came to be known as the Academy. Plato later further developed his sessions into a method of teaching philosophy and in 387 BC, established what is known today as the Old Academy. Plato's colleagues and pupils developed spin-offs of his method. Arcesilaus, a Greek student of Plato established the Middle Academy. Carneades, another student, established the New Academy. In 335 BC, Aristotle refined the method with his own theories and established the Lyceum in another gymnasium.

Early development

Main article: Medieval university Academia as a modern institution began to take shape in the Middle Ages (AD 350 to 1450). At this time, the Roman Empire had crumbled and new regimes were beginning to take shape throughout Western Europe. Europe had just come out of the Dark Ages, a period of mass illiteracy and loss of information. The only repositories of ancient knowledge were the Roman Catholic monasteries with hermits, monks and priests compiling all the world's knowledge into elaborate hand written books. The earliest precursors of the colleges and universities were just being developed at these monasteries in order to redistribute the knowledge they had saved through the Dark Ages. One had to go to a monastery to learn about ancient Greece and Rome and the wealth of information created in those societies. Being schooled at a monastery meant academia was effectively restricted to men who wanted to become monks and priests. But by the 11th century, some Roman Catholic church leaders began a revolutionary campaign to proliferate the knowledge they had to the greater society of early Europe. They believed that Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Homer, Sophocles and the others belonged to the people and not just for the religious. The monks and priests moved out of the monasteries and went to the city cathedrals where they opened the first schools dedicated to advanced study. Most notable of these schools were in Bologna, Paris, Oxford and Cambridge, though others were opened throughout Europe. Studying at these schools, now called universities, meant sitting through a method of education called the lecture. In a lecture, the master read aloud from manuscripts written by monks and priests while students sat at their pews reading along from their own handwritten copies of the massive amounts of texts. Only the master could determine if a student had achieved enough knowledge to graduate and organize lectures of their own. By the end of the 13th century, there were over 80 universities in Europe.

Early methods

Seven liberal arts

The seven liberal arts became codified in late antiquity through textbooks by Varro and Martianus Capella, who offered the standardized structure through which men (and it was men, by and large, for women were excluded) could visualize the world of learning. The Liberal Arts consisted of the Trivium, the basic "three ways" of Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic, and the Quadrivium, the "four ways" of Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy. Philosophy and Theology were the all-embracing studies that encompassed the Liberal Arts, but philosophy in the early Middle Ages was largely a matter of dialectic. The didactic allegory of the 5th-century pagan Martianus Capella's De nuptiis philologiæ et Mercurii ("The wedding of philology and Mercury") was of stupendous importance in fixing the unchanging formulas of Academia for the Latin West, from the Christianized Roman Empire of the 5th century until newly available Arabic texts and the works of Aristotle became available in Western Europe in the 12th century. The conceptual scheme established by Martianus Capella, given Christian readings and interpretations, remained largely in effect in western Academia, even after the new scholasticism of the School of Chartres and the encyclopedic work of Thomas Aquinas, until the humanism of the 15th and 16th centuries opened new studies of arts and sciences.

Encyclopedists

Three medieval writers attempted to encompass the whole of Academia, the entire world of learning: Isidore of Seville, Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas.

Abelard

In the 12th century, French philosopher Peter Abelard instituted his own revolution in the world of academia with the 1123 publication of his book, Sic et Non. He did away with the master reading from a text aloud in lectures and instead sat his students at desks in front of two separate texts contradicting each other. Instead of telling them which method was correct and which was wrong, he required his students to ask each other questions and come up with their own conclusions. Soon, almost all universities experimented with the use of the Abelard method.

Scholasticism

In the early 13th century, Saint Thomas Aquinas revolutionized academia once again with his popularization of scholasticism. Scholasticism employed the Abelard method of education but went further. Masters offered their students long, involved resolutions in examining two opposing texts and asked them to consider religious faith in their reasoning. The resolutions were based on newly rediscovered philosophies of Aristotle which tried to balance out reason with faith in God.

