American Politics Commons^™

Hegemony And Humanitarian Norms: The Us Legitimation Of Toxic Violence, Eric Bonds

History and American Studies Articles

Despite widespread beliefs that the United States has not used chemical weapons since the distant past of World War I, this study suggests a more complicated history by examining U.S. use of herbicides and incapacitating gases in the Vietnam War and its use of herbicides in the "War on Drugs." This article places such use of toxic violence within a context of U.S. hegemony, by which U.S. officials have used contested forms of violence to secure geopolitical goals, but have also been pressured to comply with humanitarian norms or-when there is a gap between norms and state policy-to do legitimating …

Institutional Change And The Presidential Mandate, Julia R. Azari

Political Science Faculty Research and Publications

Often treated as a unified concept with a single definition, the presidential mandate actually encompasses multiple definitions, each connected to distinct ideas about democracy and presidential leadership. This article looks at how and when modern presidents have used mandate rhetoric and seeks to explain changes in presidential mandate-claiming patterns. Using an original dataset of 1,467 presidential communications from 1933 through 2009, I find that after 1969 presidents became more likely to use election results to justify their actions. However, they also became less likely to emphasize the magnitude of the election result, focusing their mandate rhetoric instead on campaign promises …

Mapping A Post-Shelby County Contingency Strategy, Guy-Uriel Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay was written for the Yale Law Journal Online Symposium on the future of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act after Shelby County v. Holder. Professors Guy-Uriel E. Charles and Luis Fuentes-Rohwer argue that voting rights activists ought to be prepared for a future in which section 5 is not part of the landscape. If the Court strikes down section 5, an emerging ecosystem of private entities and organized interest groups of various stripes—what they call institutional intermediaries—may be willing and able to mimic the elements that made section 5 an effective regulatory device. As voting rights …

Gaming Direct Democracy: How Voters’ Views Of Job Performance Interact With Elite Endorsements Of Ballot Measures, Craig M. Burnett, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

Voters are thought to rely on elite endorsements in helping them make decisions. Their ability to use these endorsements is especially important in direct democracy, since ballot measures are complex policy proposals that lack partisan cues printed on the ballot. Using an exit survey, we look at California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s endorsement of four Indian gaming measures on the ballot during the presidential primary election of 2008. We find that voters who had knowledge of the elite endorsement differed little from those who did not. We show, however, that Schwarzenegger’s endorsement was conditionally related to support for the measures, depending …

Jeffersonian Ideals: Practical In The United States Of The 21st Century?, Charles William Gustafson Ii

Honors Program Theses

Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States, a statesman, lawyer, scientist, author of the Declaration of Independence, and a proponent of education in the United States of America. Understandably, his educational philosophy is inextricably linked to his political philosophy, as Gordon C. Lee puts it, " ... liberty without enlightenment seemed to Jefferson a contradiction in concepts, an anomaly," (Lee 1961, 2-3). Thomas Jefferson emphasized the importance of education in the United States, as Roy J. Honeywell puts it, "His educational plans were a very necessary part of his political and social reforms, and his educational ideas were as …

Parties, Leaders, And The National Debt, Daniel Palazzolo

Political Science Faculty Publications

There is widespread agreement that the United States is headed for a train wreck of massive proportions if its leaders do not address the problem of the national debt. However, the nation's leaders appear unable to agree to terms about a potential solution, a dynamic that poses fundamental concerns about the capacity of the constitutional system and ability of citizens to self-govern. The conventional wisdom holds that politicians are chiefly concerned about reelection, so they refuse to make tough choices that might offend constituencies and powerful interest groups. Of particular consequence is the growing polarization of the parties and inability …

The Will To Adapt: The Post 2008 Us Economic Crisis And Its Impact On Refugee Resettlement In The United States, Meredith Byrne

Government and International Relations Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Beyond Fear And Loathing: Tea Party Organizers' Continuum Of Knowledge In A Racialized Social System, Meghan Burke

