Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Politics

Discipline
Institution
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 1441 - 1470 of 1909

Full-Text Articles in Law

Race Against The Machine: An Argument For The Standardization Of Voting Technology, Jason Belmont Conn Jul 2005

Race Against The Machine: An Argument For The Standardization Of Voting Technology, Jason Belmont Conn

ExpressO

In this article/note, I examine a lingering question from the court cases arising out of the 2000 election: Does Bush v. Gore and the relevant equal protection case law open the door for a legal challenge to a state’s use of different voting machines/technologies and how do racial disparities in machine error rates impact this analysis? In addition to reviewing the current literature and case law on voting machine standardization, I also present an unrecognized and undocumented connection between the “all deliberate speed” order in Brown and the Court’s discussion of voting technology in Bush v. Gore.

Go to article

O'Connor Retirement Creates “High Drama,” Says Illinois Wesleyan Political Scientist, University Communications, Illinois Wesleyan University Jul 2005

O'Connor Retirement Creates “High Drama,” Says Illinois Wesleyan Political Scientist, University Communications, Illinois Wesleyan University

News and Events (Discontinued Series)

No abstract provided.

Go to article

The Chief Prosecutor, Sai Prakash Jun 2005

The Chief Prosecutor, Sai Prakash

University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series

Since Watergate, legal scholars have participated in a larger debate about the President’s constitutional relationship to prosecutions. In particular, many legal scholars sought to debunk the received wisdom that prosecution was an executive function subject to presidential control. Revisionist scholars cited early statutes and practices meant to demonstrate that early presidents lacked control over prosecution. Among other things, scholars asserted that early presidents could not control either the federal district attorneys or the popular prosecutors who brought qui tam suits to enforce federal law. In fact, many of the revisionist claims are wrong and others are beside the point. Despite …

Go to article

Judicial Citation To Legislative History: Contextual Theory And Empirical Analysis, Michael B. Abramowicz, Emerson H. Tiller May 2005

Judicial Citation To Legislative History: Contextual Theory And Empirical Analysis, Michael B. Abramowicz, Emerson H. Tiller

Law and Economics Papers

Judge Leventhal famously described the invocation of legislative history as "the equivalent of entering a crowded cocktail party and looking over the heads of the guests for one's friends." The volume of legislative history is so great and varied, some contend, that judges cite it selectively to advance their policy agendas. In this article, we employ positive political and contextual theories of judicial behavior to examine how judges use legislative history. We consider whether opinion-writing judges, as Judge Leventhal might suggest, cite legislative history from legislators who share the same political-ideological perspective as the opinion-writing judge? Or do judges make …

Go to article

Judicial Citation To Legislative History: Contextual Theory And Empirical Analysis, Michael B. Abramowicz, Emerson H. Tiller May 2005

Judicial Citation To Legislative History: Contextual Theory And Empirical Analysis, Michael B. Abramowicz, Emerson H. Tiller

Public Law and Legal Theory Papers

Judge Leventhal famously described the invocation of legislative history as "the equivalent of entering a crowded cocktail party and looking over the heads of the guests for one's friends." The volume of legislative history is so great and varied, some contend, that judges cite it selectively to advance their policy agendas. In this article, we employ positive political and contextual theories of judicial behavior to examine how judges use legislative history. We consider whether opinion-writing judges, as Judge Leventhal might suggest, cite legislative history from legislators who share the same political-ideological perspective as the opinion-writing judge? Or do judges make …

Go to article

What Is Legal Doctrine, Emerson Tiller, Frank B. Cross May 2005

What Is Legal Doctrine, Emerson Tiller, Frank B. Cross

Public Law and Legal Theory Papers

Legal doctrine is the currency of the law. In many respects, doctrine is the law, at least as it comes from courts. Judicial opinions create the rules or standards that comprise legal doctrine. Yet the nature and effect of legal doctrine has been woefully understudied. Researchers from the legal academy and from political science departments have conducted extensive research on the law, but they have largely ignored the others’ efforts. Part of the reason for this unfortunate disconnect is that neither has effectively come to grips with the descriptive meaning of legal doctrine. In this article, we attempt to describe …

Go to article

Turning Gold Into Epg: Lessons From Low-Tech Democratic Experimentalism For Electronic Rulemaking And Other Ventures In Cyberdemocracy , Peter M. Shane May 2005