Rise of academic societies

Main article: Learned society Academic societies or learned societies began as groups of academics who worked together or presented their work to each other. These informal groups later became organized and in many cases state-approved. Membership was restricted, usually requiring approval of the current members and often total membership was limited to a specific number. The Royal Society founded in 1660 was the first such academy. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was begun in 1780 by many of the same people prominent in the American Revolution. Academic societies served both as a forum to present and publish academic work, the role now served by academic publishing, and as a means to sponsor research and support academics, a role they still serve. Membership in academic societies is still a matter of prestige in modern academia.

Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Academia began to splinter from its Christian roots in 18th-century colonial America. In 1753, Benjamin Franklin established the Academy and Charitable School of the Province of Pennsylvania. In 1755, it was renamed the College and Academy and Charitable School of Philadelphia. Today, it is known as the University of Pennsylvania. For the first time, academia was established as a secular institution. For the most part, church-based dogmatic points of view were no longer thrust upon students in the examination of their subjects of study. Points of view became more varied as students were free to wander in thought without having to add religious dimensions to their conclusions. In 1819, Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia and developed the standards used today in organizing colleges and universities across the globe. The curriculum was taken from the traditional liberal arts, classical humanism and the values introduced with the Protestant Reformation. Jefferson offered his students something new: the freedom to chart their own courses of study rather than mandate a fixed curriculum for all students. Religious colleges and universities followed suit. The Academy movement in the U.S. in the early 19th century arose from a public sense that education in the classic disciplines needed to be extended into the new territories and states that were being formed in the Old Northwest, in western New York State, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. Dozens of academies were founded in the area, supported by private donations. During the Age of Enlightenment in 18th-century Europe, the academy started to change in Europe. In the beginning of the 19th century Wilhelm von Humboldt not only published his philosophical paper On the Limits of State Action, but also directed the educational system in Prussia for a short time. He introduced an academic system that was much more accessible to the lower classes. Humboldt's Ideal was an education based on individuality, creativity, wholeness, and versatility. Many continental European universities are still rooted in these ideas (or at least pay lip-service to them). They are, however, in contradiction to today's massive trend of specialization in academia.

Recent economic changes

In the 1980s and 1990s significant changes in the economics of academic life began to be felt, identified by some as a catastrophe in the making and by others as a new era with potentially huge gains for the university. Some critics identified the changes as a new "corporatization of the university." Academic jobs have been traditionally viewed by many intellectuals as desirable, because of the autonomy and intellectual freedom they allow (especially because of the tenure system), despite their low pay compared to other professions requiring extensive education. And until the mid-1970s, when federal expenditures for higher education fell sharply, there were routinely more tenure-track jobs than Ph.D.'s. Now, by contrast, despite rising tuition rates and growing university revenues (especially in the U.S.) well-paid professorial positions are rarer, replaced with poorly paid adjunct positions and graduate-student labor. People with doctorates in the sciences and, to a lesser extent, mathematics, often find jobs outside of academia (or use part-time work in industry to supplement their incomes), but a Ph.D. in the humanities and many social sciences prepares the student primarily for academic employment. However, in recent years a large proportion of such Ph.D.'s—ranging from 30 percent to 60 percent—have been unable to obtain tenure-track jobs. They must choose between adjunct positions, which are poorly paid and lack job security; teaching jobs in community colleges or in high schools, where little research is done; the non-academic job market, where they will tend to be overqualified; or some other course of study, such as law or business. Indeed, with academic institutions producing Ph.D.'s in greater numbers than the number of tenure-track professorial positions they intend to create, there is little question that administrators are cognizant of the economic effects of this arrangement. The sociologist Stanley Aronowitz wrote: "Basking in the plenitude of qualified and credentialed instructors, many university administrators see the time when they can once again make tenure a rare privilege, awarded only to the most faithful and to those whose services are in great demand" (The Knowledge Factory 76). Most people who are knowledgeable of the academic job market advise prospective graduate students not to attend graduate school if they must pay for it; graduate students who are admitted without tuition remission and a reasonable stipend are forced to incur large debts that they will be unlikely to repay quickly. In addition, most people recommend that students obtain full and accurate information about the placement record of the programs they are considering. At some programs, most Ph.D.'s get multiple tenure-track offers, whereas at others few obtain any; such information is clearly very useful in deciding what to do with the next 5–7 years of one's life. Some believe that, as a number of Baby Boomer professors retire, the academic job market will rebound. However, others predict that this will not result in an appreciable growth of tenure-track positions, as universities will merely fill their needs with low-paid adjunct positions. Aronowitz ascribed this problem to the economic restructuring of academia as a whole: :In fact, the program of restructuring on university campuses, which entails reducing full-time tenure-track positions in favor of part-time, temporary, and contingent jobs, has literally "fabricated" this situation. The idea of an academic "job market" based on the balance of supply and demand in an open competitive arena is a fiction whose effect is to persuade the candidate that she simply lost out because of bad luck or lack of talent. The truth is otherwise. (75–76) The effects of a growing pool of unemployed, underemployed, and undesirably employed Ph.D.'s on the Western countries' economies as a whole is undetermined.

