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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
"Family Values Don't Stop At The Rio Grande..." : Can The Republican Party Convert Hispanic Voters?, Donald Davison
"Family Values Don't Stop At The Rio Grande..." : Can The Republican Party Convert Hispanic Voters?, Donald Davison
Faculty Publications
As the Hispanic community becomes increasingly important in American politics there are competing views about whether they can be converted to the Republican Party. One perspective argues that Hispanics’ religion and traditional social values makes them natural constituents of the Republican Party. Alternatively, Hispanics are primarily concerned about issues promoting their well-being, while topics such as moral values or religion are private. I use a novel approach to test whether traditional social values might attract Hispanic voters to the Republican Party. Using exit poll results for ballot propositions on moral issues from Arizona, Colorado, and Florida I find weak evidence …
When Free Speech Disrupts Diversity Initiatives: What We Value And What We Do Not, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt
When Free Speech Disrupts Diversity Initiatives: What We Value And What We Do Not, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt
Faculty Publications
In this essay, I argue that the debate on free speech as pushed by the conservative right is a strategic apparatus to undermine the various diversity initiatives on college and university campuses. While supporters of the right wing extremists around the globe have pushed for various modes of exclusions (social, racial, ethnic, cultural, religious and sexual), here in the United States, such exclusions are most evident in the collapse of academic freedom and the rise of civility codes as students and educators use the platform of free speech to promote various forms of injustices and exclusions. Our neoliberal college and …
Improving Student Assessments Of Elections: The Use Of Information Literacy And A Course-Embedded Librarian, Todd J. Wiebe, Paula Booke
Improving Student Assessments Of Elections: The Use Of Information Literacy And A Course-Embedded Librarian, Todd J. Wiebe, Paula Booke
Faculty Publications
The study of U.S. elections as a part of introductory political science courses has become an increasingly difficult endeavour as students encounter the ever-changing landscape of electoral politics. Instructors seeking to equip students with the skills needed to navigate this complex terrain may look for partnerships with library faculty and staff as a means of bridging the research gap faced by students in these courses. This article examines the efficacy of a course-embedded librarian and information literacy training as a means of increasing student research confidence and competence. The findings of our quasi-experiment suggest that students participating in a course …
Performance, Politics, And The War On Terror: "Whatever It Takes", Lindsey Mantoan
Performance, Politics, And The War On Terror: "Whatever It Takes", Lindsey Mantoan
Faculty Publications
Lindsey Mantoan reviews Performance, Politics, and the War on Terror: "Whatever It Takes" (by Sara Brady) for TDR: The Drama Review.
Petitions, Privacy, And Political Obscurity, Rebecca Green
Petitions, Privacy, And Political Obscurity, Rebecca Green
Faculty Publications
People who sign petitions must accept disclosure of their political views. This conclusion rests on the seemingly uncontroversial (if circular) premise that petition signing is a public activity. Courts have thus far shown little sympathy for individuals who take a public stand on an issue by signing a petition and then assert privacy claims after the fact. Democracy, after all, takes courage, as Justice Scalia wrote in the petitioning disclosure case Doe v. Reed. But signing a petition today brings consequences beyond public criticism. The real threat of disclosure for modern petition signers is not tangible harassment, but the loss …
The War Next Door: Peace Journalism In Us Local And Distant Newspapers' Coverage Of Mexico, Katherine Lacasse, Larissa Forster
The War Next Door: Peace Journalism In Us Local And Distant Newspapers' Coverage Of Mexico, Katherine Lacasse, Larissa Forster
Faculty Publications
This study explores the relationship between proximity to a conflict and the tendency to use peace journalism rather than war journalism modes of reporting. In the context of the current drug war occurring in Mexico, articles from both local, border region US newspapers and from distant US newspapers were coded according to their usage of war or peace journalism frames. Analyses revealed that local newspapers utilized more peace journalism frames overall, and presented a less pessimistic and negative view of the conflict and parties. Distant newspapers, however, were more likely to showcase complexity of the conflict and many parties and …
Discourse And Argument In Instituting The Governance Of Social Law, Richard R. Weiner
Discourse And Argument In Instituting The Governance Of Social Law, Richard R. Weiner
Faculty Publications
Social Rights were initially understood as the rights of a pluralism of instituted associations; and transformed to the rights of distributive justice associated with the politics of access to welfare state corporatism. More recently, they have been understood as the rights of multicultural difference; and now as the rights to complexity (Zolo), and rights to consideration of polycontextural effect vis-a-vis transnational corporations (Teubner). Social rights are no longer subject positions versus political bodies, but also against social institutions, in particular, vis-a-vis centers of economic power.
