Political Science Commons^™

He's Our Son Of A Bitch, Robert Funk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

It is said that Franklin Delano Roosevelt defended the US tendency to support dictators by remarking, “He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch.” The recent events in Tunisia and Egypt indicate that almost seventy years later, this unfortunate phrase seems to continue to guide US foreign policy.

"Eighteen Million Cracks": Gender's Role In The 2008 Presidential Campaign, Gregory S. Parks, Quinette M. Roberson

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

In light of the 2008 presidential campaign, Gregory S. Parks
and Jeffrey J. Rachlinski wrote an extensive analysis, titled A Better
Metric, likening the campaign to an interview process and hiring
decision for a high-ranking job. Though unpublished, their work
spawned a number of published articles, book chapters, and a book
on the role of unconscious race and gender bias in the evaluations of
President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton. In light of the analogy between voting and
hiring decisions, this article argues that questions about sexism and
gender bias along the campaign …

Political Information And Emotions In Ethnic Conflict Interventions, Cigdem Sirin, José Villalobos, Nehemia Geva

Departmental Papers (PS)

This study explores the effects of political information and anger on the public’s cognitive processing and foreign policy preferences concerning third-party interventions in ethnic conflict. Our study employs an experimental design wherein we manipulate policy-specific information by generating ad hoc political information related to ethnic conflict. The statistical methods of analysis are logistic regression and analysis of covariance. The results demonstrate that both political information and anger have a significant impact on an individual’s cognitive processing and policy preferences regarding ethnic conflict interventions. Specifically, political information increases one’s proclivity to choose non-military policy options, whereas anger instigates support for aggressive …

Does North America Have The Right Stuff? An Analysis Of Compatibility And The Potential Deepening Of North American Integration, Gaspare Genna

Departmental Papers (PS)

This article assesses the current and future levels of North American integration. Econometric models that compare integration around the world indicate that integration deepens when countries have similar domestic, political, and economic institutions, and are economically asymmetrical. It is theorized that similar domestic institutions reduce transaction costs and uncertainty of success for firms while economic asymmetry provides incentives for and coordination among member states. In addition, institutional homogeneity also affects the level of integration. Currently, the North American partners lack high levels of these conditions, which explains the low level of integration. The analysis concludes with policy recommendations to improve …

The Relationship Between Company Size And Ceo Pay, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

The link between the size of the company and the pay of the CEO is one that is nearly impossible to make go away. One measure of the company-size-to-CEO-pay relationship is called elasticity by economists. It turns out that we can estimate the CEO compensation elasticity with respect to firm revenue, and this number is around 0.3. That is, for a 1% increase in company size, CEO pay goes up by about one-third of 1%, or for a 10% increase in company size, CEO pay goes up by about 3%. The relationship between organization size and top executive pay in …

Opportunity/Threat Spirals In The U.S. Women's Suffrage And German Anti-Immigration Movements, Roger Karapin

Publications and Research

Many have noted that protesters sometimes expand political opportunities for later protests, but there has been little analysis of how this occurs. The problem can be addressed by analyzing opportunity/threat spirals, which involve positive feedback among: actions by challengers (bold protests and the formation of alliances between challenger groups); opportunity-increasing actions by authorities and elites (elite divisions and support, procedural reforms, substantive concessions, and police inaction); and threat-increasing actions by authorities and elites (new grievance production and excessive repression). Interactions among these eight mechanisms are demonstrated in two cases of social movement growth, the U.S. women's suffrage movement of the …

Enclosing In God’S Name, Accumulating For Mankind: Money, Morality, And Accumulation In John Locke’S Theory Of Property, Onur Ulas Ince

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

John Locke's theory of property has been the subject of sustained contention between two major perspectives: a socioeconomic perspective, which conceives Locke's thought as an expression of the rising bourgeois sensibility and a defense of the nascent capitalist relations, and a theological perspective, which prioritizes his moral worldview grounded in the Christian natural law tradition. This essay argues that a closer analysis of Locke's theory of money in the Second Treatise can provide an alternative to this binary. It maintains that the notion of money comprises a conceptual area of indeterminacy in which the theological universals of the natural law …

Bridging The Gaps In Global Energy Governance, Ann Florini, Benjamin Sovacool

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Energy constitutes a rich, but underexplored, arena for global governance scholars and policymakers. The world is currently on an unsustainable and conflict-prone track of volatile and unreliable supply of energy fuels, vulnerable infrastructure, massive environmental degradation, and failure to deliver energy services to an enormous proportion of the global population. Changing to a different path will be a monumental global governance endeavor that will require bridging multiple issue areas, regimes, and policy silos. Meeting that challenge will require a greatly expanded research agenda aimed at understanding the institutions, interests, and concerns that do and could shape global energy governance. In …

