Political Science Commons^™

Constitutionalizing The Dispute: Federalism In Hyper-Partisan Times, James H. Read

Political Science Faculty Publications

This article describes how partisan actors during the Obama years have escalated polarization by transforming policy disputes into constitutional contests over the ground rules of the federal system – contests, moreover, in which one bloc of politically like-minded states opposes another. The article examines in particular how Republicans have supported strong claims of state sovereignty, and in some cases resurrected the antebellum doctrine of nullification, to deny to either Congress or the executive branch the authority to reform state health care markets or to limit states’ emissions of greenhouse gases. Democrats have reinforced the partisan divide by declining to debate …

Are We Teaching Them Anything?: A Model For Measuring Methodology Skills In The Political Science Major, Christi Siver, Seth W. Greenfest, G. Claire Haeg

Political Science Faculty Publications

While the literature emphasizes the importance of teaching political science students methods skills, there currently exists little guidance for how to assess student learning over the course of their time in the major. To address this gap, we develop a model set of assessment tools that may be adopted and adapted by political science departments to evaluate the effect of their own methods instruction. The model includes a syllabi analysis, evaluation of capstone (senior) papers, and a transcript analysis. We apply these assessment tools to our own department to examine whether students demonstrate a range of basic-to-advanced methodological skills. Our …

Playing Fair With Imprisonment, Richard Dagger

Political Science Faculty Publications

This chapter rests on two assumptions, at least one of which is controversial. The first is that something is wrong when a society imprisons as many people as the United States now does. According to a widely published columnist, George Will, the rate of imprisonment was about 100 per 100,000 Americans until the 1970s. Since then the rate has shot up, to the point where "700 per 100,000" are now in prison; "America," Will reported in 2013, "has nearly 5 percent of the world's population but almost 25 percent of its prisoners." It is possible, of course, that these figures …

Legislative Veto, Gregory Neddenriep

Political Science Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Islamism In Western Europe: Milli Görüş In Germany, Gonul Tol, Yasemin Akbaba

Political Science Faculty Publications

This study is an inquiry into the nature of the Islamic Community Milli Görüş (Islamische Gemeinschaft Milli Görüş -IGMG) movement in Germany. The movement has been identified as an “Islamist extremist group” by the German Ministry of the Interior in 2005. Germany has the highest number of Turkish immigrants in Western Europe and is home to Milli Görüş’s headquarters. We ask whether radicalization is a response to social, economic and political marginalization of Milli Görüş members in Germany. The data collected during the field research conducted in Germany between the years of 2004 and 2007 was used to explore radicalization …

The Vp Advantage: How Running Mates Influence Home State Voting In Presidential Elections, Christopher J. Devine, Kyle C. Kopko

Political Science Faculty Publications

A widespread perception exists among political commentators, campaign operatives and presidential candidates that vice presidential running mates can deliver their home state's electoral votes in a presidential election. In recent elections, presidential campaigns have even changed their strategy in response to the perceived VP home state advantage. But is the advantage real? And could it decide a presidential election? In the most comprehensive analysis to date, Devine and Kopko demonstrate that the VP home state advantage is actually highly conditional and rarely decisive in the Electoral College. However, it could change the outcome of a presidential election under narrow but …

A Long Time Gone: Post-Conflict Rural Property Restitution Under Customary Law, Sandra F. Joireman, Laura S. Meitzner Yoder

Political Science Faculty Publications

Mass displacement of people due to violence poses a unique set of challenges for property restitution when people return to their homes after a long absence. This is particularly evident in rural areas where the dominant form of land holding is customary tenure. Violence-induced displacement, unlike voluntary migration, challenges both customary and public legaladministrative structures. The lack of written documentation of customary holdings and the importance of the support of community leaders means that incorporating returnees back into a community can be easier for those who choose to return, while reclaiming property without physical return is nearly impossible. This article …

Can Hunger End? (Book Review), Sandra F. Joireman

Political Science Faculty Publications

In 2007 and 2008, food prices jumped sharply worldwide: wheat more than doubled in price, and rice was up by over half. In many parts of the world, people living on one or two dollars a day were simply unable to purchase the food they needed to survive. David Rieff’s book is framed by that unexpected spike in prices.

