George Ritzer, Globalization: A Basic Text

Review of Globalization: A Basic Text, by George Ritze

Up and Down Diotima's Staircase: Space and Metaphysics in Symbolist and Expressionist Theatre

The Staircase is particularly resonant as a meeting place of metaphysics and theatrical practice. In this paper I use the framework provided by ‘Diotima’s staircase’ – a concept from Plato’s Symposium – to examine the relationship between theatre and metaphysics at the turn into the twentieth century, a time when shifting metaphysical positions both explicitly and implicitly drove Symbolist and Expressionist theatrical experimentation. I argue that this experimentation involved a turning away from Symbolism’s neo-Platonic focus on noumena towards Expressionism’s belief in the value of phenomena, and that this shift was especially evident in the way that Symbolists and Expressionists dealt with the arrangement of bodies, objects and light in space. I focus specifically on the transformation of Symbolism’s use of the staircase as a metaphor in paintings to Expressionism’s use of actual, three-dimensional flights of stairs and multiple-level stage floors in the theatre.The conference was sponsored by A.D.S.A., the Department of Performance Studies, the School of Letters, Arts and Media, and the Faculty of Arts of the University of Sydney

Variation in population synchrony in a multi-species seabird community: response to changes in predator abundance

Ecologically similar sympatric species, subject to typical environmental conditions, may be expected to exhibit synchronous temporal fluctuations in demographic parameters, while populations of dissimilar species might be expected to show less synchrony. Previous studies have tested for synchrony in different populations of single species, and those including data from more than one species have compared fluctuations in only one demographic parameter. We tested for synchrony in inter-annual changes in breeding population abundance and productivity among four tern species on Coquet Island, northeast England. We also examined how manipulation of one independent environmental variable (predator abundance) influenced temporal changes in ecologically similar and dissimilar tern species. Changes in breeding abundance and productivity of ecologically similar species (Arctic Sterna paradisaea, Common S. hirundo and Roseate Terns S. dougallii) were synchronous with one another over time, but not with a species with different foraging and breeding behaviour (Sandwich Terns Thalasseus sandvicensis). With respect to changes in predator abundance, there was no clear pattern. Roseate Tern abundance was negatively correlated with that of large gulls breeding on the island from 1975 to 2013, while Common Tern abundance was positively correlated with number of large gulls, and no significant correlations were found between large gull and Arctic and Sandwich Tern populations. Large gull abundance was negatively correlated with productivity of Arctic and Common Terns two years later, possibly due to predation risk after fledging, while no correlation with Roseate Tern productivity was found. The varying effect of predator abundance is most likely due to specific differences in the behaviour and ecology of even these closely-related species. Examining synchrony in multi-species assemblages improves our understanding of how whole communities react to long-term changes in the environment and suggests that changes in predator abundance may differentially affect populations of sympatric seabird species

Federal Statutory Review Under Section 1983 and the APA

Following hard on the heels of two unanimous decisions sustaining the authority of state courts to enforce federal law, two more unanimous rulings at the end of the 1989 Supreme Court Term strongly emphasized their duty to do so. McKesson Corporation v. Division of Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco, held that the states must provide meaningful postpayment remedies for parties forced to pay state taxes that had been extracted contrary to the commerce clause, and Howlett v. Rose affirmed the existence of a nearly inescapable duty in the state courts to entertain section 1983 actions. Additionally, three days after Howlett, the Court held in Wilder v. Virginia Hospital Association, that the Boren Amendment to the Medicaid Act, which requires states to reimburse health care providers in accordance with rates that are \u27reasonable and adequate to meet the cost ... incurred,\u27 is enforceable by providers in section 1983 actions. Finally, in Dennis v. Higgins, the Court granted certiorari to decide whether dormant commerce clause claims can be maintained under section 1983. Against this background of unfolding opportunities for plaintiffs to vindicate their federal rights, Golden State Transit Corporation v. City of Los Angeles, decided early in the Term, may escape much independent notice even among federal court specialists despite its likely significance

Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking: Cases and Materials

Authors of constitutional law casebooks traditionally have presented their subject through Supreme Court opinions arranged under the three general groupings of judicial review, distribution of powers (federalism and separation of powers), and individual liberties. This organizational consensus rests upon two widely held and deep beliefs: a basic course in constitutional law should (1) consist of a rigorous and sustained study of substantive doctrine and (2) be undertaken principally through a detailed examination of Supreme Court decisions, albeit supplemented in varying degrees by authors\u27 questions and law review excerpts. Paul Brest\u27s Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking poses a formidable challenge to this standing wisdom. The book is divided into two parts. Part I concentrates on the process by which constitutional principles are derived by any decisionmaker, whether that person be judge, legislator, or executive official, and Part II addresses the special role of the judiciary in constitutional exegesis. In place of substantive doctrinal exposition, Professor Brest\u27s focus is on questions of process and methodology which cut across the standard substantive topics. Indeed, six of his fifteen chapters are entirely process-oriented; while the remaining nine chapters center on substantive doctrinal exposition within the traditional three groupings, even here the emphasis is upon methodology