From Rapists To Superpredators: What The Practice Of Capital Punishment Says About Race, Rights And The American Child, Robyn Linde
Faculty Publications
At the turn of the 20th century, the United States was widely considered to be a world leader in matters of child protection and welfare, a reputation lost by the century’s end. This paper suggests that the United States’ loss of international esteem concerning child welfare was directly related to its practice of executing juvenile offenders. The paper analyzes why the United States continued to carry out the juvenile death penalty after the establishment of juvenile courts and other protections for child criminals. Two factors allowed the United States to continue the juvenile death penalty after most states in …
Trauma And The Limits Of Redemptive Critique, Richard R. Weiner, Karl P. Benziger
Trauma And The Limits Of Redemptive Critique, Richard R. Weiner, Karl P. Benziger
Faculty Publications
The authors continue to test the limits of Emile Durkheim/Maurice Halbwachs approach to collective identity in the experiences of trauma, shame, and yearning related to the ill-fated Hungarian Revolution. In a more poststructuralist vein the authors move from a focus on piacular subjectivity to one of baroque subjectivity, especially in understanding the October 2006 fiftieth anniversary commemorations of the Revolution in Budapest. Specifically, what indexical undercurrents of disposition persist and can not be ignored in attempts at redemptive critique, as well as in colonized nostalgia and the re-enactment of pathos. To what extent do the commemorations of the 1956 Revolution …
Les Forms Changeants Des Contrats Dans Une Societé Aux Résaux Transnationaux, Richard R. Weiner
Les Forms Changeants Des Contrats Dans Une Societé Aux Résaux Transnationaux, Richard R. Weiner
Faculty Publications
Alors qu’au nouveau millénaire on soulignait les « règles de collision » au sein des gouvernances globale et corporative, les crises économiques qui émergeas en 2008, ont déplacé l’accent sur l’échec des pratiques régulatrices. Les crises actuelles mettent au défi non seulement l’hégémonie néo-libérale mais aussi le modèle étatique de coordination du New deal/grande société, étant donné que nous avons passé de la société des individus à la société des organisations. Nous vivons présentement, dans une société au réseau transnational de pratiques de gouvernances corporative et contractuelle. Cette société de réseaux ne peut désormais être clairement associée aux conceptions traditionnelles …
The Changing Forms Of Contracting In A Society Of Transnational Networks, Richard R. Weiner
The Changing Forms Of Contracting In A Society Of Transnational Networks, Richard R. Weiner
Faculty Publications
Whereas the new millennium brought with it a focus on collision rules within global governance and corporate governance, the economic crises emerging out of 2008 turned the focus to the failure of regulatory practices. The current crises challenge not only a neoliberal hegemony but the New Deal/Great Society coordinating state model as well; as we have moved not only beyond a society of individuals to a society of organizations. We live now in a society of transnational network contracting and corporate governance practices. This society of networks can no longer be clearly associated with traditional conceptions of state, market or …
In The Wake, Lindsey Mantoan
In The Wake, Lindsey Mantoan
Faculty Publications
Lindsey Mantoan reviews a performance of In the Wake (by Lisa Kron) for Theatre Journal.
