Political Science Commons^™

Jlia Editorial Board & Staff

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

No abstract provided.

To Forgive And Forget: How Reconciliation And Amnesty Legislation In Afghanistan Forgives War Criminals While Forgetting Their Victims, Sara L. Carlson

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

More than three decades of war and hundreds of thousands killed or brutalized by the actions of warlords and insurgent commanders vying for power comprise the backdrop of modern Afghanistan. As Afghanistan continues toward a new era, seeking democracy in a country where tribal affiliations and ethnic groups often usurp any sense of patriotism, the reconciliation of armed fighters while providing an adequate grievance process for victims of war crimes must take priority in the process adopted to unify the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. This comment explores the current attempt by the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to provide a system …

International Activity And Domestic Law, Adam I. Muchmore

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

This essay explores the ways States use their domestic laws to regulate activities that cross national borders. Domestic-law enforcement decisions play an underappreciated role in the development of international regulatory policy, particularly in situations where the enforcing State's power to apply its law extraterritorially is not contested. Collective action problems suggest there will be an undersupply of enforcement decisions that promote global welfare and an oversupply of enforcement decisions that promote national welfare. These collective action problems may be mitigated in part by government networks and other forms of regulatory cooperation.

The Full Story Of United States V. Smith, America’S Most Important Piracy Case, Joel H. Samuels

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

This article explores the seminal United States Supreme Court decision of United States v. Smith (1820). Smith, an early piracy case, has influenced developments in both domestic and international law on piracy, universal jurisdiction, and a range of broader themes. This article is the first to explore the context within which the case arose, as well as the circumstances of the case itself. In addition to the details of the case, the story of the men prosecuted for their cruise aboard the vessel known as the Irresistible in the late spring and early summer of 1819 also offers a …

Remarks On Counterstrike, Eric Schmitt

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

After 9/11, the United States government was forced to think differently about terrorism and the nation’s ability to respond to attacks. Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker address many of the intricacies faced by officials at the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon in their book Counterstrike. In this essay, transcribed from remarks given on March 21, 2012 at the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues at Dickinson College, Schmitt discusses how the U.S. government’s policies toward Al Qaeda and terrorism in general have evolved in the ten-year period following the attacks.

Remarks, The Big Picture: Beyond Hot Spots & Crises In Our Interconnected World, Anne-Marie Slaughter

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

The picture of foreign policy as seen by the United States has changed dramatically over the last few decades. The United States now faces a world far more interconnected and integrated than the foreign policy landscape of the Cold War and its immediate aftermath. Instead of one or two super power centers, the world today is made up of multiple global and regional power centers. This essay, transcribed and adapted from remarks given by Anne-Marie Slaughter on March 15, 2012, at the Dickinson School of Law of the Pennsylvania State University, examines the shift to a multi-polar world of foreign …

International Order After The Financial Crisis, Harold James

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

How is international order built, and how is it legitimate, in a world in which political and economic foundations are rapidly shifting? What are the consequences of the rise of major new powers for the structure and the functioning of the international system? Great wars or great financial crises have in the past led to disorientation about the moral foundations of society, domestically and internationally. The paper examines parallels with the Great Depression, and in particular the weakening of multilateralism and of small political units, and the strengthening of large powers with hegemonic claims. The paper then turns to an …

The Growing Dark Side Of Cyberspace ( . . . And What To Do About It), Ronald Deibert

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

Cyberspace – the global environment of digital communications – surrounds and embodies us entirely, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We are always on, always connected: emailing, texting, searching, networking, and sharing are all now as commonplace as eating, breathing, and sleeping. But there is a dark side to cyberspace - hidden contests and malicious threats - that is growing like a disease from the inside-out. This disease has many symptoms, and is being reinforced by a multiplicity of disparate but mutually reinforcing causes. Some of these driving forces are unintended byproducts of the new digital universe into …

The Rise Of Transparency And The Decline Of Secrecy In The Age Of Global And Social Media, P.J. Crowley

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

News reporting of a wide range of sensitive government policies, operations, and internal deliberations has raised understandable concerns that U.S. national security is being compromised. In response, there is an increase in investigations and prosecutions and proposed legislation to plug government leaks. But a broader reality may be at work. In the increasingly interconnected and transparent world of the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, satellite television, WikiLeaks, omniscient cellphones and technology-enhanced revolutions such as the Arab Awakening, governments have lost their ability to control the flow of information. More people have access to more information, with the ability to communicate anything from …

