American Politics Commons^™

Matthew S. Weinert On Back To Peace: Reconciliation And Retribution In The Postwar Period Edited By Aránzazu Usandizaga And Andrew Monnickendam. Notre Dame, In: University Of Notre Dame Press, 2007. 320pp., Matthew S. Weinert

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Back to Peace: Reconciliation and Retribution in the Postwar Period edited by Aránzazu Usandizaga and Andrew Monnickendam. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. 320pp.

Forced Labor In The United States: A Contemporary Problem In Need Of A Contemporary Solution, Chrissey Buckley

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Legal slavery ended in the United States in 1865, yet the practice of forcing individuals to work against their will, oftentimes in inhumane conditions, continues today. Currently there are around 50,000 people working in forced labor situations in the United States (Bales 47). Although this number is smaller than it was during the 18th century, finding and freeing these individuals is difficult because they are hidden away and exploited. The United States is now at a critical juncture in its struggle to end forced labor. In 2000, the U.S. Government enacted legislation that holds perpetrators of forced labor accountable, and …

The Effect Of Gender On Health Care Policy In The State Legislature, Ashley Wilson Huth

Honors Program Theses

This paper examines whether descriptive representation, in terms of gender, affects substantive representation among female legislators in a single state legislature. Data are collected from the 82nd General Assembly of the Iowa state legislature's lower-house. The unit of analysis is the individual bill. Controlling for legislator and district characteristics, I test whether legislator gender has an independent effect on the likelihood of the introduction of healthcare legislation. Utilizing the substantive representation index, and logistic regression with robust-cluster-standard-errors, I find that males introduce more healthcare bills when compared to females. The implications of this finding in terms of legislative representation are …

Public Leadership In The Political Arena, Lori Cox Han

Political Science Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"In this chapter, I address the concept of leadership and the Important role that it now in the process at all levels and in various branches of I offer a definition of leadership and the various political that encompass this of governing. The vast scholarly literature that has developed in recent decades on the topic of presidential communications offers an excellent assessment of the contemporary importance of public leadership. I a brief overview of public strategies and how they have evolved over time (particularly in concurrence with technological advances in mass as well as relevant examples' that help us to …

Greg Shaw, Charlie Schlenker

Interviews for WGLT

Charlie Schlenker of WGLT interviews Professor of Political Science Greg Shaw about his book, The Welfare Debate. (requires RealPlayer)

Women Of Talent: Gender And Government Appointments In Massachusetts, 2002–2007, Carol Hardy-Fanta, Kacie Kelly

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

Despite the high educational and occupational attainment—and considerable talent—of women in Massachusetts, the state ranks just 22nd in the nation on women's overall share of top executive, legislative, and judicial posts, compared to their share of the population. The goals of this study were to (1) calculate the percentage of women holding senior-level positions in state government at these four points in time; (2) analyze the distribution of appointments by type of position and executive office; (3) provide possible explanations for the status of women’s representation in these positions; and (4) offer recommendations that will serve to promote the appointment …

November Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Disaster Capitalism: The New Economy of Catastrophe” by Naomi Klein. Harper’s. October 2007.

If It Were Only That Simple, Katherine Gockel

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Reading “Disaster Capitalism,” one would think that the current dire situation in Iraq and the lingering effects of Hurricane Katrina are all because of an emphasis on “small” government, privatization, and partnerships with the business sector. If only it were that simple.

A Democratic Disaster, Michael Goodhart

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Naomi Klein’s “Disaster Capitalism” paints a grim and compelling portrait of an emerging American dystopia: Large corporations making huge profits on non-bid contracts to handle the government’s response to natural and political disasters (like Katrina and Iraq). She envisions “a collective future of disaster apartheid, in which survival is determined primarily by one’s ability to pay.” The catalogue of outrages Klein supplies is enough to make even the local chamber of commerce president blush. Yet as I read her piece, I found myself angry not so much with the corporations as with my fellow citizens. How can we allow this …

The Personal Side Of Disaster Capitalism, Susan Waltz

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Two weeks ago a tornado ripped through my small hometown in rural Michigan (population 3,500), unexpectedly providing fresh perspective on the phenomenon Naomi Klein has called “Disaster Capitalism.” While I was writing this commentary, work crews were out with chainsaws and chippers, cutting up the remains of fallen trees and clearing mountains of debris from roads and sidewalks.

