American Politics Commons^™

Toward The Anthropology Of White Nationalist Postracialism: Comments Inspired By Hall, Goldstein, And Ingram’S “The Hands Of Donald Trump”, Jeff Maskovsky

Publications and Research

This article explains Donald Trump’s brutal political effectiveness in terms of his white nationalist appeal. It locates the intellectual, popular, and policy imperatives of Trumpism in a new form of racial politics that I am calling white nationalist postracialism. This is a paradoxical politics of twenty-first-century white racial resentment whose proponents seek to do two contradictory things: to reclaim the nation for white Americans while also denying an ideological investment in white supremacy. The article shows how Trump’s excoriation of political correctness, his nostalgia for the post–WWII industrial economy, his use of hand gestures, and his public speaking about race …

De Graauw Studies The Role Of Nonprofits On Immigration., Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

Immigration is, and always has been, a hot issue. And it’s gotten even hotter in the last few years, both in Europe and in the U.S. More times than not, this topic seems to be discussed in emotional rather than rational terms. That is why we need scholars who look closely at the facts and tell us what we really need to know.

One of those scholars is Dr. Els de Graauw. An assistant professor in the Department of Political Science in the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences at Baruch College, de Graauw has an interesting personal sto- ry …

New Trade, New Politics: Intra-Industry Trade And Domestic Political Coalitions, Mary Anne Madeira

Publications and Research

Why are industries highly active in some battles over international trade policies, but in other instances, individual firms are highly active and industry groups are subdued? I argue that rising intra-industry trade in the postwar period has undermined traditional trade coalitions and created new opportunities for individual firms to become politically active. Drawing on new trade theories from economics, as well as work on firm heterogeneity and lobbying, I argue that industry associations become less active as intra-industry trade increases due to competing trade preferences among member firms. At the same time, individual firms become more politically active. My results …

The Limits Of Liberal Planning: The Lindsay Administration's Failed Plan To Control Development On Staten Island, Jeffrey A. Kroessler

Publications and Research

Staten Island grew rapidly after the Verrazano Narrows Bridge opened in 1964. Mayor John Lindsay introduced a plan to control and guide development there, and encouraged planned unit development. The Rouse Company, then building Columbia, Maryland, was contracted to plan new communities for the southern third of Staten Island to more than double the borough’s population. State Senator John Marchi introduced legislation for the South Richmond Development Corporation in 1971. The plan called for the city to use eminent domain to buy property and transfer it to the Rouse Company, which would also construct residential towers on landfill in Raritan …

Tellin' It Like It Is: Politics And Donald Trump's Language, Aaron Barlow

Publications and Research

A lot about Trump’s success, and about the new verbal armament he wields (not to mention the old of the rest of the political field) can be learned from George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language.” Trump may be a naif when it comes to language but, as they say, “out of the mouths of babes…. ” Though his own language reflects more closely William Wordsworth’s ‘spontaneous overflowing’ than it does the considered speech and writing Orwell advocates, he has identified the weakness of his opponents much in the way Orwell did seventy years ago.

Affirmative Action Debates In American Government Introductory Textbooks, Sherrie L. Wallace, Marcus D. Allen

Publications and Research

Affirmative action debates remain hotly contested across America. Given how the topic is presented in respective disciplines and core textbooks, students are often misinformed. Introductory textbooks may be one of the few places where students are exposed to significant discussions on affirmative action. In this study, we examine affirmative action policy in American government introductory textbooks published between 2005 and 2014. Our study is modeled on previous, similar analyses of introductory textbooks. We use content analysis to examine the extent to which affirmative action discussions challenge or reinforce affirmative action myths and meritocracy. We conclude that textbook discussions that emphasize …

Inquiry Into The Implementation Of Bush’S Executive Order 13211 And The Impact On Environmental And Public Health Regulation, Elizabeth Ann Glass Geltman, Gunwant Gill, Miriam Jovanovic

Publications and Research

Executive Order 13211, promulgated in 2001, requires the federal government to consider the impact of federal action on energy independence as part of the George W. Bush’s National Energy Policy. This law review examines whether EO 13211 was used to curtail environmental protection and natural resource conservation. The article begins with a review of the procedure required of federal agencies under EO 13211 and its associated documents. The paper then examines case law and published federal rulemaking proceedings and examines how federal agencies apply tests to evaluate the potential energy effect. The study concludes that EO 13211 strikes a reasonable …

Affirmative Action In American Government Introductory Textbooks, Sherri L. Wallace, Marcus D. Allen

Publications and Research

The history of affirmative action policy consists of a broad collection of executive orders, bureaucratic decisions, course cases, and state legislation designed to eliminate unlawful discrimination of applicants to educational programs or professional employment, to remedy the results of such prior discrimination, and to prevent discrimination in the future. Although targeted legislation has expanded protections beyond underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in education and employment to include women, people of a certain age, people with disabilities and veterans, the actual policy intent of affirmative action remains a source of confusion for students, particularly when college textbooks define the topics within …