Presidential War-Making

The Vietnam war has convinced many persons that the president of the United States claims apparently unlimited power to commit this country to war. Not surprisingly, therefore, considerable interest has focused on the powers that inhere in the presidency. And many critics of the war – those who in other times and in other contexts might have been sympathetic to a spacious conception of presidential power – have concluded that the Vietnam conflict is not only a tragic error, but is the direct result of unconstitutional conduct by the president. I cannot accept this view; at bottom, it seems to me yet another example of the American propensity to substitute for the question of the beneficial use of the powers of government ... the question of their existence. In view of what has already been written, I shall confine myself to the considerations that impress me as controlling. Since my concern is with the constitutional relationship between the president and congress, I shall give no consideration to the consistency of the president\u27s action with American treaty obligations or with international law generally

Antisuit Injunctions and Preclusion against Absent Nonresident Class Members

In this Article, Professor Monaghan addresses an issue of pressing concern in class action litigation today, namely, the extent to which a trial court\u27s class judgment can bind – either by preclusion or injunction – unnamed nonresident class members, thus preventing them from raising due process challenges to the judgment in another court. After placing the antisuit injunction and preclusion issues in the context of recent class action and related developments, Professor Monaghan discusses the Supreme Court\u27s 1985 decision in Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts and its applicability to these issues. In particular, Professor Monaghan criticizes reading Shutts\u27 implied consent rationale as turning entirely on class members\u27failure to opt out of the class action, and using that failure as a basis for an antisuit injunction against nonresident class members. Absent minimum contact, Shutts requires, inter alia, adequate representation at all times in order to establish in personam jurisdiction over nonresident class members. That issue can always be raised in another forum. In a class action universe that includes races to judgment and reverse auctions, this rule is desirable. In the absence of a legislative reform, Professor Monaghan concludes that non-party, nonresident class members must remain free to challenge, on due process grounds, otherwise preclusive judgments in a forum of their choosing

We the People[s], Original Understanding, and Constitutional Amendment

Recent legal and political activity and renewed academic discussion have focused considerable attention on the nature of the federal system that the founders created some two hundred years ago. In two important decisions in the 1994 Term, the Supreme Court addressed this issue. No fewer than fifteen states have recently passed resolutions reasserting the importance of the Tenth Amendment – the constitutional affirmation of the limits on national authority. Additionally, legal academics have advanced arguments intended to alter settled understandings about the constitutional framework established in 1789. This widespread reexamination of the nature and limitations of our federal system has the potential to play a significant role in the current political transformation of our country, and the results of this debate could affect the lives of all Americans. In this Article, I examine the tensions inherent in the neither wholly national nor wholly federal constitutional order created in 1789. I also seek to dispel the notion that historical revisionism can erase the many democracy-restraining features of the Constitution. In doing so, I focus primarily on Article V – the amending provision – which illuminates the state-oriented compromises and democracy-restraining features that were built into the Constitution. I respond directly to Professor Akhil Amar, who has advanced an appealing, but historically groundless, claim that despite Article V, the Framers intended that a simple majority of a national We the People could amend the Constitution. Professor Amar\u27s claim suffers from two deep flaws: It ignores the crucial role reserved for the states in the newly established constitutional order, and it also ignores the fact that the Constitution nowhere contemplates any form of direct, unmediated lawmaking or constitution-making by the People

On Avoiding Avoidance, Agenda Control, and Related Matters

Legal scholars have long posited that, heuristically at least, two basic adjudicatory models – the dispute resolution model and the law declaration model – compete for the Court\u27s affection along a wide spectrum of issues. The former focuses upon judicial resolution of actual disputes between litigants. Historically, that model has been underpinned by a premise, reflected in a wide range of doctrines, that significant barriers rightly exist to judicial review of the constitutionality of governmental conduct. By contrast, the law declaration model focuses on the Court itself not the litigants. Emphasizing the judicial authority to say what the law is, it views any restraints on judicial authority solely in functional terms, terms not as litigant centered. The dispute resolution model is usually treated as formally dominant, followed by an exploration of the inroads made by the law declaration model. Examination of recent, seemingly unrelated, decisions shows that this approach now gets matters pretty much backwards, at least so far as the Court is concerned. Embracing in significant measure the premises of the law declaration model, the Court has sought to expand its hierarchical hegemony to ensure that: (a) It can have the final say when any other court, state or federal, rules on the constitutionality of government conduct; and (b) it will possess wide-ranging agenda-setting freedom to determine what issues are to be (or not to be) decided, irrespective of the wishes of the litigants. The latter development in particular raises troublesome questions about the Court\u27s appropriate role in our polity

The Constitution Goes to Harvard

Doctrinal disorder haunts a generation of Supreme Court decisions construing and applying the strands of the fourteenth amendment. But in a confusion contest between the Court and academic writers on constitutional law, picking a winner would be no simple task. Those of us in the academy, despite our comparatively ample time for reflection, have long resisted discussion of fundamental issues. Professors Tribe and Michelman, two of our ablest writers, illustrate my point in their provocative recent essays on National League of Cities v. Usery. Neither purports to erect more adequate scaffolding for the decision\u27s federalism foundation. Rather, each attempts to transform the decision into one which, in Professor Tribe\u27s words, will contribute to a just constitutional order. That order, in turn, has a centerpiece, a theory of affirmative constitutional claims against the government. I doubt that the persuasiveness of such a theory is enhanced by this reworking of National League of Cities. My interest, however, is in the underlying theory, for which National League of Cities ostensibly becomes both surprising supporting evidence and an attractive, though subtle, showcase