Pop culture, power and politics inspire

 In the span of 50 minutes, a lecture by East Asian studies professor David Leheny on Asian "soft power" begins with music from an album called "Punch the Monkey" and touches on two Korean pop sensations, an anime film, the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies, two NBA stars, "American Idol," rice cookers, amusement parks and the top 20 animated features in the United States in 2002.

The cultural references -- all relevant to the discussion of Asian influence around the world -- are typical for Leheny, the Henry Wendt III '55 Professor of East Asian Studies, who joined the Princeton faculty in summer 2007. Most of his anecdotes produce laughter before Leheny rapidly moves on to the next insight.

"He's very vivacious and funny as a lecturer and interlocutor -- a live wire and also very smart," said David Howell, chair of the East Asian studies department and professor of East Asian studies and history.

Leheny co-taught the course, titled "Contemporary East Asia," with Steven Chung and Amy Borovoy, assistant professors in East Asian studies during the fall semester. He also taught a junior seminar on crime and punishment in East Asia and is teaching a graduate seminar on the politics of deviancy, punishment and social order in East Asia for the spring term.

Leheny's primary teaching and research interests span Japanese politics and international relations, especially efforts to shape Japan's image and society in ways that solidify its place among advanced industrial nations. His writing has touched on leisure policy, the restriction of teenagers' sexual activities, counterterrorism and popular culture's impact abroad.

"Most of my work engages the way in which Japanese officials and public intellectuals and writers try to think about what kind of country they want to build in a world that, many of them would argue, they didn't create," Leheny said.

The chair to which Leheny was named was established in 2004 by Henry Wendt III, a 1955 alumnus who had worked in the pharmaceutical industry in China and Japan, and who wanted to support teaching and research in contemporary East Asian studies.

"We wanted someone with excellent credentials as a social scientist -- a dynamic, rising star -- but also someone who would be comfortable in an area studies program, with excellent language skills and a 'feel' for the place and its culture. Dave fit the bill on both counts," Howell said. "We also wanted a strong teacher of undergraduates, and since Dave won a major teaching award at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, we knew he'd be excellent in that regard, too."
Leheny in front of slide

For Leheny, coming to Princeton has meant expanding the topics of his research and teaching from Japan to other parts of East Asia. "This is probably the hardest I've ever worked, but I don't think I've ever been as interested in what I'm doing," Leheny said.
Building an academic foundation

Leheny landed in academia because it allowed him the freedom to pursue what seemed interesting, he said. His father, a schoolteacher, also inspired him to turn his intellectual curiosity into a life's work.

Leheny grew up in Danbury, Conn., with his father, his mother -- a judge -- and his two sisters. After high school, he stayed in Connecticut, playing the saxophone and studying jazz at Wesleyan University before earning a degree in government in 1989. Eager to see more of the world, he traveled to Japan to teach English for a year through the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program. Leheny described the year, spent in a rural part of Chiba City, as lonely and odd. But when he enrolled in Cornell University's graduate program in government, he chose to study Japan because of his familiarity with the country.

In the middle of his studies, Leheny accepted a two-year graduate fellowship at the University of Tsukuba and followed it with a two-year stint as the editor and translator of a magazine at the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo. Though the decision to stay in Japan delayed his graduate degree, Leheny said the editing experience was critical in exposing him to a wider variety of fields and topics related to Japan, as well as debates between Japanese scholars.

When he returned, Leheny finished his dissertation on Japan's tourism policy, which turned into his first book, "The Rules of Play: National Identity and the Shaping of Japanese Leisure." The 2003 book -- named an "Outstanding Academic Title" by Choice, an academic review journal -- examined how the Japanese government tried to develop leisure industries based on models of advanced industrial nations, while still trying to preserve the national mantra that Japanese people and culture were unique.

Peter Katzenstein, Leheny's dissertation adviser and the Walter S. Carpenter Jr. Professor of International Studies at Cornell, described Leheny's imagination as "unrivaled."

