Political Science Commons^™

Politics, Rights, And The Refugee Problem, Richard Dagger

Political Science Faculty Publications

In The Origins of Totalitarianism, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt pointed to the years between World War I and World War II as the time when the plight of refugees became a pressing political problem.' If Arendt were still alive (she died in 1975), she would no doubt agree that the problem is at least as pressing in the early twenty-first century as it was sixty or more years ago, when she herself was a refugee from Nazi Germany. Who would not agree? According to a report of the U.N. Population Division, 16 million people were refugees at the …

When Democracies Fight: Tocqueville On The Democratic Peace, Steven Michels

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

Do democratic norms and political culture play a greater role than structural determinants in realizing a democratic peace? Alexis de Tocqueville, a hitherto unappreciated theorist of international politics, offered such a view 175 years ago. This article examines Tocqueville's perspective on civil-military relations and the connection between democracy and peace. Tocqueville concludes that the key to the pacifism of a democracy is the equality of conditions it enjoys and the education that its soldiers receive prior to entering the military. Thus, in Tocqueville's estimation, the democratic peace has little to do with the practice of democracy, and everything to do …

Democracy And Its Friendly Critics: Tocqueville And Political Life Today (Book Review), Steven Michels

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

Book review by Steven Michels.

Lawler, Peter Augustine, ed. Democracy and Its Friendly Critics: Tocqueville and Political Life Today. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2004. ISBN 9780739107614; 9780739107621 (pbk.)

From Social Involvement To Nonviolent Political Struggle, Benjamin T. Tolosa Jr

Political Science Department Faculty Publications

First book on the Ateneo de Manila during martial law, reliving memories of the university from 1972 to 1982, shedding light on what used to be whispered stories of campus subversion and student arrests. Contains vignettes from former students, faculty, administrators, professionals, and Jesuits. Has an appendix of relevant documents that are often difficult to access.

The Democratic Fatwa: Islam And Democracy In The Realm Of Constitutional Politics, Noah Feldman

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Autonomy, Domination, And The Republican Challenge To Liberalism, Richard Dagger

Political Science Faculty Publications

Like Sunstein and other advocates of 'republican' or 'civic' liberalism, I believe that it is historically unsound and politically unwise to insist on a sharp distinction between liberalism and republicanism. Others disagree, however, and there is much to be learned from their position even if, ultimately, we should not adopt it. Those who take this more radical neo-republican view advance two main lines of argument: first, that the liberal emphasis on neutrality and procedural fairness is fundamentally at odds with the republican commitment to promoting civic virtue; and, second, that republicans and liberals conceive of liberty or freedom in incompatible …

Trust (And Social Capital) In Cultural Theory, Marco Verweij

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Judging Partisan Gerrymanders Under The Elections Clause, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

Twice in the last two decades, the Supreme Court has come within two votes of declaring partisan gerrymandering – the manipulation of district lines for partisan ends – a nonjusticiable political question. Last Term, in Vieth v. Jubelirer, Pennsylvania Democrats challenged an alleged Republican gerrymander of the state's congressional districts. Four members of the Court thought the question nonjusticiable, and one, Justice Kennedy, thought it justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause but nonetheless rejected the plaintiffs claims. Eighteen years earlier, in Davis v. Bandemer, a three-Justice plurality had held that a political group complaining of partisan gerrymandering – the Democratic …

Remembering The Future: Utopia, Empire And Harmony In 21st Century International Theory, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Using a comparative approach to international relations theory, this article examines how ancient ideas are being recycled to describe world order in the 21st century. In particular, it provides a thick description of three models of utopia in global politics - Great Harmony and Harmony-with-difference from China, and Empire from Hardt and Negri. Using an unexplored set of Chinese-language texts, the article first excavates how Communist Party intellectuals in China have been writing about the ancient Confucian ideal of Great Harmony as a way of promoting the Peoples Republic of Chinas role as a Great Power in the 21st century. …

The Politic 2004 Fall, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

Land Values As A Source Of Local Government Finance, Tom Dunne

Books/Book Chapters

Funding local government has been a permanent feature of debates about public policy in Ireland and Many feel that the balance of power between local and central government is weighted too much in

This paper suggests that the concept of economic rent, on which the justification for property taxes rests and its relevance to the property market in a modern, economically successful and urbanised Ireland, needs to be vented, discussed and debated.

