Joshua Mitchell
Biographic Data
| ID | 3627448 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Joshua Mitchell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Joshua |
| FAMILY NAME | Mitchell |
| SIGNATURE | MITCHELL J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Georgetown University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4026-8680 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 131 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 27 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1990 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
The Conditions for Emissions
In this paper, we investigate the adoption of carbon pricing policies within the U.S. across states. While policymakers have many tools at their disposal, carbon pricing is a policy option that utilizes market theories to curtail harmful effects from emissions through pricing structures. This is important because as global warming issues become more evident, policy efforts will be needed to intervene. If we can understand what factors drive adopt…
Following neighbors or regional leaders? Unpacking the effect of geographic proximity in local climate policy diffusion
A contingent diffusion model of local climate change policy adoption
Social Control Meets New Public Management
While the merits and perils of privatization have remained a contentious and often polarizing debate, privatization of public services remains commonplace throughout the world. For instance, over the last several decades, U.S. governments at all levels have routinely pursued contracting arrangements for corrections management, known popularly as prison privatization. In this article, state prison privatization (SPP) is examined in three ways. Fir…
Sur l'immigration
Does Policy Diffusion Need Space? Spatializing the Dynamics of Policy Diffusion
For decades, scholars in multiple disciplines have examined spatial diffusion, or the spatiotemporal properties associated with the diffusion of innovations. These properties include contagious, hierarchical, and relocation diffusion. Each of these refers to a spatial model that epitomizes how innovations spread among geographic locations. Policy diffusion, a separate but homologous research tradition, had its theoretical underpinnings in spatial…
Examining the Policy Learning Dynamics of Atypical Policies with an Application to State Preemption of Local Dog Laws
Most of the literature on policy diffusion focuses on palpable issues such as economic or morality policies. As such, we know little about the mechanisms of diffusion for preemption of atypical policies such as animal regulations that lack a clear economic or ideological motivation. In this article, we propose and test a theory of conditional policy learning to explain the diffusion of atypical policies. We posit that a type of policy learning is…
The New Life Cycle of Women's Employment
A new life cycle of women's employment emerged with cohorts born in the 1950s. For prior cohorts, life-cycle employment had a hump shape; it increased from the twenties to the forties, hit a peak, and then declined starting in the fifties. The new life cycle of employment is initially high and flat, there is a dip in the middle, and a phasing out that is more prolonged than for previous cohorts. The hump is gone, the middle is a bit sagging, and …
Reflections on Political Theory and the Humanities in the Global Age
Has the uneasy marriage between political theory and political science reached the point where a divorce is now necessary? I consider here the gradual decline of political theory after its post-World War II heyday and its growing self-enclosure in the face of global events that call out for the deeper sort of inquiry that political theory can offer. Drawing on examples from both the Middle East and America, I turn next to a number of institutiona…
Current Practice of Design and Delivery of Online Training for Transportation Professionals at Public Agencies
To improve the effectiveness of transportation professionals in their respective jobs and successfully meet changing capability requirements, public agencies often offer online training. This article presents the current practices of design criteria and delivery method of such training through a three-faceted approach: the review of published materials, an online survey of transportation agency professionals, and follow-up telephone interviews. T…
Examining media markets’ influence on the diffusion of antismoking legislation in US counties
This article assesses the role of mass media markets in the diffusion of antismoking legislation in the state of Missouri in the US. Testing multiple diffusion theories, this study finds that media markets can facilitate the diffusion of policies among local jurisdictions by exacerbating intercounty competition. More attention should be given to media markets when assessing policy diffusion mechanisms at the local level. Media markets can be an i…