Academic publishing

Main article: Academic publishing

History of academic journals

Among the earliest research journals were the Proceedings of meetings of the Royal Society in the 17th century. At that time, the act of publishing academic inquiry was controversial, and widely ridiculed. It was not at all unusual for a new discovery to be announced as an anagram, reserving priority for the discoverer, but indecipherable for anyone not in on the secret: both Isaac Newton and Leibniz used this approach. However, this method did not work well. Robert K. Merton, a sociologist, found that 92% of cases of simultaneous discovery in the 17th century ended in dispute. The number of disputes dropped to 72% in the 18th century, 59% by the latter half of the 19th century, and 33% by the first half of the 20th century. The decline in contested claims for priority in research discoveries can be credited to the increasing acceptance of the publication of papers in modern academic journals. The Royal Society was steadfast in its unpopular belief that science could only move forward through a transparent and open exchange of ideas backed by experimental evidence. Many of the experiments were ones that we would not recognize as scientific today—nor were the questions they answered. For example, when the Duke of Buckingham was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society on June 5, 1661, he presented the Society with a vial of powdered "unicorn horn". It was a well-accepted 'fact' that a circle of unicorn's horn would act as an invisible cage for any spider. Robert Hooke, the chief experimenter of the Royal Society, emptied the Duke's vial into a circle on a table and dropped a spider in the centre of the circle. The spider promptly walked out of circle and off the table. In its day, this was cutting-edge research.

Current status and development

Research journals have been so successful that the number of journals and of papers has proliferated over the past few decades, and the credo of the modern academic has become "publish or perish". Except for generalist journals like Science or Nature, the topics covered in any single journal have tended to narrow, and readership and citation have declined. A variety of methods reviewing submissions exist. The most common involves initial approval by the journal, peer review by two or three researchers working in similar or closely related subjects who recommend approval or rejection as well as request error correction, clarification or additions before publishing. Controversial topics may receive additional levels of review. Journals have developed a hierarchy, partly based on reputation but also on the strictness of the review policy. More prestigious journals are more likely to receive and publish more important work. Submitters try to submit their work to the most prestigious journal likely to publish it to bolster their reputation and curriculum vitae. Andrew Odlyzko, an academician with a large number of published research papers, has argued that research journals will evolve into something akin to Internet forums over the coming decade, by extending the interactivity of current Internet preprints. This change may open them up to a wider range of ideas, some more developed than others. Whether this will be a positive evolution remains to be seen. Some claim that forums, like markets, tend to thrive or fail based on their ability to attract talent. Some believe that highly restrictive and tightly monitored forums may be the least likely to thrive.

