Political Science Commons^™

Punishment Theory: Moral Or Political?, Guyora Binder

Journal Articles

This article argues that the justification of punishment is best conceived as a problem of political theory rather than moral philosophy. Noting the familiar charge that utilitarianism permits framing the innocent, it argues that retributivism is equally vulnerable to the charge that it permits lynching the guilty. It argues that both critiques unfairly attribute lawlessness and dishonesty to the respective punishment theories. As a result, they mischaracterize both as theories about what individuals should do, rather than what acts legitimate government should authorize. In so doing, they disregard how committed the founders of the respective theories were to the rule …

Natural Law And Public Reasons, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

In this Lecture I shall discuss the reasons that officials and citizens should rely upon in American politics. In recent years, various theorists have claimed that people in liberal democracies should rely in politics on "public reasons," reasons that are accessible to all citizens. Others have objected that such a counsel is unreasonable, if not incomprehensible. I shall concentrate on two facets of this issue. First, does the law exemplify a structure of public reasons – that is, do judges deciding cases draw on a stock of public reasons that is narrower than all the reasons one might give for …

Gender Contests, Susan Frelich Appleton

Scholarship@WashULaw

This contribution for the “Law, Ethics, and Gender in Medicine” column in the Journal of Gender Specific Medicine interrogates the understanding of gender itself, at a time when transgender and intersex issues were just beginning to “come out” in both popular culture and case law. Against this background, the column explores the roles that physicians have played in such gender contests and considers how evolving medical attitudes can help achieve reform.

Misunderstood, Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

E Pluribus Unum: The Aftermath Of September 11, Gerard V. Bradley

Journal Articles

September 11 forged an American unity not seen since Pearl Harbor. We shelved our political differences, put the culture war on simmer, and lost interest in celebrity scandal (think of Gary Condit). Americans rallied behind our Commander-in-Chief, and we agreed that our lives would never be the same. America’s vacation from history had ended, and we had forever lost our innocence and our perceived immunity from harm. When our Commander-in-Chief said that a return to “normalcy” would deny Bin Laden his victory, we rallied behind that, too.

Constitutional Design: Proposals Versus Processes, Donald L. Horowitz

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Positive Political Theory Of Cost-Benefit Analysis: A Comment On Johnston, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Clinton's Foreign Policy And The Politics Of Intervention: Cases Of Ethnic Cleansing And Democratic Governance, Daneta G. Billau

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the sources of U.S. President Bill Clinton's foreign policy, with special attention to understudied political elements of intervention. The basis of this study is the Clinton Doctrine, in which Clinton opposed ethnic cleansing, and supported democratic governance worldwide. The primary research question asks to what extent and why was there a variation in Clinton's application of his own doctrine in the specific cases of Rwanda in 1994, Haiti in 1994, and East Timor in 1999. To address this question, the following five hypotheses are posited:

H1: The more vital interests are at stake, and the closer the …

Comments On The Symposium: Expanding Research Opportunities On The Federal Criminal Justice System, Daniel C. Richman

Faculty Scholarship

A full understanding of how the federal enforcement bureaucracy will elude us without a rich understanding of what makes prosecutors (or agents) tick. However, I suspect that the best way to reach that goal is not to start with this ultimate question. After all, to look closer to home, what do professors “maximize” when they grade papers? Progress is much more likely to be made if we follow Jim Eisenstein and focus on, first, identifying the most salient features of the bureaucratic environment, and, second, getting a handle on their relative influences.

Democracy And Legitimation: A Response To Professor Guinier, Louis Michael Seidman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay is a response to Supreme Democracy: Bush v. Gore Redux, an essay by Lani Guinier (2002).

The author critiques Professor Lani Guinier’s essay through a discussion of the maldistribution of wealth in American society, which he argues is accepted by American people thanks to the existence complex structures that allow them to distance themselves from it. He discusses four legitimation structures as he critiques this essay.

Professor Guinier focuses on the belief in meritocracy. For our purposes, we might define a believer in meritocracy as someone who thinks that, in a given society, people get more or less …

Evaluating The Judges In Baton Rouge, Susan E. Howell

Survey Research Center Publications

The Baton Rouge Bar Association seeks to provide the public, lawyers, and the judges with some sort of evaluation of the judges in the Baton Rouge area. Since it is difficult for the public to obtain information on judges, the Bar Association relied on its own members and the members of the Louis Martinet Society to evaluate all judges, including city, state, and federal courts. Hopefully, the results will be useful to the public, the lawyers, and especially to the judges. Most judges can take satisfaction in the high regard with which they are held by the hundreds of lawyers …

Profiling Profiling And Suicidal Terrorism, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article describes chronic flaws in developing profiles that are intended to help prevent or minimize suicidal terrorism.

Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense As Obsession: A Psychological Hypothesis, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article presents a psychological rationale for extremely strong support of an anti-ballistic missile defense.

Is There A Conservative Case Against Racial Profiling?, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article analyzes contentions that a politically conservative case can be made against racial profiling.

