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The Uncertain Future Of A 'New Type' Of Us-China Relationship　不透明な「新型」米中関係の未来, Mel Gurtov

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

President Xi Jinping's call for a "new type of great-power relationship" in meetings in 2013 with President Obama raises important questions about the future of US-China relations. On the surface, it appeared that the two leaders were on the same page. At the June summit, Obama agreed with Xi that "working together cooperatively" and bringing US-China relations "to a new level" were sound ideas. When the G-20 countries convened at St. Petersburg in September, Obama said of Xi’s proposed new model: "we agreed to continue to build a new model of great power relations based on practical cooperation and constructively …

Trapping The Tigers: Regulation Of Market Entry And The Rule Of Law In Se Asia, Michael Touchton

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent research identifies high barriers to registering a business as critical impediments to economic development around the world. Similarly, the lack of credible commitment to the rule of law – especially in the areas of property rights and contract enforcement – is also connected to economic underdevelopment. Scholarship treats these factors as rival explanations for underdevelopment. However, I argue the rule of law is the causal mechanism through which barriers to entry in the marketplace influence economic outcomes. Specifically, I present evidence perceptions of the rule of law in Southeast Asia decline as the legal restrictions on registering a business …

Human Development Dynamics: An Agent Based Simulation Of Macro Social Systems And Individual Heterogeneous Evolutionary Games, Mark Abdollahian, Zining Yang, Travis Coan, Birol Yesilada

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose: In the context of modernization and development, a complex adaptive systems framework can help address the coupling of macro social constraint and opportunity with individual agency. Combining system dynamics and agent based modeling, we formalize a simulation approach of the Human Development (HD) perspective to explore the interactive effects of economics, culture, society and politics across multiple human scales.

Methods: Based on a system of asymmetric, coupled nonlinear equations, we first capture the core qualitative logic of HD theory, empirically validated from World Values Survey (WVS) data. Using a simple evolutionary game approach, second we fuse endogenously derived individual …

The True Origin Of Society: The Founders On The Family, Scott Yenor

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the past century, no institution has come under more sustained assault than the family. Radical feminists disparaged the traditional family as a remnant of patriarchy and a threat to autonomy and romantic love, allowing contemporary liberals to redefine the ends of marriage in terms of self-fulfillment and personal growth. While the findings of social science and the teachings of religion lend support to the family, we turn to the American Founders for a stronger, principled defense of traditional marriage and the family. The Founders understood that the family, with the commitment of marriage needed to sustain it, is uniquely …

Does Patronage Matter? Connecting Influences On Judicial Appointments With Judicial Decision Making, Lori Hausegger, Troy Riddell, Matthew Hennigar

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The federal government's power to appoint judges has come under increased scrutiny in recent years. While many suggest that partisan affiliation, gender and professional background may be influencing the Canadian appointment process, and some have called into question the fairness of such influences, little attention has been directed at determining whether these characteristics influence the outcome of cases. This paper studies decisions made by the Ontario Court of Appeal between 1990 and 2003 and uses a unique measure of partisan affiliation in an attempt to answer the question: do characteristics which play a role in the appointment process influence judicial …

Putting Our Best Boots Forward: Us Military Deployments And Host-Country Crime, Michael A. Allen, Michael E. Flynn

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The deployment of military forces abroad has been a major component of the US’s grand strategy since the beginning of the Cold War. However, some scholars have argued that the presence of US military personnel abroad creates a series of negative externalities afflicting local communities. We put some of these claims to the test by looking at the effect of US military deployments on crime rates in the host-state. Using cross-national crime statistics from the United Nations and data on US troop deployments, we examine whether US military deployments are associated with higher levels of criminal activity across a large …

Idaho State Budgeting: Finding The “New Normal”, Dick Kinney

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

In 2009 and 2010, when Idaho policymakers experienced major economic problems and scarcer revenues, they approved major spending reductions. More recently, as the state’s economy and revenues have been improving, policymakers have sought to establish the “new normal” for Idaho state budgeting. To discern what this new normal may entail, this paper examines the governor’s budget recommendations and the legislature’s appropriation actions for Fiscal Year 2013. It briefly describes Idaho’s people, politics, and budgeting process. After discussing developments in Idaho’s economy and General Fund revenues, it reports on the governor’s budget recommendations and the legislature’s actions. It then considers impacts …

Political Performance, Leadership, And Regional Integration In Europe: An Examination Of The French And German Roles, Gaspare M. Genna, Birol Yesilada, Peter Andrew Noordijk

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Prior research on a regional leader’s role in the deepening of regional integration assumes that economic power translates directly into political capabilities. Relative political capacity among states is central to the creation and deepening of regional integration since it is this capacity that smoothes out the transition from a closed to an open economy. Should a state have low levels of this capacity but desire openness, it will partner with regional leaders given the leaders’ higher relative political capacity. However, the leaders’ subsidy of a partner’s capacity comes at a price. The leaders would trade political capacity for forming a …

