Tariff rate quota administration and implementation are empirically evaluated for the fourteen developing countries notifying the WTO of the use of TRQs. FAO trade data, UNCTAD data on applied tariffs and the WTO notifications permit us to assess underfill of quotas, discrimination among exporters, use of state trading as an implementation mechanism, and the extent of protection under these TRQs. Substantial liberalization was found, generally due to use of low MFN tariffs rather than through TRQs permitting greater market access. High tariff bindings and endogenous quotas allow these countries to pursue flexible trade regimes within their WTO commitments.

The 1980 U.S. suspension of grain sales to the Soviet Union illustrates the importance of the choice of conceptual framework for empirical analysis of international trade problems. A spatial equilibrium model of wheat and coarse grains trade assumes perfect substitution among exporting nations' commoditites by importers and, thus, precludes the embargo from having a large impact. The imperfect substitutability assumption of an Armington model results in larger consequences from the embargo. For small shocks, the Armington model better captures the rigidities characteristic of international grain markets. The spatial model provides insights on adjustments to large shocks, but rigidities persist in actual markets.

Boron Phosphide (BP) is a promising material for use as a room temperature semiconductor detector of thermal neutrons. The absorption of a thermal neutron by a 10B nucleus in BP can yield 2.3MeV of energy which in solid state BP can yield ∼0.5 million electron-hole pairs that would be detectable with minimal amplification in a device. BP thin films are grown according to the net reaction below in a cold wall chemical vapor deposition (CVD) reactor: Thin film depositions are performed using diborane and phosphine with a balance of hydrogen gas at near atmospheric pressure with RF induction heating. The resultant BP films are characterized by Raman, XRD, SEM, TEM and TEM-EELS for chemical composition, surface and bulk morphology. BP growths on Si and SiC substrates are compared. SiC provides reduced lattice mismatch for growth of BP and growth of heteroepitaxial BP on SiC will be discussed.

Three novels by Tess Slesinger, Mary McCarthy and Marge Piercy respectively can inform us about American radical movements and perhaps radicalism in general. Each work is a radical self-critique written by political participants who assess their generation's radical experiment and its failure. I argue that there are two sets of arguments common to each critique, one related to the failure of radical imagination and one feminist, and that there is a “submerged” third critique that can be drawn from each narrative. It is from the later submerged critique that we can learn the most about the successive failures of American radicalism.

The extreme rational individualism of Thomas Hobbes has been the subject of rebuttal since the publication of Leviathan in 1651. A good portion of the critiques of Hobbes have centered around his famous description of the state of nature as a condition of individualized warfare. Hobbes's contemporaries based their opposition to his individualism on the historical inadequacy of the state of nature. Filmer, for instance, complained about Hobbes's assumptions that men sprang from the earth as “mushrooms … without any obligation to another.”

As many commentators note, American political discourse is not generally characterized by a receptivity to “big” theories; nor, in particular, is policy analysis. But two writers, one at the beginning of the Cold War and one at the end, offered theories that are notable exceptions to this generalization. James Burnham and Francis Fukuyama, anchoring their theories on their observations of the Cold War, construct dramaturgical philosophies of history, synthesize and append European architectonic writers to their accounts, and offer comprehensive critiques of American liberal democracy. Moreover, both “big” theories, despite their apparent incongruence with American political discourse and conventional policy counsel, attract wide attention and are well received by economic and political elites.

Whether secession movements in Europe draw support from the disintegration of the Soviet Union into multiple units based on separate national identities or whether there are also independent centrifugal forces, the “right to secession” has emerged as a pressing question of democratic theory, one which is intertwined in complex ways with the current debate over the foundations of modern democratic society. This essay seeks to clarify the issue of right to secession through a critical examination of a single modern statesman: Abraham Lincoln.

While William Leuchtenburg is certainly correct in concluding that the shadow of both FDR and the New Deal is receding, the decade of the 1930s is still regarded as the acme of progressive reform in America. Although the memories of the 1930s are fading and the reforms of the decade have been contested, in this narrative the achievements of the New Deal are still heroic.

John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic. By Jeffry H. Morrison. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. 240p.