"He always goes places where nobody else goes and does things in a way that nobody else does," said Katzenstein, who also is the current president of the American Political Science Association. "His first book was on leisure in an insanely hard-working country."

After earning his Ph.D., Leheny accepted a position in political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where from 1998 to 2007 he taught courses on Japanese politics, comparative politics and terrorism. During his tenure, he also received several fellowships, returning to the University of Tokyo for two and a half years, spending six months in the coordinator for counterterrorism's office at the Department of State, and co-designing and co-teaching a course at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

In the meantime, he wrote his second book, "Think Global, Fear Local: Sex, Violence and Anxiety in Contemporary Japan." Released in 2006, it examined how Japan used its participation in international criminal justice agreements to deal with internal problems, such as terrorism and "compensated dating" between teenage girls and adult men.

Though Leheny's research interests were outside of the mainstream in his department, his work was well regarded, said Mark Beissinger, chair of the political science department for part of Leheny's time at Wisconsin and now a politics professor at Princeton.

"The Japanese leisure industry and child pornography and prostitution are not typical objects of analysis for a political scientist," Beissinger said. "But David brilliantly uses these as windows into Japanese political culture and into the ways in which norms and identities shape behavior. His work is some of the most important on contemporary Japanese society."
Students listening

Students enjoy Leheny's classes because of his depth of knowledge and his ability to convey concepts with humor and an abundance of energy.

Leheny was also an immensely popular lecturer and won the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2007.

"I love teaching," Leheny said. "It's my favorite part of the job, because I like talking with people. When you're dealing with college students, this is one of the times in people's lives when they're most available to think broadly and creatively about things. You have kids in classes with incredibly diverse interests and experiences, so I just love the interaction with students."
Innovating and adjusting

The opportunity to teach at Princeton was attractive to Leheny on many levels, he said. He would have a stellar network of colleagues in a range of disciplines with whom he could collaborate, the students were exceptional, and the University's priorities were in line with his own.

"Some of President Tilghman's initiatives, I just fell in love with -- internationalization, efforts to promote student diversity," Leheny said.

Yet coming to Princeton and switching fields has had its challenges, such as his two courses during the fall term that focused broadly on East Asia.

"Because I'm trained to teach political science, trying to engage the region from an interdisciplinary perspective is the really hard part," he said. "That's been a little bit more nerve-wracking, but it's also been more rewarding."

Leheny's students are pleased with his efforts. Senior Neil Chen took "Contemporary East Asia," his second course with Leheny. Chen, a politics major, said he typically prefers discussion courses to lectures, but Leheny's classes are the exception.

"Professor Leheny is one of the most charismatic and engaging professors I have studied under," Chen said. "He has a knack for addressing any questions I might have before I even have time to formulate them."

Leheny said Princeton's smaller class sizes have forced him to rethink his teaching, making it more interactive, and also have allowed him to focus more on students' writing rather than exams designed for hundreds.

"The most important thing I try to get across in my classes is critical thinking, which I think is intimately linked with writing," Leheny said. "With a smaller number of students, I can go over their writing in depth and try to make certain I'm helping them to express themselves creatively and innovatively while also respecting the rules of grammar. That's the one place where I think I'm hardcore."

Jessica Kellogg, whose senior thesis in East Asian studies is an analysis of Japanese culture through Japanese television advertising, said Leheny has been a committed adviser and has helped her improve her work.

"When we meet, he always has a handful of different sources he can think of off the top of his head. I'm always impressed with the range of knowledge he displays," she said. "He approaches questions in a completely different way than I do, which betters my research and findings. When I need help with something, he is never too busy."

His colleagues also have welcomed his addition to the department. The chair, Howell, said Leheny has been personable and eager to learn about others' work. Borovoy, who co-taught the "Contemporary East Asia" course with Leheny, said they share ideas on modern Japan frequently and often read each other's essays.