Scholarship

Making use of fieldwork and 25 open-ended interviews with Tea Party organizers in the state of Illinois, I argue that Tea Party organizers draw from a continuum of knowledge, combining personal knowledge and experience with a conservative corporate media and Tea Party network frame. I draw upon the work of Weber to show how this continuum connects to various types of rational social action. Widening this scope of analysis allows not only for a more complex analysis of how corporate interests are connected to the grass roots movement, but also how the core frames of the movement are located throughout …

North Dakota’S Oil Boom And Its Effect On North Dakota Politics, Nick "Nick" Nelson

Political Science Theses and Capstones

North Dakota’s oil boom is causing some of its countries to experience significant population increases. I study the effect this is having on the politics of North Dakota. To assess the effect of increased oil production on the population of counties and its effect on the politics of those counties I gathered statistics at the county level in the areas of oil production, populations including total, black, Hispanic, white, and male populations, and voting behavior (Republican or Democrat) from the United State Census, the North Dakota Secretary of State, and the North Dakota Industrial Commission, Department of Natural Resources. My …

Latino Party Id: Inherited Or Learned?, Dylan Davison

Political Science Theses and Capstones

The purpose of this research is to find out whether political party identification is learned or inherited in Latino voters in the United States. Latino voters are the largest growing minority group in the United States. Understanding this growing block of voters will yield dividends in elections to come. I utilized a 2008 dataset from a post‐election survey by Pew Research group on Latino voters. I hypothesize that recent immigrants learn their party identification while more established Latino voters are more likely to have inherited their political views. If Latino party identification is learned it is more likely that they …

The Filibuster And Reconciliation: The Future Of Majoritarian Lawmaking In The U.S. Senate, Tonja Jacobi, Jeff Vandam

Faculty Articles

Passing legislation in the United States Senate has become a de facto super-majoritarian undertaking, due to the gradual institutionalization of the filibuster — the practice of unending debate in the Senate. The filibuster is responsible for stymieing many legislative policies, and was the cause of decades of delay in the development of civil rights protection. Attempts at reforming the filibuster have only exacerbated the problem. However, reconciliation, a once obscure budgetary procedure, has created a mechanism of avoiding filibusters. Consequently, reconciliation is one of the primary means by which significant controversial legislation has been passed in recent years — including …

United States Export Policy Of Fighter Jets To East Asia, Andrew Derewiany

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

What explains fighter jet export policy to East Asia? The decision to export fighter jets from the United States (U.S.) to foreign countries is an important part of domestic and foreign policy. James Rosenau’s theory of linkage politics suggests that domestic and international variables may work together in complex ways to develop U.S. export policy of fighter jets. This thesis uses a comparative case study approach to examine the domestic and international factors that are influential in determining U.S. export policy of fighter jets to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. The political actors involved in making U.S. fighter jet export …

Playing Politics With Rape: Republican Apologia In The 2012 Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization, Kelsey Deforest

Undergraduate Research Awards

"During the second half of 2012, heightened scrutiny was applied to Republican politicians’ discussion of sexual assault. This wave of interrogation, though, began too late to affect the debates over the 2012 Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization. This paper will problematize these debates by analyzing the rhetoric of self-defense used by Republican legislators in the House of Representatives to defend their VAWA Reauthorization bill. By applying a feminist critical discourse analysis to the final VAWA Reauthorization debate held on May 16, 2012, this paper shows that the actions of the Republican legislators are rooted in a desire to protect the …

Ethics In Public Management, H. George Frederickson, Richard K. Ghere

Political Science Faculty Publications

This volume follows two earlier projects undertaken by Frederickson (1993) and Frederickson and Ghere (2005) to present collections of theoretical essays and empirical analyses on administrative ethics. Three years before the publication of the first volume —Frederickson's Ethics and Public Administration — the National Commission on the Public Service released Leadership for America (also known as the Volcker Commission Report) that attested to "the quiet crisis" in government whereby "too many of the best of the nation's senior executives are ready to leave government, and not enough of its most talented young people are willing to join. This erosion in …

Ngo Leadership And Human Rights, Richard K. Ghere

Political Science Faculty Publications

This book provides preliminary understanding of what the term NGO means; explains how "human rights" affect NGO missions; and focuses on the meaning of "leadership" in NGOs in comparison to private sector and government agency leadership. It also encourages readers with vocational aspirations in human rights work to think strategically in preparing for their professional futures.