The Chinese Model Of Development And Its Implications, He Li

Political Science Faculty Publications

At the end of the Cold War, scholars were pondering how far Western ideas would spread in an international environment defined by “the end of history”. China’s rapid and continuous growth in the past three decades alters this backdrop. Today, the debate seems to be on how far Chinese ideas (also known as the “Beijing Consensus”) could reach. This paper focuses on the following aspects of the Chinese model of development and its implications: What does the China model contain? What are major critiques and limitations of the China model? Is the Chinese model applicable to other nations? It should …

Justice For Border Crossing Peoples, David Watkins

Political Science Faculty Publications

This chapter seeks to advance the conceptual and normative analysis of what Rogers Smith (2014) calls “appropriately differentiated citizenship” for a particular category of would-be border crossers who have so far been absent from the normative literature on immigration and exclusion: border crossing peoples.

Such peoples are defined by a longstanding history of crossing a particular international border for reasons — cultural, political, and/or economic — central to their collective identity. National territorial rights theorists such as David Miller argue that restrictive immigration policies can be justified via a collectivist Lockean analogy: Private property rights are to individuals as national …

The Right To Food Under Hugo Chávez, Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann

Political Science Faculty Publications

This article investigates the right to food in Venezuela under President Hugo Chávez (1999–2013). Although Chávez respected Venezuelans’ right to food, he failed to protect it. In the short term, he fulfilled the right to food by establishing state-run stores where food was sold cheaply, and by imposing price controls. At the same time, he reduced the food supply by undermining property rights, expropriating large-scale ranches as well as wholesale and retail distributors. Violations of civil and political rights made it difficult for Chávez’s critics to oppose his food policies. By the time Chávez died food shortages were extremely severe.

Institutionalizing Freedom As Nondomination: Democracy And The Role Of The State, David Watkins

Political Science Faculty Publications

This article critically examines neo-republican democratic theory, as articulated by Philip Pettit, with respect to its capacity to address some of the pressing challenges of our times. While the neo-republican focus on domination has great promise, it mistakenly commits to the position that democracy—the primary tool with which we fight domination—is limited to state activity. Examining this error helps us make sense of two additional problems with his theory: an overestimation of the capacity of legislative bodies to identify sufficient responses to practices of domination, and the potential conflict between avoiding state domination of the general citizenry and avoiding state …

Careful Commitments: Democratic States And Alliance Design, Daina Chiba, Jesse C. Johnson, Brett Ashley Leeds

Political Science Faculty Publications

Evidence suggests that leaders of democratic states experience high costs from violating past commitments. We argue that because democratic leaders foresee the costs of violation, they are careful to design agreements they expect to have a high probability of fulfilling. This may cause democratic leaders to prefer flexible or limited commitments. We evaluate our argument by analyzing the design of alliance treaties signed by countries of the world between 1815 and 2003. We find that alliances formed among democratic states are more likely to include obligations for future consultation rather than precommitting leaders to active conflict, and defense pacts formed …

The Politics Of The Presidential Medal Of Freedom: A Fifty Year Analysis, 1963-2013, Kyle C. Kopko, E. Fletcher Mcclellan, Christopher J. Devine, Jillian E. Casey, Julia L. Ward

Political Science Faculty Publications

Established in 1963, the Presidential Medal of Freedom (PMOF) is the nation’s highest civilian honor. Presidents award the Medal at their discretion to “any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution to (1) the security or national interests of the United States, or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors” (Executive Order 11085). Using an original database of all 1963-2013 PMOF recipients, we analyze how presidents exercise this symbolic unilateral power. In particular, we find that Democratic and Republican presidents differ in their recognition of various categories of achievement. Also, presidents have awarded …

Eisenhower: Champion Of Federal Activism, Shirley Anne Warshaw

Political Science Faculty Publications

As we watch the cast of characters vying for the Republican presidential nomination in this not-so-invisible primary season, there appears to be a common thread to their conversations: keep the government out of my life and my business. But this call for out-of-my-life government is contrary to the federal activism that one of the Republican Party’s most admired presidents advocated. [excerpt]

Republicanism At Work: Strategies For Supporting Resistance To Domination In The Workplace, David Watkins

Political Science Faculty Publications

Work, as organized in contemporary workplaces and situated in social and political structures, poses a threat to freedom that has been underappreciated in political theory, especially liberal political theory. The recent revival of republicanism offers an intriguing alternative: Can republicanism do any better, with respect to work and freedom?