The proposition is that if a greater understanding was created about the economic characteristics of landed property both value capture and local property taxes would achieve greater public …

Portals To Knowledge: Confluence And Conflict Between Enlightenment And Postmodern Currencies, Benjamin G. Lanier-Nabors

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[Editors' Introduction]

In order to provide any viable critique of twenty-first-century discourses -- whether signified by late capitalism, epistemological hegemony, cultural domination, or globalization (the catch-word for all of these) -- one must not employ an ahistorical or static lens; alternatively, one must dredge up and analyze the sediments that underlie current discourses, and many of these sediments are found in the eighteenth century. More specifically, by reading the thoughts of such writers as Joseph Addison and Jonathan Swift, one is forced to read the links and antipathies between the discursive economies of epistemology -- philosophical, scientific, and economic -- …

Politik Luar Negeri Indonesia: Pantulan Dari 'Weak State' Dan Masa Transisi Yang Berkepanjangan, Zainuddin Djafar

Global: Jurnal Politik Internasional

Evaluation of Indonesian foreign policy leads us to assess the following: Firstly, since the Soeharto era we have had close relations with the Western countries, we have enjoyed billions of US dollars of loans, held technical co-operations in various aspects, we have oil reserves, LNG and other potential natural sources; but as a result of the multidimensional crises in 1997-1999, our economic and business activities, as well as financial and banking systems, have been ruined. Secondly, the three following administrations (B.J. Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati Soekarnoputri, 1998-2004) were not able to do much, let alone restore Indonesia to its …

Menelaah Konsep Human Security: Studi Kasus Penanganan Masalah Pengungsi Afganistan Di Australia (1999-2002), Avyanthi Azis

Global: Jurnal Politik Internasional

This article is a short report drawn from a research on the issue of the Afghan refugees in Australia (1992-2002). Using the infamous “boat people” case as illustration, the research was intended to provide careful observation on the concept “human security,” a term increasingly linked to forced migration issues. Although human security is often portrayed as a benign concept with strong moral stance, its vastness and loose definition limit its adequacy as a useful tool of analysis. The concept is also prone to misuse because it loosely adapts to various ideological interests. Following a framework elaborated from the thoughts of …

The Paradox Of Philosophical Education: Nietzsche New Nobility And The Eternal Recurrence In Beyond Good And Evil (Book Review), Steven Michels

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

Book review by Steven Michels.

Lomax, J. Harvey. The Paradox of Philosophical Education: Nietzsche New Nobility and the Eternal Recurrence in Beyond Good and Evil. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003. ISBN 9780739104767; 9780739104774 (pbk.)

Real Time: Unwinding Technocratic And Anthropological Knowledge, Annelise Riles

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

“The Bank of Japan is our mother,” bankers in Tokyo sometimes said of Japan's central bank. Drawing on this metaphor as an ethnographic resource, and on the example of central bankers who sought to unwind their own technocratic knowledge by replacing it with a real-time machine, I retrace the ethnographic task of unwinding technocratic knowledge from those anthropological knowledge practices that critique technocracy. In so doing, I draw attention to special methodological problems—involving the relationship between ethnography, analysis, and reception—in the representation and critique of contemporary knowledge practices.

The Politic 2004 Summer, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

State Sovereignty And Human Rights, Jack Donnelly

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Sovereignty and human rights typically are seen as fundamentally opposed: the rights of states pitted against the rights of individuals; 1648 (the Peace of Westphalia) versus 1948 (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

This paper may be freely circulated in electronic or hard copy provided it is not modified in any way, the rights of the author not infringed, and the paper is not quoted or cited without express permission of the author. The editors cannot guarantee a stable URL for any paper posted here, nor will they be responsible for notifying others if the URL is changed or the …

Satellite Televisions In Lebanon: Agents Of Change Or Reinforcing The Status Quo?, Yara Youssef

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There has been a noted interest in the new technologies of the nineties, those that have expanded the realm of traditional mass media and the traditional means of communication that people were previously used to. With the start of globalization and the world becoming what some have called “global village,” the act of distributing information to the four comers of the world has become less complicated than it used to be, and boundaries are seen as constantly being eroded by the new pressures of modernization and liberalization. The internet and satellite televisions increased in importance in this realm, and so …

