American Politics Commons^™

Breaking The Law! Conditions For And Perception Of Civil Disobedience By Democratic Citizens, Adam Stanley

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper examines actions of civil disobedience and the laws relevant to those actions. Each case study was tested against an operational definition of civil disobedience to see if these actions could be considered a legitimate expression of civil disobedience. The legitimacy of the laws was assessed through the use of two competing legal philosophies of H. L. A. Hart and Ronald Dworkin. Then, the public’s opinion of civil disobedience was measured through the use of polls and survey data. The results showed that the three cases did follow the guidelines of civil disobedience established by the literature, but the …

The Politic 2007 Spring, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

The Politic 2007 Winter, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

Your Most Important Role In A Democracy: Thinking For Yourself, Vanessa Urch Druskat

The University Dialogue

No abstract provided.

Deliberative Dilemmas: A Critique Of Deliberation Day From The Perspective Of Election Law, Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

My paper deals with two subject areas - deliberative democracy theory and election law - that have had surprisingly little contact with another. My paper tries to remedy this lacuna by looking at how the two fields intersect and can contribute to the understanding of one another. In particular, I look in detail at a particularly prominent proposal by two political theorists, Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin's Deliberation Day, and how the aims of that proposal might be frustrated by the present structure of American election law. I argue that because they fail to take into account certain structural features …

The Politic 2006 Summer, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

Reviewed Work: Understanding Institutional Diversity By Elinor Ostrom, Jonathan G.S. Koppell

Publications from President Jonathan G.S. Koppell

No abstract provided.

Entertaining Politics And The College Student, Alexandra Rubin

Senior Honors Projects

Mass media is crucial in forming and reflecting opinion in society. Newspaper, television, and the internet all play a critical role in the daily lives of Americans; disseminating information that shapes views of life, culture, and politics. It seems like all forms of media communication, either subliminally or blatantly, reflect the political climate of the day. The news media flood American homes with images, audio, and commentary on political happenings. My questions are as follows: How much basic political knowledge does an average college student possess? Where does the average college student receive his or her political knowledge? Does celebrity …

The Limits Of U.S. Governmental Power In Times Of Crisis, Adam M. Goldwater

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Government’s Emergency Power Throughout the History of the United States This paper reviews the use of power by the United States government during times of crisis. This paper analyzes both the arguments from Thomas Hobbes and John Locke regarding how limited both believe government should be. Throughout this debate John Locke believes that in leaving a state of nature we must enter into civil society through a social contract with each other. Hobbes’ view of the state of nature is such that he believes that there should be virtually no limitations on the power of government in eliminating citizens from …

The Politic 2006 Spring, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

The Refund Booth: Using The Principle Of Symmetric Information To Improve Campaign Finance Regulation, Ian Ayres, Bruce Ackerman, Georgetown University Law Center

Philip A. Hart Memorial Lecture

On March 22, 2006, Professor of Law, Ian Ayres of Yale Law School, delivered the Georgetown Law Center’s twenty-sixth Annual Philip A. Hart Memorial Lecture: "The Refund Booth: Using the Principle of Symmetric Information to Improve Campaign Finance Regulation." The article, The Secret Refund Booth, was co-authored with Professor Bruce Ackerman of Yale University.

Ian Ayres is a lawyer and an economist. He is the William K. Townsend Professor of Law and Anne Urowsky Professorial Fellow in Law at Yale Law School and a Professor at Yale's School of Management. He is the editor of the Journal of Law, …

Three-Strikes Legislation And The Evolution Of The Liberal Conception Of Justice, Lisa Dillon

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this paper is to examine the changing nature of the liberal conception of justice using three-strikes legislation as a basis for comparison. It includes a brief examination of the legal debate surrounding three-strikes legislation, as well as comprehensive tables comparing the content of the laws in several states. The preponderance of the paper explores the evolution of the liberal concept of justice in the works of John Locke, Jeremy Bentham, and John Stuart Mill. It concludes with a discussion of contemporary liberal thought on justice, and more specifically, with an examination of the work of John Rawls …

[Introduction To] America And Enlightenment Constitutionalism, Gary L. Mcdowell, Johnathan O'Neill

Bookshelf

America and Enlightenment Constitutionalism shows in detail the Enlightenment origin of the U.S. Constitution. It provides vivid analysis of how the Enlightenment's basic ideas were reformulated in the context of America. It is particularly successful in bringing out the competing strains of Enlightenment thought and of articulating crucial Enlightenment concepts of public opinion, equality, public reason, legislature and judiciary, revolution, law, and the people in their American context. The collection is timely given contemporary debates between republicans and liberals about constitutional interpretation which are addressed throughout.

