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How To Turn Down Political Heat On Supreme Court And Federal Judges: Stop Signing Opinions, Scott S. Boddery

Political Science Faculty Publications

Chief Justice John Roberts rightly — albeit in an uncharacteristically direct manner — defended the integrity of the federal judiciary and its members from a direct affront from the president of the United States. Roberts’s defense sent President Donald Trump atwitter in a series of messages that doubled down on his previous ridicule of an “Obama Judge” from the “total disaster” Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. [except]

The Condition And Trend Of Aspen, Willows, And Associated Species On The Northern Yellowstone Range, Charles E. Kay

Political Science Faculty Publications

Aspen (Populus tremuloides), willows (Salix spp.), and other deciduous shrubs and trees occupied a relatively small portion of the primeval Northern Yellowstone Range (hereafter referred to as the Northern Range1). However, these plant communities provided critical habitat for diverse flora and fauna. Consequently, aspen, willows, and cottonwoods were vitally important for biodiversity across the landscape, and these plant communities played a pivotal role in how the primeval ecosystem functioned sustainably since the last Ice Age.

What Trump’S Picks For The Presidential Medal Of Freedom Say About Him, E. Fletcher Mcclellan, Christopher J. Devine, Kyle C. Kopko

Political Science Faculty Publications

President Donald Trump awarded his first ever Presidential Medals of Freedom this month to seven recipients: Babe Ruth, Elvis Presley, Antonin Scalia, Orrin Hatch, Roger Staubach, Alan Page and Miriam Adelson. It is the nation’s highest civilian honor.

These ceremonies, which normally occur once or twice per year, provide Americans with an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of various people who have made an important contribution to U.S. culture. Because the president selects recipients with total discretion – American or otherwise, living or dead –- this award also says a lot about the president himself.

What achievements or contributions does …

Human Influences On The Northern Yellowstone Range, Jeffrey C. Mosley, Peter O. Husby

Political Science Faculty Publications

Humans have continuously inhabited the Northern Yellowstone Range (hereafter referred to as the Northern Range1 ) inside and outside Yellowstone National Park (YNP) for at least 11,000 years.2–5 Across these many years, humans have actively used, abused, and conserved the natural resources of the Northern Range. Human actions helped shape the vegetation and wildlife present on the Northern Range from prehistoric times to present day.

An Ecological Assessment Of The Northern Yellowstone Range: Introduction To The Special Issue, Jeffrey C. Mosley, Joseph Fidel, Harold E. Hunter, Peter O. Husby, Charles E. Kay, John G. Mundinger

Political Science Faculty Publications

The Northern Range (a.k.a., Northern Yellowstone Range) is 380,000 acres of rangeland and forest in northwestern Wyoming and south-central Montana within and adjacent to Yellowstone National Park (YNP). Sixty percent of the Northern Range is within YNP and 40% is north of YNP on federal, state, and private lands in Montana (Fig. 1). Inside YNP, about 60% of the Northern Range is rangeland and 40% is forest. Outside YNP, the Northern Range in Montana is mostly foothill grassland and sagebrush steppe, while the bottomlands are dominated by irrigated pastures and hayfields. The Northern Range outside YNP is a working landscape …

Blurring Institutional Boundaries: Judges' Perceptions Of Threats To Judicial Independence, Alyx Mark, Michael A. Zilis

Political Science Faculty Publications

The legislature wields multiple tools to limit judicial power, but scholars have little information about how judges interpret variant threats and which they find most concerning. To provide insight, we conduct original interviews regarding legislative threats to courts with over two dozen sitting federal judges, representing all tiers of the federal judiciary. We find that judges have a nuanced understanding of threats and tend to identify components of legislative proposals that threaten formal institutional powers as more concerning than those challenging policy set by judges. This distinction has broad implications for our understanding of judicial behavior at the federal level.

Leaving The Devil You Know: Crime Victimization, Us Deterrence Policy, And The Emigration Decision In Central America, Jonathan T. Hiskey, Abby Córdova, Mary Fran Malone, Diana M. Orcés

Political Science Faculty Publications

Following a sharp increase in the number of border arrivals from the violence-torn countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras in the spring and summer of 2014, the United States quickly implemented a strategy designed to prevent such surges by enhancing its detention and deportation efforts. In this article, we examine the emigration decision for citizens living in the high-crime contexts of northern Central America. First, through analysis of survey data across Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, we explore the role crime victimization plays in leading residents of these countries to consider emigration. Next, using survey data collected across twelve …

What Senators Should Ask Brett Kavanaugh, Scott S. Boddery

Political Science Faculty Publications

At today’s confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, senators are attempting to decipher how Kavanaugh will rule on certain issue areas should he be confirmed to the high court. Senators will undoubtedly demand answers to their questions that ask whether Judge Kavanaugh will vote to uphold certain past cases, such as Roe v. Wade or Citizens United, and they’ll want a “simple yes or no” answer. While this line of questioning will primarily originate from the left side of the aisle this time around, this tactic is routinely used by both parties when vetting Supreme Court nominees. …