Afterword: The Libertarian Middle Way, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Libertarianism is sometimes portrayed as radical and even extreme. In this Afterword to a symposium on "Libertarianism and the Law" in the Chapman Law Review, I explain why, though it may be radical, libertarianism is far from extreme in comparison with its principal alternatives: the social justice of the Left or legal moralism of the Right. Social justice posits that everyone should get a certain amount of stuff; legal moralism posits that everyone should act in a certain way. But because there is no consensus about how much stuff each person should have or how exactly everyone should act, …

[Introduction To] Racism In The Nation's Service: Government Workers And The Color Line In Woodrow Wilson's America, Eric S. Yellin

Bookshelf

Between the 1880s and 1910s, thousands of African Americans passed civil service exams and became employed in the executive offices of the federal government. However, by 1920, promotions to well-paying federal jobs had nearly vanished for black workers. Eric S. Yellin argues that the Wilson administration's successful 1913 drive to segregate the federal government was a pivotal episode in the age of progressive politics. Yellin investigates how the enactment of this policy, based on Progressives' demands for whiteness in government, imposed a color line on American opportunity and implicated Washington in the economic limitation of African Americans for decades to …

Women's Gun Culture In America, Laura Browder

English Faculty Publications

A recent article in the New York Times focused on the possible increase in female gun ownership in the United States. This “new” phenomenon of women and guns is of course far from new: as early as the 1870s, trapshooting for women was publicized by gun manufacturers as yet another feminine activity, not far removed from shopping or club work. The ultra-feminine Annie Oakley, who in the 1880s became an international star in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, personally taught fifteen thousand women to shoot. By the turn of the twentieth century, gun manufacturers were promoting hunting as a healthful activity …

More Than Just A Meal: The Economic Utility Of Social Capital In The Lives Of The Poor, Benjamin Higby Strange

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

Punishment First: A Study Of Juvenile Pretrial Detention, Richard V. Foster, David Tanenhaus, Heather Lynn Lusty

McNair Poster Presentations

How society and the legal system should respond to youth crime is a volatile issue. Much research exists on this topic broadly. A largely overlooked subset exists regarding the rights of juveniles in the United States who face pretrial confinement, specifically how juveniles accused of delinquency are treated by the courts. Delinquency or a delinquent act, in the context of this study, is “an act that would be considered a crime if committed by an adult.”7. Adults and children are processed by the courts differently, each with their own rights and court mandated procedures to follow. This report analyzes …

Indiana, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides an overview of key Civil War developments in Indiana and how this conflict impacted Indiana.

Morton, Oliver Hazard Perry Throck, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Biographical portrait and analysis of Indiana Civil War Governor Oliver Morton.

Impact Of Social Identity On Rape Legitimacy And Myth Acceptance, Rachael Rosenberg

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The current research assessed whether a statement by a deviant political ingroup (versus outgroup) member elicited measureable differences on trivialization, cognitive dissonance, rape myth acceptance, or decision to vote for that candidate, and if explicitly “debunking” the statement made by this politician further impacted these variables. Participants were randomly assigned to read a statement made by a Republican or Democratic politician, who would either be an ingroup or outgroup member based on the party affiliation of each participant. Results indicate that while there were no significant differences between Republican or Democratic participants overall, Republicans tended to trivialize the statements made …

How Many Barack Obamas Does It Take: An Analysis Of The Effect Of Charter Schools On Real Estate And Crime, Aananditaa Kakkar

CMC Senior Theses

This study looks at the relationship between charter school presence and neighborhood quality in Los Angeles. Using data from the Los Angeles Department of Education, Zillow Real Estate, and the Los Angeles Sheriff, this paper attempts to find whether changes in charter presence influence the price of surrounding real estate or the occurrence of serious and petty crimes. The results find that charter schools tend to be associated with a decrease in home sale prices. The results on crime imply that crime increases upon the opening of charter schools, however they are statistically insignificant.