Myth, Memory And The Reagan Legacy: Taxes And The Gop, Michael Espinoza

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

The Dangers Of Diversity: Ethnic Fractionalization And The Rule Of Law, Michael Touchton

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Research linking ethnic cleavages to economic underdevelopment is a hallmark of recent efforts to explain economic growth. Similarly, the rule of law as a credible commitment to property rights and contract enforcement is also identified with economic development. Rather than treating these factors as rival explanations for economic development around the world, I propose the rule of law as the causal mechanism through which ethnic fractionalization (EF) influences growth in many countries. I argue ethnic diversity negatively impacts the rule of law due to the prevalence of ethnically-based patronage networks in developing countries. Public officials, I argue, face greater incentives …

Stability And Instability In Third World Security Complexes: The Role Of Arms Transfers, David Todd Kinsella

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Controversy surrounds the alleged effects of foreign arms transfers on belligerency: do they precipitate international conflict, as some critics suggest, or do they promote stability by reinforcing deterrence, as others maintain? This paper examines the connection between arms transfers to the Third World and the occurrence of interstate conflict, including militarized disputes, from the end of World War II until the early 1990s. My analysis indicates that, in the aggregate, arms transfers almost uniformly contributed to subsequent instability within security complexes located in various regions of the Third World, but that the effects of American versus Russian arms supplies often …

Power Transition Theory And The Global Arms Trade: Exploring Constructs From Social Network Analysis, David Todd Kinsella

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Structural dimensions of the international system are key elements in power transition theory. Most theoretical applications to date have examined the distribution of power, and fluctuations in that distribution, as a precursor to global and regional warfare. Somewhat less attention has been paid to the coalitional structure of the international system in applied research. In this paper I suggest that certain concepts from power transition theory, including those that rely on information about alliance membership, might also be operationalized by examining the global arms trade using tools developed for social network analysis (SNA). I focus in particular on the SNA …

Preemption, Prevention, And Jus Ad Bellum, Craig L. Carr, David Todd Kinsella

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

In The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, released one year after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration asserted that “we must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries.” The administration’s reconceptualization has triggered an intense debate within academic and policymaking circles about the legal and ethical distinction (if any) between anticipatory and precautionary self-defense, and thus preemptive and preventive warfare. We begin by examining the present status on international law on the question of anticipatory self-defense. We then consider how the formative texts on international law—especially the writings of …

The Illicit Arms Trade In Asia: A Social Network Analysis, David Todd Kinsella

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

In recent years, researchers have increasingly turned their attention to the proliferation of small arms and light weapons. Small arms are difficult to track and are not the stuff of military parades, but they are immensely destructive. In addition to what is already circulating, a substantial percentage of what is newly produced enters the black market and is destined for conflict zones across the globe. I argue that the illicit trade in small arms should be understood not as a market but as a network, one that shares some important properties with networked forms of organization studied by sociologists. I …

The Necessity Of Changing What Is Possible: Implementing Large-Scale Wildlands Protection, David Johns

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Presentation on the Wildlands Project approach to conservation

Economic Development And Gender Equality: Is There A Gender Kuznets Curve?, Joshua Eastin, Aseem Prakash

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

This research note examines the relationship between economic development and gender equality. Drawing on the concept of the Kuznets curve, the authors hypothesize that the relationship between economic development and gender inequality is curvilinear (S shaped), with three distinct stages. In the first stage, economic development improves gender equality because it enables greater female labor-force participation. An independent income stream increases women's intrahousehold bargaining power. The opportunity to develop human capital confers greater political and social recognition. In the second stage, labor-force stratification and gender discrimination encourage divergent male/female income trajectories, which decrease the opportunity costs of female labor-force withdrawal …

L’Âge Des Incertitudes. Essais Sur Le Fédéralisme Et La Diversité Nationale, D’Alain-G. Gagnon, Québec, Les Presses De L’Université Laval, 2011, 210 P. (Review), Alexandre Couture Gagnon

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Pharmaceuticals, Political Money, And Public Policy: A Theoretical And Empirical Agenda, Paul D. Jorgensen

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Congress has consistently failed to solve some serious problems with the cost, effectiveness, and safety of pharmaceuticals. In part, this failure results from the pharmaceutical industry convincing legislators to define policy problems in ways that protect industry profits. By targeting campaign contributions to influential legislators and by providing them with selective information, the industry manages to displace the public’s voice in developing pharmaceutical policy.

“Reinventing” Higher Education: Symbolism, Sloganeering, And Subjectivity In The Lone Star State, Staci M. Zavattaro, Terence Garrett

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Higher education is part and parcel of a market spectacle (Debord 1967/1994; Garrett and Sementelli 2012) that follows some prescriptions of reinventing government (Osborne and Gaebler 1993), essentially charging these institutions with inefficient operations and minimal customer service standards. Following the “reinventing government” qua business model, any semblance of public service (Denhardt and Denhardt 2007) – now including public colleges and universities – that ignores “customers” is under attack. While governance values shifted with these business-based movements (Box, et al 2001), higher education values, too, have moved universities from producing academic capital to economic capital (Naidoo and Jamieson 2005).