Scaling Policy Preferences From Coded Political Texts, Will Lowe, Kenneth Benoit, Slava Mikhaylov, Michael Laver

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Scholars estimating policy positions from political texts typically code words or sentences and then build left-right policy scales based on the relative frequencies of text units coded into different categories. Here we reexamine such scales and propose a theoretically and linguistically superior alternative based on the logarithm of odds-ratios. We contrast this scale with the current approach of the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP), showing that our proposed logit scale avoids widely acknowledged flaws in previous approaches. We validate the new scale using independent expert surveys. Using existing CMP data, we show how to estimate more distinct policy dimensions, for more …

A Little Respect, Please, Christina Cerna

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Simon Tisdall suggests that last month, when Mohammed Bouazizi (twenty-six years old), “an unemployed graduate, set himself on fire outside a government building in protest at police harassment,” his act became the “rallying cause for Tunisia’s disaffected legions of unemployed students, impoverished workers, trade unionists, lawyers and human rights activists.” The reaction to his act of self-immolation and death on January 4th led to the flight of President Ben Ali ten days later to Saudi Arabia and to the end of Ali's twenty-three-year rule of Tunisia. Time reported the event as follows: “When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight on Dec. …

Abeyance And Spontaneity In Tunisia, Louis Edgar Esparza

Human Rights & Human Welfare

On August 16, 1819, tens of thousands of workers gathered in what is now St. Peter’s Square in Manchester to demand suffrage. Entire families, parishes, and townships assembled, fueled by increasing commodity prices and political disenfranchisement. They had spread the word from town to town, and from church to church, that this previously banned meeting was indeed to occur. It was the culmination of months of agitation on the part of common people to achieve economic and political reform. The government responded violently to the challenge of its authority, as governments so often do, leading to a score of deaths …

Those Pesky Winds Of Change..., Walter Lotze

Human Rights & Human Welfare

When a police officer slapped a fruit seller by the name of Mohammed Bouazizi in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, nobody could have anticipated that a revolution had commenced. Bouazizi, a twenty-six-year-old computer science graduate unable to find work, had resorted to selling fruit from a street cart in an attempt to support himself and his seven siblings. Slapped by the police officer and ordered to pack up his goods, Bouazizi himself snapped. He marched to the local governor’s office and demanded an appointment, threatening to set himself alight if the governor did not meet with him. In frustration, …

The Name Game As Blame Game: The Domodedovo Terrorist Bombing, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author discusses the relevance of blame in the context of terrorism.

A Dangerous Professor Loses A Friendship, Michael C. Vocino

Technical Services Faculty Publications

A brief essay/short story based on the author's experience as a gay university professor and how creative teaching methods ended one of his vital friendships.

International Migration In The Age Of Globalization: Implications And Challenges, Peter S. Li

Migration and Ethnic Relations Colloquium Series

No abstract provided.

Dictating Justice: Human Rights And Military Courts In Latin America, Brett J. Kyle, Andrew G. Reiter

Political Science Faculty Publications

Militaries throughout the world operate their own courts to prosecute military crimes, such as insubordination, that are not part of civilian legal codes. Latin American militaries traditionally have extended this hermetic justice system to cover all crimes committed by their personnel, allowing the institution to sit in judgment of its own actions and escape punishment for human rights violations. This parallel legal system erodes the principle of equality before the law, threatens civilian control of the military, and nurtures a culture of impunity. This article develops a theoretical model to explain the state of military court jurisdiction over military personnel …

Trout, Allan Mitchell, 1903-1972 (Mss 346), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 346. Correspondence and writings relating to the career of Allan Mitchell Trout, political reporter and columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal. Includes letters from readers, written mostly on the occasion of his retirement, collections of Trout's "Greetings" columns, speeches and articles, historical memorabilia, correspondence relating to the Allan M. Trout Collection at Western Kentucky University, and messages of sympathy to his wife after Trout's death.

Averting War In Northeast Asia: A Proposal 東北アジアでの戦争勃発を防ぐ ––– 一提言, Mel Gurtov

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

While the United States and South Korea consider whether or not to accept North Korea’s call for an “unconditional” return to the Six Party Talks (6PT) or China’s call for multilateral negotiations, Northeast Asia is sliding in the direction of deepening conflict that could lead to war. China-Japan relations, which had been warming since the departure of Koizumi Junichiro, and especially since the victory of the Democratic Party of Japan in 2009, are again in a deep freeze over disputed territory. One consequence is a reorientation of Japan’s defense strategy southward, in the direction of the Senkakus (Diaoyutai). Washington is …

The Giffords Shooting: Who’S The Fall Guy?, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author explores the concept of ‘the fall guy’ from a political philosophical perspective.