The Balance Of Power, Public Goods, And The Lost Art Of Grand Strategy: American Policy Toward The Persian Gulf And Rising Asia In The 21st Century, Flynt Leverett, Hillary Mann Leverett

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

An important driver of relative decline in America’s international standing is the failure of its political elites to define reality-based foreign policy goals and to relate the diplomatic, economic, and military means at Washington’s disposal to realizing them—the essence of “grand strategy.” For several decades, American policy has been pulled in opposite directions by two competing models of grand strategy. In one—the leadership model—America maximizes its international standing by adroitly managing regional and global power balances and promoting the processes of economic liberalization known collectively as globalization. In the second model—the transformation model—America seeks not to manage power balances but …

The Hanford Advisory Board: A Case Study In Democracy, Technology, And Representation, Alexander Sager, Alex Zakaras

Philosophy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Highly technical policy decisions present daunting challenges for democracy. In order to hold public officials accountable, citizens must be able to see how policy decisions stand to affect their interests. If they are unable to do so, they can find themselves exposed to bureaucratic domination through the discretionary power of bureaucrats, scientists, or policy experts. One of the major tasks of empirically informed democratic theory is to analyze and evaluate practices and institutions that use public participation to try to render highly technical public decision-making more accountable to the public, and therefore more legitimate. This paper presents a case study …

Desert America: Boom And Bust In The New Old West, Rubén Martínez

Faculty Pub Night

No abstract provided.

Cleaning Up Dirty Politics: A Social Marketing Perspective On New Jersey's Clean Elections Program, Amy H. Handlin

Atlantic Marketing Journal

This paper reviews the outcome of a state electoral reform initiative in terms of the four-stage behavior change process used by social marketers to gauge the effectiveness of their techniques. While the Clean Elections initiative was moderately successful in its Action and Contemplation stages, the author argues that realization of its full potential could be significantly hastened by utilizing the social marketing tools of segmentation, communications research and pretesting.

Obama Stands On The Verge Of A ‘Truman Moment’ In History, Nicholas Hayes

University Chair in Critical Thinking Publications

No abstract provided.

Freedom, Immigration, And Adequate Options, Javier S. Hidalgo

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

According to the freedom argument for open borders, immigration restrictions are generally unjust because these restrictions infringe on important freedoms, such as freedom of association and the economic liberties. Some authors have objected to the freedom argument by claiming that potential immigrants only have rights to sufficient options to live decent or autonomous lives and, consequently, states can permissibly prevent people from immigrating when potential immigrants have adequate options. This paper shows that this objection to the freedom argument for open borders is unsound and that restrictions on international freedom of movement can be morally impermissible even when potential immigrants …

The Deng Xiaoping Legacy: Leading Changes And Transforming China, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

No leader of the 20th century had made greater impact than Deng Xiaoping. Under the late Chinese leader's tenure, which lasted from 1978 to 1992, hundreds of millions of Chinese were lifted from poverty. The chaos that was the Cultural Revolution gave way to steadfast economic development that turned China into a key player in the world economy.

Sitting With Oprah, Dancing With Ellen: Presidents, Daytime Television, And Soft News, José Villalobos

Selected Works Temporary Series

On July 29, 2010, President Barack Obama took to the air on "The View" to talk politics, policy, and family. Pundits billed the visit as the first time a sitting U.S. president appeared in a daytime television program. The telecast drew about 6.7 million viewers, the highest rating ever for the show, and garnered the largest number of women viewers in 17 months. However, whether and to what extent Obama succeeded in getting his message out and endearing himself to female voters remains an open question that merits further scholarly inquiry. In this chapter, I put Obama’s visit to "The …

Sitting With Oprah, Dancing With Ellen: Presidents, Daytime Television, And Soft News, José Villalobos

Departmental Papers (PS)

On July 29, 2010, President Barack Obama took to the air on "The View" to talk politics, policy, and family. Pundits billed the visit as the first time a sitting U.S. president appeared in a daytime television program. The telecast drew about 6.7 million viewers, the highest rating ever for the show, and garnered the largest number of women viewers in 17 months. However, whether and to what extent Obama succeeded in getting his message out and endearing himself to female voters remains an open question that merits further scholarly inquiry. In this chapter, I put Obama’s visit to "The …

Review Of Common Sense: A Political History, Don Herzog

Reviews

This is a completely charming book: smart, literate, subtle, putting pressure in all the right places. Rosenfeld wants to show that surprisingly much of modern political history--the rise of democracy; its anxious and baleful critics; the turn against priestcraft, statecraft, and babbling intellectuals-- is distilled in invocations of common sense. She's calmly and confidently in control of disparate and illuminating material, from England to Amsterdam, Philadelphia to Paris, the seventeenth century to the twentieth. Even readers not persuaded of some of her central claims will enjoy feasting on the often hilarious primary sources she lays out.