The Historical Amnesia Of Contemporary Federalism Debates, Anna O. Law

Publications and Research

The article explores competing interpretations of immigration federalism in the 18th century. I argue that the 1787 Constitution did not clearly place authority to manage migration with the national government. In fact the Constitution does not discuss entry/exit policy, including the power of deportation. The debates over the Alien and Sedition Acts illustrate the diversity of opinions about the proper balance of authority between the subnational and national governments in migration. Debates over the potential expansion of national power were particularly heated in the antebellum period because migration and slave policy were inextricably linked. In the end, whatever guidance the …

Looking For Two-Sided Coattail Effects: Integrated Parties And Multilevel Elections In The U.S., Amuitz Garmendia Madariaga, H. Ege Ozen

Publications and Research

In the context of the American federalism, integrated parties provide the necessary coordination mechanism for state and federal politicians to be electorally successful. This argument rests on the assumption that voters are able to observe the benefits of voting a straight ticket. We test this individual level explanation by using the CCES data. Moreover, at the aggregate level, we measure the so-called ‘two-sided’ coattail effects in concurrent multilevel elections in the U.S. since 1960. By using a simultaneous equation model, we estimate the reciprocal relationship between presidential and gubernatorial vote shares at the state level. While we find no consistent …

Vision Of Founding Fathers Becomes Blurred, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Feminist Erasures: The Development Of A Black Feminist Methodological Theory, Alex J. Moffett-Bateau

Publications and Research

Within the social sciences, and particularly in political science, feminist methods and theory are seen as valuable only within its own disciplinary boundaries, and limited to its own departments or program, often named women’s studies, gender studies, and/or feminist studies. While the move within the academy to formalize the study of women, gender, and feminism is an important one, these disciplinary boundaries unfortunately have the result of rendering the study and practice of feminist intellectual work invisible to the rest of the academy. Too often, feminist theory and methodological practice is only carried out by one or two female academics …

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 …

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.

Organizational Life And Political Incorporation Of Two Asian Immigrant Groups: A Case Study, Sofya Aptekar

Publications and Research

Civil society is the foundation of a healthy democracy but its immigrant element has received little attention. This paper is a case study of immigrant organizations of highly skilled Asian Indians and Chinese immigrants in a suburban town of Edison, New Jersey. I find that civic participation of Asian Indian immigrants spills over into political incorporation while Chinese immigrant organizations remain margin- alized. I argue that local processes of racialization are central in explaining differences in political incorporation of immigrants. In the local context, the Chinese are seen as successful but conformist model minorities and Asian Indians as invaders and …

“Peace Is More Than The End Of Bombing”: The Second Stage Of The Vieques Struggle, Sherrie Baver

Publications and Research

The nature of colonialism in Puerto Rico has caused most political issues to be viewed within the framework of status politics. In the first stage of the struggle to expel the U.S. Navy from the island (1999–2003), civil society in Puerto Rico united when the issues were reframed with links not to status politics but to human rights and social justice. Viequenses symbolized for Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico, on the mainland, and in the world at large the costs of military colonialism. In the second stage of the struggle, since the military’s departure, Viequenses have struggled to control the …

Mother Jones, Janet Butler Munch

Publications and Research

Mother Jones was a union organizer and activist in the U.S. labor movement. She fought to alleviate the misery of workers in mines, railroad yards, factories, and mills across the country. Her reform efforts led to the abolition of child labor, acceptance of the eight-hour workday, and implementation of Social Security and the minimum wage.

Implementation Of Congressional Intent: A Study Of Amnesty Policy And The Immigration And Naturalization Service, Sherrie Baver, William Arp Iii

Publications and Research

In 1990, the United States Border Patrol arrested approximately one million illegals (Dillin, 1990). Significant as this number may seem, it parallels the rate of arrest that existed prior to the passage of the Immigration and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). This phenomenon suggests that the Act has failed to accomplish one of its primary objectives: to control illegal immigration to the United States.

The IRCA represented the first major change in US immigration policy in twenty-two years. In seeking to prevent illegal entry and to gain control over the undocumented population already in the country, it contained two key …

Political Participation Of Puerto Rican Women: Mapping A Research Agenda, Sherrie Baver

Publications and Research

This article reviews the theoretical approaches used to study Hispanic women in politics and highlights their inadequacies for studying the political behavior of low-income Puerto Rican women, who are used as a case in point. It is not an in-depth study but an effort to develop appropriate research questions and to suggest strategies for the systematic collection of data. In general, community groups are the basic arena for the political activity of Puerto Rican women in New York City. Thus, new theoretical approaches are necessary to capture Hispanic women’s modes of influencing public policy.