The Politic 2004 Spring, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

Review Of Jennifer Government, By Berry Max, David Banash

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Contextualism Reconsidered: Some Skeptical Reflections, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A number of theorists have touted the merits of the contextual approach to political theory, arguing that a close examination of real-world cases is more likely to yield both theoretical insight and practical solutions to pressing problems. This is particularly evident, it is argued, in the field of multiculturalism in political theory. The present paper offers some skeptical reflections on this view, arguing the merits of a view of political theory which sees the contextual approach as less distinctive than its proponents imagine, and less useful than many would suggest. It maintains that there are serious limits to what political …

The Effects Of Ballot Position On Election Outcomes, Jonathan G.S. Koppell, Jennifer A. Steen

Publications from President Jonathan G.S. Koppell

This article presents evidence of name-order effects in balloting from a study of the 1998 Democratic primary in New York City, in which the order of candidates' names was rotated by precinct. In 71 of 79 individual nominating contests, candidates received a greater proportion of the vote when listed first than when listed in any other position. In seven of those 71 contests, the advantage to first position exceeded the winner's margin of victory, suggesting that ballot position would have determined the election outcomes if one candidate had held the top spot in all precincts.

Toward A New Constitutional Anatomy, Victoria Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

There is an important sense in which our Constitution's structure is not what it appears to be--a set of activities or functions or geographies, the 'judicial" or the "executive" or the "legislative" power, the "truly local and the truly national. "Indeed, it is only if we put these notions to the side that we can come to grips with the importance of the generative provisions of the Constitution: the provisions that actually create our federal government; that bind citizens, through voting, to a House of Representatives, to a Senate, to a President, and even, indirectly, to a Supreme Court. In …

United Nations: A Social Studies And Literature Simulation, Institute For The Development Of Gifted Education, Ricks Center For Gifted Children, University Of Denver

Ricks Curriculum Units Series

So much of education is about inspiration. As teachers and learners, all things poetic, justified, important and meaningful inspire us to be the best people we can be, active and fair in a world changing at awesome speeds and in sometimes, unimaginable ways. This curriculum for gifted learners' grade 5-8, was designed out of a sense of authentic inspiration around just the conceptual magnitude of the phrase, United Nations. Also written about, around, and in response to the events of September 11, 2001, this curriculum reflects only one of the ways in which the field of education has responded to …

John F. Kennedy And West Virginia, 1960-1963, Anthony W. Ponton

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In 1960, John F. Kennedy, a wealthy New England Catholic, traveled to a rural, Protestant state to contend in an election that few thought he could win. While many scholars have examined the impact of Kennedy’s victory in the West Virginia primary, few have analyzed the importance that his visit to the state in 1960 and his ensuing administration had on West Virginia. Kennedy enacted a number of policies directed specifically toward relieving the poverty that had plagued West Virginia since statehood. The Kennedy administration funded highway construction, worker training programs, and area development at levels the state had never …

Communitarianism And Republicanism, Richard Dagger

Political Science Faculty Publications

Communitarianism and republicanism are closely related schools of thought - so closely related that friend and foe alike sometimes conflate them. The relationship is evident in their Latin roots: communitarians are concerned with communitas, the common life of people who form a community, and republicans are devoted to the res publica, the good of the public. Of the two, however, only republicanism traces its lineage as well as its name to ancient Rome. Indeed, scholars often look beyond Rome to the philosophers and city-states of ancient Greece, particularly Aristotle and Sparta, for the origins of republicanism. For the …

The Fair City Production Line: An Examination Of Soap Opera’S Potential Contribution To The Public Sphere, Edward Brennan

Articles

Between December 2000 and February 2001 the Irish soap opera Fair City ran an unprecedented, risky and controversial abortion storyline. This came before a looming referendum on the legality of abortion. Here, Fair City was not just offering entertainment, but provoking debate and discussion on a divisive issue in Irish society. In this case, and many others, it appears that soap opera, by promoting such discussion, may contribute to the formation of public opinion in contemporary civil society. Heretofore, most academic studies have overlooked the possible consequences of soap opera for civil society, public opinion and the democratic process. This …

The Politic 2004 Winter, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Crime Legislation: History And Harshness, Victoria Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

There is a truth about the criminal law that scholars evade as much as they criticize: the criminal law is produced by legislators (rather than the experts). The author states she does not know of any way to make law in a democracy other than through the voters' representatives. And, yet, it is the standard pose of the criminal law scholar to denigrate legislatures and politicians as vindictive, hysterical, or stupid. All of these things may be true but name-calling is a poor substitute for analysis. As in constitutional law, so too in criminal law, it is time to put …