American Politics Commons^™

The Deregulation Deception, Cary Coglianese, Natasha Sarin, Stuart Shapiro

All Faculty Scholarship

President Donald Trump and members of his Administration repeatedly asserted that they had delivered substantial deregulation that fueled positive trends in the U.S. economy prior to the COVID pandemic. Drawing on an original analysis of data on federal regulation from across the Trump Administration’s four years, we show that the Trump Administration actually accomplished much less by way of deregulation than it repeatedly claimed—and much less than many commentators and scholars have believed. In addition, and also contrary to the Administration’s claims, overall economic trends in the pre-pandemic Trump years tended simply to follow economic trends that began years earlier. …

Voting Your (Home)Values: An Empirical Assessment Of Homeownership And Voting Patterns In Seattle, Carter Fredrick Morfitt

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

In this paper, I draw on data from King County Elections and the U.S. Census Bureau's American Communities survey in an attempt to assess the predictions of the "homevoter hypothesis", which posits that homeowners tend to support policy measures that will boost their home values and oppose policy measures that could be perceived as a threat to their home values.

What Went Wrong With Economics?: Milton Friedman, Alexander Meiklejon, And The Reorientation Of Freedom, Aria Mia Loberti

Senior Honors Projects

Economics went wrong in the midst of the Cold War, specifically the time of the terror of communism in the 1950s. It went wrong in Chicago economics in particular—exacerbated by a reorientation in how to understand and conceptualize freedom. Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom trumpets the virtues of economic freedom, or the freedom of choice within the competitive market. It represents the Chicago neoliberal position. In contrast, the luminary Alexander Meiklejohn advocates a radically different conception of freedom, and his ideas echo the voices pre-1950 Chicago economics. Meiklejohn promotes political freedom over economic freedom: championing absolute protection for free speech, …

Healthy And Unhealthy Responses To American Democratic Institutional Failure, Thomas D'Anieri

CMC Senior Theses

I have set out on the hunch that politics in America “feels different,” that we are frustrated both with our institutions as well as with one another. First, I will seek to empirically verify this claim beyond mere “feelings.” If it can be shown that these kinds of discontent genuinely exist to the extent that I believe they do, I will then explain why people feel this way and why things are different this time from the economic, political, and social points of view. Next, I will examine two potential responses, what I will call the populist and the institutional …

Given Today's New Wave Of Protectionsim, Is Antitrust Law The Last Hope For Preserving A Free Global Economy Or Another Nail In Free Trade's Coffin?, Allison Murray

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Defending A Mixed Economy, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay reviews Jacob S. Hacker's and Paul Pierson's very engaging book, American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget what Made America Prosper (2016).

Support For Welfare, Matthew Reminick

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Although there is much debate over the effectiveness of social programs, there has not been much research attempting to discover who exactly supports spending government resources on welfare. Previous research suggests that the American people are divided over creating a welfare state. Many economic data shows that providing assistance is beneficial short-term, but can have varying effects in the future. The research I conducted attempts to define and analyze welfare while surmising which groups of Americans are most likely to back increased federal spending towards welfare. Using the ANES 2012 data, I evaluated voter responses to election surveys, paying close …

Life In Hampton Roads Survey Press Release #2: A Tale Of Many Cities: Economy, Crime, And Politics, Social Science Research Center, Old Dominion University

Life in Hampton Roads Survey Report

This report examines regional and sub-regional measures of economy, crime, and politics perceptions from the 2014 Life In Hampton Roads survey (LIHR 2014) conducted by the Old Dominion University Social Science Research Center.

Neoliberalism And The Law: How Historical Materialism Can Illuminate Recent Governmental And Judicial Decision Making, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Neoliberalism can be understood as the deregulation of the economy from political control by deliberate action or inaction of the state. As such it is both constituted by the law and deeply affects it. I show how the methods of historical materialism can illuminate this phenomenon in all three branches of the the U.S. government. Considering the example the global financial crisis of 2007-08 that began with the housing bubble developing from trade in unregulated and overvalued mortgage backed securities, I show how the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which established a firewall between commercial and investment banking, allowed this …

Collective Choice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

This short nontechnical article reviews the Arrow Impossibility Theorem and its implications for rational democratic decisionmaking. In the 1950s, economist Kenneth J. Arrow proved that no method for producing a unique social choice involving at least three choices and three actors could satisfy four seemingly obvious constraints that are practically constitutive of democratic decisionmaking. Any such method must violate such a constraint and risks leading to disturbingly irrational results such and Condorcet cycling. I explain the theorem in plain, nonmathematical language, and discuss the history, range, and prospects of avoiding what seems like a fundamental theoretical challenge to the possibility …

Book Review (Paul Frymer's Black And Blue: African Americans, The Labor Movement, And The Decline Of The Democratic Party)., Sophia Z. Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Treatment Differences And Political Realities In The Gaap-Ifrs Debate, William W. Bratton, Lawrence A. Cunningham

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Shareholder Primacy's Corporatist Origins: Adolf Berle And The Modern Corporation, William W. Bratton, Michael L. Wachter

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reviewed Work: Understanding Institutional Diversity By Elinor Ostrom, Jonathan G.S. Koppell

Publications from President Jonathan G.S. Koppell

No abstract provided.

The "Bad Man" Goes To Washington: The Effect Of Political Influence On Corporate Duty, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

How Do Corporations Play Politics? The Fedex Story, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

Corporate political activity has been the subject of federal regulation since 1907, and the restrictions on corporate campaign contributions and other political expenditures continue to increase. Most recently, Congress banned soft money donations in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 ("BCRA"), a ban upheld by the Supreme Court in McConnell v. FEC. Significantly, although the omnibus BCRA clearly was not directed exclusively at corporations, the Supreme Court began its lengthy opinion in McConnell by referencing and endorsing the efforts of Elihu Root, more than a century ago, to prohibit corporate political contributions. Repeatedly, within the broad context of campaign …

I Don't Know, Philip E. Graves

PHILIP E GRAVES

This is a non-fiction novel, titled I Don't Know. I is in three parts, the first economic (which will seem "liberal" to most), the second political (which will seem "conservative" to most), and the third theological (which will seem weird to most). I think you will find it a fun read, and feel free to distribute it at will.

Relativism, Reflective Equilibrium, And Justice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS.

The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is overwhelming: there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into …

Controlling Congress: Presidential Influence In Domestic Fiscal Policy, Michael A. Fitts, Robert Inman

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Frankenstein's Monster Hits The Campaign Trail: An Approach To Regulation Of Corporate Political Expenditures, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Can Ignorance Be Bliss? Imperfect Information As A Positive Influence In Political Insitutions, Michael A. Fitts

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.