The Latino Vote And Obama’S Reelection Possibilities: A Quantitative Assessment Of Its Possible Impact On Nine Swing States, Justine Calcagno

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines the potential impact of the Latino electorate on nine key swing states (Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) for the 2012 presidential election.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: Assuming that current polling data are somewhat accurate, Latino voter turnout and the direction of the Latino vote may not be as meaningful …

Towards A Communicative Theory Of International Law, Timothy L. Meyer

Scholarly Works

Does international law's effectiveness require a clear distinction between law and non-law? This essay, which reviews Jean d'Aspremont's Formalism and the Sources of International Law, argues the answer is no. Ambiguity about the legal nature of international instruments has important benefits. Clarity in the law may encourage states to do the minimum necessary to comply, while some uncertainty about what the law requires may induce states to take extra efforts to ensure they are in compliance. Ambiguity in the law also promotes dynamic change, an important feature in rapidly developing areas of the law such as international environmental law and …

Rhode Island School Terrorist Attack Preparedness, Michael Dube

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study examined the state of safety and terrorist attack preparedness in Rhode Island Schools as determined by Rhode Island school leader perceptions. The study is descriptive in nature as it gathers data to describe a particular event or situation. Using a researcher generated survey based on terrorist preparedness guidelines and suggestions in part from the Department of Homeland Security (2007), U.S. Department of Education (2007), National School Safety Center (2005), and National Association of School Resource Officers (2005), Rhode Island school administrators were asked to use a Likert rating scale to indicate levels of agreement with accepted terrorist preparedness …

Who Is Xi Jinping, And Where Will He Lead China?, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The imminent accession to power of China's fifth generation of leaders since 1949 focuses attention on the background and character of its new president. Xi Jinping's route to the summit, and the crucial fall of his fellow princeling Bo Xilai along the way, is assessed by William A Callahan.

Lost Lesson From 'Argo': Dignified Restraint In Face Of Victory, David Houghton

UCF Forum

It is one of the most remarkable stories in the CIA’s history, and a long untold story of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.

Charles Hill: Trial Of A Thousand Years: World Order And Islamism Study Guide, 2012, Steven A. Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Politics Versus Economics, Ishrat Husain Dr.

Faculty Research - Newspaper and Magazine Articles

A question often asked is that when current economic ills have been diagnosed and we know what needs to be done, why doesn’t it happen? The reason is the inherent disjuncture between the political risks a ruling party is willing to take and the economic rewards accruing through prudent economic management that will take care of these economic ills.

This asymmetry between the incurrence of the costs and the appropriation of benefits lies at the heart of the non-reformist stance of democratically elected governments. India – the largest democracy in the world – has recently been faced with a similar …

Monday’S Debate: Watch For What Romney Says About Europe, Nicholas Hayes

University Chair in Critical Thinking Publications

No abstract provided.

Can Obama Win Re-Election? Demographics Vs. Economics In The 2012 Election, Ruy Texeira

Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise

Lincoln famously spoke of government “of the people, by the p eople, and for the people.” But who, exactly, are “the people”? Which demographic characteristics are the most politically significant? And who will actually turn out to vote? Dr. Ruy Teixeira, Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation and the Center for American Progress, will consider these questions against the backdrop of this year’s presidential campaign.

Religious Liberty In The Early American Republic, Steven A. Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The early nineteenth century in America was a period in which the idea of religious liberty came to be worked out in practice in a setting of growing diversity. The immediate effect of the dissolution of state religious establishments was to strengthen the vitality and prestige of the churches themselves. Before the end of the century, the church historian Philip Schaff could regard as normal ‘a free church in a free state, or a selfsupporting and self-governing Christianity in independent but friendly relation to the civil government.’

The Ethics Of Abortion: Women's Rights, Human Life, And The Question Of Justice, Christopher Kaczor

Faculty Pub Night

No abstract provided.