American Politics Commons^™

Making Cities And Counties Work In The 21st Century, William Fulton

Local Government Reconsidered

"Most American cities are either too big or too small to serve the people who live in them in a cost-effective manner. The system that created them has ossified over time, making change difficult if not impossible. But short of wholesale change, there are some ways cities large and small can become both more responsive and most cost-effective."

Metropolitan Governance Reform, Myron Orfield, Baris Dawes

Local Government Reconsidered

"The highly fragmented nature of the political systems that govern America’s metropolitan areas contributes mightily to all of these problems. The harms of political fragmentation are many and tightly interrelated. The excessive competition triggered by political fragmentation encourages local jurisdictions to pursue socially and economically undesirable policies. Cities steal malls and office parks from each other, fight tax incentive wars for auto malls, and zone out the poor for fiscal advantage in a process rife with haphazard planning and NIMBY biases. This disjointed status quo scatters new jobs like grapeshot at the furthest edge of development and in so doing …

Next Stop City Hall: Towards A World League Of Participatory Cities And Regions, Bruno Kaufman

Local Government Reconsidered

"Fortunately, there is another side to the backlash against democracy at the national and transnational levels. That side is the subnational one. With urban settlements becoming the preferred place of living, acting and producing across the globe, cities and regions are now quickly evolving into our centers of democracy, the true beacons of people power"

People With Disabilities, Public Spaces, And Democracy, Art Blaser

Local Government Reconsidered

I explore accessible environments by examining the nexus between people with disabilities (PWDs), public spaces, and democracy. Understanding this nexus is essential in local governance.

Rethinking The Systems Of Public Engagement, Matt Leighninger

Local Government Reconsidered

"Over the last twenty years, local officials have pioneered many new engagement processes, tools, and techniques. Some of them are highly intensive, deliberative discussions with citizens. Others are fast, convenient, information-rich digital tools; still others are online networks that add technological dexterity to the power of face-to-face relationships.

Many of these innovations are not only satisfying citizens, they also demonstrate the potential of public engagement for helping officials make difficult decisions and solve formidable problems. But so far, these innovations have been pursued primarily on a temporary, ad hoc basis, and have not been incorporated into the way that governments …

Why Cities Need Strategic Plans By Former Portland, Oregon Mayor Sam Adams, Sam Adams

Local Government Reconsidered

"Will a given public project help a city? Hurt it? Make no difference? What appears to be good for a city might actually be bad. A project that helps out some residents may gentrify out many others. It is often hard to tweeze out the costs, benefits and unintended consequences of the projects and policies that cities take on. Although we will never have a perfect algorithm that weighs the costs and benefits of a given project or policy, we can improve upon relying too much on good intentions and political expedience."

The Ombatse Crisis In Nigeria: Background, Recent Developments And Possible Solutions, Simeon Onyemachi Hilary Alozieuwa Ph.D.

Journal of Interdisciplinary Conflict Science

This paper focuses on the hegemonic politics between the Eggon and Hausa/Fulani ethnic groups in Nasarawa, North-Central Nigeria, which eventually erupted into the Ombatse crisis of May 2013- a precursor to the 2015 general elections. It addresses four research questions seeking to unravel whether or not: (1a) the crisis truly reflects a spiritual revivalist agenda as projected by the Ombatse promoters or merely espouses Eggon rejection of Muslim-Hausa/Fulani ethnic hegemony- mirroring broadly the identity, hegemonic and exclusionary politics in the area cum the larger Nigerian society;(b) the Eggon-Hausa-Fulani feud has the potential to exacerbate the sectarian strife in Nigeria’s northern …

A Comparative Case Study Of Georgia Delegations At The 2012 National Party Conventions, Carolyn S. Carlson, Jeff R. Dewitt, Kerwin Swint

