Chinese traditional culture is perceived as a sustaining factor for political trust within the authoritarian regime. Given the complexity and multidimensionality of Chinese cultural traditions, it is inadequate to address this notion through a singular index. This chapter categorizes Chinese traditional values into two dimensions: a nonpolitical dimension, encompassing traditional family and social values, and a political dimension, which includes traditional political values. I then empirically examine how these varying dimensions of Chinese cultural traditions influence ordinary people’s orientations toward political institutions and government officials.

Chapter 1 considers dual transformations – how cadets at West Point became officers, and how immigrants enlisted to become soldiers – and follows these groups to war in Florida. It argues that officers graduated from the military academy with deeply held beliefs regarding what it meant to be a leader in the army family – a stern father to enlisted men and the Native peoples whom the army considered its wards, and a committed protector of supposedly harmless women. Soldiers, many of whom joined up soon after arriving in New York City from places throughout Europe, had other ideas and asserted their privileges as white men, often resisting officers’ efforts to impose discipline.

This introduction shows how US Army officers used reports and other official correspondence to deploy specific narratives, constructing an identity for themselves and their institution premised on protecting women. This previously unacknowledged process erased or reframed evidence of women’s wartime activities. Yet, acknowledging this process reveals how paternalism shaped army culture; naturalized officers’ authority over enlisted men; and provided a cultural foundation for military law, policy, and strategy. Breaking up the fictive separation of women and war shows how army culture developed between 1835 and 1848. It also illuminates how that culture shaped, rather than removed, violence against women.

Chapter 2 shows how officers and enlisted men related to one another. Both groups were white, but where many officers were middle class, enlisted men were often poor immigrants with unstable access to white men’s privileges in the Jacksonian Era. Officers had to hold the army together to fight a war, and they could not do it by punishment alone. Much as officers sought to tame the Florida wilderness and the Seminole people, they sought to gentle their soldiers. As the regulars fought their enemies and struggled with each other, a shared culture emerged, premised on the common ideal that regulars should protect women. Hierarchical white male unity – based on the concept of the army family in which all military men protected and subordinated all women – helped the army function. This framework appealed to paternalistic officers because it allowed for intense distinctions (of rank) between white men. In this climate, although rhetoric rooted in the need to protect women could bolster army cohesion, it could also serve as a weapon. Soldiers used such language to rebut officers’ claims of superiority.

This case critiques liberalism in an example about best serving a Latinx community. It posits that it is crucial that community programs geared towards a minority group incorporate that group’s culture and priorities into their programming. Accepting the way things have always been does not ensure a culturally competent strategy. CRT tenet critique of liberalism provides us with a foundation for an effective strategy for transformation where race and culture are centered in practice and interventions, specifically in regards to the Latinx community.

Popular minimalist and moderate liberal interpreters suggest that, both in the 1780s and in the more fully developed political works of the 1790s, Kant adopts a narrow and skeptical approach to state-sponsored efforts addressing social welfare. Interpreted with due attention to context, however, relevant passages from Kant’s 1784 lectures in political philosophy—the Naturrecht Feyerabend—suggest no necessarily narrow commitments in the realm of social supports. Read in conjunction with his Feyerabend discussion of innate right, meanwhile, the contemporaneous essay on enlightenment provides us reasons (including an active conception of civic agency and a positive understanding of the state’s role) to conclude that the account of justice that Kant’s early works advance indeed could support a rich menu of such programs. Publications from the 1790s might, of course, take a contrary stance. It falls to those who favor a more conservative reading, however, to prove that Kant altered an earlier, agency-oriented position friendly to state-sponsored supports.

Addresses the doctor–patient relationship in the context of historical and current considerations of psychiatric authority as well as patient self-determination and loss of mental capacity. Develops a model of the doctor–patient relationship in terms of mental capacity and identifies associated negative and positive psychological processes. Views change and adaptability as both realities and sources of hope. Suggests that the pre-modern Hippocratic relationship is now unworkable and that the doctor–patient relationship in the modern state is out of equilibrium whilst still at the heart of care. Recommends that better understanding the doctor–patient relationship within the modern state is a priority for psychiatric ethics.