Exploring the Foundations of US State-Level Anti-Sharia Initiatives
In recent years, measures have been taken to ban the use of international legal principles in state courts. While these international laws vary in terms of the specific restrictions they place on state legal practices, many of these laws have been aimed implicitly or explicitly at banning Sharia law practices. While dozens of states have attempted to pass anti-Sharia policies, thus far, only eight have been successful. In this article, we apply a…
Policy Learning and the Diffusion of Stand‐Your‐Ground Laws
Stand‐Your‐Ground (SYG) laws have recently received increased attention due to the controversial verdict in the 2013 George Zimmerman trial. At the time of the trial, 22 states had adopted SYG laws, with Florida adopting the first SYG law only a few years earlier. This article explores how policy learning contributed to the diffusion of these laws among U.S. states. It is found that learning exhibits atypical and complex patterns of diffusion not…
Plato's Fable
This book is an exploration of Plato's Republic that bypasses arcane scholarly debates. Plato's Fable provides refreshing insight into what, in Plato's view, is the central problem of life: the mortal propensity to adopt defective ways of answering the question of how to live well. How, in light of these tendencies, can humankind be saved? Joshua Mitchell discusses the question in unprecedented depth by examining one of the great books of Western…
A Reply to My Critics
Religion and the Fable of Liberalism The Case of Hobbes
Because Hobbes is understood to be a proto-liberal thinker, a great deal hinges on how we understand his writings. Does he contribute to the development of a purely secular political self-understanding, as many liberals today claim? And, by extension, does that mean that liberal thought today best stands on a purely secular foundation? What, then, should we make of the extensive theological speculation throughout his Leviathan ? Here, I argue tha…
Religion and the Fable of Liberalism The Case of Hobbes
Tocqueville for a Terrible Era
Tocqueville’s incomplete, conflicted reflections on whether honor and war have been safely consigned to the past should alert us to the psychological, not merely sociological, difficulty of adjusting to modernity. His thoughts about memory suggest that one form of adjustment is the attempt to re‐enchant the world. Among such attempts are both the European ideologies that have spread to the Middle East—nationalism, communism, and fascism—and relig…
Religion Is Not a Preference
The resurgence of religion around the globe poses a challenge for both empirical and normative social scientists. For the former, the question is whether the terms at their disposal are adequate to comprehend religious self-understanding and, therefore, human motivation and conduct. For the latter, the question is whether those terms confuse or clarify the way in which religion may be brought into public dialogue without violating the tenets of p…
The Use of Augustine, After 1989
The Fragility of Freedom
Journal Article The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy, and the American Future. By Joshua Mitchell. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. xiv, 273 pp. $34.95, ISBN 0-226-53208-9.) Get access Anne C. Rose Anne C. Rose Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 83, Issue 2, September 1996, Page…
Tocqueville's Civil Religion
Hobbes and the Equality of All Under the One
La theorie de la souverainete de Hobbes ne devrait pas etre percue comme une theorie politique absolutiste, mais comme une application du modele theologique
The Equality of All under the One in Luther and Rousseau
Protestant Thought and Republican Spirit
Arguments about the emergence of modern political theory often claim that Protestantism's significance was that it evacuated the political world, that a more properly political ethic took its place, a "disenchanted" one. I shall consider Luther's understanding of biblical history, thoughts on the Christian prince, and view of the "bonds of union" between Christians in order to understand the relationship between the political and spiritual realms…
Does Policy Diffusion Need Space? Spatializing the Dynamics of Policy Diffusion
For decades, scholars in multiple disciplines have examined spatial diffusion, or the spatiotemporal properties associated with the diffusion of innovations. These properties include contagious, hierarchical, and relocation diffusion. Each of these refers to a spatial model that epitomizes how innovations spread among geographic locations. Policy diffusion, a separate but homologous research tradition, had its theoretical underpinnings in spatial…
The New Life Cycle of Women's Employment
