Political Theory Commons^™

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.

Thin Vs. Thick Morality: Ethics And Gender In International Development Programs, Richard Ghere

Richard K. Ghere

This study examines the ethical dimensions of gender-focused international development initiatives undertaken by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and similar agencies. Specifically, it presents three case studies that depict how specific development initiatives in, respectively, India, Tanzania, and Senegal address gender disparities and power relationships. These case studies support the general conclusion that ethically committed development NGOs find difficulty in encouraging women (and men) to reverse oppressive power status-quos in messy contexts.

Government On The Silver Screen: Contemporary American Cinema’S Depiction Of Attractive, Capable Bureaucrats, Incompetent Cops, And Brave Soldiers, Michelle Pautz, Megan Warnement

Michelle Pautz

Movies continue to be the most accessible art form to Americans and that reach allows films to have a tremendous effect on moviegoers. With more than a billion movie tickets sold annually in the United States, the ability of movies to influence the perceptions of moviegoers is pronounced. Frequently, the government is part of those depictions. Although film is routinely studied in a host of disciplines, a focus on the portrayal of government generally and government officials more specifically, remains elusive. Instead of using a case-study approach, we examine recent, popular films to investigate how government is portrayed generally and …

Sarbanes-Oxley And The Relentless Pursuit Of Government Accountability: The Perils Of 21st Century Reform, Michelle Pautz, C. Washington

Michelle Pautz

In the wake of the corporate financial scandals of the late 1990s, Congress responded by passing the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act of 2002 to improve accountability of both the private sector and of government. Although discussions of accountability and Sarbanes‐Oxley are pertinent to both the public and private sectors, the authors focus on the attempts of the act to encourage government accountability through the creation of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. In a broader context, the passage of Sarbanes‐Oxley fits within public administration’s constant emphasis of reform—particularly those reforms under the rubric of New Public Management that are intended to promote …

The Regulatory Interactions Of Front-Line Environmental Regulators, Michelle Pautz, Sara Rinfret

Michelle Pautz

Faced with declining budgets, widespread enforcement problems, and an increasingly complex array of environmental challenges, regulators across the world are searching for new strategies to facilitate compliance with environmental laws. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has spearheaded these efforts with the introduction of its “Next Generation Compliance” initiative, through which the agency hopes to leverage information and technology to streamline enforcement procedures and strengthen compliance with federal environmental laws. Cynthia Giles, the Assistant Administrator for the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) has outlined five key elements of this initiative – rules with compliance built in, advanced …

Remembering The Regulators Themselves: Melding Administrative Procedures And Regulatory Theory, Michelle Pautz

Michelle Pautz

Review of Steven P. Croley, Regulation and Public Interests: The Possibility of Good Regulatory Government (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008).

Trust Between Regulators And The Regulated: A Case Study Of Environmental Inspectors And Facility Personnel In Virginia, Michelle Pautz

Michelle Pautz

The relationships between environmental inspectors and the facility personnel at regulated firms are often presumed to be adversarial, and this assumption affects the design and implementation of environmental regulations. However, closer examination of these relationships challenges this fundamental assumption of adversarial relations in environmental policy. Interviews with 44 inspectors and regulated officials throughout Virginia found that the interactions between these two categories of actors are positive. Over 90 percent of the interviewees were positive about their interactions with one another, and inspectors and regulated officials alike indicate that they trust the other. These findings are compelling because they contest common …

'Argo' And 'Zero Dark Thirty': Film, Government, And Audiences, Michelle Pautz

Michelle Pautz

With the prevalence and accessibility of film today, we must wonder how film affects its audience. In particular, how does film influence an audience’s perceptions of the government? Regardless of the content, research demonstrates that film has the power to shape perceptions of its moviegoers on a range of subjects. In this study, two recent films,Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, were chosen as case studies to explore how Hollywood portrays the intelligence community in film and shapes opinions about the government more broadly. This research found that about 25% of viewers of the two films changed their opinion about the …

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 …

Front-Line Regulators And Their Approach To Environmental Regulation In Southwest Ohio, Michelle Pautz