Nearly fifty years have passed since the federal government adopted its policy of tribal self-determination, and tribes remain subject to extensive federal regulations. For example, the United States still holds land in trust for tribes. The federal government holds title to trust land, so tribes and Indians cannot engage in activities on trust land without prior federal approval. Obtaining the requisite federal approval can take more than a year. Apart from the bureaucracy, trust land is inalienable, making it difficult to use for collateral. Indian trader laws are another uniquely Indian country regulation. The laws were originally enacted in 1790 on the theory Indians were too incompetent to trade with whites. To this day, the laws forbid “white persons” from trading with an Indian without first obtaining federal permission. The federal regulations extend to virtually all economic activity in Indian country, from natural resource development to Indian gaming.

Americans remained hungry for tribal land, and Congress’s newly discovered plenary power enabled Congress to enact the General Allotment Act of 1887 (GAA). The GAA was designed to open tribal lands to white settlement and convert Indians into farmers. To do this, Indian head of households were given 160-acre parcels of land. The land was placed in trust for twenty-five years. At the period’s conclusion, Indians were supposed to become American citizens. Lands remaining after Indians received their 160-acre parcels were opened to white settlement. Tribes resisted allotment; however, the Supreme Court ruled Congress possessed “paramount power over the property of Indians.” The federal government’s efforts to assimilate Indians included removing Indian children from their parents and sending them to distant boarding schools. Boarding schools were intended to “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”

As the United States expanded west, it encountered the tribes of the Great Plains. Many of these tribes had military cultures. Their warriors were skilled with the horse and gun, making them formidable foes. Unable to defeat them militarily, the United States slaughtered their primary food source – the buffalo. Lack of food forced warriors to lay down their arms and agree to life on reservations. On reservations, tribes were supposed to be able to self-govern, but the federal government exerted extreme control over tribes. When the Supreme Court ruled intratribal crimes were beyond the United States jurisdiction, Congress enacted the Major Crimes Act (MCA). The MCA allowed the United States to prosecute Indians for committing crimes against another Indian while on a reservation. Although the Supreme Court acknowledged that no constitutional provision enabled Congress to pass the law, the Court held Congress could enact the law because Indians were “the wards of the nation.”

While the federal government has adopted a policy of tribal self-determination, paternalism remains. The Moapa Band of Paiute Indians’ attempt to open a brothel is a prime example. Prostitution is legal in the surrounding state of Nevada; nevertheless, the Secretary of the Interior prohibited the tribe from doing so despite acknowledging it “is a profitable economic enterprise for non-Indians.” Though the federal government was supposed to ensure the Navajo Nation received a fair return on its natural resources, the United States Secretary of the Interior assisted in a private company in swindling the Navajo Nation. Similarly, the United States mismanaged Indian assets for more than a century. When Eloise Cobell sued the United States, the United States removed a federal judge who was ruling in favor of the Indian plaintiffs. The case was settled soon after. Additionally, the National Labor Relations Board imposes regulations on tribes that it does not impose on other governments. The United States also prohibits tribes from accessing the bonds other governments use to fund infrastructure projects.

Chapter 3 discusses the concepts of discrimination, sexism and childism. It firstly presents the concept of discrimination under international law. Secondly, it explores the notions of sexism and ‘childism’. It discusses paternalism, child liberationism and the challenge of protecting the girl child while promoting her autonomy rights. It studies theories concerning the interests of children as well as the common vulnerability approach, Arnstein and Hart’s ladder of participation, and the possibility of granting autonomy rights to girls at adolescence. Thirdly, it examines the public/private divide at the international and domestic levels and how it impacts the girl child globally. Chapter 3 thereafter explores the notions of universalism and cultural relativism, as well as the evolving meaning of culture, and their significance for the girl child. In this context, the chapter also analyzes the conceptual division between the Global South and the Global North.