Over the last several years, some research and teaching interests I have pursued for well over a decade have matured almost simultaneously.  As a result, in 2005 and 2006, I wrote a total of ten papers and presented them at nine academic conferences. One is already published and the others are being prepared for publication. Two of these were quantitative policy analyses in an alternative futures mode; and one of those was presented by invitation at five different venues in Korea.  A link to the abstracts for these works is provided below.  See the bottom of this document for a link to abstracts for all my papers. For links to the papers themselves, see my personal webpage. 

Several specific problem areas are discussed:

• interrelationships between the paradigms (in a Kuhnian sense) of political science, political practice, and political philosophy.  It has puzzled me as to why there is so much misunderstanding and acrimony across these paradigms.  As will be evident in some of my papers, I think I have found a sufficient explanation in (1) the misperceptions to which each paradigm makes its practitioners prone, specifically the assumptions defining each paradigm are the foci of others' critical inquiry, evoking incredulity and dismissal rather than appreciation; and (2) to a lesser extent, the usual rancor of political struggles for reputation and influence within the academic profession.
• core problems of political decision making.  Political psychology, political behavior, and political decision making theories or "approaches" such as systems theory and biopolitics enlighten different facets of decision making, but a comprehensive theory still eludes us.  In my papers I often employ these theoretical orientations with an eye towards contributing to development of a comprehensive framework.  For this, I usually draw on the works of Deutsch, Easton, Festinger, Hughes, Jervis, Lasswell, Maslow, Morgenthau, Organski, Parsons, L.F. Richardson, Stoessinger and Saaty.
• improving the value of a particular methodology, global modeling, as one component of a path to peace as globalization in all its dimensions continues.  This is an interest that began with my work under Harold Guetzkow in the early 1960s, continued through my study of Saaty's thinking in the late 1960s, matured as I became familiar with the Club of Rome's work in the 1970s, enabled me to direct a global modeling project at the East-West Center in the 1980s (with follow-up work for the Australian government's Environmental Studies Branch and the Dutch World Model Project at the University of Groningen), and continued through a loose collaboration with Barry Hughes up through the present, applying his International Futures simulation (IFs) to my classroom teaching and now and then contributing an idea or two (I'm happy to note that IFs was used by the Strategic Assessment Group in the CIA for the latest NIC work on alternative world futures, both of which you can find on the web here and discussed in some of my papers).  It also motivated a long-standing relationship with the Matsunaga Institute for Peace and our department's Futures Program.

Although I have a long-standing interest in how theology and political theory intersect, I have kept it separate from my academic work.  Recently I found several intersections too important and too clear to leave unattended.  One of these emerged in my work on the paradigms mentioned above; the other has emerged in my classroom lectures in response to my students' questions about the "clash of civilizations" issue, the Iraq war, and terrorism generally.  Regarding the first, I think I'm extending Kuhn's argument a bit by aserting in my IPSA paper that bridging paradigms requires a leap of faith.  Second, the whole debate over the role played by religion in politics was given a new meaning for me through Melzer's explication of Strauss' understanding of the relations between esotericism and historicism since the Age of Enlightenment (see his article in the APSR's May issue this year).  I found his thesis compelling in its implications for postmodern discussions of religion and politics.

One of the other joys of my career has been the continuing flow of graduate students into my classes and their progress towards Ph.D.s.  Over the last 10 years or so I've had the privilege of chairing one or two successful Ph.D.s a year as well as sitting on others' committees.  Of especial value to me has been my work with Korean students over the decades, which continues today, most of whom have taken academic or government employment in Korea.  I've learned a great deal from them and hope to continue doing so.  Thanks to them, I have a small voice in policy analysis which I hope will contribute to mutually accommodative unification of the Korean peninsula, and peace for their people at last (I've been writing and publishing in this area for the last six years).

My normal interests were somewhat interrupted--delightfully but also problematically so--in the 1990s.  I moved into areas I would otherwise never have entered, had it not been for the confluence of three situations involving the Peace Institute, a Ph.D. candidate of mine, and my relationship to the department.  First, at the inaugural dinner of the Matsunaga Institute for Peace (then just the Institute for Peace) in the late 1980s, I was seated at a table next to a Chinese philosopher and a former president of the East West Center, both of whom were avid supporters of global modeling, but in very different ways.  Chung-ying Cheng, a Harvard Ph.D. in analytic philosophy, and Everett Kleinjans, a Ph.D. in anthropology and founder of the East West Center as an independent institution.  To make a long story short, they committed themselves to teach me the I Ching if I would reciprocate and teach them global modeling.  We met twice a week for a year.  Second, a couple of years later, I was introduced to a business guru, W. Edwards Deming and took his seminars on management and teaching (thanks to a friend of his who happened to be one of my students).  Deming's management philosophy is practiced by thousands of companies worldwide, and was instrumental in bringing Japan out of its post World War II depression; and his philosophy of teaching has become an integral part of my pedagogy.  For over ten years as a result, thanks to Cheng's university connections in China (Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Jihan, Lanzhou, Beijing, Liaoning, and elsewhere), during summer and winter breaks I taught Deming's management theory and other frameworks in an I Ching context which surprised and delighted quite a few folks.  This gave me considerable exposure to Chinese business people as well as scholars.  It helped me develop a perspective on Sino-Korean relations which now informs my policy writings.  It also gave me a strong incentive to revamp my use of the classroom along Deming's lines of pedagogy.  The paper I presented at the second APSA/TLC conference documents some of that effort.

Where these interests and experiences are taking me in my remaining future career I suppose I'll only find out after it's all happened.  My major concern with the department right now is to help it by ramping up my productivity and by contributing indirectly to the indigenous politics focus.  Indigenous politics is a fertile and growing field, and for me raises questions about how to modify global models to include the politics to which this field points.  For instance, Gurr's Minorities at Risk Project provides both encyclopedic entries (including an entry on Hawaiians) and a quantitative database suitable for inclusion in a global model.  About 284 such minorities are tracked worldwide (about 18% of the world's population), each of which has its own struggles for survival and security, community integrity and political relations with their surrounding societies.  It is I think particularly important in this postcolonial era of terrorism (state as well as non-state), to understand and cope with political factions whose interests are all too often to manipulate the frustrations, alienation, and disempowerment of such minorities.&nbsp.  I suspect that many such political movements promote ideologies supporting violent, terrorist methods, in the mistaken belief that greater political power if not social justice will result, when in reality such strategies are more likely to lead to further tragedy for them and hurt the very causes used to justify their politics.  The typical response to non-state terrorism is as we have already seen, state counter terrorism.  Such cycles of violence rob humanity of the promise technological revolution brings to radically improve life conditions.  Politics of this sort is value subtracting, not value adding.  As my emeritus colleague Glenn Paige puts it, we need a nonkilling political science.  I focus on this subject in my paper on "Diasporadic Minorities..;" I intend to develop it further and seek funding for related research.