Georgia Journal of Public Policy

From August 26 to September 8, nine political science students and four supervising faculty traveled from Kennesaw State University to the 2012 Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention as part of special topics course on a course titled “Party Conventions Field Study”. While in Tampa and Charlotte, the students and faculty immersed themselves in a “real world” educational environment and in doing so gained extraordinary first-hand exposure to a fundamental, yet not well understood, part of the American political process. Students directly engaged with convention proceedings and participants, primarily the Georgia state party delegations, and implemented pre-approved research …

Campaign Finance Makes America Go ‘Round: Individual Campaign Contributions And The Effects Of Citizens United On The American Election System, Geneva Sherman

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

How political campaigns are financed directly affects every citizen in the United States. This can be attributed to the fact that campaign money is correlated to the laws that pass through congress and the interests that are taken into consideration. After the passage of Citizens United in 2010, campaign donation caps were lifted to allow for virtual unregulated money in politics with PACs, Super PACs and 501(c)(4)s. Although the 2010 passage of Citizens United has increased the influence of corporate and wealthy interests, individual campaign donations represent a major percentage of funds raised and are heavily relied upon. The present …

Understanding Transitional Justice And Its Two Major Dilemmas, Jared Bell

Journal of Interdisciplinary Conflict Science

Transitional justice is an ever growing field and greatly intersects with conflict science and peace studies. With the horrific crimes committed during World War II and the latter half of the 20^th century societies now more than ever before are devising processes, mechanisms, and policies to move past gross human rights violations or communal violence. However, these mechanisms much like anything else are not perfect and come with a variety of dilemmas. In particular two main dilemmas plague transitional justice which this paper aims to deal with: Getting to Truth and Reality versus Expectation. Within the context of …

The Calculus Of Consent, John Thrasher, Gerald Gaus

Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy is a groundbreaking work in democratic theory. This chapter argues that it is of continued relevance today, due both to its methodological innovations and its use of those innovative techniques to solve the fundamental problem of democratic justification. In Calculus, James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock fuse economic methods, political theory, and the normative project of showing how democratic institutions of a particular sort can be justified contractually, creating a unique form of democratic contractualism that came to be known as “Constitutional Political Economy” and the more general research program of “Public …

Personality Profiles Of 2016 Republican Presidential Candidates, Aubrey Immelman

Forum Lectures

Aubrey Immelman and his summer research assistant Joe Trenzeluk present summaries of the psychological profiles of Republican contenders in the 2016 U.S. presidential election (including Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, and Scott Walker) and outline the leadership implications of those profiles. In addition, the presenters discuss the personality profile of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and compare the candidates’ scores on the locally developed Personal [Presidential] Electability Index (PEI). The PEI, which has accurately predicted the outcome of every presidential election since 1996, projects that Trump will win the election.

Review Of Global Activism In Food Politics: Powershift, Ashley Wendell Kranjac

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Alana Mann's Global Activism in Food Politics: Power Shift.

Review Of Developing Quantitative Literacy Skills In History And The Social Sciences: A Web-Based Common Core Approach By Kathleen W. Craver, Victor J. Ricchezza, H L. Vacher

Numeracy

Kathleen W. Craver. Developing Quantitative Literacy Skills in History and Social Sciences: A Web-Based Common Core Standards Approach (Lantham MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 2014). 191 pp.
ISBN 978-1-4758-1050-9 (cloth); ISBN …-1051-6 (pbk); ISBN…-1052-3 (electronic).

This book could be a breakthrough for teachers in the trenches who are interested in or need to know about quantitative literacy (QL). It is a resource providing 85 topical pieces, averaging 1.5 pages, in which a featured Web site is presented, described, and accompanied by 2-4 critical-thinking questions purposefully drawing on data from the Web site. The featured Web sites range from …

Why Terrorist Networks Maintain Viability Within Today’S Modern Society., Cade Resnick Ph.D., Amy Guimond Ph.D, Heather Wellman Ph.D., Shawna Resnick M.S.

