Political Science Commons^™

Cutting The Fuse: The Explosion Of Global Suicide Terrorism And How To Stop It, Sunil K. Sahu

International Dialogue

Since 9/11 there has been a burgeoning literature on terrorism written by journalists, scholars, policy makers, diplomats, and military professionals. The last decade has also witnessed a dramatic increase in suicide terrorist attacks—violent attacks designed to kill others where the death of the attacker is a necessary part of the action—especially against American interests. There were twenty suicide terrorist attacks worldwide in 2000, one of which was anti-American inspired; the number of such attacks increased ten-fold by 2010, 90% of which were anti-American inspired. Although suicide bombing was used by imperial Japan at the end of World War II, the …

The Power Of Religion In The Public Sphere, Robin Alice Roth

International Dialogue

Of the numerous topics current philosophy is attentive to certainly the issue of religion is central. This anthology starts with Jürgen Habermas’ notion of “the public sphere” and works to connect this notion to the issue of religion. Of course, religion has long been part of the public sphere. For much of human history, people established their various formations of society and state in a manner continuous with religion. Their discourses were compact. Habermas’ early works argue for a differentiation of the religious and political spheres from the public sphere that eventually overcame “representational” culture, with its authoritarianism, particularly with …

Genocide And The Europeans, Kate Ferguson

International Dialogue

Next year the world will commemorate twenty years since the Rwandan genocide and the following year will mark twenty years since the genocide at Srebrenica. As the International Community prepares to honor these grim milestones, somber deliberation of the mistakes of the past must inform the development of a more committed future. Karen Smith’s book, Genocide and the Europeans, provides just such a reflection for Europe, tracing the continent’s policy responses to incidents of genocide since the Holocaust. It is an important text that draws a detailed history of the past sixty years, pairing the careful analysis of an international …

The Foundations Of Deliberative Democracy: Empirical Research And Normative Implications, Lauren Johnston

International Dialogue

As the theory of deliberative democracy developed in the late-1980s and 1990s much of the focus was on its normative foundations. However, for the last decade there has been a greater focus on practice and institutionalization, accompanied by a wealth of empirical evidence on deliberative democracy. Therefore, there is now a need to return to these normative debates in light of this empirical evidence. Jürg Steiner’s book aims to contribute to this endeavour by concentrating on the “interplay between normative and empirical aspects of deliberation” (1). In undertaking this goal he acknowledges that he is not a professional philosopher, but …

Respect For Nature: A Theory Of Environmental Ethics, Edward Abplanalp

International Dialogue

Paul Taylor’s Respect for Nature was first published 1986 when environmental ethics was a relatively new field. In it he defended a deontological biocentric environmental ethic predicated on the idea that all living beings have inherent value. It was a groundbreaking work in non-anthropocentric ethics, and since then it has been frequently anthologized and used in ethics and environmental philosophy courses taught around the world. The Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition of Respect for Nature (2011) contains a two-page forward by Dale Jamieson, who notes the continued urgency for intellectuals to consider the meaning of “respect for nature.” When Respect for Nature …

Just Democracy: The Rawls-Machiavelli Programme, Joseph Bien

International Dialogue

Professor Philippe Van Parijs is attempting nothing less than to examine and resolve the age old question of how one might have a just democracy in a modern state, especially when one is referring to those member states of the European Union. This is at the very least difficult but admirable task.

New York Times V. U.S.: Implications And Relevance In The 21st Century, Maria E. Lombardi

Student Publications

In 1971, the New York Times released the first installment in a series later referred to as the Pentagon Papers that would eventually have significant political, social, and historical impacts that are felt even in the 21st Century. Following the first release, President Nixon’s administration sought an injunction against the publication of the remaining contents of the classified study, ultimately becoming an extensive legal process that culminated in the Supreme Court. In a per curiam opinion, the Court ruled that in accordance with Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe and Near v. Minnesota that the federal government did not …

Hopi Oral Tradition And The Archaeology Of Identity, Brady Desanti

International Dialogue

Native American activists of the civil rights era leveled heavy critiques at archaeology and anthropology for their prior support of colonial legislation and lack of sensitivity towards Native viewpoints. Archaeology in particular was taken to task for the destruction of numerous burial sites and the theft of thousands of Native American bodily remains and cultural items for over a century. The decades-long efforts by Native Americans and their non-Indian allies (which included some archaeologists) to secure the return of these remains and objects paid off in 1990. The passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) mandates …

Kant's Political Theory: Interpretations And Applications, Alice Pinheiro Walla

International Dialogue

For a long time in Anglo-American political philosophy “Kant’s political philosophy” meant not Kant’s own developed political thought, but an application of his moral theory to political issues. Thankfully, Kant’s legal and political thought is experiencing a renaissance in the English-speaking world after a long period of neglect. Not only Kant’s short political writings such as Toward Perpetual Peace, “On The Common Saying: This May be True in Theory but it Does Not Hold in Practice,” and “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment” are being rediscovered; also the Doctrine of Right, the first part of the Metaphysics of …