In addition to teaching, Leheny is serving as departmental representative, as a faculty fellow at Whitman College and, this coming summer, as a co-teacher of a Global Seminar sponsored by the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies in Hanoi.

In Vietnam, Leheny hopes to begin a third research project -- on Japan and Vietnam's relationships with world superpowers -- while building his language skills in Vietnamese.

His other projects are a book on digital content policies in Japan based on regulators' image of Japanese values -- for example, regulation of video games such as "Grand Theft Auto" for their perceived propensity to spur violent acts; and an edited volume on Japanese foreign aid, with Kay Warren, an anthropology professor at Brown University who previously taught at Princeton.

Despite a hectic schedule, Leheny said he feels settled and is enjoying the flexibility and opportunities at Princeton.

"This is probably the hardest I've ever worked, but I don't think I've ever been as interested in what I'm doing," he said.

Pollsters Tell Obama Not to Run For Reelection

Writing in the Washington Post, Patrick H. Cadell, a former pollster to President Jimmy Carter and Douglas E. Schoen, a former pollster who worked with President Bill Clinton, advise that the best thing that President Obama could do for the country in general is to refuse to run for a second term -- and to state that he won't right now.

Via the Washington Post:

Forgoing another term would not render Obama a lame duck. Paradoxically, it would grant him much greater leverage with Republicans and would make it harder for opponents such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) - who has flatly asserted that his highest priority is to make Obama a one-term president - to be uncooperative.

And for Democrats such as current Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) - who has said that entitlement reform is dead on arrival - the president's new posture would make it much harder to be inflexible. Given the influence of special interests on the Democratic Party, Obama would be much more effective as a figure who could remain above the political fray. Challenges such as boosting economic growth and reducing the deficit are easier to tackle if you're not constantly worrying about the reactions of senior citizens, lobbyists and unions.

Moreover, if the president were to demonstrate a clear degree of bipartisanship, it would force the Republicans to meet him halfway. If they didn't, they would look intransigent, as the GOP did in 1995 and 1996, when Bill Clinton first advocated a balanced budget. Obama could then go to the Democrats for tough cuts to entitlements and look to the Republicans for difficult cuts on defense.

....

If the president adopts our suggestion, both sides will be forced to compromise. The alternative, we fear, will put the nation at greater risk. While we believe that Obama can be reelected, to do so he will have to embark on a scorched-earth campaign of the type that President George W. Bush ran in the 2002 midterms and the 2004 presidential election, which divided Americans in ways that still plague us.

But it shouldn't be a surprise that this duo is advocating against a second term for Obama.  It appears they were doing this even before the midterm results came in.

Recently, Obama suggested that if Republicans gain control of the House and/or Senate as forecast, he expects not reconciliation and unity but “hand-to-hand combat” on Capitol Hill.

What a change two years can bring.

We can think of only one other recent President who would display such indifference to the majesty of his office: Richard Nixon.

We write in sadness as traditional liberal Democrats who believe in inclusion. Like many Americans, we had hoped that Obama would maintain the spirit in which he campaigned. Instead, since taking office, he has pitted group against group for short-term political gain that is exacerbating the divisions in our country and weakening our national identity.The culture of attack politics and demonization risks compromising our ability to address our most important issues — and the stature of our nation’s highest office.

...

The President is the leader of our society. That office is supposed to be a unifying force. When a president opts for polarization, it is not only bad politics, but it also diminishes the prestige of his office and damages our social consensus.

Moreover, the divisive rhetoric that Obama has pursued can embolden his supporters and critics to take more extreme actions, worsening the spiral.
And back in March, the two were warning about the folly of passing health care reform without bipartisan support:

Now, we vigorously opposed Republican efforts in the Bush administration to employ the "nuclear option" in judicial confirmations. We are similarly concerned by Democrats' efforts to manipulate passage of a health-care bill. Doing so in the face of constant majority opposition invites a backlash against the party at every level -- and at a time when it already faces the prospect of losing 30 or more House seats and eight or more Senate seats.