Beyond Keeping The Peace: Can Peacekeepers Reduce Ethnic Divisions After Violence?, Douglas D. Page, Sam Whitt

Political Science Faculty Publications

Existing research suggests that international peacekeeping contributes to conflict resolution and helps sustain peace, often in locations with hostile ethnic divisions. However, it is unclear whether the presence of peacekeepers actually reduces underlying ethnocentric views and parochial behaviors that sustain those divisions. We examine the effects of NATO peacekeeper deployments on ethnocentrism in postwar Bosnia. While peacekeepers were not randomly deployed in Bosnia, we find that highly ethnocentric attitudes were common across Bosnia at the onset of peacekeeper deployments, reducing endogeneity concerns. To measure ethnocentrism, we employ a variety of survey instruments as well as a behavioral experiment (the dictator …

What If Hillary Clinton Had Gone To Wisconsin? Presidential Campaign Visits And Vote Choice In The 2016 Election, Christopher J. Devine

Political Science Faculty Publications

Hillary Clinton’s failure to visit the key battleground state of Wisconsin in 2016 has become a popular metaphor for the alleged strategic inadequacies of her presidential campaign. Critics who cite this fact, however, make two important assumptions: that campaign visits are effective, in general, and that they were effective for Clinton in 2016. I test these assumptions using an original database of presidential and vice presidential campaign visits in 2016. Specifically, I regress party vote share on each candidate’s number of campaign visits, at the county level, first for all counties located within battleground states, and then for counties located …

Militarization Redux: Across The Region, Latin America's Militaries Are Regaining Power Through The Court System, Brett J. Kyle, Andrew G. Reiter

Political Science Faculty Publications

On November 11, 2017, eight civilians were killed in a joint police and army security operation carried out in São Gonçalo, Brazil. Survivors and witnesses reported seeing special forces, dressed in black with laser-scoped rifles, being deployed by helicopter and shooting from a wooded area. The military, however, has refused to investigate the case or cooperate with civilian authorities. Thanks to a new law passed the previous month, it has the legal right to do so.

Split Tickets? On The Strategic Allocation Of Presidential Versus Vice Presidential Visits In 2016, Christopher J. Devine, Kyle C. Kopko

Political Science Faculty Publications

This article analyzes the strategic allocation of presidential campaign visits in 2016. In particular, we test whether each campaign disproportionately targeted its presidential versus vice presidential candidates’ visits toward voters with whom they shared a salient demographic or political characteristic. Our purpose in doing so is to discern whether—and, if so, among which groups—the campaigns perceived the candidates as having a strategic advantage in appealing to affiliated voters. To this end, we analyze an original database of 2016 campaign visits that includes local population characteristics for each host site. Our results indicate that each ticket’s visits were highly coordinated across …

Kennedy Retirement Plunges Supreme Court Into Politics. Here's How To Turn Down The Heat., Scott S. Boddery

Political Science Faculty Publications

Justice Anthony Kennedy’s decision to retire from the Supreme Court could create a sea change in the court’s jurisprudence for years to come. The debate about his successor will once again underscore the fierce partisan politics that surround the court.

It’s worth recalling that the constitutional framers originally envisioned a Supreme Court that was insulated from such politics. In fact, Alexander Hamilton argued quite famously, in Federalist No. 78, that the court must be protected from the electorate in order to serve as a check against the political branches of government without fear of reprisals at the ballot box. [ …

Authority, Legitimacy, And The Obligation To Obey The Law, Richard Dagger

Political Science Faculty Publications

According to the standard or traditional account, those who hold political authority legitimately have a right to rule that entails an obligation of obedience on the part of those who are subject to their authority. In recent decades, however, and in part in response to philosophical anarchism, a number of philosophers have challenged the standard account by reconceiving authority in ways that break or weaken the connection between political authority and obligation. This paper argues against these revisionist accounts in two ways: first, by pointing to defects in their conceptions of authority; and second, by sketching a fair-play approach to …

The State Of American Federalism 2017–2018: Unilateral Executive Action, Regulatory Rollback, And State Resistance, Shanna Rose, Greg Goelzhauser

Political Science Faculty Publications

The state of American federalism in 2017–2018 is characterized by federal policy reversals, as the Trump administration and congressional Republicans continue to undo many of the Obama administration’s policies. Two themes are highlighted in this essay. First, major policy changes continue to be undertaken primarily through unilateral executive action, even with Republicans holding the presidency and both the House and Senate. Ideological divisions within the Republican Party prevented Congress from enacting major legislation, save for a tax reform measure, and resulted in policy changes on health care, immigration, and the environment being made through executive and administrative action. Another prominent …