Complementary Institutions And Reflexive Governance In Autonomous Social Law, Richard R. Weiner
Complementary Institutions And Reflexive Governance In Autonomous Social Law, Richard R. Weiner
Faculty Publications
We approach institutions as stabilizing structures with consequences of functional incorporateness. Yet we also imagine, assert and enact claims and warrants as institutionalizable practices. There are functional supports. And there are the warranted claims of categorical normativity. Normativity in itself can be understood in terms of compliance with or acquiescence in legitimating structures. Yet normativity itself can be understood as a solidarism we intersubjectively co-constitute. The challenge in political thought has been dealing with the disincorporateness associated with modernity, specifically how a new order and dialogue may be of heterogeneous social values. A new way of ordering socioeconomic relationships of …
Ideas, Constructivism, And Complentarity In Insititutionalism, Richard R. Weiner
Ideas, Constructivism, And Complentarity In Insititutionalism, Richard R. Weiner
Faculty Publications
Colin Crouch recently chided the proliferation of institutionalisms (e.g., historical, normative, ideational, discursive, constructivist) as a growing cottage industry more focused on creating intellectual fiefdoms than extending political theory. In this vein, we can assess the recent constructivist institutionalism developed by Colin Hay out of the ideational and discursive institutionalism efforts of himself, Mark Blyth,Vivian Schmidt, J.L. Campbell and Ove Pedersen. This constructivism reproduces all of the weaknesses of the sociology of knowledge without heeding the contributions of critical theory, poststructuralism, interpretivism (e.g., Mark Bevir), polycontexturality (e.g., Gunther Teubner) or recent economic theory. We are challenged to represent a polycontextural …
Piacular Subjectivity And Contested Narrative In The Imre Nagy Memorials, Karl P. Benziger, Richard R. Weiner
Piacular Subjectivity And Contested Narrative In The Imre Nagy Memorials, Karl P. Benziger, Richard R. Weiner
Faculty Publications
The funeral of Imre Nagy on June 16, 1989 can be seen as a critical moment in the Hungarian transition to a democratic republic as it explicitly undermined the moral and political authority of the communist government then in power. This Nagy memorial signified a longing for a national identity tied to the spirit of republicanism that had been thwarted in 1956 and had roots going back to 1848. The unity of purpose displayed by the Hungarian people at the funeral brings to mind Emile Durkheim_s analysis of piaculum and the conscience collective. This is what the sociologist, Robert Bellah …
Assessment Governance, Richard R. Weiner, Karl P. Benziger
Assessment Governance, Richard R. Weiner, Karl P. Benziger
Faculty Publications
There has emerged a web of exogenous forces emanating from national and regional accreditation associations, particularly a satellite professional association involved in teacher preparation called the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). The reality of this web contradicts the implicit idealist sentiment in John Ishiyama’s report on the “Assessment of Student Outcomes’ meetings at the 2004 TLC where he describes “assessment as a voluntarist/bootstrapping “bottom up” effort of individual faculty members. [PS.27: 3, July 2004, 483-85.] Faculty are increasingly bombarded by outside agencies for standards inventory matrices, evaluation rubrics, and course maps.
Traces Of The Stillborn? , Richard R. Weiner
Traces Of The Stillborn? , Richard R. Weiner
Faculty Publications
The architect Daniel Libeskind has written a noted lecture, "Traces of the Unborn." We might add, "Traces of the Stillborn." There is a tendency in historical institutionalism (HI) to concentrate on the retrieval of traces of paths taken rather than (1) to consider the processes involved in the selection of paths; and (2) to reflect upon the conditions of institutional emergence and sedimentation of paths, whether taken or untaken. Contrary to the path-dependency obsessed historical institutionalism of a Paul Pierson, this paper stresses the significance of historical case studies of institutional emergence in the earlier 20th century and …
Social Construction And White Attitudes Toward Equal Opportunity And Multiculturalism, Michael W. Link, Robert W. Oldendick
Social Construction And White Attitudes Toward Equal Opportunity And Multiculturalism, Michael W. Link, Robert W. Oldendick
Faculty Publications
As the United States moves from being a predominantly biracial to a multiracial society, racial attitudes continue to become more diverse and more complex. Scholars need to address these changes not only in terms of black and white Americans, but also how these changes involve and affect other racial groups, particularly Asian and Hispanic Americans. This inquiry looks at some of these complexities by examining how social construction differentials in the minds of white Americans affect their attitudes toward the issues of equal opportunity and multiculturalism. The analysis shows that differences in the cognitive images whites hold of minority groups …
Retrieving Civil Society In A Postmodern Epoch, Richard R. Weiner
Retrieving Civil Society In A Postmodern Epoch, Richard R. Weiner
Faculty Publications
This article develops Jurgen Habermas' emphasis on critical theory as a means to retrieve the social and restore its place as a central concept in the social sciences. It argues that Habermas has been misinterpreted by varieties of thinkers across political, ideological, and intellectual domains; and has been misused by neo-conservatives and postmodernists in particular. Habermas' critical theory is driven by an emphasis on social and political praxis, and establishes the possibility of an authentic social existence. At the base of this existence is a solid moral order that defines human existence in terms of Reason rather than in terms …