American Politics Commons^™

Maine Code Of Election Ethics, Gregory P. Gallant

Maine Policy Review

In the Margaret Chase Smith Essay, Gregory Gallant discusses the voluntary Maine Code of Election Ethics, sponsored and organized by the University of Maine’s Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center and the Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan. The code is a voluntary effort designed to elevate political discourse in Maine’s federal and gubernatorial elections. Gallant reflects on the ways in which this code reinforces Margaret Chase Smith’s recognition of the critical role played by civic engagement in American society.

The Project Of Democracy, Alexander Keyssar

Maine Policy Review

This article is an address given at the May 2002 Maine Town Meeting sponsored by the Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan. Alexander Keyssar chronicles the advances and contractions of democratic political rights in American history. While on balance, this is a story of progress, it is not, Keyssar argues, unilinear, nor one that is completed. Although arguably late for the world’s “greatest democracy,” by the 1970s the United States had achieved universal suffrage. Today, however, the tug between democratic and anti-democratic forces continues. The contest is no longer over voting rights but over the procedures and rules governing elections …

Mlgpa News (Winter 2002), Maggie Allen

MLGPA news (1996-2004)

No abstract provided.

Democracy And Legitimation: A Response To Professor Guinier, Louis Michael Seidman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay is a response to Supreme Democracy: Bush v. Gore Redux, an essay by Lani Guinier (2002).

The author critiques Professor Lani Guinier’s essay through a discussion of the maldistribution of wealth in American society, which he argues is accepted by American people thanks to the existence complex structures that allow them to distance themselves from it. He discusses four legitimation structures as he critiques this essay.

Professor Guinier focuses on the belief in meritocracy. For our purposes, we might define a believer in meritocracy as someone who thinks that, in a given society, people get more or less …

The War On Terrorism And Civil Liberties, Jules Lobel

Articles

Throughout American history, we have grappled with the problem of balancing liberty versus security in times of war or national emergency. Our history is littered with sordid examples of the Constitution's silence during war or perceived national emergency. The Bush Administration’s War on Terror has once again forced a reckoning requiring Americans to balance liberty and national security in wartime. President Bush has stated, "[w]e believe in democracy and rule of law and the Constitution. But we're under attack.” President Bush, Attorney General Ashcroft and other governmental leaders have argued that in war, "the Constitution does not give foreign enemies …

Clinton's Democratic Expansion: An Analysis Of U.S. Foreign Aid To Africa, Corey F. Wilson

Masters Theses

American foreign aid, and the factors contributing to its disbursement, have frequently been discussed in scholarly research. This issue has also developed into a highly contentious issue in US foreign policy. The purpose of this thesis is to determine if recipient states' human rights practices are a determining factor in the aid allocation process. This thesis will analyze the second term of President Clinton's administration to determine if he consistently implemented his foreign policy agenda of democratic enlargement with regard to foreign aid disbursement to Africa. Two different methodological approaches will be used in this analysis; a pooled time series …

Explaining Seat Changes In The U.S. House Of Representatives, 1950-1998, Brian Newman, Charles Ostrom

Brian Newman

Recent U.S. House elections have challenged existing models of congressional elections, raising the question of whether or not processes thought to govern previous elections are still at work. Taking Marra and Ostrom's (1989) model of congressional elections as representative of extant theoretical perspectives and testing it against recent elections, we find that the model fails. We augment Marra and Ostrom's model with new insights, constructing a model that explains elections from 1950 to 1998. We find that, although presidential approval ratings and major political events continue to drive congressional elections, the distribution of open seats must also be taken into …

Bill Clinton’S Approval Ratings: The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same, Brian Newman

Brian Newman

Over the past three decades, political scientists have been developing general models of presidential approval ratings, seeking to determine the structure of aggregate approval. This endeavor has culminated in the broad claim that "peace, prosperity, and probity" drive the public's approval. The unprecedented events of the Clinton Presidency, especially his high approval during and after impeachment, present a strong challenge to this model. However, the existing model explains Clinton's approval remarkably well, suggesting that the public punished and rewarded him for the state of the economy, major political events, and his integrity. Passing this strong test constitutes considerable support for …

"Putting Away Childish Things", Michael Budde

Michael Budde

No abstract provided.