Other Political Science Commons^™

Slavery And Freedom In Theory And Practice, David Watkins

David Watkins

Slavery has long stood as a mirror image to the conception of a free person in republican theory. This essay contends that slavery deserves this central status in a theory of freedom, but a more thorough examination of slavery in theory and in practice will reveal additional insights about freedom previously unacknowledged by republicans. Slavery combines imperium (state domination) and dominium (private domination) in a way that both destroys freedom today and diminishes opportunities to achieve freedom tomorrow. Dominium and imperium working together are a greater affront to freedom than either working alone. However, an examination of slavery in practice, …

Trends In Public Opinion, 1989-1996, John M. Scheb Ii, William Lyons, Grant W. Neeley

Grant W. Neeley

In this chapter, we examine the party identifications and ideological orientations of Tennesseans from 1989 through 1996, as revealed through survey research. We also look at Tennesseans' positions on several issues of public policy that have been salient in state politics during this period. Our intent is to isolate any trends in the partisan and ideological character of the state while examining citizens' positions on key issues.

Early Voting In Tennessee: Removing Barriers To Participation, Grant W. Neeley, Lillard E. Richardson Jr.

Grant W. Neeley

In 1994. the Tennessee General Assembly mandated a new early voting system that allowed voters to cast a ballot in a two-week period prior to any election. Unlike absentee balloting, which requires registrants to justify why they cannot participate on election day, early voting is available to any registered voter who chooses to do so. By enacting early voting in Tennessee, the state legislature hoped to achieve increased turnout and easier access for citizens unable to vote at a regular polling site on election day. The purpose of this chapter is to ascertain whether the program was able to increase …

Turnout And Partisanship In Tennessee Elections, Lillard E. Richardson Jr., Grant W. Neeley

Grant W. Neeley

To understand the forces shaping current Tennessee politics, we discuss two fundamental concepts of Tennessee's electoral system: voting turnout and partisanship. These two concepts are easily illustrated by two questions. First, how many people participate in elections in the state? Second, whom do Tennesseans elect to represent them? While we use a historical perspective to inform the analysis, we are generally more interested in the forces shaping politics in Tennessee today.

Implementation Of Early Voting, Lillard E. Richardson Jr., Grant W. Neeley

Grant W. Neeley

We examine the early voting process in Tennessee during the election of 1994. By conducting a mail survey of all 95 county registrars, we ascertained the methods and costs of early voting implementation. Generally, the survey reveals a strong belief that early voting encourages greater participation by voters, with turnout data supporting this belief. We find that the ballot type and location of early voting sites play an important role in determining both the costs of early voting and the rate of voter participation.

The Practice Of Government Public Relations, Mordecai Lee, Grant W. Neeley, Kendra Stewart

Grant W. Neeley

With the recent change of administration in the U.S. executive branch, we have seen increased attention to issues of public information, transparency in government, and government and press relations in the United States and abroad. In addition, rapidly evolving technology and its influence on public communication have left many in government struggling to remain current in this area. Citizens and constituents learn to use interactive tools when searching for information, utilize technology for communications, and now expect government information and services to exist in the same information space as private entities. This book is an effort of leading experts in …

Gender, Human Security And The United Nations: Security Language As A Political Framework For Women, Natalie Florea Hudson

Natalie Florea Hudson

This book examines the relationship between women, gender and the international security agenda, exploring the meaning of security in terms of discourse and practice, as well as the larger goals and strategies of the global women's movement. Today, many complex global problems are being located within the security logic. From the environment to HIV/AIDS, state and non-state actors have made a practice out of securitizing issues that are not conventionally seen as such. As most prominently demonstrated by the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2001), activists for women's rights have increasingly framed women's rights and gender inequality as security issues …

Policy Brief: Unscr 1325: The Challenges Of Framing Women’S Rights As A Security Matter, Natalie Florea Hudson

Natalie Florea Hudson

While UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 has certainly increased awareness among international actors about women’s and gender issues in armed conflict, opened new spaces for dialogue and partnerships from global to local levels, and even created opportunities for new resources for women’s rights, successes remain limited and notably inconsistent. To understand some of these shortcomings and think creatively about how to move the women, peace and security agenda forward, it is essential to understand the conceptual assumptions underscoring UNSCR 1325.