The End(S) Of The State(?), Daniel J. Whelan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Last February, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote an op-ed that anticipated Klein’s article, in part. In his view, the Bush administration has been engaged in an effort to “Green-Zone” the United States government by gutting the professional civil service—dubbed as “the enemy” by the American Enterprise Institute—and replacing its ranks with political appointees who have little interest or experience in running a state, but quite a bit of interest in enriching the private sector with public largesse. Klein’s “Disaster Capitalism” takes Krugman’s theme and pumps up the volume ten-fold.

American Capitalism - Disasterous Consequences?, Richard Falk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Naomi Klein’s depiction of late-capitalism as feeding off a disaster-prone planet and state-system is provocative and illuminating, even if it seems to be itself a form of “shock and awe” journalism. The great cultural critic of the 1960s, Norman O. Brown, memorably said of psychoanalysis, “[o]nly the exaggerations are valuable,” and so it might be with this critique of the dark sides of recent tendencies in world economic activity. It is notable that the book version of Klein’s article bears the title The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, which itself can be read as a sly admission that …

Us Policy On Small Arms Transfers: A Human Rights Perspective, Susan Waltz

Human Rights & Human Welfare

From Somalia and Afghanistan to Bosnia, Haiti, Colombia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Congo, small arms and light weapons were a common feature of the human rights calamities of the 1990’s.

© Susan Waltz. All rights reserved.*

*A shorter version of this paper is published as “U.S. Small Arms Policy: Having It Both Ways,” in the Summer 2007 issue of World Policy Journal.

This paper may be freely circulated in electronic or hard copy provided it is not modified in any way, the rights of the author not infringed, and the paper is not quoted or cited without express permission …

The Politic 2007 Fall, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

The Reagan Standard, Gary L. Mcdowell

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

After much hemming and hawing, former U.S. Sen. Fred Dalton Thompson has made it official: He will seek the Republican nomination for the presidency. His official announcement, it has long been rumored, will cause a collective sigh of relief from a great many conservatives in the party. He is, after all, in their view, one of them. The question is, what does that mean?

Wars Against Civilians Are Unjust Wars, Richard A. Falk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

For those of us old enough to recall the anti-war testimony of Vietnam vets during the early 1970s, reading the chilling report by Hedges and Al-Arian on the attitudes of Iraq war vets is shocking, and yet not surprising. It is shocking because of the eyewitness confirmation of cruelty and lethal brutality on a regular basis in the interactions between the coalition army of occupation and Iraqi civilian society. Sadly, it is not shocking because of the nature of the violent resistance to occupation being encountered by American forces in Iraq, giving rise to a Vietnam-style mentality of counterinsurgency in …

Bad Apples Or Bad Policies?, Daniel J. Whelan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In a scene from the Woody Allen film Hannah and Her Sisters, the haughty and cantankerous character Frederick (Max von Sydow) is telling his girlfriend (Barbara Hershey) how he spent the evening flipping through channels on television. Ever the arrogant social critic, Frederick remarks,

You missed a very dull TV show on Auschwitz. More gruesome film clips. And more puzzled intellectuals declaring their mystification over the systematic murder of millions. The reason they can never answer the question: “How could it possibly happen?” is that it’s the wrong question. Given what people are, the question is: “Why doesn't it happen …

September Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness” by Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian. The Nation, July 30, 2007.

Occupational Hazard, Michael Goodhart

Human Rights & Human Welfare

“The Other War” describes how the patrols, supply convoys, checkpoints, raids, and arrests, which make up the daily routines of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, sometimes involve degrading and abusive treatment of Iraqi civilians. Through interviews with some of those soldiers, the article portrays the everyday tragedy of the Iraq war and demonstrates how the very policies used to “secure” the country are creating greater insecurity and sparking Iraqi resentment of the occupation. The authors’ main point is that such abuses are inevitable under what they call “misguided and brutal colonial wars and occupations” like Iraq, “the French occupation of Algeria… …

Facing Up To The Truth, Susan E. Waltz

Human Rights & Human Welfare

American GIs who liberated Dachau from the Nazis in April 1945 exist in our collective memory as iconic representations of the American soldier-hero: competent and capable, disciplined, principled and fundamentally good. From their collective example, we expect American soldiers to reveal, report, and excoriate war crimes. This makes it difficult to acknowledge that Americans may also commit war crimes—and on a regular basis.