Presidential Politics: The Social Media Revolution, Alexandra P. Toohey

CMC Senior Theses

Throughout the course of history, presidential campaigning has evolved commensurate with the advancements in technology. FDR mastered the radio, JFK the television and President Barack Obama, the Internet. In both the 2008 and 2012 Presidential campaigns, President Barack Obama used social media via the Internet to understand the voter better than any candidate before his time. Through revolutionary data collection techniques, both offline and online, the Obama campaign obtained vital electorate information. This data was used by the campaign to: target online social media users who were most likely to become politically engaged; and attempt to influence their voting habits, …

Electric Municipalization In The City Of Boulder: Successful Greening Or Path To Bankruptcy?, Kathryn C. Browning

CMC Senior Theses

Climate change will result in variable – but undeniably severe – changes to our natural world. These changes will lead to extreme human and ecosystem consequences if climate change is not mitigated effectively, efficiently, and rapidly. Increasing the use of renewable energies around the world is seen as one of the most effective and promising mitigation strategies. Several communities around the United States have recently denounced publicly their electrical utilities for their failure to offer the choice to increase the percentage of energy that comes from renewable sources. A growing number are taking action to work with – or sometimes …

The Relationship Between Comprehensive Budgeting And Party Polarization In The U.S. Congress, Anna Eames

CMC Senior Theses

The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 made the production of an annual comprehensive budgetary framework the central focus of the federal budget process. Before 1974, the budget process had allowed legislation from each of the revenue committees and each of the appropriations subcommittees to come to the floor separately. Congress judged the merits of individual programs without considering the overall budget. The 1974 budget act changed the organizational ethos of the budget process from incremental change to comprehensive review and from fragmented, ad hoc decision making to coordinated decision making. It helped sort members into ideologically homogenous …

Latinos And The California Gop: A Troubled Courtship, Hannah Burak

CMC Senior Theses

The Republican Party of California faces a serious demographic challenge as a burgeoning Latino population threatens to turn this majority-minority state a darker shade of blue. The purpose of my research and of this thesis is to explore the relationship between Latino voters in California and the Republican Party and to draw conclusions about the most viable and proven means of attracting Latino votes to Republican candidates. The Latino vote is by no means a lost cause for Republicans. My research supports several claims, which are laid out here and discussed throughout the paper. The first is that the Republican …

Re-Evaluating The American Dream For Low-Wage Chinese Workers In Los Angeles, Priscilla Hsu

CMC Senior Theses

The research in this thesis will look at the lives of a very specific group of Chinese immigrant workers in the restaurant industry, particularly those in the metropolitan city of Los Angeles. While unskilled Chinese workers are popular in the Chinese restaurant business because of the lack of skills required, they are quite mobile between the manufacturing and construction sectors as well. Working conditions are less than ideal for these immigrants, who find that life in America may not be what they expected prior to arrival. Though there are many organizations that seek to improve the lives of immigrants already …

Social Construction And Political Decision Making In The American Prison System(S), Jeremiah Olson

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

With over two million inmates, the United States’ prison population is the largest in the world. Nearly one in one hundred Americans are behind bars, either in prisons or pre-trial detention facilities. The rapid growth in incarceration is well-documented. However, social science explanations often stop at the prison gates, with little work on treatment inside prisons. This black box approach ignores important bureaucratic decisions, including the provision of rehabilitative services and the application of punishment.

This dissertation offers a systematic analysis of treatment decisions inside the American prisons. I use a mixed methods approach, combining multiple quantitative datasets with environmental …