Political Theory Commons^™

You Get What You Pay For: Historicizing Business Metaphors Of Government, Principles Of Justice In Taxation, And “Benefit Theory”, Mindy Peden

Political Science

The ideas that governments ought to operate on business principles and that citizens are no different than consumers have become increasingly commonplace in neoliberal times. Many have pointed to the threat this poses for democratic government. Mindy Peden explores the vulnerability of liberal ideology to such a way of thinking by showing how even liberals who wish to reject it, such as John Stuart Mill, are unable to free themselves from the line of reasoning inherent in the benefit theory that underpins the dominant approach to taxation. Economic imperatives have always been a central driving force of Canadian immigration policy. …

The Politic 2008 Fall (Special Issue), The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

The Politic 2008 Fall, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

Can Deliberative Democracy Work In Hierarchical Organizations?, Jason Pierce, Grant W. Neeley, Jeffrey Budziak

Political Science Faculty Publications

Some measure of equality is necessary for deliberative democracy to work well, yet empirical scholarship consistently points to the deleterious effect that hierarchy and inequalities of epistemological authority have on deliberation. This article tests whether real-world deliberative forums can overcome these challenges. Contrary to skeptics, it concludes that the act of deliberation itself and the presence of trained moderators ameliorate inequalities of epistemological authority, thus rendering deliberative democracy possible, even within hierarchical organizations.

Modern Constitutional Democracy And Imperialism, James Tully

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

To what extent is the development of modern constitutional democracy as a state form in the West and its spread around the world implicated in western imperialism? This has been a leading question of legal scholarship over the last thirty years. James Tully draws on this scholarship to present a preliminary answer. Part I sets out seven central features of modern constitutional democracy and its corresponding international institutions of law and government. Part II sets out three major imperial roles that these legal and political institutions have played, and continue to play. And finally, Part III surveys ways in which …

The Constitutive Paradox Of Modern Law: A Comment On Tully, Ruth Buchanan

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This commentary draws out and elaborates upon some of the more challenging aspects of Professor Tully's sophisticated taxonomy of the relationship between modern constitutional forms and constituent powers. Tully's article reveals the historical particularities of these formations, and at the same time encourages the reader to think beyond them, towards the potentially uncategorizable realm of democratic constitutionalism. Yet, how is it possible to use a taxonomy of modern constitutional democracy as a means of understanding what ties in the uncharted territory beyond? This commentary further explores to what extent this paradoxical modern configuration of constituent powers and constitutional forms may …

Civil Society: Agent Of Change In Egypt, Ola Kubbara

Archived Theses and Dissertations

Egypt has been dominated by an authoritarian regime for decades now, which ensured its ultimate monopoly over power and government, as well as over civil society. Civil society in Egypt is a very important factor that determines the development of the process of democratization, as well as the political and social stability of the state. The role of civil society, the degree of its autonomy or its repression, reflects on all aspects of political, social and economic spheres. The lagging democracy and the augmented level of social repression and stagnation in Egypt, is due to the weakness of civil society. …

The Devil’S Calculus: Mathematical Models Of Civil War, Ajay Shenoy

Honors Scholar Theses

In spite of the movement to turn political science into a real science, various mathematical methods that are now the staples of physics, biology, and even economics are thoroughly uncommon in political science, especially the study of civil war. This study seeks to apply such methods - specifically, ordinary differential equations (ODEs) - to model civil war based on what one might dub the capabilities school of thought, which roughly states that civil wars end only when one side’s ability to make war falls far enough to make peace truly attractive. I construct several different ODE-based models and then test …

The Politic 2008 Fall, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

Why Brazil Has Not Grown: A Comparative Analysis Of Brazilian, Indian, And Chinese Economic Management, Fernando Ferrari-Filho, Anthony Petros Spanakos

Department of Political Science and Law Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper does not aim to dispute that Brazil would benefit from reforms in any or all of these areas. Rather, the paper offers a skeptical perspective on reform menus and proposes an alternative explanation for the faster growth of Brazil’s peers India and China2. The paper begins by introducing (section 1) the idea of the BRICs countries, to establish the basis for comparisons of most similar cases. It then surveys the results of a generation of Washington Consensus era growth (section 2). Although there is a considerable amount of divergence over what causes growth, it seems that something approaching …

Macroeconomic Policy Change: Ireland In Comparative Perspective, John Hogan

Articles

This paper sets out to develop an improved framework for examining critical junctures. This a priori framework is a significant improvement over existing critical juncture frameworks that lack any predictive element. It is an advance for historical institutionalism in particular, and political science in general. After the new framework is set out in detail here, it is tested. The framework is used to examine a number of potential critical junctures in macroeconomic policy, drawn from Ireland, Sweden, Britain, and America in the latter half of the twentieth century

The Politic 2008 Winter, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

Reclaiming Egalitarianism In The Political Theory Of Campaign Finance Reform, Frank Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

