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Apologizing: a skill we could all use at some time or another. So when The Globe and Mail's Dakshana Bascaramurty wrote a "how to" on apologies, she interviewed I Was Wrong author Nick Smith. Nick Smith, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of New Hampshire and author of I Was Wrong, says the recent torrent of sex-scandal-related apologies from politicians has skewed our understanding of apology and forgiveness. “If apologies signify something like moral transformation, that usually takes time,” he says. “You’ve done something wrong and oftentimes you think it’s right and then you’re immediately supposed to do an about-face and go through this grave repentance.”
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Preferential trade agreements have exploded in number over the past decade. But what do they really achieve? Mark Manger explains the ins and outs of international trade for Rorotoko, and manages to make international law fascinating in the process.
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How much of our political orientation can be attributed to our personalities and our brains? Nicholas Kristof addressed this in his NYT Op-Ed Saturday, and examined the research of two of our authors. We all know that liberals and conservatives are far apart on health care. But in the way their brains work? Even in automatic reflexes, like blinking? Or the way their glands secrete moisture? That’s the suggestion of some recent research. It hints that the roots of political judgments may lie partly in fundamental personality types and even in the hard-wiring of our brains. Researchers have found, for example, that some humans are particularly alert to threats, particularly primed to feel vulnerable and perceive danger. Those people are more likely to be conservatives.
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Via The Huffington Post, Whatley draws on the work of our own Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler to describe some dimensions of the Tea Party Movement: In Authoritarianism & Polarization in American Politics, a revealing work of political science published last year that unfortunately went somewhat unnoticed, Marc J. Hetherington and Jonathan D. Weiler describe a specific worldview -- authoritarianism -- which they argue lies at the heart of political polarization in modern American politics.
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via Foreign Affairs - author Lucan Way on the Ukraine election: In 2004, the world watched as the Orange Revolution unfolded in Ukraine, pitting an insurgent, pro-Western opposition, led by Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, against a pro-Russian autocratic government, represented by Viktor Yanukovych. After months of protest, Yushchenko became president in January 2005. Last month, the three faced off against one another in the first round of presidential elections. Yushchenko lost badly, with Yanukovych and Tymoshenko coming out on top, receiving 35 percent and 25 percent of the vote, respectively. A runoff election between the two was held on February 7 to determine Ukraine’s next president. For both better and worse, this election marks a sharp break from 2004: Ukraine is now less dominated by a choice between East and West, yet more mired in rampant cynicism and fears of institutional and political chaos.
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The New York Times reports on a Penn-Wharton School study of what makes an article get shared most, or go “viral.” The results are surprising and refreshing. Apparently, you guys like science! Read it!>>
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The massive, comprehensive Dictionary of Irish Biography was awarded the 2009 American Publishers Award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE) for Best Multivolume Reference work in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Congratulations to the Royal Irish Academy, the editors, and all involved here at the Press.
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Via Marsall Poe's New Books in History Americans don’t like “big government” right? Not exactly. In the Early Republic (1789 to the 1820s) folks were quite keen on building up the (you guessed it) republic. As in res publica, the “things held in common.” The “founding fathers”–all “Classical Republicans”–designed a form of government that, though “checked and balanced,” gave the federal government significant powers. And throughout the 19th-century Americans asked the federal government to use those powers to do all kinds of things, many of them profoundly self-interested.
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