Soft Power: The Means To Success In World Politics (Book Review), Donna A. Cristo

WCBT Faculty Publications

Book review by Donna A. Christo.

Nye, Joseph S. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. New York: Public Affairs, 2004. ISBN 9781586482251; 9781586483067 (pbk.)

The Politic 2005 Fall, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

The Politic 2005 Summer, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

The Politic 2005 Spring, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

The Politic 2004 Fall, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

The Politic 2004 Summer, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

The Politic 2004 Spring, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Ballot Position On Election Outcomes, Jonathan G.S. Koppell, Jennifer A. Steen

Publications from President Jonathan G.S. Koppell

This article presents evidence of name-order effects in balloting from a study of the 1998 Democratic primary in New York City, in which the order of candidates' names was rotated by precinct. In 71 of 79 individual nominating contests, candidates received a greater proportion of the vote when listed first than when listed in any other position. In seven of those 71 contests, the advantage to first position exceeded the winner's margin of victory, suggesting that ballot position would have determined the election outcomes if one candidate had held the top spot in all precincts.

John F. Kennedy And West Virginia, 1960-1963, Anthony W. Ponton

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In 1960, John F. Kennedy, a wealthy New England Catholic, traveled to a rural, Protestant state to contend in an election that few thought he could win. While many scholars have examined the impact of Kennedy’s victory in the West Virginia primary, few have analyzed the importance that his visit to the state in 1960 and his ensuing administration had on West Virginia. Kennedy enacted a number of policies directed specifically toward relieving the poverty that had plagued West Virginia since statehood. The Kennedy administration funded highway construction, worker training programs, and area development at levels the state had never …

Communitarianism And Republicanism, Richard Dagger

Political Science Faculty Publications

Communitarianism and republicanism are closely related schools of thought - so closely related that friend and foe alike sometimes conflate them. The relationship is evident in their Latin roots: communitarians are concerned with communitas, the common life of people who form a community, and republicans are devoted to the res publica, the good of the public. Of the two, however, only republicanism traces its lineage as well as its name to ancient Rome. Indeed, scholars often look beyond Rome to the philosophers and city-states of ancient Greece, particularly Aristotle and Sparta, for the origins of republicanism. For the …

The Politic 2004 Winter, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

The Politic 2003 Fall, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

The Politic 2003 Spring, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

Unstable Partisanship Among The U.S. Electorate: A Synthesis And Review Of The Foremost Rationale, Katherine R. Lloyd

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In American politics, voting along the lines of one's par~y is consiaered a fundamental example of stable partisanship. Over time, however, we can observe a lack in this pattern of stability. In fact, many times people do not vote for members of the party that they cla~m to belong to. The prominent theories for this unstable partisanship among the U.S. electorate are reviewed here. They include macropartisansh~p and the role of the elite; candidatecentered campaigns; party realignment and ideological change; and the role of third parties and independents. ~hey are examined for their ability to describe the unstable patterns of …

Who's The Safer Sex? Testing Barbara Burrell's Theory Of Campaign Contributions In Arkansas State Legislative Elections, Emily Adair Neff-Sharum

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

At the very heart of American politics and government is democracy. Debates abound about the nature of American democracy, and especially ways to improve symbolic representation, substantive representation and/or participation by groups typically considered in the political minority (Moss-Kanter 1977; Pipert-High and Comer 1988; Saint-Germaine 1989; Seldon 1997; Thomas 1997). One focus of this literature is on the outputs of bureaucratic agencies or legislative agendas. If advocates of representative democracy hope to create legislatures on both the state and the national levels that contain an adequate presence of female representatives in order to fully represent women, they must begin with …

The Politic 2002 Fall, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

The Decline In Average Weekly Cinema Attendance, 1930-2000, Michelle C. Pautz

Political Science Faculty Publications

Since the beginnings of the motion picture industry, with the one small Edison studio in New Jersey in the early 1900s, America has fallen in love with films. One could argue and debate the reasons, employing everything from sociology to psychology to economics; but one thing is certain: This love affair has changed over the years. This change is perhaps most evident in the decline in the percentage of the United States population that goes to the cinema weekly. One interesting aspect of cinema attendance is that during the Great Depression, which swept the United States in the 1930s, a …