Rethinking Measures Of Democracy And Welfare State Universalism: Lessons From Subnational Research, Agustina Giraudy, Jennifer Pribble

Political Science Faculty Publications

Democracy and the welfare state are two of the most extensively studied concepts and themes in the field of comparative politics. Debate about how to best measure the two concepts has failed to contemplate the extent to which political and social rights are uniformly present across distinct regions of the national territory, despite the presence of substantial subnational research that underscores wide variation inside countries. We argue that this omission hampers our understanding of the two phenomena and we propose a new measure of democracy and healthcare unversalism, which we call the Adjusted Measures of Democracy and Welfare Universalism. …

Remembering Lee Ann In South Africa: Meta-Data And Reflexive Research Practice, Robin L. Turner

Political Science Faculty Publications

Lee Ann Fujii and I became fast friends, colleagues, and disciplinary comrades soon after we met at the 2004 Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research (IQMR). IQMR presentations and workshops sparked fourteen years of conversation about the discipline, our positionality with respect to the discipline and research participants, methodologies, the “field,” and much more. Lee Ann made me laugh and encouraged me to think harder as we talked over coffee and chocolate at home in Oakland, New York, Washington, DC, Indianapolis, and Toronto; met up at APSA annual meetings; and practiced yoga together.

Social Identity Theory And Public Opinion Towards Immigration, Maurice Mangum, Ray Block Jr.

Political Science Faculty Publications

Several scholars have called upon social identity theory to investigate the relationship between an American national identity and American public opinion on immigration. Lacking a uniform measure of American identity, by and large, scholars find that a two-dimensional conception of American identity influences these opinions. Our review suggests that the extant measures of American identity do not fully account for the various aspects of social identity theory. We capture more fully the different components of social identity theory. By doing so, we find that American identity has five dimensions. Therefore, in this analysis, we advance a more comprehensive measure of …

A Series Of Footnotes To Plato's Philosophers, Kevin M. Cherry

Political Science Faculty Publications

In her magisterial Plato's Philosophers, Catherine Zuckert presents a radically new interpretation of Plato's dialogues. In doing so, she insists we must overcome reading them through the lens of Aristotle, whose influence has obscured the true nature of Plato's philosophy. However, in her works dealing with Aristotle's political science, Zuckert indicates several advantages of his approach to understanding politics. In this article, I explore the reasons why Zuckert finds Aristotle a problematic guide to Plato's philosophy as well as what she sees as the character and benefits of Aristotle's political theory. I conclude by suggesting a possible reconciliation between …

The “Quebec Values” Debate Of 2013: Minority Vs. Collective Rights, Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann

Political Science Faculty Publications

This paper investigates the debate in the province of Quebec, Canada in 2013 over a Charter of Quebec Values introduced by the separatist ruling party, the Parti Quebecois. It relies in particular on government documents, debates in Quebec’s National Assembly, and editorials in the French press. It relates the Charter to the preceding Bouchard-Taylor Commission Report in 2008 on accommodation by public bodies of particular religious requests. The debates concerned the right to manifest one’s religion, the rights of (particularly Muslim) women, and the rights of the collectivity as opposed to the minority. Part of the debate was about Quebec’s …

The Representation Of Women In Brazilian Politics, Pedro A. G. Dos Santos, Kristin N. Wylie

Political Science Faculty Publications

Book Description
With contributions from leading international scholars, this Handbook offers the most rigorous and up-to-date analyses of virtually every aspect of Brazilian politics, including inequality, environmental politics, foreign policy, economic policy making, social policy, and human rights. The Handbook is divided into three major sections: Part 1 focuses on mass behavior, while Part 2 moves to representation, and Part 3 treats political economy and policy. The Handbook proffers five chapters on mass politics, focusing on corruption, participation, gender, race, and religion; three chapters on civil society, assessing social movements, grass-roots participation, and lobbying; seven chapters focusing on money and …

Intergenerational Land Conflict In Northern Uganda: Children, Customary Law And Return Migration, Sandra F. Joireman

Political Science Faculty Publications

Northern Uganda is in transition after the conflict that ended in 2006. While its cities are thriving and economic opportunities abound, the social institutions governing land access are contested, the land administration system is changing, and the mechanisms available to address conflicts over resources have themselves become a venue for authority claims. This article examines the intergenerational nature of land conflicts in northern Uganda, focusing on the interplay of customary law, return migration and the development of a market in land. There are three contributions to existing literature: (1) a discussion of children's property rights under customary and statute law …