Michelle Pautz

Regulatory approaches and strategies are frequently the subject of study in various literatures, but that examination focuses on practices rather than looking more deeply at the nature of regulatory interactions. Also missing is a more thorough look at what it is front-line regulators—in this case, environmental inspectors and site coordinators—desire in their interactions and how they perceive their regulatory counterparts. Interviews with regulators in Southwest Ohio reveal that 82 percent of them think the regulated community intends to comply with regulations. Additionally, 71 percent of regulators say that their interactions are positive with the regulated community with three-quarters indicating that …

U.S. Environmental Policy In Action: Practice And Implementation, Sara Rinfret, Michelle Pautz

Michelle Pautz

This volume provides a comprehensive look at the creation, implementation, and evaluation of environmental policy, which is of particular importance in an era of congressional gridlock. With a focus grounded in the front lines of environmental policy, readers are afforded examples of how environmental policy works through case studies and voices sections, thereby enriching the text's practical approach to understanding contemporary American environmental policy.

Civil Servants On The Silver Screen: The Depiction Of Government In American And Australian Cinema, Michelle Pautz

Michelle Pautz

With the prevalence of government, it is unsurprising to find it frequently represented on the silver screen. But, with the ability of film to influence perceptions and attitudes, questions arise, including: how is government portrayed on the silver screen? Are government bureaucrats berated or praised? This research examines the representation of government—and civil servants in particular—in a comparative setting. The top 100 box office grossing films of all time in the United States and Australia were selected to address the question: how do these films in the United States and Australia depict government? This study analyzes these 200 films and …

Postindustrial Societies, Brian Hoey

Brian A. Hoey, Ph.D.

The term postindustrial society presupposes categorizing society based on an economic means of classification. Its use rests on assessing the relative status of manufacturing industry as an economic sector. Significant adjustment in sectoral location and nature of employment precipitated by late-twentieth-century deindustrialization in the developed world led many social theorists and critics to predict broad changes throughout domains of everyday life. Some began to speak not only of sectoral transformation but also of an emergent ‘ postindustrial society. ’ Following earlier agrarian and industrial ‘ revolutions, ’ postindustrialism suggested yet another revolution that would again transform how societies were organized.

A Quantum Congress, Jorge R. Roig

Jorge R Roig

Book Review: Policing And The Poetics Of Everyday Life., Rodger E. Broome Phd

Rodger E. Broome

Policing and the poetics of everyday life. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008. 256 pp. ISBN 978-0-252-03371-1 (cloth). $42.00. Policing and the Poetics of Everyday Life is a hermeneutical-aesthetic analysis within a human scientific approach of modern policing in the United States. It is an important study of police-citizen encounters informed by hermeneutic aesthetic thought and the author’s professional experience as a veteran with a Seattle area police department in Washington, USA.

The Mask Of Virtue: Theories Of Aretaic Legislation In A Public Choice Perspective, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Propaganda Or Diplomacy? 'Selling' Brand Australia, Stuart Murray

Stuart Murray

No abstract provided.

Reclaiming Egalitarianism In The Political Theory Of Campaign Finance Reform, Frank Pasquale

Frank A. Pasquale

Recent advocacy for campaign finance reform has been based on an ideal of the democratic process which is unrealistic and unhelpful. Scholars should instead return to its egalitarian roots. This article examines how deliberative democratic theory became the main justification for campaign finance reform. It exposes the shortcomings of this deliberativist detour and instead models campaign spending as an effort to commodify issue-salience. Given this dominant function of money in politics, a more effective paradigm for reform is equalizing influence. Advocates of campaign regulation should return to the original principles of reformers; not an idealized vision of the democratic process, …

A Turkish Spring Even If Different From The Arab Spring, Ahmed Souaiaia

Ahmed E SOUAIAIA

The wide-spreading protest movement in Turkey is bringing up the irresistible analogy: Taksim Square is for Turkey what Tahrir Square is for Egypt. Considering that Tahrir Square events were the extension of the protest movement that started it all from Tunisia, it follows that the turmoil in Turkey is similar to the so-called Arab Spring. But most observers and media analysts are dismissing Taksim Square movement arguing that Turkey’s uprising is not similar to the Arab Spring because Erdoğan and his party are democratically elected and that Erdoğan has governed over a period of unprecedented economic prosperity.