Turning Gold Into Epg: Lessons From Low-Tech Democratic Experimentalism For Electronic Rulemaking And Other Ventures In Cyberdemocracy , Peter M. Shane

The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Working Paper Series

Empowered Participatory Governance, or EPG, is a model of governance developed by Archon Fung and Erik Olin Wright that seeks to connect a set of normative commitments for strengthening democracy with a set of institutional design prescriptions intended to meet that objective. It is derived partly from democratic theory and partly from the study of real-world attempts to institutionalize transformative strategies for democratizing social and political decision making. This paper reviews Fung and Wright's recent volume, Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance, and considers the relevance of the authors' and other contributors' insights for the future of a …

Go to article

The Wrongful Rejection Of Big Theory (Marxism) By Feminism And Queer Theory: A Brief Debate, Dana Neacsu May 2005

The Wrongful Rejection Of Big Theory (Marxism) By Feminism And Queer Theory: A Brief Debate, Dana Neacsu

ExpressO

Post modern thought has fought meta-narrative into derision. "[I]f you lick my nipple," as Michael Warner remarked, "the world suddenly seems insignificant," and of course, identity becomes more than a cultural trait. It becomes "the performance of desire." It becomes a place of "ideological contestation over need," or, in other words, an ideology that demands "legitimacy for its desire." However, meta-narratives talk about desire too. For example, Marx talked about the desire caused by the never-ending production of commodities. Thus, if, at first sight, it may seem that identity politics and Marxism have very little in common, that may not …

Go to article

The European Neighborhood Policy And Its Impact On The Israel - European Union - United States Triangle, Guy Harpaz May 2005

The European Neighborhood Policy And Its Impact On The Israel - European Union - United States Triangle, Guy Harpaz

San Diego International Law Journal

This Article is not intended to deal with the feasibility of successfully implementing the [European Neighbourhood Policy] ENP, nor does it address its normative aspects from the European perspective. Instead, this article assumes that the parties will successfully implement the ENP, and on the basis of that assumption, attempts to provide a first, critical and interdisciplinary examination of the potentially significant impact of the ENP on the legal, economic, social, and trade landscape of the State of Israel, her citizens, economy, and on her relations with the EU and the United States.

Go to article

Judging The Law Of Politics, Guy-Uriel Charles May 2005

Judging The Law Of Politics, Guy-Uriel Charles

Michigan Law Review

Election law scholars are currently engaged in a vigorous debate regarding the wisdom of judicial supervision of democratic politics. Ever since the Court's 1962 decision in Baker v. Carr, the Court has increasingly supervised a dizzying array of election-related matters. These include the regulation of political parties, access to electoral ballots, partisanship in electoral institutions, the role of race in the design of electoral structures, campaign financing, and the justifications for limiting the franchise. In particular, and as a consequence of the Court's involvement in the 2000 presidential elections in Bush v. Gore, a central task of election …

Go to article

Moving From Impunity To Accountability In Post-War Liberia: Possibilities, Cautions, And Challenges, Rena L. Scott Apr 2005

Moving From Impunity To Accountability In Post-War Liberia: Possibilities, Cautions, And Challenges, Rena L. Scott

ExpressO

Liberia has become the quintessential example of an African failed state. Though Liberia’s civil war is officially over, war criminals are free and some are even helping run the transitional government under the authority of Liberia’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). This peace agreement calls for the consideration of a general amnesty for those involved in the Liberian civil war alongside the parceling of governmental functions among members of various rebel groups. The drafters of the agreement claim that this was the only viable solution for sustainable peace in Liberia. Meanwhile, Charles Taylor relaxes in Nigeria’s resort city of Calabar. To …

Go to article

The End Of American Democracy?, Bruce Ledewitz Apr 2005

The End Of American Democracy?, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

Go to article

Out Of Bounds: San Francisco's Homeless Policies, Alexandra Flynn Apr 2005

Out Of Bounds: San Francisco's Homeless Policies, Alexandra Flynn

ExpressO

Homelessness, both a legal and public policy issue, has dominated the City of San Francisco government agenda for over fifteen years. Despite the front-and-center nature of homelessness, the policies enacted have done little to reduce the count. This paper, first, presents San Francisco’s new approach to the issue; namely, the creation of a new and far more limited class of “chronically homeless” persons. This first section includes an examination of the causes of homelessness, the physical alienation of homeless persons through “quality of life” laws, and recent policy initiatives used to social exclude the bulk of homeless persons by limiting …