Academic dress

Main article: Academic dress Gowns have been associated with academia since the birth of the university in the 1300s and 1400s, perhaps because most early scholars were priests or church officials. Over time, the gowns worn by degree-holders have become standardized to some extent, although traditions in individual countries and even institutions have established a diverse range of gown styles, and some have ended the custom entirely, even for graduation ceremonies. At some universities, such as the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, undergraduates may be required to wear gowns on formal occasions and on graduation. Undergraduate gowns are usually a shortened version of a bachelor's gown. At other universities, for example, outside the UK or U.S., the custom is entirely absent. In general, in the U.S. and UK recipients of a bachelor's degree are entitled to wear a simple full-length robe without adornment and a mortarboard cap with a tassel. In addition, holders of a bachelor's degree may be entitled to wear a ceremonial hood at some schools. In the U.S., bachelor's hoods are rarely seen. Bachelor's hoods are generally black, but may have a silk lining denoting the subject of the degree, and are often edged in white fur. Recipients of a master's degree in the U.S. or UK wear a similar cap and gown but closed sleeves with slits, and usually receive a ceremonial hood that hangs down the back of the gown. The hood is traditionally edged with a silk or velvet strip displaying the disciplinary colour, and is lined with the university's colors. Recipients of a doctoral degree tend to have the most elaborate academic dress, and hence there is the greatest diversity at this level. In general, doctoral gowns are similar to the gowns worn by master's graduates, with the addition of velvet stripes across the sleeves and running down the front of the gown, tinted with the disciplinary color for the degree received. Holders of a doctoral degree may be entitled or obliged to wear scarlet (a special gown in scarlet) on high days and special occasions. The doctoral hood is identical in virtually every way to the master's hood, with the exception that it is generally longer, and the velvet strip is wider. While some doctoral graduates wear the mortarboard cap traditional to the lower degree levels, most wear a cap or tudor bonnet that resembles a tam o'shanter, from which a colored tassel is suspended. In modern times in the U.S. and UK, gowns are normally only worn at graduation ceremonies, although some colleges still demand the wearing of academic dress on formal occasions (official banquets and other similar affairs). In the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was more common to see the dress worn in the classroom, a practice which has now all but disappeared. One notable exception is the University of Oxford, where students are required to wear formal academic dress in the examination room.

References

- Aronowitz, Stanley. The Knowledge Factory: Dismantling the Corporate University and Creating True Higher Learning. ISBN 0807031232.

External links

- [http://palinurus.english.ucsb.edu/BIBLIO-UNIVERSITY-history-of-university.html Bibliography on the history of the university][http://www.academicforum.co.uk ,] provided by [http://palinurus.english.ucsb.edu/ Palinurus: The Academy and the Corporation], a web site from the University of California, Santa Barbara
- [http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Frequently_Asked_Questions3&Template=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=8086 An Academic Costume Code and An Academic Ceremony Guide] Category:Education

Public policy

Public policy is a term used to describe the laws, decisions, regulations, etc. of a governmental body. The study of public policy is called public policy analysis. A government's public policy is the set of policies (laws, plans, actions, behaviors) that it chooses. Since governments claim authority and responsibility (to varying degrees) over a large group of individuals, they see fit to establish plans and methods of action that will govern that society. According to Thomas A. Birkland's book An Introduction to the Policy Process, there is a "lack of a consensus definition of public policy. Thomas Dye argues that this search for a definition of public policy can degenerate into a word game." (p. 19) Table 1.3 in Birkland's book outlines a few definitions of public policy (p. 21):
- Clarke E. Cochran, et al.: "The term public policy always refers to the actions of government and the intentions that determine those actions."
- Clarke E. Cochran, et al.: "Public policy is the outcome of the struggle in government over who gets what."
- Thomas Dye: Public policy is "Whatever governments choose to do or not do."
- Charles L. Cochran and Eloise F. Malone: "Public policy consists of political decisions for implementing programs to achieve societal goals."
- B. Guy Peters: "Stated most simply, public policy is the sum of government activities, whether acting directly or through agents, as it has an influence on the life of citizens." Birkland offers these common traits of all definitions of public policy (p. 20):
- The policy is made in the "public's" name.
- Policy is generally made or initiated by government.
- Policy is interpreted and implemented by public and private actors.
- Policy is what the government intends to do.
- Policy is what the government chooses not to do. According to the Encarta definition of political science [http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761569743_2/Political_Science.html#p12]: :The field of public policy involves the study of specific policy problems and governmental responses to them. Political scientists involved in the study of public policy attempt to devise solutions for problems of public concern. According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary [http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=policy], policy is defined as: :2a : definite course or method of action selected from among alternatives and in light of given conditions to guide and determine present and future decisions. 2b : a high-level overall plan embracing the general goals and acceptable procedures especially of a governmental body.

Context / related academic fields

Public policy, of course, overlaps with many other subject areas. Other related areas include political science, government, philosophy, economics, law, social welfare, public administration, public health, and statistics.

