An Early Tragedy of Comparative Constitutionalism: Frank Goodnow and the Chinese Republic

This article recovers a lost episode in the neglected early history of comparative constitutionalism in the United States. In 1913, pioneering comparative lawyer Frank Goodnow went to China to assist the new Chinese Republic in the writing of its first constitution. Goodnow’s mission reflected the growing interest of the United States in China’s legal development in this era, and his constitution-writing project won broad support from the U.S. legal profession. Goodnow’s tenure ultimately generated great controversy when he advised China’s leaders to adopt a constitutional monarchy rather than continue on as a republic. This article describes this controversy and how the international engagement of the United States was increasingly shaped in the early twentieth century by the attempted export of U.S. legal models as a presumptively altruistic mechanism of modernization. Goodnow’s allegiance to comparative legal science agitated against this more parochial view of legal internationalism, and in the end he was excommunicated from U.S. foreign policy affairs. More broadly, this article shows how the early history of comparative constitutionalism in the United States had its roots in the early twentieth century discourse on colonial administration. Goodnow and other U.S. lawyers of the era turned to indirect engagements with foreign legal reform only after the popular rejection of colonialism that had been constitutionally sanctioned by the now infamous Insular Cases. This article further argues that these colonial roots and Goodnow’s feckless misadventure in China hold key lessons for today’s comparative constitutionalists. It provides a vivid example of how the technocratic illusion of engaging in depoliticized legal reform abroad is self-defeating and untenable. Further, it warns against the inherent tensions between a methodologically coherent comparative law and the desire to export U.S. constitutional models abroad, and how such tensions can undercut clear-sighted understanding of foreign legal developments

Law and Development as Anti-Comparative Law

This Article asserts that during the twentieth century, American law has predominantly structured its relationship to foreign legal experience through a set of ideas and practices known as law and development, which is irredeemably antithetical to the practice of comparative law. Centrally, law and development is built on the assumption that American law can be exported abroad to catalyze foreign legal development. The dismal record of such efforts has remained paradoxically popular while the field remains locked in repeating cycles of failure and optimism. This Article demonstrates that the history of law and development\u27s failures is far older than has been traditionally recognized, and dates back to the turn of the twentieth century. In this era, foreign reform became a key part of the professional image of the modern American lawyer. At the same time, the origins of law and development were intimately tied to the decline of comparative law in American legal culture. This history reveals that the paradox of law and development\u27s contemporary popularity can only be understood by recognizing the cultural politics that these developments embedded in the American legal community. The troubling legacy of this widely entrenched view of America as solely an exporter of legal knowledge presents pressing liabilities for American law, both internationally and domestically, on the competitive terrain of the twenty-first century. This Article concludes that in order to address these liabilities, America should categorically abandon law and development and should fundamentally reorient its relationship to foreign legal experience through a self-interested practice of comparative law. As exemplified in the debate over judicial citation of foreign precedents, this shift will require basic changes in how American legislative and administrative bodies relate to foreign law, as well as the place of comparative law in American law schools. Such a reorientation will enable America to strategically perceive foreign legal developments and, most critically, productively adapt foreign legal experience as an energizing stimulant to our own legal innovation

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin\u27s Personalizing Universe

The purpose of this paper is to expose the personalization motif in Teilhard\u27s works. While involved in research on Teilhard, I noticed the lack of an English language article which traced and emphasized personalization. This missing emphasis stimulated me since Teilhard ends his The Phenomenon of Man stating that the only universe capable of containing the human person is an irreversibly \u27personalizing\u27 one. Personalization then must be central to his doctrine. This paper follows his mechanism of Complexity/Consciousness working on all material levels to show its culmination in effecting personalization

Correlation Between Faculty Satisfaction and Student Satisfaction in Higher Education