Commentary On Psychological Warfare In The 21st Century, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article provides commentary on 21st century challenges--threats and opportunities--to the practice of psychological warfare.

21st-Century Crusades And Demonizing Islam: Commentary On Inderfuth, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article comments on public discourse transmitted through Western-financed mass media that attempts to demonize variants of Islam--e.g., that of the Taliban.

Equitable Compensation Act: Hearing Before The Committee On Indian Affairs United States Senate; One Hundred Seventh Congress, First Session On Federal Obligation To Equitable Compensation To The Fort Berthold And Standing Rock Reservations, United States Congress, Us Senate

US Government Documents Related to Indigenous Nations

This record, dated August 30, 2001, is a transcript of a follow-up hearing with the Three Affiliated Tribes and Standing Rock Nation to evaluate how the 1992 Equitable Compensation Act has served the tribes and if it has helped restore economic stability. Testimony from tribal members indicates that many promises made prior to the building of the dam were never met, that the promises were met were fulfilled 40-45 years after the dam was built, and, more importantly, that what was lost can never be compensated for with money. At the time of this hearing, the Three Affiliated Tribes were …

Biological Warfare: Commentary On Chyba's Analysis, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article provides commentary on Christopher Chyba's comparative analysis of biological and nuclear warfare.

Trends. Personnel Security And Counterintelligence: No Evidence Of Racial Bias As Racism, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article discusses the concepts of race and racial bias in the context of espionage investigations carried out by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Counter-Intelligence On Espionage In The People's Republic Of China, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article analyzes the consensual Western perception that many allegations of espionage made by the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) are violations of universal human rights.

Reefer Madness: How Voters Responded To Medicinal Marijuana Initiatives In The 1998 State Elections, Ryan E. Wood

Masters Theses

In recent years, a growing number of states have witnessed the passage of state initiatives that have authorized the medicinal use of marijuana. The medicinal marijuana movement has circumvented elected state legislatures by relying on an increasingly popular form of direct democracy - the direct initiative. This paper briefly examines the history and continuing legacy of illicit drugs and the initiative process in the context of the movement for medicinal marijuana. However, the primary focus of this study is to uncover the voter characteristics that influenced attitudes toward medicinal marijuana in the 1998 state elections. This paper uses Voter News …

The Role Of The Internet In Chinese Foreign And Domestic Affairs, Jean Bowman Leedy

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Problem: Rapid dissemination of Internet technology and the free access to information it affords poses a threat to non-democratic states that rely on control of information to maintain power and stability. This is of substantial concern to the Communist regime in The People's Republic of China due to the fact that its repressed population constitutes the fastest growing body of Internet users in the world.

Methods: This paper examines the potential impact of the Internet on Chinese foreign and domestic policy through interpretation of existing literature as it applies to the Internet, interviews with experts studying the emergence of China's …

Magic Treaties: Public Discourse On Ballistic Missile Defense, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article explores public discourse on the fate of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in the context of developing ballistic missile defenses.

Weapons As Weapons: Another Northern Ireland Impasse, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article explores the psychology of weapons possession in the context of political conflict in Northern Ireland.

Trends. Colombian Rebels And Elite Interests: Rights And Wrongs On Human Rights, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article discusses and analyzes the reactions of elites to rebel actions (e.g., human rights violations, other violent actions) in Colombia.

Revisiting The United States Hostage Negotiation Policy: An Academic Imperative. Part Ii, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article comes in two parts - the article and the notes.

Article abstract: To get hostages released without harm requires a national policy committed to that principle. With that in mind, there needs to be an understanding of the perpetrators' "objective view" of reality. These views have political, economic, psychological, cultural, ethno-religious and perceptual dimensions. Those multivariate dimensions of any hostage situation mandate policies that should be based on law enforcement and military perspectives, in order to be flexible enough to permit their consideration and continuously evaluate their national and international implications.

Part II: Notes and bibliography for Part …

Trends. A Peculiar Defense Logic: Why Terrorists Should Be Incarcerated Or Killed Without Trial, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The IBPP editor discusses the logic/rationale behind the idea that convicted terrorists facing the death penalty should neither convicted nor face said penalty given that the soldiers are (or consider themselves to be) soldiers in a war.

Personology, Profiling, And The Terrorist, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article identifies problems in common approaches to capturing the psychological essence of the terrorist.

Revisiting The United States Hostage Negotiation Policy: An Academic Imperative. Part I, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article comes in two parts - the article and the notes.

Article abstract: To get hostages released without harm requires a national policy committed to that principle. With that in mind, there needs to be an understanding of the perpetrators' "objective view" of reality. These views have political, economic, psychological, cultural, ethno-religious and perceptual dimensions. Those multivariate dimensions of any hostage situation mandate policies that should be based on law enforcement and military perspectives, in order to be flexible enough to permit their consideration and continuously evaluate their national and international implications.

Part II: Notes and bibliography for Part …

Politics, Childhood Sexual Abuse, And Science Abuse, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article explores the latest political developments concerning the scientific analysis of childhood sexual abuse.