Why Urbanists Need Religion, Joshua D. Ambrosius

Joshua D. Ambrosius

This essay summarizes a conference paper presented at the October 2008 Society for the Scientific Study of Religion meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. The paper was reviewed by several leading scholars.

Ethics In Public Management, H. George Frederickson, Richard K. Ghere

Richard K. Ghere

This volume follows two earlier projects undertaken by Frederickson (1993) and Frederickson and Ghere (2005) to present collections of theoretical essays and empirical analyses on administrative ethics. Three years before the publication of the first volume —Frederickson's Ethics and Public Administration — the National Commission on the Public Service released Leadership for America (also known as the Volcker Commission Report) that attested to "the quiet crisis" in government whereby "too many of the best of the nation's senior executives are ready to leave government, and not enough of its most talented young people are willing to join. This erosion in …

Ngo Leadership And Human Rights, Richard K. Ghere

Richard K. Ghere

This book provides preliminary understanding of what the term NGO means; explains how "human rights" affect NGO missions; and focuses on the meaning of "leadership" in NGOs in comparison to private sector and government agency leadership. It also encourages readers with vocational aspirations in human rights work to think strategically in preparing for their professional futures.

Religion, Politics, And Polity Replication: Religious Differences In Preferences For Institutional Design, Joshua D. Ambrosius

Joshua D. Ambrosius

This article presents a theory of polity replication in which religious congregants prefer institutions in other realms of society, including the state, to be structured like their church. Polities, or systems of church governance and administration, generally take one of three forms: episcopal (hierarchical/centralized), presbyterian (collegial/regional), or congregational (autonomous/decentralized). When asked to cast a vote to shape institutions in a centralizing or decentralizing manner, voters are influenced by organizational values shaped by their respective religious traditions‘ polity structures. Past social scientific scholarship has neglected to explicitly connect religious affiliation, defined by polity, with members‘ stances on institutional design. However, previous …

Network Legitimacy And Accountability In A Developmental Perspective, Richard K. Ghere

Richard K. Ghere

Public networks typically function beyond the lines of the hierarchical authorities that hold bureaucracies accountable, as is shown here in the case of a business-dominant network that exhibited ethically questionable behaviors at the expense of its community credibility. Public networks can build external legitimacy by engaging in critical organization learning processes, much the way some nongovernmental organizations respond to a diversity of stakeholders.

Public Actors In Private Markets: Toward A Developmental Finance State, Robert Hockett, Saule Omarova

Saule T. Omarova

The recent financial crisis brought into sharp relief fundamental questions about the social function and purpose of the financial system, including its relation to the “real” economy. This Article argues that, to answer these questions, we must recapture a distinctively American view of the proper relations among state, financial market, and development. This programmatic vision – captured in what we call a “developmental finance state” – is based on three key propositions: (1) that economic and social development is not an “end-state” but a continuing national policy priority; (2) that the modalities of finance are the most potent means of …

Reconsidering Accountability For Environmental Inspectors: Trading 'Compliance By Computer' For Relationship Building, Michelle C. Pautz

Michelle Pautz

Demands for government accountability extend into all the aspects of government service and the environmental realm is no different. Environmental inspectors — the front-line workers in environmental protection agencies — are among the many civil servants who face demands for accountability. Unfortunately, although accountability is desirable normatively speaking, in practice it is not so simple. Accountability for environmental inspectors frequently involves measures such as the number of inspections completed, the efficiency of data entry in agency databases, and the turnaround time on inspection reports. Such measures leave environmental inspectors, who ideally want — and practically need — to be in …

The Decline In Average Weekly Cinema Attendance, 1930-2000, Michelle C. Pautz

Michelle Pautz

Since the beginnings of the motion picture industry, with the one small Edison studio in New Jersey in the early 1900s, America has fallen in love with films. One could argue and debate the reasons, employing everything from sociology to psychology to economics; but one thing is certain: This love affair has changed over the years. This change is perhaps most evident in the decline in the percentage of the United States population that goes to the cinema weekly. One interesting aspect of cinema attendance is that during the Great Depression, which swept the United States in the 1930s, a …

Environmental Regulation, Michelle C. Pautz

Michelle Pautz

The terms environment and regulation are commonplace in political and policy debates about the natural environment, the role of science, and the behavior of government. Indeed, these terms reference a very contentious area of public policy and are emblematic of the growing tensions between science and politics. This chapter overviews the definition, types, and history of environmental regulation before turning to the intersection of science and politics in environmental policy and considering current and future challenges for this aspect of governmental activity.