For Democrats to begin turning around their political fortunes there has to be a frank acknowledgement that the comprehensive health-care initiative is a failure, regardless of whether it passes. There are enough Republican and Democratic proposals -- such as purchasing insurance across state lines, malpractice reform, incrementally increasing coverage, initiatives to hold down costs, covering preexisting conditions and ensuring portability -- that can win bipartisan support. It is not a question of starting over but of taking the best of both parties and presenting that as representative of what we need to do to achieve meaningful reform. Such a proposal could even become a template for the central agenda items for the American people: jobs and economic development.
In fact, the two pundits have been pushing the "divisive president" theme for quite some time, and have chosen the post-election political downturn to renew their attacks with vigor.

9 Facts About Jobs and Economic Recovery

Our Fiscal Security Project
As we debate the best way to bring back jobs and speed up recovery, consider this primer from The Fiscal Security Project.

   1. The GOP Pledge of cutting spending by more than 22% and permanently extending the Bush tax cuts will lead to a loss of over 1 million jobs.

   2. Tax cuts deliver less than 40 cents of economic activity for every dollar of cuts, compared to $1.20 in economic output for every dollar of government spending on infrastructure or $1.90 for every dollar of unemployment benefits.

   3. The typical unemployed worker is now out of work for over twenty weeks. The “long-term unemployed,” workers who have been unemployed for six months or more, made up 42 percent of the total in June 2010, the highest since the Great Depression.

   4. Without the Stimulus Bill (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act), unemployment would be between 10.3% and 11.4% based on CBO estimates.

   5. It took the massive government spending caused by World War II to finally get us out of the Great Depression. Federal spending during the war was 250% of GDP in 1940 (if you want an alternative measure, defense spending was 125% of GDP in 1940) ; the Stimulus Bill was less than 6% of GDP.

   6. Despite having a public debt of close to 120% of GDP after WWII, the U.S. was still able to enter a 25-year boom period with average growth rates of 4% per year.

   7. Every million additional jobs we create reduces the deficit by $54 billion.

   8. Because of historically low interest rates, borrowing now for major investments to rebuild America will be cheaper than if we put it off—and will also help boost our recovery today.

   9. America is suffering from a $1 trillion annual gap in demand, but the Recovery Act only plugged with $814 billion in funding , a total undermined by $425 billion cutbacks in state and local government spending.


Read more: politics, taxes, recovery, jobs, unemployment, stimulus bill, increase jobs, great depression

Politics & Gender

Politics & Gender is an agenda-setting journal that publishes the highest quality scholarship on gender and politics and on women and politics. It aims to represent the full range of questions, issues, and approaches on gender and women across the major subfields of political science, including comparative politics, international relations, political theory, and U.S. politics. The Editors welcome studies that address fundamental questions in politics and political science from the perspective of gender difference, as well as those that interrogate and challenge standard analytical categories and conventional methodologies.

Members of the Women and Politics Research Section of APSA receive the journal as a benefit of membership.

Middle Class and Socio Political Dynamics in Indonesia

Middle class is a phenomenon both in developed and developing countries. The influence of this social entity is not only economical as consumer of any products, but also social and political. Even though it is relatively small in number, middle class cannot be neglected as socio-political driver in many countries, including in Indonesia as a democratizing country. In the case of Indonesia, I argue that middle class has vital role during reform process in 1998 and still has significant role in socio-political dynamics after regime changes.


By definition, middle class is the layer of people who socially situated intermediate between higher and lower class who has average condition of income, education, status and taste (Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, 2006). More economical, The Economist (2009, cited in Abjorensen 2010) made a definition of middle class as “having a reasonable amount of discretionary income, so that they do not live from hand to mouth as the poor do, and defined it as beginner at the point where people have roughly a third of their income left for discretionary spending after paying for basic food and shelter”.