History of public policy

According to "An Introduction to the Policy Process" (2001, ISBN 0-7656-0418-3) by Thomas A. Birkland: :While the study of politics has a long history, the systematic study of public policy, on the other hand, can be said to be a twentieth century creation. It dates, according to Daniel McCool, to 1922, when political scientist Charles Merriam sought to connect the theory and practices of politics to understanding the actual activities of government, that is public policy." (p.4) (see McCool, Daniel C. Public Policy Theories, Models, and Concepts: An Anthology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1995.)

Subtopics

- Domestic policy
- Foreign policy
- Healthcare policy
- Education policy
- Crime policy
- National defense policy
- Energy policy

A not-so-idealistic view of public policy

In a democracy, an idealist would like to see policies created to serve the public interest. There is a less mainstream way to view the policy-making process; skeptics would argue that the real goal of public policy is to increase the wealth and power of the rulers and wealthy. Hopefully, along the way, the health and well-being of the general society is improved as well, but that cannot be guaranteed. The following sections discuss the skeptic's view of the interplay between the haves and the have-nots in public policy. Please note that its tone is certainly not neutral and not particularly objective.

Freedom of the press

According to the United States Constitutional notions of freedom of the press, journalists should be free to report about anything at all. (The Constitution does offer some limitations on these freedoms, however.) Market forces will drive journalists to communicate to masses of people about major problems. Some of these problems may be domestic social issues and some may be foreign policy issues. In time, new policies may lessen these problems. While this frequently annoys the wealthy and powerful, they also benefit from the improved society. (A rioting, unstable society is no good for business, after all.)

Republican government

The basic political structure of a group should be controlled in some fashion by people with ordinary amounts of wealth and no power. If this group does not have control, it will create rebels and organize, especially if modern communication methods are available. While this definitely annoys the wealthy and powerful, it also is the only known method of creating a stable government. Since social stability is essential to the creation and maintenance of wealth and power, it directly benefits wise members of wealthy and powerful groups. Since government administration can be a real specialty, the most long lasting governments generally assign it to specialists, and yet give ordinary citizens some say in the decisions and selection of the specialists. This is called a republic.

A government of law, not people

The government should be subject to law, in such a way that it can be predicted and controlled. Again, this is a two-edged sword that both hampers and benefits the wealthy and powerful. The advantage to the poor and weak is that they can form common cause and use legal means to redress major social wrongs. In general, the government's deliberations, laws and budget should be published. Without this, the above safeguards may fail.

A free market

A free market creates extremes of both wealth and poverty. However, some say that it is so much more efficient than other systems that it should be encouraged to be the primary means to distribute wealth. The government generally adjudicates contracts and regulates fair weights and measures. More recently, governments have regulated industrial wastes. One of the more successful programs has issued permits for a fixed tonnage of a pollutant, and established a market in permits. Private groups are permitted to purchase and retire pollution permits. As well, polluters then have an incentive to invest in technology to reduce pollutants and sell their permits. Still, the market is less efficient in fields that would be regarded at "market failures," even in basic economic terms; natural monopolies, public goods, and imperfect information, for example, prevent consumers from making efficient decisions because they cannot judge the quality and price of different suppliers. In health care, brain scans vary from $1,000 to $10,000, and competition is almost nonexistent because consumers have few ways to compare prices the way they do with the latest cell phone. Others argue, however, that the "free market" as a whole is in fact a misnomer, since it actually requires a large number of regulations supporting private property, e.g., patents and anti-trespassing laws. In the end, it requires as many laws as a "non-free" market, just of a different sort.