In his The Origins and Progress of the American Revolution, loyalist Peter Oliver spoke of the New England clergy as the “black regiment” of the Revolution who, “tinctured with republicanism,” supported the war for independence. John Witherspoon was a New Jersey Presbyterian, but he might well fit Oliver's description. He brought Princeton University to the side of the Revolution, mentored the first generation of the new regime's leadership, served in the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence, and was an active supporter of the Constitution. Yet while Witherspoon was highly praised by his contemporaries, who predicted that he would be honored by later generations of Americans, he instead became a neglected figure with few memorials erected in his name. Somehow, despite credentials that compared favorably to Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton, fame deserted him. Jeffry H. Morrison's engaging and enthusiastic study of John Witherspoon attempts to redeem him as a “forgotten founder.”

Louis Hartz's The Liberal Tradition in America was the dominant interpretative text in American political thought for a generation. In the late 1960s the Hartzian hegemony came under severe attack, and by the 1990s his interpretive framework had been declared obsolete. Critiques allege two basic, related flaws: (1) Hartz's interpretation ignored the diversity in American political thought, particularly, though not exclusively, on questions of race, and (2) his analysis exaggerated the extent of the consensus in American political culture. These critiques are based almost exclusively on Hartz's analysis of selected periods of early American political development. I argue that Hartz's basic concepts are powerful analytical tools that continue to provide the most compelling analysis of recent American political development. I test the Hartz thesis by constructing a plausible interpretation of the 1960s based on the concepts employed in The Liberal Tradition.Philip Abbott is Distinguished Graduate Professor at Wayne State University (aa2393@wayne.edu). His recent books include Exceptional America: Newness and National Identity (1999) and Political Thought in America: Conversations and Debates (2004). The author is grateful to Jennifer Hochschild for her encouragement and to the anonymous reviewers for Perspectives on Politics. Christopher Duncan and Max Skidmore also provided very helpful advice.

A recognized strength of modern constitutional democracies is their ability to insure legitimate political succession through the use of elections.For a review of the contribution of democratic theory to the succession problem, see: Peter Calvert, “The Theory of Political Succession” in The Process of Political Succession, ed. Peter Calvert (London: Macmillan, 1987), 245–66. We do not challenge this assessment; rather, we suggest that the process of producing a legitimate leader is a complex social construction with numerous variations. The pathway to political legitimacy can be conceived thus as a passage through a series of “gateways” and “rituals” that, when successfully confronted, confer political authority. The public, the press, and political elites participate in the process of conferring legitimacy on the “winner.” The 2000 presidential election is a prime illustration of this process because its contested nature clarifies and highlights gateways that have been less visible in other elections. We present an analysis of the social construction of legitimacy in the post-election and early weeks of George W. Bush's presidency, including examples of strategies designed to negotiate successful passage through these rituals. Finally, we note the capacity of these rituals to produce legitimate successions even when irregular events pose a challenge to democratic theory.

Wilson Carey McWilliams is certainly one of the great teachers of American political thought in his generation. The Idea of Fraternity in America (1973), as well as his series on presidential elections and many essays, has captivated both his students and his colleagues. There are, of course, many prominent figures who have addressed the complexity of political thought in America in recent years but few whose influence is acknowledged so centrally on these terms. Of course, it is sometimes difficult for those influenced by a master teacher to convey thoughts once they are removed from the electricity of the seminar or conference. McWilliams is a good example of this phenomenon. At one level his understanding of American political culture is Whitmanesque. McWilliams is not primarily a jeremiadic thinker and much of his writing has the same breezy celebration of America as Whitman's. Added to this perspective is an intense appreciation of Mark Twain's comedic iconoclasm. Both foci are juxtaposed with what is his central preoccupation, a deep attachment to the Puritan vision of the human experience. McWilliams generalized the latter in The Idea of Fraternity in America as a tradition of fraternal politics that was enriched by other European immigrants. Although “Puritanism…was here first,” (113) it was superceded, though not replaced, by the powerful symbols of “Enlightenment liberalism.” McWilliams' model of cultural dualism offered the first systematic critique of Hartz's liberal society thesis and has since been replicated and expanded by many others including Robert Bellah and Rogers M. Smith. In fact, there is some irony in his alternative to Hartz's single-factor explanation of American culture, since it returned the study of American political thought to the traditional dualist perspectives developed by Progressive scholars, who are villains in McWilliams' own reading of American political thought. Moreover, McWilliams' focus on Puritan conceptions of community has led him to an attachment to premodern conceptions of politics as well as to a decided antipathy toward the political world of the American founders.