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American Politics Commons

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Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in American Politics

Why Does Voting Get So Complicated? : A Review Of Theories For Analyzing Democratic Participation., Jeff Gill, Jason Gainous Nov 2002

Why Does Voting Get So Complicated? : A Review Of Theories For Analyzing Democratic Participation., Jeff Gill, Jason Gainous

Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this article is to present a sample from the panoply of formal theories on voting and elections to Statistical Science readers who have had limited exposure to such work. These abstract ideas provide a framework for understanding the context of the empirical articles that follow in this volume. The primary focus of this theoretical literature is on the use of mathematical formalism to describe electoral systems and outcomes by modeling both voting rules and human behavior. As with empirical models, these constructs are never perfect descriptors of reality, but instead form the basis for understanding fundamental characteristics …


Is There A Woman's Perspective? : An Exploration Of Gender Differences Along Republican And Conservative Lines., Jason Gainous Oct 2002

Is There A Woman's Perspective? : An Exploration Of Gender Differences Along Republican And Conservative Lines., Jason Gainous

Faculty Scholarship

Is there a distinct “woman’s perspective?” This paper argues that the answer is an emphatic yes. American National Election Study survey data are used to explore Republican and conservative women’s attitudes concerning social spending issues and religiosity. Most of the previous gender gap research focuses on gender differences in attitudes by examining gender shifts in political party identification and voting, but do not adequately address opinion differences along gender lines between groups that think of themselves as similar. This paper asserts that if men and women who classify themselves as both conservative and Republican exhibit distinct differences, evidence of a …


Constitutional Pluralism And Democratic Politics: Reflections On The Interpretive Approach Of Baker V. Carr, Guy-Uriel Charles Jan 2002

Constitutional Pluralism And Democratic Politics: Reflections On The Interpretive Approach Of Baker V. Carr, Guy-Uriel Charles

Faculty Scholarship

Baker v. Carr is one of the Supreme Court's most important opinions, not least because its advent signaled the constitutionalization of democracy. Unfortunately, as is typical of the Court's numerous forays into democratic politics, the decision is not accompanied by an apparent vision of the relationship among democratic practice, constitutional law, and democratic theory. In this Article, Professor Charles revisits Baker and provides several democratic principles that he argues justifies the Court's decision to engage the democratic process. He examines the decision from the perspective of one of its chief contemporary critics, Justice Frankfurter. He sketches an approach, described as …