Go to article

Constitutionalism Through The Looking Glass Of Latin America, Miguel Schor Apr 2005

Constitutionalism Through The Looking Glass Of Latin America, Miguel Schor

ExpressO

This Article explores the following question: why did constitutionalism in Latin America take a different path than in the United States? Constitutions were adopted throughout the New World in the wake of independence movements in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to effectuate republican government. Yet constitutionalism in Latin America led to dictatorship whereas constitutionalism in the United States led to republican government. The conventional answer to this issue is that the constitution was entrenched in the United States because law is independent from politics, whereas constitutions were not entrenched in Latin America because politics trumped constitutions. This Article …

Go to article

The Hydraulics And Politics Of Party Regulation, Michael S. Kang Mar 2005

The Hydraulics And Politics Of Party Regulation, Michael S. Kang

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Brown’S Legacy: The Promises And Pitfalls Of Judicial Relief, Deborah Jones Merritt Mar 2005

Brown’S Legacy: The Promises And Pitfalls Of Judicial Relief, Deborah Jones Merritt

The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Working Paper Series

Brown v. Board of Education marked a turning point for both civil rights and judicial activism. During the half century since Brown, social activists of all kinds have sought policy changes from the courts rather than legislatures. That trend has produced social benefits but, over time, it has also shifted political power to elites. This essay explores the possibility of retaining Brown's promise for racial equality while reinvigorating an electoral politics that would better represent many of the people Brown intended to benefit.

Go to article

Hijacked Justice: Domestic Appropriation Of International Norms, Jelena Subotić Mar 2005

Hijacked Justice: Domestic Appropriation Of International Norms, Jelena Subotić

Human Rights & Human Welfare

This paper explores the domestic politics of international norm diffusion, using the global transmission of transitional justice norms as the empirical context of the research. Applying sociological institutionalism as the principal theoretical framework, I argue that the motivation of states to adopt international models of transitional justice has changed over time. The transitional justice norm - that posits that war crimes and massive human rights abuses must be dealt with in a proper legal setting and not through “victors’ justice” or impunity - was institutionalized in large part as the result of a strong domestic demand for transitional justice in …

Go to article

The Expansion Of Intellectual Property Rights By International Agreement: A Case Study Comparing Chile And Australia’S Bilateral Fta Negotiations With The U.S., Ralph G. Fischer Mar 2005

The Expansion Of Intellectual Property Rights By International Agreement: A Case Study Comparing Chile And Australia’S Bilateral Fta Negotiations With The U.S., Ralph G. Fischer

ExpressO

This paper attempts to address the ongoing debate regarding the expansion of intellectual property rights (IPRs) through international negotiations. Commentators have described three theories that purport to explain the growing scope of IPRs in international law, as reflected in international agreements: that these agreements reflect coercion by economically powerful nations; that they are the products of lobbying by multinational corporations; and that they represent autonomous, welfare-enhancing instruments that benefit all parties. The article tests these theories by using a case study comparing free trade agreement negotiations that the United States recently concluded with a less developed country, Chile, and with …

Go to article

Looking Back Without Anger: Reflections On The Boston School Crisis, Robert Wood Mar 2005

Looking Back Without Anger: Reflections On The Boston School Crisis, Robert Wood

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article is taken from the unpublished autobiography of Robert Wood who served as Superintendent of Boston Public Schools from 1978 to 1980 during the difficult period when U.S. District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity was overseeing court ordered desegregation of schools. After leaving the University of Massachusetts in January 1978, Robert Wood spent six months at the Harvard Graduate School of Education working on a book and considering a possible run for the United States Senate. Suggestion as to his next assignment, however, came from an unexpected source, as he describes below.

Go to article

The Travels Of Our Bodies, Ourselves, Jane Pincus Mar 2005

The Travels Of Our Bodies, Ourselves, Jane Pincus

New England Journal of Public Policy

The women’s health book, Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book by and for Women, was first printed in 1970 by the small, radical New England Free Press. Published by the group of women soon too become the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, it was advertised solely by word of mouth. Successive newsprint editions reached a quarter of a million people in the United States through colleges and an extensive network of “underground” bookstores. The book placed female sexuality firmly within the framework of women’s health and combined vividly experienced medical encounters with available health and medical information. It critiqued prevailing cultural …

