The intervening role of social worldviews in the relationship between the five‐factor model of personality and social attitudes

The present research investigates in a student (N = 183) and a voter sample (N = 276) whether the relationships between the Five‐Factor Model (FFM) personality dimensions and social attitudes (i.e. Right‐Wing Authoritarianism [RWA] and Social Dominance Orientation [SDO]) are mediated by social worldviews (i.e. dangerous and jungle worldviews). Two important results were obtained. First, the perception of the world as inherently dangerous and chaotic partially mediated the relationships of the personality dimensions Openness and Neuroticism and the social attitude RWA. Second, the jungle worldview completely mediated the relationships between Agreeableness and SDO, but considerable item overlap between the jungle worldview and SDO was also noted. It was further revealed that acquiescence response set and item overlap had an impact on social worldviews and attitudes, but that their relationships were hardly affected by these biases. The discussion focuses on the status of social worldviews to explain social attitudes. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exploring the trainees' view of a socio‐political approach within UK clinical psychology

This paper aims to provide preliminary insights into the relationship between clinical psychology and a socio‐political approach known as Critical Community Psychology (CCP). Methodologically, it uses statements about CCP as stimulus material, and utilizes both quantitative and qualitative exploratory techniques, to survey the opinions of 354 UK trainee clinical psychologists. Participants' ratings of the stimulus material and their qualitative comments reveal many positive endorsements of the socio‐political approach. However, themes from the qualitative data raise questions about how socio‐political ideas can be incorporated into clinical practice and highlight uncertainty over the relationship between clinical psychology and politics. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Avoiding The Unavoidable? Judith Shklar’s Unwilling Search For An Overlapping Consensus

No less an authority than John Rawls identified Judith Shklar as a ‘political’ liberal. However, though their respective conceptions of political liberalism are similar in a number of important respects, Shklar emphasizes that her vision differs notably from that of Rawls. In particular, she explicitly eschews Rawls’s focus on establishing and sustaining an overlapping consensus, arguing that his belief in the possibility of securing such a consensus is naïve and, indeed, dangerous insofar as it embodies an obvious disregard for the painful lessons of history and thereby not only allows but invites the occurrence of new cruelties and horrors. Obviously, such an approach would seem to diverge dramatically from that promoted by Rawls and many other political liberals. The purpose of this essay is to analyze Shklar’s arguments and determine the validity of her claims regarding the differences between her conception and that of Rawls and, in so doing, assess the extent to which Shklar’s ‘liberalism of fear’ can be said to represent a meaningfully distinctive model of political liberalism.     

Rawls and Religious Community: Ethical Decision Making in the Public Square

While most people may initially agree that justice is fairness,as an evangelical Protestant I argue that, for many religiouscomprehensive doctrines, the Rawlsean model does not possessthe resources necessary to sustain tolerance in moral decisionmaking. The weakness of Rawls's model centers on the reasonablepriority of convictions that arise from private comprehensivedoctrines. To attain a free and pluralistic society, peopleneed resources sufficient to provide reasons to tolerate actionsthat are otherwise intolerable. In addition to arguing for thedeficiency of the Rawlsean political model, I sketch out a preliminarymodel of ambassadorship that offers religious communities, andin particular Protestant evangelicals, the necessary resourcesto engage the broader society tolerantly while maintaining theirreligious convictions. As a citizen of the church and a memberof another kingdom, Christians serve as ambassadors to thosewho are not of the heavenly kingdom. I take this model to bemore ambitious than that of a sojourner who lives in the landbut is isolated as much as possible from society, while moremodest than that of reconstructionists who seek to implementtheir own sacred law on all others.     

Interpreting Perelman’s Universal Audience: Gross versus Crosswhite

While still subject to differing interpretations Perelman’s theory of audience has potential as an evaluative tool in rhetorical criticism as demonstrated by Gross and Crosswhite. I compare their explanations of how politicians address the universal audience and the respective implications for evaluating the argumentation and then argue that although Gross provides a more immediately applicable theory, Crosswhite’s interpretation recommends itself by virtue of its wider scope in regard to deliberative rhetoric.     

THE CAPABILITIES OF PEOPLE WITH COGNITIVE DISABILITIES

Abstract: People with cognitive disabilities are equal citizens, and law ought to show respect for them as full equals. To do so, law must provide such people with equal entitlements to medical care, housing, and other economic needs. But law must also go further, providing people with disabilities truly equal access to education, even when that is costly and involves considerable change in current methods of instruction. The central theme of this essay is what is required in order to give such people political and civil rights on a basis of genuine equality.     

Public Space

“Public space” is the space where individuals see and are seen by others as they engage in public affairs. Hannah Arendt links this space with “public freedom.” The being of such freedom, she asserts, depends on its appearing. It consists of “deeds and words which are meant to appear, whose very existence hinges on appearance.” Such appearance, however, requires the public space. Reflecting on Arendt’s remarks, a number of questions arise: What does the dependence of freedom on public space tell us about the nature of freedom? How does public freedom relate to the freedom of a private individual? Does the latter also depend on its appearing? Which is generatively prior: freedom or public space, i.e., the actions that publicly manifest freedom or the space required for their appearance? How does public power shape this space? In this article, I approach these questions through a phenomenological study of public space.     

9/11 as a new temporal phase for Islam

Since the bombing of the twin towers, ‘Islam’ as a cultural narrative has entered a new temporal phase which in many ways signifies the re-imagining of a religion through the visual imagery of 9/11 and the global events which have unfolded since the apocalyptic images were first witnessed by the world. The distant proximity of 9/11 and the relocation of the perceived Islamic ‘resurgent atavism’ within the heartlands of power in Western soil constitute the formation of a new sociological imagination of Islam and 9/11 as a new liminal temporality. The association of the religion with a new category of risks in urban sites and the constant state of insecurity in seemingly secure spaces represents a new narrative phase of geo-politics in which the locus of this re-imagining mediated through ICTs, is one that happens not just in faraway places but within the ‘ontological securities’ of Western modernity, posing a liquid threat which is impervious to territorially bounded spheres.     

The Minority-Majority Conundrum in Northern Ireland: An Orange Order Perspective

Researchers have argued that, depending on the framing of the Northern Ireland conflict, each group could either be a minority or a majority relative to the other. This complicates macrosocial explanations of the conflict which make specific predictions on the basis of minority or majority positions. The present paper argues that this conundrum may have arisen from the inherent variability in microidentity processes that do not fit easily with macroexplanations. In this paper the rhetoric of relative group position is analysed in political speeches delivered by leading members of an influential Protestant institution in Northern Ireland. It is apparent that minority and majority claims are not fixed but are flexibly used to achieve local rhetorical goals. Furthermore, the speeches differ before and after the Good Friday Agreement, with a reactionary "hegemonic" Unionist position giving way to a "majority-rights power sharing" argument and a "pseudo-minority" status giving way to a "disempowered minority" argument. These results suggest a view of the Northern Ireland conflict as a struggle for "symbolic power," i.e., the ability to flexibly define the intergroup situation to the ingroup's advantage.