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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
A New Face Of Poverty? Economic Crises And Poverty Discourses, Helen Erler
A New Face Of Poverty? Economic Crises And Poverty Discourses, Helen Erler
H. Abbie Erler
This article explores how economic downturns shape poverty knowledge. Utilizing a content analysis of 689 articles from three major newspapers from 2006 to 2009, this article examines how the Great Recession has shaped discourses on the meaning and causes of poverty in the United States. I find that contemporary accounts of people in poverty employ a structural/contextual narrative more often than a psychological/moral narrative and focus more on the symbolic, rather than material, aspects of poverty. This study highlights how economic crises create a space for new poverty discourses to emerge that challenge the hegemonic narrative, which stigmatizes and Otherizes …
Legislative Term Limits And State Spending, H. Abbie Erler
Legislative Term Limits And State Spending, H. Abbie Erler
H. Abbie Erler
Supporters of legislative term limits often claim that they will lower state spending levels. Using fiscal data from 48 states from 1977 to 2001, this paper finds little support for this assertion. Instead, this analysis finds that states with term limits have higher spending levels than states without term limits. These results suggest that term limits give legislators greater incentives to deviate from socially optimal fiscal policy by altering the legislative environment in which such policy is formulated.
Executive Clemency Or Bureaucratic Discretion? Two Models Of The Pardons Process, H. Abbie Erler
Executive Clemency Or Bureaucratic Discretion? Two Models Of The Pardons Process, H. Abbie Erler
H. Abbie Erler
This article examines the use of the president's pardon power from 1953 to 2000. Two different models are used to describe the pardons process: a presidential model and an agency model. The presidential model takes a top-down approach to the pardons process by viewing the pardon power as a resource that the president can use to advance specific policy goals. In contrast, the agency model views the pardons process as a bottom-up process, with the preferences of officials within the Department of Justice as the key determinant of the number of pardons issued. This article empirically tests both of these …