An examination of the workplace through a republican lens does a better job of helping us make sense of the way work threatens freedom — by exposing us to the threat of domination — and it can generate at least three plausible proposals that might render resistance to domination in the …

Ideological Social Identity: Psychological Attachment To Ideological In-Groups As A Political Phenomenon And A Behavioral Influence, Christopher J. Devine

Political Science Faculty Publications

Motivated by symbolic ideology research and Social Identity Theory (SIT), this article introduces an original measure of ideological social identity (ISI) designed to capture feelings of psychological attachment to an ideological in-group and facilitate analysis of their attitudinal and behavioral effects. Data from a nationally representative sample of survey experimental participants indicates that the ISI scale is empirically distinct from ideological self-placement, the standard measure of symbolic ideology, and it conditions the effects of self-placement on vote choice in actual and hypothetical election scenarios. ISI is also common within the American public, particularly among conservatives, and responsive to environmental stimuli …

Hopeful Losers? A Moral Case For Mixed Electoral Systems, Loren King

Political Science Faculty Publications

Liberal democracies encourage citizen participation and protect our freedoms, yet these regimes elect politicians and decide important issues with electoral and legislative systems that are less inclusive than other arrangements. Some citizens inevitably have more influence than others. Is this a problem? Yes, because similarly just but more inclusive systems are possible. Political theorists and philosophers should be arguing for particular institutional forms, with particular geographies, consistent with justice.

Les démocraties libérales encouragent la participation citoyenne et protègent nos libertés. Pourtant, ces régimes élisent des politiciens et décident de problèmes importants via les systèmes électoral et législatif, qui sont moins …

Compared To What? Judicial Review And Other Veto Points In Contemporary Political Theory, David Watkins, Scott E. Lemieux

Political Science Faculty Publications

Many democratic and jurisprudential theorists have too often uncritically accepted Alexander Bickel’s notion of “the countermajoritarian difficulty” when considering the relationship between judicial review and democracy; this is the case for arguments both for and against judicial review. This framework is both theoretically and empirically unsustainable. Democracy is not wholly synonymous with majoritarianism, and judicial review is not inherently countermajoritarian in the first place.

In modern democratic political systems, judicial review is one of many potential veto points. Since all modern democratic political systems contain veto points, the relevant and unexplored question is what qualities might make a veto point …

Working In A Cage: The Evolution Of Constitutional Restrictiveness In U.S. State Legislatures, Nancy Martorano Miller, Keith E. Hamm, Ronald D. Hedlund

Political Science Faculty Publications

The U.S. states have been characterized as “laboratories of democracy” for their ability to formulate public policies aimed at solving some of the most pressing public policy issues. The study of both public policy and legislative politics in the states has been quite robust. However, vitally missing from our understanding of policymaking and the legislative process in the states is the role of constitutional provisions. Many state constitutions contain directives that severely limit the ability of the legislature to act. Some of these directives are procedural while others are more substantive. This is relevant because constitutional rules are more difficult …

The Effects Of Inter-State Conflicts On Foreign Investment Flows To The Developing World: Enduring Vs Ephemeral Risk Of Conflicts, Dongkyu Kim

Political Science Faculty Publications

How do inter-state conflicts affect foreign investment flows to developing countries? Conventional wisdom says conflicts disrupt economic interactions. This article develops and tests two competing causal mechanisms of the wisdom by focusing on foreign investment flows to developing countries. The first hypothesis states that conflicts carry enduring risk to foreign investors, making conflict-prone countries persistently less attractive. The second hypothesis says that the risk of conflict is ephemeral, allowing foreign investment to recover during peace-time. A monadic analysis of 95 developing countries from 1980 to 2000 provides strong evidence for the enduring risk hypothesis. However, the finding is limited by …

Losing The Monopoly Of Violence: The State, A Drug War And The Paramilitarization Of Organized Crime In Mexico (2007–10), Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, Michelle Keck, Jose Nava

Political Science Faculty Publications

This article examines the phenomenon of drug-related violence in Mexico and the causal factors that enabled the upsurge in the numbers of drug-related homicides during the period 2007–10 — the first 4 years of the so-called “war on drugs”. The authors explore regional statistics derived from official sources, as well as from both anecdotal and empirical research on the subject, and assess quantitatively the impact of different factors such as deteriorated economic conditions, corruption, a new configuration of organized crime, divisions between criminal organizations and the Mexican government's strategy to fight organized crime. The study finds that the key forces …

Thin Vs. Thick Morality: Ethics And Gender In International Development Programs, Richard K. Ghere

Political Science Faculty Publications

This study examines the ethical dimensions of gender-focused international development initiatives undertaken by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and similar agencies. Specifically, it presents three case studies that depict how specific development initiatives in, respectively, India, Tanzania, and Senegal address gender disparities and power relationships. These case studies support the general conclusion that ethically committed development NGOs find difficulty in encouraging women (and men) to reverse oppressive power status-quos in messy contexts.