Because they has been fulfilled their basic need, middle class could be more independently thinking about politics and other social issues. Moreover, many Marxist theorists viewed middle class as key agent of historical change and tend to support political changes, or shaping an intermediate area as opponent of the state (Rueschemeyer et. al. 1992 cited in Hattori, 2003, p.131). Furthermore, Hara (1999 cited in Hattori 2003, p.131) argued that middle class “having attained economic homogeneity, begin to be united by similar political aspirations, and establish themselves as the agent of a collective political action”.

These characteristics above also identical with Indonesian middle class, that genealogically as the product of modernization and economic growth that Hattori et. al. (2003) stated similar with what happened in many Asian countries. These urban people rise from lower class and in many cases become spearhead of democratization movement. Moreover, Shiraishi (2003) argued that middle class in Indonesia is the product of financial globalization and regionalization of production during the New Order era.

During New Order regime, in 1995 those who classified as middle class profession constituted 8.6% of total working population or about 7.4 million people. This class was growing rapidly, that in the capital city itself in 1980 there are about 400,000 or 20.7% middle class people and growing to become 810,000 or 25% in 1995. In addition, Shiraishi (2003) stated that characteristic of Indonesian middle class during Soeharto era is ethnically divided between Pribumi (indegeneous Indonesian) and Non-Pribumi, while in the same time more dispersed in religion background than before.

Mietzner (2010) argued that Soeharto’s authoritarian regime as the core of New Order regime came to power and had survived because three factors. Firstly, support from the United States as anti-communist ally in the Cold War, secondly, support from Indonesian military as Soeharto background, and thirdly, better economic condition because of oil boom from 1973 until 1983. In this power building process, almost all of government institutional body was under Soeharto’s control that, unfortunately, boost New Order regime became a corrupt and rent seeker.

The declining of the New Order regime, explained by Mietzner (2010), start from unfavourable economic situation when Indonesia was seriously affected by Asian financial crisis in the middle of 1997. Indonesia’s economy was deteriorated significantly, as currency free fall when foreign debt ratio was 147 percent of GDP, capital outflow and the collapse of banking system that make Soeharto had to call the IMF for rescuing scheme. However, IMF forced the government to decline fuel subsidies in May 1998 that badly affected many poor people. The result very deteriorated for security when protest turned to violent in Medan, than spread quickly to Jakarta and Solo. Bad economic situation boost political situation to become out of control and caused the fall of Soeharto from its power.

Middle class has important involvement in Indonesian transition in 1998. They held online political discussion about democracy to avoid censorship. The influx of non-government organization (NGO) before 1998 formed by middle class indicates the early stage development of democratization process. These civil society organization that acting as political pressure-groups that operated in anti-corruption (Transparency International Indonesia), human right (Kontras), consumer protection (YLKI), and also environment protection (WALHI). They was introducing terms such as democracy, civil society, good government, transparency and accountability. They influenced the public political consciousness through many media that finally could generate reform movement in 1998.

The result of reform movement for Indonesian political scene changes was very dramatic, such as indicated by the existence of multiparty system, free press, direct president election and also decentralization of government. The other result is revitalization of other institutions for instance House of Representatives, Supreme Audit Board, Supreme Court, the Central Bank that previously controlled by Soeharto. To correct the failure in the past, along with amendment constitution also formed new institutions such as Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), and Constitutional Court as success story of Indonesian reform.

However, in the post-Soeharto era middle class still has vital role in Indonesian socio-political scene. In less than three months, more than one million online social network (facebook) members support online petition for the release of two KPK leader from prosecution, that viewed by the public as victim of criminalization by the National Police and the Attorney General Office (Loubke, 2010, p.172-176). Politically and socially there are three development caused by this social movement, that are the release of Bibit – Chandra under the public pressure, the more importance of public opinion in Indonesia, and forming process of middle class entity through online social networking.