Recent advocacy for campaign finance reform has been based on an ideal of the democratic process which is unrealistic and unhelpful. Scholars should instead return to its egalitarian roots. This article examines how deliberative democratic theory became the main justification for campaign finance reform. It exposes the shortcomings of this deliberativist detour and instead models campaign spending as an effort to commodify issue-salience. Given this dominant function of money in politics, a more effective paradigm for reform is equalizing influence. Advocates of campaign regulation should return to the original principles of reformers; not an idealized vision of the democratic process, …

For Whom The Tel Tolls: Can State Tax And Expenditure Limits Effectively Reduce Spending?, Thad Kousser, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Ellen Moule

Faculty Scholarship

Can voters stop state governments from spending at high rates through the enactment of tax and expenditure limits (TELs), or do these laws become dead letters? We draw upon the principal-agent literature to theorize that TELs – one of the most frequent uses of the initiative process across the country – may be circumvented by the sorts of elected officials who would inspire their passage.

In order to investigate our claim, we conduct an event study. First, we test for the effectiveness of TELs across states using a differences-in-differences model. Second, we dissect our treatment variable using different legal provisions …

When Voters Make Laws: How Direct Democracy Is Shaping American Cities, Elizabeth Garrett, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Agenda Power In The Italian Chamber Of Deputies, 1988-2000, Gary W. Cox, William B. Heller, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

We find strong evidence that governing coalitions in Italy exercise significant negative agenda powers. First, governing parties have a roll rate that is nearly zero, and their roll rate is lower than opposition parties’ roll rates, which average about 20% on all final passage votes. Second, we find that, controlling for distance from the floor median, opposition parties have higher roll rates than government parties. These results strongly suggest that governing parties in Italy are able to control the legislative agenda to their benefit. We also document significantly higher opposition roll rates on decree-conversion bills and budget bills that on …

Democratic Failure: Tracking The Ebb Of Democracy's Flow, 1800–2006, Sanja E. Sray

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Scant attention has focused on the systematic study of democratic failure. This dissertation partially corrects this oversight. Tracing the roots of antidemocratic sentiment across the centuries, it first argues that the advance of institutions, fueled by underlying shifts in values and innovation in political philosophy, was key to freeing democracy from its bondage as a most disparaged form of governance. Focusing on the measurable aspects of these institutions, the study focuses on describing patterns of behavior when democracies fail. First, it shows that there have been clusters of democratic failure. These clusters, or counterwaves, find their roots in ancient antidemocratic …

(Dis)Solving The Chronological Paradox In Customary International Law: A Hartian Approach, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

As traditionally conceived, the creation of a new rule of customary international law requires that states believe the law to already require the conduct specified in the rule. Distinguishing the process whereby a customary rule comes to exist from the process whereby that customary rule becomes law dissolves this chronological paradox. Creation of a customary rule requires only that states come to believe that there exists a normative standard to which they ought to adhere, not that this standard is law. What makes the customary rule law is adherence by officials in the international legal system to a rule of …

On The Foundation Of Rights To Political Self-Determination: Secession, Non-Intervention, And Democratic Governance, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

From a justificatory standpoint, perhaps the most basic question with respect to secession is what, if anything, provides the moral foundation for a group’s right to secede. My aim here is to make a start to answering this question. I do so, however, by considering a different, albeit closely related, question, namely what is the nature of the wrong done to members of a qualified group denied secession by the state that currently rules them? A compelling answer to this latter question, I suggest, will contribute significantly to a satisfactory answer of the former one.

Anarcho-Multiculturalism: The Pure Theory Of Liberalism, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Most modern states today are, at least to some degree, culturally diverse.Trade, tourism, international dialogue among scholars, scientists, and artists,and the movement of skilled labor—as well as migration—have ensured thatfew countries do not contain within them significant numbers of people fromalien cultures. The one cultural minority found almost everywhere is the international frequent flyer. Many societies today are multicultural because theyare open to a diversity of peoples who come and go and, sometimes, stay.

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 …

Silence Of The Laws? Conceptions Of International Relations And International Law In Hobbes, Kant, And Locke, Michael W. Doyle, Geoffrey S. Carlson

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay explains how the political theorists Hobbes, Kant, and Locke interpret the decision to go to war (us ad bellum) and the manner in which the war is conducted (just in bello). It also considers the implications of the three theories for compliance with international law more generally. It concludes that although all three can lay claim to certain key features of modern international law, it is Locke who provides the most complete support for both the laws of war, in particular, and with international law, in general.

Nothing But The Truth? Experiments On Adversarial Competition, Expert Testimony, And Decision Making, Cheryl Boudreau, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

Many scholars debate whether a competition between experts in legal, political, or economic contexts elicits truthful information and, in turn, enables people to make informed decisions. Thus, we analyze experimentally the conditions under which competition between experts induces the experts to make truthful statements and enables jurors listening to these statements to improve their decisions. Our results demonstrate that, contrary to game theoretic predictions and contrary to critics of our adversarial legal system, competition induces enough truth telling to allow jurors to improve their decisions. Then, when we impose additional institutions (such as penalties for lying or the threat of …

Administrative Law Agonistes, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Roger Noll, Barry R. Weingast, Daniel B. Rodriguez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.