Table Of Contents, Rory J. Conces

International Dialogue

Table of Contents for Volume 3

Insurgent Encounters: Transnational Activism, Ethnography, And The Political, Julie A. Pelton

International Dialogue

nsurgent Encounters: Transnational Activism, Ethnography, and the Political, edited by Jeffrey Juris and Alex Khasnabish, opens with a vignette describing an encounter between international activists and Zapatista base communities in 2006–7. The moment, and the thick description of it in the introduction, serves as an exemplar of the ethnographic approach to studying social movements advocated in this book: at once romantic, mysterious, and radical, while also rife with contradictions, struggles, and tensions. Juris and Khasnabish have gathered together a diverse collection of work on transnational activism that highlights the importance of ethnography as a set of methods largely neglected in …

Coalitions Of Convenience: United States Military Interventions After The Cold War, Jeffrey A. Griffin

International Dialogue

Sarah Kreps’ Coalitions of Convenience: United States Military Interventions after the Cold War provides a timely comparative analysis of military intervention in the context of a continuously globalizing world. Kreps endeavors to shed light on an important facet of international society today—military intervention. The study explores the question of why states, when they have the capacity to act unilaterally, often choose to take a multilateral approach. More specifically, Kreps questions why coercive and powerful states, particularly the United States, intervene multilaterally when the capacity exists for unilateral action. As the sole superpower in the international system, the way in which …

Balkan Genocides: Holocaust And Ethnic Cleansing In The Twentieth Century, Marko A. Hoare

International Dialogue

The sudden explosion of interest in genocide as a topic of academic study over the past decade or so has involved academics rushing to produce “big” general theories in their efforts to have their voices heard. But more often than not, their haste has produced books that are insufficiently researched and theses that strain to be profound. In Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century, Paul Mojzes has attempted something more moderately ambitious: an overview of the Balkan genocides of the twentieth century, focusing principally on the territory of the former Yugoslavia but involving forays into other …

Islam In Denmark: The Challenge Of Diversity, Aje Carlbom

International Dialogue

In public debates contemporary Denmark stands out as an extraordinary nationalist and racist country. This is particularly so on issues concerned with Islam and Muslim immigration. The growth of the nationalist political party Dansk folkeparti, the Muhammad caricatures and harsh laws regulating family reunion are often used as examples by outside observers trying to describe political transformations in the country. These, and some other themes, are discussed in the anthology Islam in Denmark: The Challenge of Diversity (2012), edited by Jørgen S. Nielsen, professor and director of The Centre for European Islamic Thought at the University of Copenhagen. What kind …

Europe As A Civilization: The Revolution Of The Middle Ages & The Rise Of The Universities, Toby E. Huff

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Richard Lynn And Tatu Vanhanen, Intelligence: A Unifying Concept For The Social Sciences., Michael Andregg

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Individual And Organizational Human Rights Activism In Liberia, Sierra Leone, And Kenya, Robert M. Press

Faculty Publications

This article examines the ways individual and organizational activists peacefully resisted government repression in recent decades in three sub-Saharan Africa countries. It is based on both archival research and more than 170 interviews by the author with key activists and others in the countries at various times from 2002-2012. This qualitative study makes several contributions to the literature. First, by including individual activism as well as organizational activism, it reveals wider and more varied participation in human rights activism than is normally detected. Second, where the usual focus in resistance studies is on mass movements, this study presents a more …

Climate Geoengineering And Iwu's Ethics Bowl, Jake K. Bates

The Intellectual Standard

In its sophomore season of competition, Illinois Wesleyan's Eth­ics Bowl team qualified for the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl hosted in San Antonio, Texas on February 28. In spite of technical difficulties and flight delays, the team returned to campus having won the first annual Spirit of the Ethics Bowl award, an honor recognizing sportsmanship which was voted on by opposing teams. Ethics bowl competition centers around a set of cases featuring ethical dilemmas and quandaries published by the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics. It is structured so that a presenting team has ten minutes to answer a question regarding anyone …

Lessons In Injustice: Privilege Walks, Karen Silverman

The Intellectual Standard

If you are a white male take one step forward. If your parents did not grow up in the United States take a step back. If you were born in the United States take a step forward. These are some of the questions one might hear at a Privilege Walk, which is an activity held at many universi­ties in order to "provide participants with an opportunity to understand the intricacies of privilege" (Young, 2006). Questions such as these are asked to partici­pating students who stand shoulder to shoulder in a straight line. Students take steps forward when their answers to …

In Defense Of Technology, Mike Kelly

The Intellectual Standard

During the Middle Ages, i.e. the "Dark" Ages, man's worldview was largely dominated by mysticism, irrationality, and collectivism. The universe was widely perceived as epistemologically unknowable and meta­physically malevolent, dooming man to suffering and tragedy. Given the widespread political and social instability, as well as the ravages of un­stoppable plagues and warmongering nations, such conclusions were not totally unreasonable. The Enlightenment and its corollary, the Scientific Revolution, delivered western civilization from the Dark Ages into an age of reason, science, and individualism. What was once perceived as un­knowable, uncertain, and malevolent, became knowable, certain, and be­nevolent. The universe became a …