Integration Of And The Potential For Islamic Radicalization Among Ethnic Turks In Germany, Alev Dudek

Alev Dudek

In spite of ongoing improvements, integration of ethnic Turks in Germany remains a challenge from the dominant culture perspective, whereas a deeply ingrained institutional and everyday racism and the lack of legal protection against discrimination pose a challenge to full participation of ethnic Turks from another perspective. In an increasingly xenophobic Europe, particularly Germany, an increase in potential for religious and nationalist radicalization in different groups including ethnic Turks is becoming more and more evident. This increase in radical attitudes is not necessarily caused by a lack of integration, as evidenced among well-integrated individuals.

In view of recent developments toward …

Redistributing Power In Mississippi: The Reversal Of Section 4 Of The Voting Rights Act, Gloria J. Billingsley, Sylvester Murray

Sylvester Murray

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 unconstitutional, essentially defanging preclearance requirements of Section 5 and leaving racial and other previously disenfranchised minorities unprotected. Using social contract theory as the theoretical framework, empirical field study research was used to examine whether the Voting Rights Act has achieved the results in Mississippi that the Supreme Court’s decision to revoke Section 4 has assumed. Data were collected on race-specific voter registration and voting data, measures of vote discrimination, litigations and Mississippi legislative activity regarding voting rights. Findings indicate that the gap between minority and …

In Search Of Standards For The Operation Of Small Satellites, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

This paper considers the need for standards for the operations of small spacecraft. First, it considers a definition for what a small spacecraft is and discusses the elusiveness of this definition. Then, the paper turns to the ‘large space’ community and it examines their fears about small spacecraft as well as the operating paradigms that they are used to and how these drive their expectations for the operations of small spacecraft. Next, a prospective composition for a preliminary set of operating standards is discussed. Finally, a discussion of the benefits of standardization and what the different communities could expect to …

Creatures Of Incoherence: Dissecting The Drivers, History, And Cognition Of Attitudinal Incongruence In The American Body Politic, Timothy Collins

Timothy Collins

Most American conservatives and liberals wield contradictory political attitudes. This dissertation explores what drives this “attitudinal incongruence.” First, I define and operationalize my terminology and situate the topic within social and political psychology to formulate my central model and theory of ideologically asymmetrical application of (1) individuals’ psychological and cognitive traits, and (2) individuals’ social identity and environmental traits. This leads to the overarching hypothesis that conservatives’ incongruities are more strongly driven by internal forces, and liberals’ by external forces. The central model is then demonstrated in a broad historical overview of attitudinal incongruence in America. The central tenets of …

The Path To Regulation Of Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles In The United States, Jeremy Straub, Joe Vacek

Jeremy Straub

This poster presents an overview of proposed regulations that are presented in [1] related to a re-vised approach to small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) regulation in the United States. Prospective strategies for enhancing UAV regulation are consid-ered as is the pathway to develop and implement these regulations. The benefits of changing the UAV regulatory regime are discussed, on both a user/prospective user and societal scale.

An Affordable Model For Enduring Iss Mission Operations With Increased Scientific Productivity, Donovan Torgerson, Josh Berk, Jeremy Straub, Anders Nervold

Jeremy Straub

The current model of operations for the International Space Station (ISS) is an exercise in futility. Persistent maintenance, risk aversion, high ground support and logistics costs and a lack of scientific productivity have rendered the world's most expensive laboratory severely underutilized.

An alternate management paradigm for ISS operations, based upon an approach utilized by national, state and local governments for the maintenance of public infrastructure (e.g., roadways) is presented. These governments, instead of trying to become experts at estimating the costs of, planning for and conducting repairs and upkeep on this infrastructure, instead hire a commercial vendor to perform these …

Agency Input As A Policy Making Tool: Analyzing The Influence Of Agency Input On Presidential Policy Success In Congress, José Villalobos

José D. Villalobos

This study posits a theoretical framework for understanding the role and value of agency input in presidential legislative policy making. I assert that by employing agency input for policy development, presidents instill their proposals with a degree of bureaucratic objectivity, expertise, process transparency, and agency support, which aids their legislative passage while lowering the extent of changes made to policy substance in the process. To test my hypotheses, I conduct binary and ordered logistic regression analyses using pooled cross-sectional data across twelve administrations from 1949-2010. I find that agency input serves as a key component for increased presidential legislative success.