What Are America’S Obligations To Iraq After An Unjust War?, Brian Stiltner

Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Since the goal of a just war is to restore a political condition of peace and justice, and since allowing a just war is always a mournful concession to the reality of injustice, a country that wins a war has post-bellum obligations to advance the common good within the losing nation and among the community of nations. It has the moral duty to make up for the damage it has caused, even if it was justified in causing that damage. (Note that the idea of a "just" war is not that war is a good in itself, but that it …

The Politic 2007 Summer, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

The Voting Rights Act And The Election Of Nonwhite Officials, Pei-Te Lien, Dianne M. Pinderhughes, Carol Hardy-Fanta, Christine M. Sierra

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

Voting Rights Act (VRA) is one of the most important—if not the most important—public policies developed over the last half century to increase access to the U.S. political system for people of color. The VRA also provides an important context for understanding the ascension of nonwhite groups into the elected leadership of the nation (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb 1984; Davidson and Grofman 1994; Menifield 2001; Mc-Clain and Stewart 2002; Segura and Bowler 2005; Bositis 2006). This essay assesses the present-day significance of the VRA for the political representation of communities of color by examining the implications of majority-minority districts and …

The Political Personalities Of 2008 Republican Presidential Contenders John Mccain And Rudy Giuliani, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of indirect assessments of the personalities of Arizona senator John McCain and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, contenders for the Republican Party nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, from the conceptual perspective of personologist Theodore Millon.

Information concerning Sen. McCain and Mayor Giuliani was collected from biographical sources and published reports and synthesized into personality profiles using the second edition of the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with Axis II of DSM–IV.

The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on …

The Evolution And Impact Of Documentary Films, Amma Marfo

Senior Honors Projects

Long considered either high art or the bane of every student’s existence when a substitute teacher came to class, documentary film has developed into a popular and visible form of entertainment. As a result, they are starting to have a bigger effect on society, as they begin to address issues with the goal of informing the public and pushing for social change. This project will first address historical documentaries, the reasons that they were made, and what techniques were established that have carried through to documentary film today. My paper will then examine today’s documentary films, what techniques they use …

The Convenient Alliance: President Reagan And Pope John Paul Ii, Cold Warriors, Tighe P. Flatley

Senior Honors Projects

Historians and non-scholars alike have long regarded the work of President Reagan and Pope John Paul II to be a tremendous force in helping to end the Cold War. In 1992, Time Magazine cited the relationship as a “Holy Alliance”, a political partnering of two men who, after surviving separate assassination attempts merely six weeks apart, saw their role in global politics as a divine signal to promote the free world and take down communism internationally. By the time the President and the Pope first met at the Vatican in 1982, the two were privately discussing Cold War politics. They …

The Politic 2007 Spring, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

A Benchmark Report On Diversity In State And Local Government, Carol Hardy-Fanta Phd

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

The Pipeline to Public Service Initiative asked the McCormack Graduate School’s Center for Women in Politics & Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston to ascertain the racial diversity in state and local government. The project had the following three goals:

--To identify the race (and gender) of those holding top-level positions filled through gubernatorial appointments, e.g., secretaries, commissioners, directors, deputy commissioners/directors, and undersecretaries, in the Commonwealth’s executive offices and major departments.

--To compile the same information for members of the most influential boards and commissions in the Commonwealth filled through gubernatorial appointments.

--To assess the diversity of elected …

The Politic 2007 Winter, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

United States Foreign Policy: Liberty And Security?, Jessi Schimmel

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Prior to September 11, 2001, the United States had the reputation of being a leader in the field of human rights. As information of torture and abuse in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay, and secret CIA detention centers has surfaced, however, the image of America has changed from human rights champion to that of violator. In large part, the international community of scholars and activists has come to deride the foreign policy of the United States as misguided and out of balance with the threats the country faces. However, there are also plenty of outspoken defenders who believe that the tactics …