Go to article

Book Review: Madam Secretary, Dru Stevenson Mar 2005

Book Review: Madam Secretary, Dru Stevenson

ExpressO

Review of Madeline Albright's Memoirs

Go to article

The Opacity Of Transparency, Mark Fenster Mar 2005

The Opacity Of Transparency, Mark Fenster

ExpressO

The normative concept of transparency, along with the open government laws that purport to create a transparent public system of governance promise the world—a democratic and accountable state above all, and a peaceful, prosperous, and efficient one as well. But transparency, in its role as the theoretical justification for a set of legal commands, frustrates all parties affected by its ambiguities and abstractions. The public’s engagement with transparency in practice yields denials of reasonable requests for essential government information, as well as government meetings that occur behind closed doors. Meanwhile, state officials bemoan the significantly impaired decision-making processes that result …

Go to article

Water Justice In South Africa: Natural Resources Policy At The Intersection Of Human Rights, Economics, & Political Power, Rose Francis Mar 2005

Water Justice In South Africa: Natural Resources Policy At The Intersection Of Human Rights, Economics, & Political Power, Rose Francis

ExpressO

This paper analyzes water as a social justice issue in South Africa, a nation that has undergone tremendous political and legal transformations over the last fifteen years, but whose population nonetheless continues to suffer from severe inequities in access to freshwater resources. In light of growing water scarcity worldwide, this paper highlights that legal treatment of water resources has significant socioeconomic and distributive justice impacts, even in progressive constitutional democracies that have embraced principles of human rights and international legal norms. The paper explores historical changes in South African water law and evaluates the current political and legal status of …

Go to article

State Legislation As A Fulcrum For Change: Wisconsin's Public Sector Labor Law, And The Revolution In Politics And Worker Rights, Joseph E. Slater Mar 2005

State Legislation As A Fulcrum For Change: Wisconsin's Public Sector Labor Law, And The Revolution In Politics And Worker Rights, Joseph E. Slater

ExpressO

The rise of public sector unions is one of the most significant but least examined movements for legal rights and social change. Through the 1950s, government employees typically had no right to bargain collectively or even to organize unions–rights often regarded as fundamental human rights–and public sector unions were small and relatively powerless. Yet today, unions represent more than 40 percent of all public workers, government employees make up about 40 percent of the entire U.S. labor movement, and public sector unions are among the strongest political advocacy groups in the country. This became possible only through a revolution of …

Go to article

Social Security, Generational Justice, And Long-Term Deficits, Neil H. Buchanan Mar 2005

Social Security, Generational Justice, And Long-Term Deficits, Neil H. Buchanan

Rutgers Law School (Newark) Faculty Papers

This paper assesses current methods for evaluating the long-term viability and desirability of government activities, especially Social Security and other big-ticket budget items. I reach four conclusions: (1) There are several simple ways to improve the current debate about fiscal policy by adjusting our crude deficit measures, improvements which ought not to be controversial, (2) Separately measuring Social Security’s long-term balance is inappropriate and misleading, (3) The methods available to measure very long-term government financing (Fiscal Gaps and their cousins, Generational Accounts) are of very limited value in setting public policy today, principally because there is no reliable baseline of …

Go to article

Standards Of The Supreme Court, John Cornyn Mar 2005

Standards Of The Supreme Court, John Cornyn

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Race, Trust, Altruism, And Reciprocity, George W. Dent Jr. Mar 2005

Race, Trust, Altruism, And Reciprocity, George W. Dent Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Judicial Confirmation Wars: Ideology And The Battle For The Federal Courts, Sheldon Goldman Mar 2005

Judicial Confirmation Wars: Ideology And The Battle For The Federal Courts, Sheldon Goldman

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Judicial Selection As . . . Talk Radio, Michael J. Gerhardt Mar 2005

Judicial Selection As . . . Talk Radio, Michael J. Gerhardt

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Go to article

A Positive Theory Of The War Powers Constitution, Jide O. Nzelibe Feb 2005

A Positive Theory Of The War Powers Constitution, Jide O. Nzelibe

ExpressO

This Article explores the division of war-making authority between the President and Congress through the prism of positive political theory. For the most part, the scholarly treatment of the war-powers debate has been normative with various commentators offering various textual or functional accounts of what the proper allocation of war-making authority should be. This Article provides a positive account of the war-making powers by focusing on the domestic political constraints that the political branches face in the context of an imminent international crisis. This Article argues that the presidential decision to seek congressional authorization is determined by a two-level strategic …

Go to article

First Prev Next Last