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Full-Text Articles in Political Theory
Ascriptive Nationalism, Demagoguery, And The Modern Presidency: A Case Study In Constitutional Decay, Christopher J. Putney
Ascriptive Nationalism, Demagoguery, And The Modern Presidency: A Case Study In Constitutional Decay, Christopher J. Putney
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This study is an account of the modern presidency as a source––and under Donald Trump, an accelerant––of systemic problems in American politics. Against the prevailing scholarly view of the Trump presidency as an unqualified aberration, I argue that the signal features of his efforts at governance are actually the product of converging patterns of political and institutional order. Building on seminal (but previously disjointed) work on ascriptive Americanism and the rhetorical presidency, I show that Trump represents the political synthesis of America’s ascriptive tradition and a form of presidential leadership inaugurated more than a century ago by Woodrow Wilson. Moreover, …
What If Hillary Clinton Had Gone To Wisconsin? Presidential Campaign Visits And Vote Choice In The 2016 Election, Christopher J. Devine
What If Hillary Clinton Had Gone To Wisconsin? Presidential Campaign Visits And Vote Choice In The 2016 Election, Christopher J. Devine
Political Science Faculty Publications
Hillary Clinton’s failure to visit the key battleground state of Wisconsin in 2016 has become a popular metaphor for the alleged strategic inadequacies of her presidential campaign. Critics who cite this fact, however, make two important assumptions: that campaign visits are effective, in general, and that they were effective for Clinton in 2016. I test these assumptions using an original database of presidential and vice presidential campaign visits in 2016. Specifically, I regress party vote share on each candidate’s number of campaign visits, at the county level, first for all counties located within battleground states, and then for counties located …
The Rise Of Trump And The Death Of Civility, Keith Bybee
The Rise Of Trump And The Death Of Civility, Keith Bybee
Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media at Syracuse University
According to supporters and opponents alike, Donald Trump has been an unconventional candidate and president. In this article, I evaluate the relationship between Trump’s unconventional behavior and the requirements of civility. I provide a definition of civility, and I explain why it makes sense to relate Trump’s actions to civil norms. I then discuss how civility is enacted, I examine criticisms of civility’s triviality, and I explore the ways in which civility may repress dissent and maintain hierarchy. Although I consider the degree to which Trump’s actions are strategic, I ultimately argue that Trump’s incivilities should be understood as an …