Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: Baltimore, Cumberland and Cambridge Maryland

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The contextualist revolution and linguistic ‘turn’ in the history of political thought in the 1960’s—associated particularly with the Cambridge historians John Pocock, Quentin Skinner and John Dunn, among others—concentrated their attention on the history of the theory of the state purely in its internal capacities. This intellectual fixation with the concept of the sovereign state almost entirely in terms of its domestic capacities has misleadingly drawn a sharp rupture between the 17th- and 18th-century political discourses. The role that international relations occupy in these ‘distinct’ discourses, the Cambridge School historians advanced, differed dramatically: pre-18th-century political thought lacked any meaningful theorization of the international domain. In fact, it was not until late 18th century that the foundations of international political discourse were laid, as W.B. Gallie famously pronounced.

In this paper, I address some of the methodological problems associated with the continual rupture between these artificially constructed divisions between the ‘domestic’ 17th and the ‘international’ 18th century. I further explore the theoretical implications for the Cambridge School approach of political thought by suggesting that recovering the international dimension of early modern political thought reveals a continuity—rather than a rupture—in the historiography of the period.

My argument builds on three distinct axes that together provide a conceptual map of the state of scholarship associated with the Cambridge School. First, I describe the meaning and context of the methodology adopted by the Cambridge historians by emphasizing their preoccupation with the domestic realm in understanding political concepts; second, I show how the construction of a periodization in early modern historiography disregards the distinction between the internal and external capacities of the state; third, I demonstrate that a re-examination of Thomas Hobbes’ international theory holds the promise of recovering the international dimension of modern political thought. I conclude that revisiting the Cambridge School approach would open up new conversations between intellectual historians, political theorists, and international relations historians, which would be continuous with those before the modern fixation with the sovereignty of the state drove the international dimension of political history to the periphery of history.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Abstract:
On the Consideration of Use of MIT and University of Cambridge Exchange Students

By Robert B. Smith, Cambridge-MIT Institute

To solve pressing practical problems and to gain a fundamental understanding of the phenomena, investigators conduct use-inspired research, which advances basic and applied knowledge. Such research may be of great benefit to humankind but its sources and pedagogy require better understandings than presently available. Toward providing this knowledge, this paper develops a measure of consideration of use; this disposition may lead to use-inspired research studies. Using data from the evaluation of the University of Cambridge-MIT Exchange program, it develops a causal process model that suggests that the students’ home university causes their level of research experience, which causes their confidence in their basic research skills, which causes their self-rated innovative ability, which causes their consideration of use. The latter variable correlates strongly with pre-entrepreneurial behavior and with venturing and technical self-efficacies. The young women from MIT report more research experience than the men, but, along with Cambridge women, report lower confidence in their basic research skills.
The AMOS system for structural equation modeling provided the estimates of effect and goodness-of-fit measures. Alternative models did not fit these data as closely as the hypothesized causal model, suggesting that the relationships among the variables are causal and not merely correlational. Future research will ascertain the extent to which this causal model and its underlying sociological, institutional perspective again holds better than the alternative psychological, individualistic perspective.