Beyond Outputs: Pathways To Symmetrical Evaluations Of University Sustainable Development Partnerships, Peter Koehn, Juha I. Uitto

Political Science Faculty Publications

As the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014) draws to a close, it is timely to review ways in which the sustainable development initiatives of higher education institutions have been, and can be, evaluated. In their efforts to document and assess collaborative sustainable development program outcomes and impacts, universities in the North and South are challenged by similar conundrums that confront development agencies. This article explores pathways to symmetrical evaluations of transnationally partnered research, curricula, and public-outreach initiatives specifically devoted to sustainable development. Drawing on extensive literature and informed by international development experience, the authors present a …

[Review Of The Book: The Sovereign Citizen: Denaturalization And The Origins Of The American Republic By Patrick Weil], Jordan Barkalow

Political Science Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Mraps, Irregular Warfare, And Pentagon Reform, Christopher J. Lamb, Matthew J. Schmidt, Berit G. Fitzsimmons

Political Science Faculty Publications

The controversial MRAPs raise two questions. First, does the MRAP experience support the contention that the Pentagon is not sufficiently able to field irregular warfare capabilities? Second, what factors best explain the MRAP failure, whether that failure is determined to be their delayed fielding or the fact that they were fielded at all? We conclude that MRAPs are a valid irregular warfare requirement and that the Pentagon should have been better prepared to field them, albeit not on the scale demanded by events in Iraq. We also argue that the proximate cause of the failure to quickly field MRAPs is …

A Guerra Como Trabalho Político: Como Utilizar As Ciências Sociais Para O Êxito Estratégico, Matthew J. Schmidt

Political Science Faculty Publications

As Ciências Sociais estudam fenômenos sociais em termos de variáveis interdependentes, em vez de variáveis independentes e dependentes. No caso de fenômenos compostos de variáveis interdependentes — como a guerra — tentar estabelecer teorias claras sobre causa e efeito é algo frustrante até para cientistas sociais acostumados com esse tipo de pesquisa. Com efeito, variáveis interdependentes fazem com que seja impossível fazer previsões como as das ciências exatas. Isso não significa, porém, que se devam desconsiderar abordagens qualitativas. Ao contrário, compreender o valor e as limitações dos métodos qualitativos é essencial para uma profissão incumbida de empregar a força para …

The Usefulness Of Consumer Sentiment: Assessing Construct And Measurement, Paul M. Kellstedt, Suzanna Linn, A. Lee Hannah

Political Science Faculty Publications

Given the scholarly and popular prominence of the concept of consumer confidence, it is striking that there are no examinations of the quality of the most commonly used measure of the concept—the University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment (ICS). In this study, we assess the usefulness of consumer sentiment as a construct and a measure (or measures). We also identify the best way to consider its role in consumer behavior. This brings us to a consideration of fundamental questions about the reliability and validity of consumer sentiment measures. Our purpose is to provide evidence on this score. Our analyses …

External Conditionalities And Institutional Change: Constructing Constituencies For The Rule Of Law In Kosovo, Sandra F. Joireman

Political Science Faculty Publications

Kosovo is one of several Western Balkans countries that are part of the next round of accession to the EU. Like Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia, it is also a country in which the history of conflict is recent and the benefits of EU membership ought to be a strong economic and political enticement to meet the standards necessary for membership. Yet, instead of major transformation of the post-conflict society towards democratization, economic development and a robust human rights regime, the prospect of European Union membership appears to be leading to superficial legal changes without enforcement. This article investigates the tensions …

Social Security Disability Insurance And Supplemental Security Income, Jennifer L. Erkulwater

Political Science Faculty Publications

Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) are the foundation of the social safety net for Americans with disabilities. Both provide cash benefits, and because neither program is limited to specific impairments or to workers in particular occupations, as is the case with many public and private disability plans, they are broadly accessible to the American people and the most expensive of the nation's disability benefit programs. Excluding expenditures for health care, DI and SSI combined account for almost three-quarters of annual federal spending on the disabled (U.S. GAO 1999).

Disability benefits policy, though, has long been …