“Onde Está A Felicidade?", Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

Poderemos ser felizes? Passamos a maior parte do tempo a trabalhar, no emprego ou em casa, e em Portugal até dormimos cada vez menos. A aproximação à felicidade parece cada vez mais depender de como nos sentirmos no trabalho. E face à dura realidade, poderemos sonhar que todos sejam felizes no trabalho, ou tal será uma quimera?

“Onde Está A Felicidade?", Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

Poderemos ser felizes? Passamos a maior parte do tempo a trabalhar, no emprego ou em casa, e em Portugal até dormimos cada vez menos. A aproximação à felicidade parece cada vez mais depender de como nos sentirmos no trabalho. E face à dura realidade, poderemos sonhar que todos sejam felizes no trabalho, ou tal será uma quimera?

“Onde Está A Felicidade", Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

Poderemos ser felizes? Passamos a maior parte do tempo a trabalhar, no emprego ou em casa, e em Portugal até dormimos cada vez menos. A aproximação à felicidade parece cada vez mais depender de como nos sentirmos no trabalho. E face à dura realidade, poderemos sonhar que todos sejam felizes no trabalho, ou tal será uma quimera?

Gambling For Certainty: Luck, Chance, And Uncertainty In Politics, Mindy Peden, Nicole Rishel

Mindy Peden

How much of what we do is the result of our will, and how much the result of chance or luck or fortune? This is a decidedly un-decidable question, but one that needs to be asked. The general assumption seems to be that a person’s “lot” in life is physically, morally, politically, even romantically linked to choice. But the use of the term “lot” betrays the underlying uncertainty of what “causes” our “lot”, laying bare questions of responsibility, burden, and even explanation. Much (perhaps at the very least 50% according to Machiavelli) of what happens in our lives can be …

Crime Virtuoso, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

Neste artigo discute-se o que há de profundo e o que há de circunstancial na mania das fotocópias de livros e os problemas conexos da educação e da edição.

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 …

Citizen Responsibility For War In Imperfect Democracies, Lisa Rivera

Lisa Rivera

Are individual citizens of imperfect democracies morally responsible for unjust wars waged by their state? Moral responsibility for unjust wars involves both retrospective and social responsibility. Citizens of imperfect democracies are retrospectively responsible when they choose to vote for a leader they know will wage an unjust war. This situation may occur very rarely. For example, US citizens did not have this political option at the outset of the Vietnam and Iraq Wars. However, even when citizens are not retrospectively responsible they have the social responsibility to engage in collective action to address the harms unjust war causes.

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 …

Offensive Cyber: Superiority Or Stuck In Legal Hurdles?, Jan Kallberg

Jan Kallberg

In recent years, offensive cyber operations have attracted significant interest from the non-Defense Department academic legal community, prompting numerous articles seeking to create a legal theory for cyber conflicts. Naturally, cyber operations should be used in an ethical way, but the hurdles generated by the legal community are staggering. At a time when the United States has already lost an estimated $4 trillion in intellectual property as a result of foreign cyber espionage, not to mention the loss of military advantage, focusing on what the United States cannot do in cyberspace only hinders efforts to defend the country from future …

Para Uma Desconstrução Social E Política, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

Feira de vaidades, sociedade de enganos, mundo de aparências, a pólis em tempo de crise profunda mostra rostos que não são a sua alma, se é que ainda a tem (e não a vendeu já: por exemplo ao diabo). É preciso olhar raio X para ver através das cortinas de fumo quando, na comunidade política, por um lado se quer parecer o que se não é, ou meramente se pretende demostrar o que se pensa, sem se ter já qualquer veleidade de alterar o que está aí. Quando as consciências morais - ou quem a tal aspire - se limitam …