A Federalist George W. Bush And An Anti-Federalist Barack Obama? The Irony And Paradoxes Behind Republican And Democratic Administration Drug Policies, José Villalobos

José D. Villalobos

During President George W. Bush’s tenure in the White House, his administration stood clearly against state-level efforts in California and elsewhere to decriminalize soft drugs. Despite his loyalty to smaller government values and state sovereignty on other issues, the prospect of state-level drug decriminalization led Bush to pursue federal means of enforcing anti-drug laws. Years later, President Barack Obama, though known for his reputation as a federalist, shifted power over drug policy enforcement more towards the state level as a means to allow certain states to enact drug decriminalization policies at their will, particularly with respect to medicinal marijuana. The …

La Larga Marcha De Los Presidenciables, Augusto Reina, Maximo Reina

Augusto Reina

Tras el match electoral que supuso un revés para el gobierno nacional, ya circula la tentación de definir los candidatos presidenciales. Pero claro, todos las fuerzas que aspiren al poder en el 2015 tienen el desafío de ser sustentables por 18 meses. Esto es toda una panacea para la política argentina.

¿Cuántos de ellos tienen las capacidades para hacerlo? En este articulo, nos centramos en la larga marcha que deberán hacer los presidenciables. Haciendo un balance de su posición actual, sus ventajas comparativas y los desafíos a futuro.

Do We Have An Itar Problem: A Review Of The Implications Of Itar And Title Vii On Small Satellite Programs, Jeremy Straub, Joe Vacek

Jeremy Straub

The small satellite space certainly falls within the realm of ITAR considerations. Some programs operate under the (perhaps mistaken) belief that ITAR doesn’t apply to them (or that they will never be caught). Others may assert that they are working under the basic research exemption. Still others have implemented ITAR information and facility access controls. At best, ITAR introduces a level of uncertainty regarding small satellite programs; at worst, it may be a predator lurking in the proverbial ‘tall grass’ waiting to pounce. This paper reviews the current state of ITAR legislation (including efforts to reform and revise the law) …

Stemsat: An Iss Cubesat Program Based On Spare Parts, Anders Nervold, Josh Berk, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

With the national government’s focus on driving STEM-education, it is important to provide hands-on ave-nues where students can engage with, and accumulate ex-perience working directly with projects within their fields of interest. The Student Technology Emersion Satellite (STEMSat), provides an avenue for students to become in-volved in CubeSat design and development with only mi-nor hardware and monetary resources, and without being dependent on a launch.

STEMSats are CubeSat satellites that are created from spare parts, residual tools and equipment, obsolete mate-rials, and other types of trash aboard the ISS. A list of all the excess items available for such a …

From Cyber Terrorism To State Actors’ Covert Cyber Operations, Jan Kallberg, Bhavani Thuraisingham

Jan Kallberg

Historically, since the Internet started to become a common feature in our lives, hackers have been seen as a major threat. This view has repeatedly been entrenched and distributed by media coverage and commentaries through the years. Instead the first twenty year of the Internet was acceptably secure, due to the limited abilities of the attackers, compared to the threat generated from a militarized Internet with state actors conducting cyber operations. In reality, the Internet have a reversed trajectory for its security where it has become more unsafe over time and moved from a threat to the individual to a …

Nuclear Deterrence In A Second Obama Term, Adam Lowther, Jan Kallberg

Jan Kallberg

In the months prior to the 2012 presidential election in the United States, members of the Obama administration and sympathetic organizations inside the Beltway began floating the idea that the administration would pursue – after an Obama victory – further reductions in the US nuclear arsenal. With the ink still wet on the New ST ART Treaty, efforts to reduce the American arsenal to 1000 operationally deployed strategic nuclear weapons or, as some suggest, 500, is certainly premature. These efforts illustrate a poor understanding of nuclear deterrence theory and practice and the ramifications of a United States that lacks a …