Journal of Interdisciplinary Conflict Science

Common concepts of terrorism refer to acts which are intended to create a system of fear. The ideological argument for terrorism relates to a politically and emotionally charged scenario in which terrorism is necessary. The development of a terrorist organization requires an environment that is ripe with social degradation and has idealistic minded people who are able to believe in a cause. The organization utilizes a social system to maintain its own stability and to retain the people who are involved within its self-contained community. Suffering oppression from its own government or an-other nation is a crucial component in fostering …

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.

Waste And Duplication In Nasa Programs: The Need To Enhance U.S. Space Program Efficiency, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The U.S. Government faces acute budgetary deficits and national debt problems in the Obama Administration. These problems have been brought about by decades of unsustainable government spending affecting all agencies including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (NASA). An outgrowth of this fiscal profligacy is the presence of wasteful and duplicative programs within NASA that prevent this agency from achieving its space science and human spaceflight objectives. These problems occur due to mismanagement of these programs from NASA and the creation of these programs by the U.S. Congress and congressional committees. This occurs because congressional appropriators tend to be more …

Challenging The Political Assumption That “Guns Don’T Kill People, Crazy People Kill People!”, Heath J. Hodges, Mario Scalora

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Every time an infamous mass shooting takes place, a storm of rhetoric sweeps across this country with the fury of a wild fire. “Why are we letting these people carry guns?” “Why were they not hospitalized?” “The government needs to crack down on this issue!” What is the government’s response to these cries of concern? Politicians and the media attempt to ease public fears by drawing tenuous connections among a handful of poorly understood tragedies. The salient commonality is that these high-profile shooters had some history of mental illness. A cursory review of the Internet will paint a troubling picture …

Women And Violence In The Age Of Migration, Lilia D. Monzó, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"Women from across Latin America are migrating north at great peril to their lives – their intended destination is, as expected, the US – that giant powerhouse that in spite of its well documented historical and continued imperialist violence and exploitation against Latin America is still able to create the ideological haze that encourages hope for that illusive “American dream.” Pushed to the brink of desperation resulting from unimaginable poverty, privation, and fear, these women muster the courage that only women of color know that they have (it is imbued in their flesh and in their hearts as a result …

Soft Power Played On The Hardwood: United States Diplomacy Through Basketball, Joseph Bertka Eyen

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis demonstrates the importance of basketball as a form of soft power and a diplomatic asset to better achieve American foreign policy, which is defined and referred to as basketball diplomacy. Basketball diplomacy is also a lens to observe the evolution of American power from 1893 through present day. Basketball connects and permeates foreign cultures and effectively disseminates American influence unlike any other form of soft power, which is most powerfully illustrated by the United States’ basketball relationship with China. American basketball diplomacy will become stronger and connect with more countries with greater influence, and exist without relevant competition, …

The Psychology Of Terrorism And Radicalization, Gina K. Dejacimo

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Terrorism and radicalized political groups are an ever-growing subsection of the American and international news cycles. Mainstream media outlets tend to focus on the atrocious actions of terrorists, leaving the American public without a true understanding of what encourages someone to become a violent, radicalized extremist. This paper intends to investigate possible psychological factors that can predict a person’s likelihood to become radicalized and participate in a salafi jihadi terrorist campaign. If such psychological conditions exist, perhaps they are the key to preventing radicalization in the first place, and in turn, the key to preventing any terrorist activity. What other …

Framing The Question, "Who Governs The Internet?", Robert J. Domanski

Publications and Research

There remains a widespread perception among both the public and elements of academia that the Internet is “ungovernable”. However, this idea, as well as the notion that the Internet has become some type of cyber-libertarian utopia, is wholly inaccurate. Governments may certainly encounter tremendous difficulty in attempting to regulate the Internet, but numerous types of authority have nevertheless become pervasive. So who, then, governs the Internet? This book will contend that the Internet is, in fact, being governed, that it is being governed by specific and identifiable networks of policy actors, and that an argument can be made as to …

We Wear The Mask: Exploring The Talented Tenth And African American Political Philosophy In 21st Century Politics, Lauryn T. Minter