In addition, almost one million facebook members also support online petition for the release of Prita Mulyasari from the trial because of unjust judicial system in post-Soeharto era. Many political elite figures met Prita to give support, as the case emerged near to the general election. The movement of “coin donation for Prita” to pay the fine imposed to Prita Mulyasari as sarcasm critics was forming social solidarity of middle class to help the unlucky against unjust of judicial system.

In summary, these evidences above seem to indicate that middle class in Indonesia is in the growing and mature process. The influence of middle class to the socio-political change is up and down relying on the political and economic situation. Many cases proofed that middle class have their own mechanism to influence ongoing political process such as by setting the agenda, as pressure groups or boost public opinion toward better and more accountable governance.

References:

Abjorensen, Norman 2010, ‘Ellite, middle class and globalization’, Slide presentation on Comparative Government and Politics class, 14 September 2010, Australian National University, Canberra.

Hattori, Tamio, Funatsu Tsuruyo, and Torii Takashi, 2003, ‘Introduction: the emergence of the Asian middle class and their characteristics’, The Developing Economies, Vol. XLI-2.

Loubke, Christian Von, 2010, ‘The politics of reform: political scandals, elite resistance, and presidential leadership in Indonesia’, Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, USA.

Mietzner, Marcus 2010, ‘Globalization and public policy in Indonesia’, Slide presentation on Comparative Government and Politics class, 10 August 2010, Australian National University, Canberra.

Shiraishi, Takashi 2003, ‘The rise of new urban middle classes in Southeast Asia: what is its national and regional significance?’, RIETI Discussion Paper Series 04-E-011.

Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, 2006, Random House Inc.

revalorising critique in the university

After UK universities were subsumed into the newly formed Department of Business, Industry and Skills in June of last year, it seemed that few changes in academic life could be any further surprising. Until the Times Higher Education featured a hot-pink guide on ‘20 steps to increase your ranking – ways to rise in the league tables without breaking the bank’. Neither the wisdom of the rankings nor the belt-tightening rhetoric was out of the ordinary: performance indicators, league tables and the spectre of radical budget cuts have become the grit of academic life. The banks, of course, have already been broken. But the framing of this consequential and contested political agenda as a playful popularity contest again pushed the boundaries of belief.

The guidance seemed simple, almost commonsense: hire good researchers, give them autonomy and power, and keep them happy. They bring prestige, money and networks. And if they can be transformed into managers, they can shape institutional culture and extract high levels of productivity from others.

But there was a more troubling message is in this guidance, in Tip No. 6: ‘no pain, no gain’. You must cut losses and losers to win. While elite researchers, institutional managers and ambitious young scholars are poised to accept this agenda as common sense, it is argued, ‘it is unlikely that everyone else will’. The reason? ‘We all tend to prefer the status quo.’ Within this logic, alternative positions are impossible. You can play hard and win or lose fairly, or you can win at all costs and take out whoever is standing in the way. But you cannot stop to question the rules of the game and still be included, or seriously suggest that we might all play another.

The problem is that this is not an idiosyncratic narrative. It is part of the wider and increasingly hegemonic discourse that diminishes democratic processes, marginalises opposition to the transformation of universities into fully integrated economic and political enterprises, and legitimises the withdrawal of public funds from higher education. It goes to the top. After releasing a controversial blueprint for education reforms in late 2009 and threatening what now appear confirmed as radical incisions into many university budgets, Peter Mandelson has caricatured critics as ‘people who don’t like change’, who ‘don’t want reform’ and who embody a ‘desire to maintain the status quo’.

You can be either in or out now; either for a prefigured, market-oriented vision of ‘progress’, or charged with advocating anti-values of stagnation and mediocrity. To criticise present trends in higher education policy – the institutionalisation of political-economic ‘impact agendas’ for research, the rapprochement of industry and academe, the hypocrisy of ‘raising student expectations’ while simultaneous slashing their financial support, not to mention other problems of campus surveillance and academic freedom – means to take up a position of either mediocrity or ridicule that exists beyond legitimate recognition.