The Egyptian Islamic Group’S Critique Of Al-Qaeda’S Interpretation Of Jihad, Paul Kamolnick

ETSU Faculty Works

A specific branch of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh al-jihad) regulates the waging of the jihad of the sword (jihad bis saif). In this article, a detailed exposition is presented of the Egyptian Islamic Group’s (IG; Al-Gama’a Al-Islamiyya) use of fiqh al jihad against Al-Qaeda. The present author’s ‘jihad-realist’ approach is first briefly described; the IG’s critique of AQ systematically outlined; and in conclusion, implications are derived for counter-radicalisation strategies.

2013 Quality Of Life Survey - Orleans And Jefferson Parishes, Edward E. Chervernak, Shih-Chan Dai, Elizabeth Jahasz

Survey Research Center Publications

The UNO Survey Research Center began its Quality of Life series in 1986. Since then the quality of life and government services in Jefferson and Orleans parishes has been assessed every other year. The current 2013 survey is the seventeenth in the series, and in this report we pay particular attention to changes in both parishes that have occurred over the last several years.

The 2013 study is an examination of quality of life in the region. These surveys are designed to provide an ongoing picture of how voters view local government services and the general quality of life. They …

Diversity, Deliberations, And Judicial Opinion Writing., Susan B. Haire, Laura P. Moyer, Shawn Treier

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Underlying scholarly interest in diversity is the premise that a representative body contributes to robust decision-making processes. Using an innovative measure of opinion content, we examine this premise by analyzing deliberative outputs in the US courts of appeals (1997-2002). While the presence of a single female or minority did not affect the attention to issues in the majority opinion, panels composed of a majority of women or minorities produced opinions with significantly more points of law compared to panels with three Caucasian males.

Twenty Years Later: Perceptions And Understandings Of Democracy In Durban, Kwazulu-Natal, Jennifer Hamilton

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study seeks to explore perceptions and understandings of democracy in South Africa twenty years post-apartheid. Information from interviews with fifty South African citizens in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal was supplemented with interviews with five experts from institutions relevant to democratic development. Participants agreed that South Africa was a democracy, but disagreed on the meanings of democracy, South Africa’s democratic performance to date, and future prospects for democracy. The learner concludes that, in order to improve the quality of democratic governance in the country, South Africans must engage in a national dialogue about what democracy is and where it is meant to …

Hard Choices On Myanmar Still Lie Ahead For The Eu, Clara Portela

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Ethical Decision Making And Leadership: Merging Social Role And Self-Construal Perspectives, Crystal L. Hoyt, Terry L. Price

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

This research extends our understanding of ethical decision making on the part of leaders by merging social role and self-construal perspectives. Interdependent self-construal is generally seen as enhancing concern for justice and moral values. Across two studies we tested the prediction that non-leading group members’ interdependent self-construal would be associated with lower levels of unethical decision making on behalf of their group but that, in contrast, this relationship would be weaker for leaders, given their social role. These predictions were experimentally tested by assigning participants to the role of leader or non-leading group member and assessing the association between their …

Let’S Require Civics Education At All Levels, Evan Barrett

Highlands College

A Montana Public Radio Commentary by Evan Barrett.

Graham, Robert Duke, 1900-1984 (Mss 473), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 473. Correspondence and scrapbooks of Robert D. Graham, Democratic mayor of Bowling Green, Kentucky from 1960-1963 and 1968-1971. The materials mostly document his public career, but some personal papers, including those of his wife Edith, are included.

Micro Enterprise, Development, And The Future Of Women In Lesser-Developed Countries And The United States, Anna Nibley, Dr. Lamond Tullis

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Introduction: The problem of development and economic disparity does not reside solely in Lesser-developed Countries (LDCs). Micro-credit is at work in forty-three countries, including the United States (New York Times 1997, 8). In the United States, a majority of the country’s poor reside in slums and low-income housing projects. Most of these people do not own the land on which they reside or the apartment or house in which they live and many are dependent on welfare. Because of these factors, many poor people cannot receive loans from traditional lending institutions. Recently, however, organizations like Accion International, a micro lending …

Ghana And The International Criminal Court Why Did Ghana Support The Creation Of The Icc?, Melissa Paredes, Dr. Darren Hawkins

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Preliminary evidence pointed to Ghana as a likely leader in the creation of the International Criminal Court. Ghana was the sixth country to sign the Rome Statute for creation of the International Criminal Court. It was also one of the first countries to ratify the Statute, after the Ghanaian Parliament voted unanimously for the ratification. Currently, there is a Ghanaian woman serving as the Vice-President of the Court.