Adoption of positive economies of scale

Some networks and services have positive economies of scale. That is, as they are more widely used, they become more valuable. The classic examples are money, weights and measures, roads, a common language, public education, and an agreed public ethical system. With industrialization, a large number of other situations have developed positive economies of scale: screw profiles, a thousand types of industrial linkages and methods, networks to provide credit, water, electric power, gas, sewage, telephone and data, computer operating systems, computer languages, and media. The most advantageous regulation seems to be for the government to wait for a standard to predominate in the market, then require use of the prominent standard, and suppress the rest. This can be done benignly by simply having the government refuse to purchase other standards. This method was used from antiquity until the European religious wars of the 1700s trained western society to value freedom. The classic method seems to retain all of its ancient advantages for industrial standards, even though it arguably fails for religion and ethics. The classic method succeeded for measures and, eventually, even for a calendar. A universal money, gold, was once available. One of the most valuable, peculiar and complex networks is a network for credit. Traditionally, this was centered on a national bank that certified subscribers. A credit network allows money to flow anywhere in the countries that subscribe. The advantage is that regional economies have access to more credit when they need to borrow to plant crops or improve structures (both are seasonal in many areas). In the past, in such situations, regional banks would often lend all their money, and then stop lending because no more money was available. This limits production, as well as limiting recovery from natural disasters.

Military defense

Successful governments develop means to perform a military defense of their regions. The wealthy and powerful limit the power of these groups by inculcating (and perhaps believing) propaganda about civic duties. Many long-term republics supplement this with a civil militia, and political and military structures that are not centralized, and therefore not easy to conquer or subvert.

Health and safety

Successful governments develop regulations to preserve health and safety. The more notable successes are public sanitation, drinking-water, health-education, vaccination and quarantine programs, and building codes. Successful governments develop means to provide some minimal care for paupers and during emergencies. The level of care can be extremely crude, as long as it is not life-threatening. The classic, relatively successful programs are social security, with private investment, unemployment insurance paid for by workers, and some sort of civil defense or emergency program. The emergency and civil defense programs can be far more effective if made part of education and building codes.

Progressive taxation

It is known that certain types of taxation are very difficult for poor people. Many poor people are poor not because they do not work hard, but because the work that is available to them does not provide enough to keep up with basic expenses like food, rent, clothing, transportation, etc. For these people, assembling large amounts of money on a fixed date can be nearly impossible. Therefore, poll taxes and franchise taxes are traditionally thought evil.

Science policy

Main article: Science policy Some scientific research costs little compared to the pain, suffering, and expense that new techniques can prevent. At the same time, much basic research may not produce products that can be sold, and thus might never be supported by business. A progressive science policy that combines both utilitarian science, and inexpensive basic science and technology development can thus help people quite a bit. When public policy and large financial or other stakes are in the balance, vested interests will often resort to "junk science" to support their positions. But few among the general public can judge whether science is junk or not. Many people choose simply to disregard the results of any research that was not conducted and paid for by disinterested parties, a tactic that often excludes most or all of the scientific evidence that exists on an issue. Consider the following example. A company is releasing a chemical into a stream. Environmentalists offer "scientific evidence" that the chemical is harmful in the amounts being released. The company offers "scientific evidence" that the release is harmless. Unable to evaluate the science, the public is liable to weigh the evidence according to their prejudices--for example, that companies or that environmentalists are never to be trusted. In the face of such disputes, the government may call for an independent scientific assessment. But this is not so tidy a solution as it looks. A dispute may then erupt regarding the composition of the assessment committee, whether about the independence of particular scientists or about the balance between committee members who tend toward one side or the other. See the related article on the scientific method.

Positive (social sciences)

In the humanities and social sciences, the term positive is used in a number of ways. One usage refers to analysis or theories which only attempt to describe how things are, as opposed to how they should be. In this sense, the opposite of positive is normative. An example would be positive, as opposed to normative, economic analysis. Positive statements are also often referred to as descriptive statements. The term positive lies at the heart of one of the major epistemological debates in the humanities and social sciences. Positivists (in the humanities and social sciences) on the one hand, advocate a 'value-free' approach to the study of humanity that shares much in common with methods employed in the natural sciences. Positivists seek only to make objective descriptions of humanity and society without making normative judgements. In contrast non-positivists reject the notion that the methods of the natural sciences are adequate in explaining and describing humanity and society - this is primarily because of the 'meanings' that humans attach to their actions. They believe that it is not possible to be completely value-free in their study, as a person cannot stand totally removed from their place within space and history. Humanistic Sociology is an example of a post-positive approach to social science. Another sense of the word positive is used to describe things which are defined by construction, as opposed to things which are defined "negatively", by the absence of something else. Examples are positive and negative rights, or positive and negative liberty.

International relations