A new life cycle of women's employment emerged with cohorts born in the 1950s. For prior cohorts, life-cycle employment had a hump shape; it increased from the twenties to the forties, hit a peak, and then declined starting in the fifties. The new life cycle of employment is initially high and flat, there is a dip in the middle, and a phasing out that is more prolonged than for previous cohorts. The hump is gone, the middle is a bit sagging, and …
Policy Learning and the Diffusion of Stand‐Your‐Ground Laws
Stand‐Your‐Ground (SYG) laws have recently received increased attention due to the controversial verdict in the 2013 George Zimmerman trial. At the time of the trial, 22 states had adopted SYG laws, with Florida adopting the first SYG law only a few years earlier. This article explores how policy learning contributed to the diffusion of these laws among U.S. states. It is found that learning exhibits atypical and complex patterns of diffusion not…
Religion Is Not a Preference
The resurgence of religion around the globe poses a challenge for both empirical and normative social scientists. For the former, the question is whether the terms at their disposal are adequate to comprehend religious self-understanding and, therefore, human motivation and conduct. For the latter, the question is whether those terms confuse or clarify the way in which religion may be brought into public dialogue without violating the tenets of p…
The Fragility of Freedom
Journal Article The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy, and the American Future. By Joshua Mitchell. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. xiv, 273 pp. $34.95, ISBN 0-226-53208-9.) Get access Anne C. Rose Anne C. Rose Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 83, Issue 2, September 1996, Page…
Hobbes and the Equality of All Under the One
La theorie de la souverainete de Hobbes ne devrait pas etre percue comme une theorie politique absolutiste, mais comme une application du modele theologique
John Locke and the Theological Foundation of Liberal Toleration
Locke's doctrine of toleration is best understood in the context of his larger argument about the political significance of Christ. Christ, Locke argues, separated the spiritual and political realm. His argument for separating the two realms, his basis for insisting that magistrates be tolerant of religious heterodoxy, is essentially theological. This claim is further developed by exploring Locke's thoughts of theunconcealmentof foundation of mor…
A contingent diffusion model of local climate change policy adoption
Examining media markets’ influence on the diffusion of antismoking legislation in US counties
This article assesses the role of mass media markets in the diffusion of antismoking legislation in the state of Missouri in the US. Testing multiple diffusion theories, this study finds that media markets can facilitate the diffusion of policies among local jurisdictions by exacerbating intercounty competition. More attention should be given to media markets when assessing policy diffusion mechanisms at the local level. Media markets can be an i…
Following neighbors or regional leaders? Unpacking the effect of geographic proximity in local climate policy diffusion
Exploring the Foundations of US State-Level Anti-Sharia Initiatives
In recent years, measures have been taken to ban the use of international legal principles in state courts. While these international laws vary in terms of the specific restrictions they place on state legal practices, many of these laws have been aimed implicitly or explicitly at banning Sharia law practices. While dozens of states have attempted to pass anti-Sharia policies, thus far, only eight have been successful. In this article, we apply a…
Social Control Meets New Public Management
While the merits and perils of privatization have remained a contentious and often polarizing debate, privatization of public services remains commonplace throughout the world. For instance, over the last several decades, U.S. governments at all levels have routinely pursued contracting arrangements for corrections management, known popularly as prison privatization. In this article, state prison privatization (SPP) is examined in three ways. Fir…
Religion and the Fable of Liberalism The Case of Hobbes
Because Hobbes is understood to be a proto-liberal thinker, a great deal hinges on how we understand his writings. Does he contribute to the development of a purely secular political self-understanding, as many liberals today claim? And, by extension, does that mean that liberal thought today best stands on a purely secular foundation? What, then, should we make of the extensive theological speculation throughout his Leviathan ? Here, I argue tha…
The Use of Augustine, After 1989
Luther and Hobbes on the Question
The debate about the identity of early liberal thought can be gainfully entered into by considering how important the political identity of Christ and Moses (whom Christ purports to fulfill) was in early liberal thought. I first consider the outlines of the debate about the relationship between Christianity and early liberal thought, then discuss Luther's understanding of the meaning of Christ's fulfillment, suggesting how, on theoretical grounds…
