A CONFLICT OF DISINTEREST: THE PROBLEM OF PARTY IN THE EARLY AMERICAN REPUBLIC

This study examines the lost classical republican virtue of disinterestedness—its early role in the nation’s founding, its eventual subordination to partisanship, and its enduring legacy in the realm of politics. Two seminal documents shaped Americans’ early ideas regarding disinterestedness, namely James Madison’s Federalist, No. 10 and George Washington’s “Farewell Address;” however, these cornerstones of impartial politics built upon a long history of classical republican thought from both ancient Rome and mother England. The eventual impracticality of such a virtue quickly gave way to a more enticing and interested form of politics in the early republic—one where lines were rapidly drawn between those in favor of federal power and elite rule and those who preferred a trajectory toward state power and egalitarianism. In this transition from the theory of classical republican virtue to the practice of party politics, one can clearly see the continued influence of classical disinterestedness especially and rather ironically in the language of partisan politicians. The virtue evolved, but it did not die. Classical republican virtues, such as disinterestedness, still attract the attention of pundits today as they “reach across the aisle” and seek “bipartisan solutions” to political issues the United States faces. The idea of impartiality still has a certain appeal to constituents as well. Voters are both interested in political unity, and many express a level of exhaustion in polarization and the division that partisanship tends to breed. Disinterestedness has witnessed times of revival in our past; however, it more than resonates in the modern United States and has real implications in the climate of our most recent political struggles

Coping with organizational change: a multidimensional perspective

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)This paper introduces a unified model for organizational change that is designed to help change analysts think through the decision-making process. Most organizational leaders do not manage change effectively because they fail to acquire the minimum amount of information necessary to make a sound decision. In large part, this deficiency is a result of considering only a small part of the organization’s total change reality, which can be expressed in terms of the following four categories: 1) Environment creates change, 2) Organization responds to environmental change, 3) Organization initiates new changes, and 4) Organization changes environment. Through the principle of diagnostic communication, leaders can adjust to the incoming changes [categories 1 and 2]. Through the principle of rhetorical communication, they can create effective outgoing changes [categories 3 and 4]. Through the principle of dialogical communication, they can achieve a strategic balance between too much conformity, which results from diagnostic communication in isolation, and too much non-conformity, which results from communication in isolation. By understanding and communicating about change from this multi-dimensional perspective, organizational leaders, both designated and non-designated, can learn to appreciate the extent to which they influence and are influenced by the larger cultural environment of which they are a part

Fighting for the mantle of science : the epistemological foundations of neoliberalism, 1931-1951