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Researchers have suggested that Blacks who express linked racial fate are ideologically liberal. Given the prominence of Black philosophical thought and salience of race, I suggest that linked racial fate results in conservative ideology, which exists on a separate ideological dimension than the traditional conservative ideological dimension. This new ideological dimension, referred to as conservatism among Blacks, is vital to understanding Black political thought in the 21^st century. Using data from the 1996 National Black Election Study, 2008 National Annenberg Election Study, and focus group data I argue that the conservative ideas espoused by Blacks, specifically members of the …

Curbing Corporate Inversions: A Study Of National And International Efforts To Establish Corporate Tax Equity, Scott Novak

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In recent years, the number of U.S. companies trying to merge with a foreign company and thereby reincorporate themselves in countries with a lower corporate tax rate – a practice known as corporate inversion – has skyrocketed. The public outcry in 2014 against corporate inversions led the U.S. Treasury to release a series of new anti-inversion regulations, and more policy changes are in the process of being debated. At the same time as this national discussion on the harmful effects corporate inversions have on the U.S. tax base is progressing, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is in …

Creatures Of Incoherence: Dissecting The Drivers, History, And Cognition Of Attitudinal Incongruence In The American Body Politic, Timothy Collins

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Most American conservatives and liberals wield contradictory political attitudes. This dissertation explores what drives this “attitudinal incongruence.” First, I define and operationalize my terminology and situate the topic within social and political psychology to formulate my central model and theory of ideologically asymmetrical application of (1) individuals’ psychological and cognitive traits, and (2) individuals’ social identity and environmental traits. This leads to the overarching hypothesis that conservatives’ incongruities are more strongly driven by internal forces, and liberals’ by external forces. The central model is then demonstrated in a broad historical overview of attitudinal incongruence in America. The central tenets of …

Elect Her Campaign College Women To Win Program, Judith Puncochar

Grants

ELECT HER Campaign College Women to Win Program encourages and trains young women to run for student government on college campuses and become active in civic engagement. Northern Michigan University was one of 10 universities selected for the first ELECT HER programs. Elect Her has been an on-going annual March event at NMU since 2010. Four of the last five ASNMU presidents have received Elect Her training.

Environmental Regulation, Michelle C. Pautz

Political Science Faculty Publications

The terms environment and regulation are commonplace in political and policy debates about the natural environment, the role of science, and the behavior of government. Indeed, these terms reference a very contentious area of public policy and are emblematic of the growing tensions between science and politics. This chapter overviews the definition, types, and history of environmental regulation before turning to the intersection of science and politics in environmental policy and considering current and future challenges for this aspect of governmental activity.

American Military Strategy In The Vietnam War, 1965– 1973, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

For nearly a decade, American combat soldiers fought in South Vietnam to help sustain an independent, noncommunist nation in Southeast Asia. After U.S. troops departed in 1973, the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975 prompted a lasting search to explain the United States’ first lost war. Historians of the conflict and participants alike have since critiqued the ways in which civilian policymakers and uniformed leaders applied—some argued misapplied—military power that led to such an undesirable political outcome. While some claimed U.S. politicians failed to commit their nation’s full military might to a limited war, others contended that most officers fundamentally …

Accounting For Accountability, Celina Su

Publications and Research

Review of the book Open Budgets: The Political Economy of Transparency, Participation, and Accountability, edited by Sanjeev Khagram, Archon Fung, and Paolo de Renzio.

A Federalist George W. Bush And An Anti-Federalist Barack Obama? The Irony And Paradoxes Behind Republican And Democratic Administration Drug Policies, José Villalobos

Selected Works Temporary Series

During President George W. Bush’s tenure in the White House, his administration stood clearly against state-level efforts in California and elsewhere to decriminalize soft drugs. Despite his loyalty to smaller government values and state sovereignty on other issues, the prospect of state-level drug decriminalization led Bush to pursue federal means of enforcing anti-drug laws. Years later, President Barack Obama, though known for his reputation as a federalist, shifted power over drug policy enforcement more towards the state level as a means to allow certain states to enact drug decriminalization policies at their will, particularly with respect to medicinal marijuana. The …