Religion and the Fable of Liberalism The Case of Hobbes
Protestant Thought and Republican Spirit
Arguments about the emergence of modern political theory often claim that Protestantism's significance was that it evacuated the political world, that a more properly political ethic took its place, a "disenchanted" one. I shall consider Luther's understanding of biblical history, thoughts on the Christian prince, and view of the "bonds of union" between Christians in order to understand the relationship between the political and spiritual realms…
John Locke and the Theological Foundation of Liberal Toleration
Locke's doctrine of toleration is best understood in the context of his larger argument about the political significance of Christ. Christ, Locke argues, separated the spiritual and political realm. His argument for separating the two realms, his basis for insisting that magistrates be tolerant of religious heterodoxy, is essentially theological. This claim is further developed by exploring Locke's thoughts of theunconcealmentof foundation of mor…
Luther and Hobbes on the Question
The debate about the identity of early liberal thought can be gainfully entered into by considering how important the political identity of Christ and Moses (whom Christ purports to fulfill) was in early liberal thought. I first consider the outlines of the debate about the relationship between Christianity and early liberal thought, then discuss Luther's understanding of the meaning of Christ's fulfillment, suggesting how, on theoretical grounds…
The Equality of All under the One in Luther and Rousseau
Protestant Thought and Republican Spirit
Arguments about the emergence of modern political theory often claim that Protestantism's significance was that it evacuated the political world, that a more properly political ethic took its place, a "disenchanted" one. I shall consider Luther's understanding of biblical history, thoughts on the Christian prince, and view of the "bonds of union" between Christians in order to understand the relationship between the political and spiritual realms…
Hobbes and the Equality of All Under the One
La theorie de la souverainete de Hobbes ne devrait pas etre percue comme une theorie politique absolutiste, mais comme une application du modele theologique
Tocqueville's Civil Religion
The Fragility of Freedom
Journal Article The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy, and the American Future. By Joshua Mitchell. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. xiv, 273 pp. $34.95, ISBN 0-226-53208-9.) Get access Anne C. Rose Anne C. Rose Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 83, Issue 2, September 1996, Page…
The Use of Augustine, After 1989
Tocqueville for a Terrible Era
Tocqueville’s incomplete, conflicted reflections on whether honor and war have been safely consigned to the past should alert us to the psychological, not merely sociological, difficulty of adjusting to modernity. His thoughts about memory suggest that one form of adjustment is the attempt to re‐enchant the world. Among such attempts are both the European ideologies that have spread to the Middle East—nationalism, communism, and fascism—and relig…
Religion Is Not a Preference
The resurgence of religion around the globe poses a challenge for both empirical and normative social scientists. For the former, the question is whether the terms at their disposal are adequate to comprehend religious self-understanding and, therefore, human motivation and conduct. For the latter, the question is whether those terms confuse or clarify the way in which religion may be brought into public dialogue without violating the tenets of p…
A Reply to My Critics
Religion and the Fable of Liberalism The Case of Hobbes
Because Hobbes is understood to be a proto-liberal thinker, a great deal hinges on how we understand his writings. Does he contribute to the development of a purely secular political self-understanding, as many liberals today claim? And, by extension, does that mean that liberal thought today best stands on a purely secular foundation? What, then, should we make of the extensive theological speculation throughout his Leviathan ? Here, I argue tha…
Religion and the Fable of Liberalism The Case of Hobbes
Plato's Fable
This book is an exploration of Plato's Republic that bypasses arcane scholarly debates. Plato's Fable provides refreshing insight into what, in Plato's view, is the central problem of life: the mortal propensity to adopt defective ways of answering the question of how to live well. How, in light of these tendencies, can humankind be saved? Joshua Mitchell discusses the question in unprecedented depth by examining one of the great books of Western…
Policy Learning and the Diffusion of Stand‐Your‐Ground Laws