Aristotle On Democracy And Democracies, Kevin M. Cherry

Political Science Faculty Publications

It is a commonplace that Aristotle, like his teacher Plato, was a critic of democracy. This is, to a certain extent, true: Plato and Aristotle both saw democracy, at least as practiced in Athens, as prone to tumultuousness and imprudence. The failed Sicilian expedition, the execution of Socrates, the failure to heed Demosthenes's warnings about Philip of Macedon and Aristotle's own reported flight from Athens all highlighted the weaknesses of Athenian democratic institutions. Yet Aristotle's understanding of political science requires him to consider not only what the simply best regime might be, as Socrates purports to do in the Republic, …

How The Nation’S Largest Minority Became White: Race Politics And The Disability Rights Movement, 1970–1980, Jennifer L. Erkulwater

Political Science Faculty Publications

Scholars point out a tension between racial justice and disability rights activism. Although racial minorities are more likely to become disabled than whites, both disability activism and the historiography of disability politics tends tend to focus on the experience and achievements of whites. This article examines how disability rights activists of the 1970s sought to build a united movement of all people with disabilities and explains why these efforts were unable to overcome cleavages predicated on race. Activists drew from New Left ideas of community and self-help as well as the New Right rhetoric of market freedoms to articulate a …

Are We Reading Russia Right?, Nicolai Petro

Political Science Faculty Publications

Despite the passage of time, Cold War patterns of thinking about Russia show no sign of weakening in America. To avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, we need to look at Russian society in a fundamentally different light. We must learn to appreciate it as a democracy that shares key similarities, as well as differences, with the West.

Mobilizing Doubt: The Legal Mobilization Of Climate Denialist Groups, Aaron J. Ley

Political Science Faculty Publications

The climate change counter-movement (CCCM) deploys a broad repertoire of tactics in its effort to cast doubt on the science of climate change. One important yet understudied tactic is the effort by CCCM groups to use open records laws in scientifically uncertain areas to cast doubt on the accuracy of scientific information. This article explores the use of this tactic by CCCM groups and adds to the legal mobilization literature in three ways. First, it traces the origin of CCCM groups to the broader conservative legal movement of the 1970s that challenged the dominance of the liberal legal network. Second, …

1437. Family Duty And Safety Linked To Overcoming Attitudinal Barriers To Adult Pneumococcal Vaccination In Disparate Populations, Maria-Stephanie Tolg, Marc L. Hutchison, Brian Krueger, Katherine Kelly Orr, Jennifer M. Deangelis, Aisling R. Caffrey, Kerry L. Laplante

Political Science Faculty Publications

Background: Minority adult populations are at a higher risk for invasive pneumococcal disease and also have significantly lower vaccination rates when compared with the general population. Ingrained attitudes are a significant barrier to receipt of pneumococcal vaccine in these disparate populations, and therefore we tested targeted informational messaging to overcome these.

Methods: A survey instrument of attitudinal questions related to pneumococcal vaccination was administered via YouGov, an online public national survey house in 2017. Socioeconomic information was captured and linked to baseline Likert scale attitudinal question responses. Respondents were randomly assigned into subsamples that received different science-based messages …

Assessing Political Participation On The Internet In Contemporary China, Ping Xu, Yinjiao Ye, Mingxin Zhang

Political Science Faculty Publications

Drawing on the resource model of political participation, this study examines the ways in which various resources, including money, computer and Internet access, Internet skills, and civic skills predict Chinese citizens’ political participation online. The results showed that income was a significant predictor of online political participation regardless of whether it was by using the Internet to contact governmental officials, monitoring public policies online, or participating in online protests. Civic skills also consistently predicted the three forms of online political participation. Computer and Internet access, as well as Internet skills, were significant predictors of some forms of online political participation, …

The Individual Determinants Of Support For Open Space Bond Referendums, Patrick Prendergast, Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz, Corey Lang

Political Science Faculty Publications

The ubiquitous use of ballot referendums in the public finance of land conservation means that conservation policy is often made at the individual voter level. However, studies to date have relied on either aggregate vote outcomes or surveys of residents of small geographic areas facing high growth. In this article, we utilize an original national survey to investigate a series of questions that pertain to individual opinion on open space preservation with a special focus on respondents’ perception of open space in their community. We find that most demographic variables that are determinants of open space and land use preferences …

How The West Lost Russia: Explaining The Conservative Turn In Russian Foreign Policy, Nicolai N. Petro

Political Science Faculty Publications

A decade ago many Russian analysts concluded that the West’s efforts to preserve its global superiority would be futile and the emergence of a polycentric world was inevitable. To benefit from this transition Russia should adopt a strategy that combined great power realism and “traditional” Russian values. This strategy, first elaborated in Vladimir Putin’s Valdai Speech of 2013, is known as ‘Civilizational Realism’.

This article describes the emergence of Russia’s new sense of self-worth, how and why Russia gradually lost faith in the West as a potential partner, and how, through the internal adoption and external projection of conservative multicultural …