In an effort to stay competitive in the increasingly more challenging business world, companies are constantly trying to develop new ways in which to improve their organizations. One way to accomplish this is by improving overall employee satisfaction, which has been found to be correlated with increased customer satisfaction, and increased profits. Thus, by gaining a greater understanding of their employees’ perceived level of satisfaction, and by working toward enhancing it, organizations should be able to better serve their customers. While the evidence on higher employee satisfaction being correlated with greater customer satisfaction is presented in the literature, it is mostly anecdotal. Further, research has not looked into various facets of employee satisfaction and how they relate to various facets of customer satisfaction. Finally, while employee satisfaction issues have been discussed in various organizational settings, I have not been able to locate research on faculty satisfaction and its relationship to various aspects of student satisfaction in a university setting. My research seeks to examine the correlations between several aspects of faculty satisfaction and student satisfaction within a university setting. In this environment, faculty members are employees of the organization and students may be viewed as its customers. Each group derives satisfaction from different aspects of what occurs at the university, yet the satisfaction experienced by one group is expected to affect their performance, and thus the satisfaction experienced by the other group. For example, a faculty member who is happy with his or her colleagues may be motivated to do more team-teaching and enhance the learning experience (and thus satisfaction) of students. This project requires data to be gathered from two groups – faculty and students. Data on faculty satisfaction with various aspects of their job are available by department through an organization that conducts such surveys at various universities every three years. To understand student satisfaction, a survey of current undergraduate students will also be undertaken. The survey will examine student satisfaction with various aspects of their academic experience at the university. Based on the data obtained from the two surveys, we plan to compute correlations between facets of faculty satisfaction that are hypothesized to have the greatest impact on student satisfaction. I believe that this research will not only help The Ohio State University and its various departments, but also any other university that is interested in enhancing the satisfaction levels of its various constituents. University administrators can use this information to understand which aspects of their work experience faculty members of a certain department are more satisfied with and whether this has an effect on student satisfaction. This research model may be applied for further study by analyzing universities that are different than the large, urban, public university that has been surveyed in this study. The concept of correlating facets of employee satisfaction to customer satisfaction could also be applied to any organizational setting. This additional research will advance the understanding of employee and customer satisfaction and the correlations discovered through this study

MAPK phosphorylation of connexin 43 promotes binding of cyclin E and smooth muscle cell proliferation

<p>Rationale: Dedifferentiation of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) leading to a proliferative cell phenotype significantly contributes to the development of atherosclerosis. Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) phosphorylation of proteins including connexin 43 (Cx43) has been associated with VSMC proliferation in atherosclerosis.</p> <p>Objective: To investigate whether MAPK phosphorylation of Cx43 is directly involved in VSMC proliferation.</p> <p>Methods and Results: We show in vivo that MAPK-phosphorylated Cx43 forms complexes with the cell cycle control proteins cyclin E and cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) in carotids of apolipoprotein-E receptor null (ApoE−/−) mice and in C57Bl/6 mice treated with platelet-derived growth factor–BB (PDGF). We tested the involvement of Cx43 MAPK phosphorylation in vitro using constructs for full-length Cx43 (Cx43) or the Cx43 C-terminus (Cx43CT) and produced null phosphorylation Ser>Ala (Cx43MK4A/Cx43CTMK4A) and phospho-mimetic Ser>Asp (Cx43MK4D/Cx43CTMK4D) mutations. Coimmunoprecipitation studies in primary VSMC isolated from Cx43 wild-type (Cx43+/+) and Cx43 null (Cx43−/−) mice and analytic size exclusion studies of purified proteins identify that interactions between cyclin E and Cx43 requires Cx43 MAPK phosphorylation. We further demonstrate that Cx43 MAPK phosphorylation is required for PDGF-mediated VSMC proliferation. Finally, using a novel knock-in mouse containing Cx43-MK4A mutation, we show in vivo that interactions between Cx43 and cyclin E are lost and VSMC proliferation does not occur after treatment of carotids with PDGF and that neointima formation is significantly reduced in carotids after injury.</p> <p>Conclusions: We identify MAPK-phosphorylated Cx43 as a novel interacting partner of cyclin E in VSMC and show that this interaction is critical for VSMC proliferation. This novel interaction may be important in the development of atherosclerotic lesions.</p&gt