Stand‐Your‐Ground (SYG) laws have recently received increased attention due to the controversial verdict in the 2013 George Zimmerman trial. At the time of the trial, 22 states had adopted SYG laws, with Florida adopting the first SYG law only a few years earlier. This article explores how policy learning contributed to the diffusion of these laws among U.S. states. It is found that learning exhibits atypical and complex patterns of diffusion not…
Reflections on Political Theory and the Humanities in the Global Age
Has the uneasy marriage between political theory and political science reached the point where a divorce is now necessary? I consider here the gradual decline of political theory after its post-World War II heyday and its growing self-enclosure in the face of global events that call out for the deeper sort of inquiry that political theory can offer. Drawing on examples from both the Middle East and America, I turn next to a number of institutiona…
Current Practice of Design and Delivery of Online Training for Transportation Professionals at Public Agencies
To improve the effectiveness of transportation professionals in their respective jobs and successfully meet changing capability requirements, public agencies often offer online training. This article presents the current practices of design criteria and delivery method of such training through a three-faceted approach: the review of published materials, an online survey of transportation agency professionals, and follow-up telephone interviews. T…
Examining media markets’ influence on the diffusion of antismoking legislation in US counties
This article assesses the role of mass media markets in the diffusion of antismoking legislation in the state of Missouri in the US. Testing multiple diffusion theories, this study finds that media markets can facilitate the diffusion of policies among local jurisdictions by exacerbating intercounty competition. More attention should be given to media markets when assessing policy diffusion mechanisms at the local level. Media markets can be an i…
Exploring the Foundations of US State-Level Anti-Sharia Initiatives
In recent years, measures have been taken to ban the use of international legal principles in state courts. While these international laws vary in terms of the specific restrictions they place on state legal practices, many of these laws have been aimed implicitly or explicitly at banning Sharia law practices. While dozens of states have attempted to pass anti-Sharia policies, thus far, only eight have been successful. In this article, we apply a…
Examining the Policy Learning Dynamics of Atypical Policies with an Application to State Preemption of Local Dog Laws
Most of the literature on policy diffusion focuses on palpable issues such as economic or morality policies. As such, we know little about the mechanisms of diffusion for preemption of atypical policies such as animal regulations that lack a clear economic or ideological motivation. In this article, we propose and test a theory of conditional policy learning to explain the diffusion of atypical policies. We posit that a type of policy learning is…
The New Life Cycle of Women's Employment
A new life cycle of women's employment emerged with cohorts born in the 1950s. For prior cohorts, life-cycle employment had a hump shape; it increased from the twenties to the forties, hit a peak, and then declined starting in the fifties. The new life cycle of employment is initially high and flat, there is a dip in the middle, and a phasing out that is more prolonged than for previous cohorts. The hump is gone, the middle is a bit sagging, and …
Does Policy Diffusion Need Space? Spatializing the Dynamics of Policy Diffusion
For decades, scholars in multiple disciplines have examined spatial diffusion, or the spatiotemporal properties associated with the diffusion of innovations. These properties include contagious, hierarchical, and relocation diffusion. Each of these refers to a spatial model that epitomizes how innovations spread among geographic locations. Policy diffusion, a separate but homologous research tradition, had its theoretical underpinnings in spatial…
Social Control Meets New Public Management
While the merits and perils of privatization have remained a contentious and often polarizing debate, privatization of public services remains commonplace throughout the world. For instance, over the last several decades, U.S. governments at all levels have routinely pursued contracting arrangements for corrections management, known popularly as prison privatization. In this article, state prison privatization (SPP) is examined in three ways. Fir…
Sur l'immigration
A contingent diffusion model of local climate change policy adoption
Political science (21 works) · Law (17 works) · Law (15 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Politics (13 works) · Sociology (12 works) · American Constitutional Law and Politics (10 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Policy Transfer and Learning (8 works)