Cette thèse examine la genèse intellectuelle du néolibéralisme au prisme de son épistémologie. Elle interroge le développement de ses arguments concernant la production et la diffusion de la connaissance, guidée par l’hypothèse que la formulation d’une position épistémologique commune a été cruciale pour la consolidation de son programme idéologique. Je propose que le néolibéralisme, en provoquant une rupture avec le libéralisme classique, a opéré un recodage des principes libéraux à l’intérieur d’un cadre épistémologique basé sur le conventionnalisme, à l’aide de prémisses tirées des sciences naturelles, de la théorie économique, et de la philosophie des sciences. Afin d’obtenir un panorama contextuel de son émergence, cette thèse fournit une reconstruction des débats intellectuels des années 1930 en Angleterre sur deux plans principaux : le débat sur la planification de la science, et celui sur la planification de l’économie. Dans un climat propice aux idées planistes, perçues comme davantage rationnelles et scientifiques, les néolibéraux précoces s’attelèrent à montrer la portée limitée de la science positive pour orienter les décisions politiques. La montée du totalitarisme contribua à donner à leur discours une urgence singulière, puisqu’il expliquait le recours au collectivisme étatique par la prégnance d’opinions scientifiques erronées. Pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, la formation d’un réseau néolibéral déclencha une fertilisation croisée entre ces différents penseurs, dont l’agenda commun avait été défini au moment du Colloque Walter-Lippmann en 1938. En développant leurs intuitions sur le fonctionnement interne de la science et de l’économie comme modèles de coopération libre, Michael Polanyi, Friedrich Hayek, Louis Rougier, Walter Lippmann, et Karl Popper, élaborèrent une théorie sociale cohérente, qui supportaient les idéaux libéraux sur de nouvelles bases épistémologiques. Pour eux, le désir de mener une politique « scientifique » relevait d’un aveuglement méthodologique issu d’une mécompréhension de la nature de la connaissance et du travail scientifique, ainsi que d’une conception disproportionnée de leur potentiel. En reliant de manière analogique la liberté scientifique, avec celle garantie par le marché ou la règle de droit, la position de la pensée et de la connaissance dans la société est devenue leur préoccupation principale. Ce recodage met en lumière la forme particulière de l’idéologie néolibérale : la compétition et les marchés sont redéfinis comme procédures de découverte, les traditions sont perçues comme des réservoirs de connaissance tacite, et les institutions sont conçues comme les préconditions et les résultats d’ordres spontanés. L’institutionnalisation de ce collectif de pensée fragmentaire lors de la fondation de la Société du Mont-Pèlerin en 1947 révéla à la fois l’ambition idéologique de ce projet et ses limites immédiates.This dissertation examines the intellectual genesis of neoliberalism through the prism of its epistemology. It interrogates the development of its arguments regarding the production and diffusion of knowledge, guided by the hypothesis that formulating a common epistemological stance was crucial for the consolidation of its ideological program. I propose that early neoliberalism, by provoking a rupture with classical liberalism, recoded liberal principles into an epistemological framework based on conventionalism, with premises drawn from the natural sciences, economic theory, and the philosophy of science. To achieve a contextual picture of its emergence, the dissertation provides a reconstruction of the intellectual debates of the 1930s in England on two major fronts: the debate on planning in science, and the debate on planning in the economy. Amidst a general enthusiasm for planning ideas perceived as being more rational and scientific, early neoliberals warned of the limited value of positive science in guiding policy decisions. The rise of totalitarianism gave their discourse a dramatic urgency as it explicitly linked faulty scientific views with the rise of state collectivism. During the Second World War, the formation of a neoliberal network triggered a cross-fertilization between these early neoliberal thinkers, whose common agenda had been defined at the Walter-Lippmann Colloquium in 1938. Drawing from their intuitions about the inner workings of science and the economy held as models of free cooperation, Michael Polanyi, Friedrich Hayek, Louis Rougier, Walter Lippmann, and Karl Popper, cemented a coherent social theory which vindicated liberal ideals on new epistemological grounds. To them, the aspiration towards ‘scientific’ politics denoted a methodological delusion built on a misunderstanding of the nature of knowledge and of scientific work, as well as on a hubristic conception of their potential. By linking analogically the freedom experienced by the scientist, to the one guaranteed by the market or by the rule of law, the position of thought and knowledge in society became their core concern. Paying attention to this recoding process sheds light on the peculiar shape of neoliberal ideology: competition and markets were redefined as discovery procedures, traditions were seen as receptacles of tacit knowledge, and institutions were conceived as the preconditions and results of dynamic evolutionary orders. The institutionalization of this fragmentary thought collective at the foundation of the Mont-Pèlerin Society in 1947 revealed both the novelty of this project and its immediate limits, in particular the tensions between its scientific ambition and its ideological projection

Classic Concepts in Anthropology

The late anthropologist Valerio Valeri (1944–98) was best known for his substantial writings on societies of Polynesia and eastern Indonesia. This volume, however, presents a lesser-known side of Valeri’s genius through a dazzlingly erudite set of comparative essays on core topics in the history of anthropological theory. Offering masterly discussions of anthropological thought about ritual, fetishism, cosmogonic myth, belief, caste, kingship, mourning, play, feasting, ceremony, and cultural relativism, Classic Concepts in Anthropology, presented here with a critical foreword by Rupert Stasch and Giovanni da Col, will be an eye-opening, essential resource for students and researchers not only in anthropology but throughout the humanities