The End Of The Great Fiscal Compromise, Nathan B. Oman

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Fortress Canada: Circling The Wagons Against Asylum-Seekers, Peter Showler

Migration and Ethnic Relations Colloquium Series

No abstract provided.

Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Constitution

Bibliography and photographs of a display of government documents from Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Book Review: Fractured Rebellion, Amy O'Keefe

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In this groundbreaking book, Andrew Walder creates an orderly account of the events, discussions, and political currents that comprised the student movement in Beijing during the first two years of China’s Cultural Revolution. With meticulous attention to sequencing, he comprehends and brings meaning to a whirlwind of events often described as a vindictive political free-for-all, but which he shows, instead, to have been a structured series of rivalries.

Passport To The World: Chinese Students At The University Of Kentucky, Denise Ho, Jared Flanery

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

My Thursday afternoon flight from Shanghai to Chicago exhibited a curious phenomenon. United Airlines Flight 836, which went from China to Midwestern America on August 19, 2010, had the most homogenous set of passengers I had ever seen. They were all in their late teens and early twenties, Chinese youth dressed in the trendiest fashions and carrying the latest electronics. I was so impressed that I broke my rule about photographing people, popped up in my seat in the corner of economy class, and took their picture.

Whether United knew it or not, my flight was a modern school bus, …

Havel, China And Africa, Howard W. French

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I am eager to read Chinese news accounts of the life and death of Vaclav Havel, whose central message might be summed up as the necessity for individuals everywhere to cast off their apathy and assume their rights – and agency – as citizens.

The death of this figure of major importance to the history of the late- and post-Cold War world will inevitably generate talk that is heavily focused on Europe, just as the attention of the Western media and foreign ministries tended to stay almost exclusively bracketed on this region (with China, for a time, serving as a …

Liminal City, Rian Dundon

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

He says he’s lost his city and his society. We drive past a group of demonstrators protesting land seizures. He points out the scene and the gaggle of police cruisers nearby and grins in English “this is Chi-na”, emphasizing the play-on-words between “Chi” and “Chai” (chai, or 拆 being Chinese for “dismantle” or “demolish”). He sees the city’s recent prosperity through a filter of isolation, exclusion, and greed. Tells me how the doors are all closed. How peoples’ sense of self worth is determined by the number of contacts in their cell phones. How they are drifting further …

Review: Consent Of The Networked, Anne Henochowicz

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The last two years have seen much talk about the explosion of social media as a tool of real change, most notably during the Arab Spring. Tunisia’s and Egypt’s revolutions were powered by Twitter and Facebook. Though these sites are blocked in China, Sina’s microblogging platform Weibo has also changed the political game in that country, forcing government accountability after last summer’s high-speed train crash in Wenzhou and contributing to the very public downfall of former Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai. Weibo’s power may also lead to its demise. After rumors of a coup attempt spread recently, the comment function …

Obama, The Dalai Lama, And Us-China Relations: The Current State Of Affairs

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In early 2010, when President Obama met with the Dalai Lama, this made a considerable splash both in the news media and in diplomatic circles, and there have been various repercussions from Beijing’s side when other foreign leaders have met with the Tibetan figure. Obama’s July 16 meeting with the Dalai Lama in Washington, DC led to a furious reaction within hours from Beijing, perhaps even stronger than in the past. So we decided to ask Robbie Barnett, the Director of Columbia University’s Modern Tibetan Studies Program, the author of works such as Lhasa: Streets with Memories, and a long-time …

China’S Empty Apartments, Michael Gsovski

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

There are serious problems in the Chinese housing market. While the average urban resident has to deal with constant rent hikes and the threat of eviction in the face of new construction, the rich buy extra apartments to shield their wealth against inflation. Not only is this an economic threat, but in China it is a particular threat to stability as well. Firstly, since the turbulent boom years of the China’s opening and reform period, owning housing has been seen as a useful hedge for ordinary people against an otherwise uncertain economic situation. Secondly, owning—rather than renting—an apartment or other …

Your Discourse Or Mine?, Silvia Lindtner

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As scholars we speak frequently in public and are confronted with various interpretations of our work by others who at times do not share our own viewpoints. Though this often brings with it excitement at the opportunity to form bridges between academic and other discourses, reaching audiences beyond our own disciplines and engaging a wider public still remains a challenge for many of us. We look at these conversations as opportunities for further debate, for mutual learning, and for being introduced to different perspectives on our work. At times, how one’s work finds resonance elsewhere surprises, illuminating the scholar’s responsibility …