Speaking when you anticipate criticism is possible, if hard. But speaking into a conversation where your positions are already discredited is absurd. This is why the pre-empting of critique and diminishing of public debate are such effective forms of disciplinary power within UK universities today. Here, academics are increasingly beholden to external validation, as skills of self-valorization give way to endless rankings by public opinion surveys and performance indicators. The prohibitions on critique are also strategically disorienting, for many academics have been tooled to expect – however so naively – that it can be recognised as a value within the university itself.

But this power throws sticks and stones as well as names. It is political; anchored outside the discursive realm in the new performative regimes of legitimacy and economic regimes of value now being embedded across the sector. Fixed prerequisites of professional participation are being defined, imposed and monitored for compliance (or in the softer language of power, for performances of ‘cooperation’ and ‘commitment’). But the particular politics of these terms remain unsaid, and can thus be performed as democratic and in the interests of the imagined common good. For what self-respecting scholar could possibly oppose change, progress, flexibility or public and social engagement? The problem is framed as the solution to the ‘other’ problems created by an (imagined) autonomous and democratic educational system. It might be called Orwellian, if the concept was much less oldthink.

From any alternatively reasonable perspective, the question is not about whether one supports a generic process of social ‘change’, but rather how the articulation of alternatives becomes framed as a generalised objection to progress itself, and as a danger to the general will. The problem is the suppression of political spaces in which this framing might itself be contested. Despite the proliferation of localised conversations and committees, genuinely public spaces for dialogue, critique and opposition are negated by pre-emptive threats of misrecognition and marginalisation. And on a more material level, critique is quietened by internalised fears that in the competitive ‘race’ for rankings and institutional survival, with jobs and reputations on the line, now is ‘not the time’ for asking such questions.

Fortunately, this logic exposes its own ironic contradictions. By legitimising technologies of control that foreclose debate, plurality and democratic process from the bottom up, the fear of the alternatives is revealed, and the stakes of the game made clear. By working so visibly to justify the restoration of elite education and research, to integrate these fully into business and industrial productivity, and to minimise or eliminate opposition to the agenda, the programme is exposed as the political struggle it is rather than the meritocratic movement it claims to be. It is known that the ‘reforms’ now being imposed on universities are divisive, disreputable and unjust. For if the proposals are so obviously progressive, why would they be impeded by public debate? And if this re-visioning of the university is so widely compelling, why is there so urgent a need to reshape academics’ perceptions and behaviour? What and whose is this pain that must be suffered in order for whom to gain what? And although it is assumed to be self-evident, it must be asked – why?

This is a time for questioning and for critique. However, provided that people can muster the will to speak into the absurdity of a discourse of foreclosure, concern and resistance must develop into acts of reclamation. We need to reclaim the commons within the university, to establish it where it has never been, to clarify in which intellectual and professional values we should defend and which should be transformed, to articulate and build alternative relationships between universities and other social institutions, and subject all of this to ongoing public and professional scrutiny. These things must be asserted collectively, despite whatever sort of name-calling and marginalisation might ensue. It is probably not a task well-suited to anyone whose self-respect, professional identity or intellectual relevance imbricate with the ratings game, and it is not the sort of programme that can be summarised, as recommended in ‘Raise your game’, in a ‘simple list of key priorities’. But that’s okay. It could be really useful knowledge.

Critical Education launches new series: A Return to Educational Apartheid? Critical Examinations of Race, Schools, and Segregation

Critical Education has just published its latest issue at http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/criticaled. We invite you to review the Table of Contents here and then visit our web site to review articles and items of interest.

This issue launches the Critical Education article series "A Return to Educational Apartheid? Critical Examinations of Race, Schools, and Segregation", edited by Adam Renner and Doug Selwyn.

Thanks for the continuing interest in our work,

Sandra Mathison, Co-Editor
E. Wayne Ross, Co-Editor
Critical Education

Critical Education
Vol 1, No 7 (2010)
Table of Contents
http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/criticaled/issue/view/18

Articles
--------
A Return to Educational Apartheid?
Adam Renner, Doug Selwyn

Abstract: Series co-editors Renner and Selwyn introduce a special series of articles focusing on the articulation of race, schools, and segregation. Each of the articles in this series will analyze the extent to which schooling may or may not be returning to a state of educational apartheid.

A Separate Education: The Segregation of American Students and Teachers
Erica Frankenberg, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley

Abstract: Despite the obvious connection between the two, student and teacher segregation are rarely examined together. To help fill that gap, this essay explores what is known about the extent of interracial exposure for students and teachers in U.S. public schools. This article reviews evidence underscoring the paramount importance of school integration. A description of the legal landscape governing desegregation follows, as well as a discussion of why current patterns of racial isolation persist. The essay next describes the demographics and segregation of today's students and teachers. In particular, the essay focuses on the growing segregation of students of color, the lingering isolation of white students, and the ways in which the overwhelmingly white teaching force reinforces patterns of student segregation. We close with a discussion of the implications of these trends.

Free E. Book from Ecopolitics

Free E-Book from Ecopolitics: Issues in Environmental Research: Politics, Anthropology and Sociology by Liam Leonard and Michael O' Kane.
http://www.ecopoliticsonline.com/index.cfm?action=books
The success of civil society groups and social movements in the Lisbon Treaty referendum has increased our focus on the relationship between activism and power. This, the third book in the Ecopolitics Series, presents a series of studies on activists in Ireland between the 1997 and 2007 general elections.
Here, the relationship between activism and research is explored through a series of case studies, interviews and articles. Activists with the Irish Green Party in working class areas of Dublin provide the focus for Irish-Australian anthropologist Michael O'Kane's in depth study on the 1997 election campaign. This is followed by a series of articles by Irish-American political sociologist Liam Leonard, based on his work as a researcher and journalist in Galway between 1999 and 2008.
Issues in Environmental Research: Politics, Anthropology and Sociology provides an chronological account of political events from an activist's perspective, thereby creating further understandings of the motivations of those in society who are so often on outside of the mainstream, but who have influenced events both nationally and throughout Europe in recent political campaigns. As such, this book offers a significant record of activist's perspectives at a pivotal moment in the relationship between the grassroots and the political elite, both in Ireland and in the wider European Union.
The book is available to you to download for free at http://www.ecopoliticsonline.com/

Issues in Environmental Research:
Politics, Anthropology and Sociology
Ecopolitics Series Vol. 3
Liam Leonard & Michael O'Kane
© Irish Greenhouse Press 2008
ISSN: 2009-0315

About the Authors:
Liam Leonard received his PhD in sociology and political science from the National University of Ireland, Galway in 2004. He is the Founder and Senior Editor of the Ecopolitics Online Journal http://www.ecopoliticsonline.com/ and author of three other books on environmental issues; Politics Inflamed (2005), Green Nation (2006) and the Environmental Movement in Ireland (2008). He has worked as a journalist and has been active politically with the Irish Labour and Green parties. Having worked as lecturer in Social Movements and Environmental Politics in NUIG, he now lectures in Criminology and Sociology in the Sligo Institute of Technology, Ireland.

Michael O’Kane received his PhD in anthropology from Monash University , Victoria , Australia in 2004. He then worked with remote area Indigenous communities in Australia ’s Northern Territory from 2004 until 2006 and as a Senior Anthropologist in cultural heritage management in South Australia . From 2007 he has worked with the Innovation and Change Management Group in the Faculty of Land and Food Resources (now the Graduate School of Land and Environment) in the University of Melbourne, Australia.