Political Theory Commons^™

Interview With Michael Elliott, Brian Gibson

Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement

Length: 56 minutes

Oral history interview of Mike Siviwe Elliott by Brian Gibson.

Mr. Elliott begins by recounting his childhood in Detroit, raised in a working-class union neighborhood on the west side of the city. He talks about his early challenges in school, attending an alternative school where he received his GED, then attending Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan where he studied political science for three years. He explains how he first became involved in activism, working for the Black Panthers when he was young and serving as chair of the Association of Black Students in college. He recalls how …

Interview With Anne Evens, Beth Thenhaus

Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement

Length: 84 minutes

Oral history interview of Anne Evens by Beth Thenhaus

Ms. Evens begins by recalling her childhood memories, growing up in Evanston with two academic parents. She began her work in activism during high school, demonstrating for stricter gun control laws and against racism. She explains how she first learned about Apartheid South Africa as she learned about the struggle of Palestinian people in Israel and the economic ties between the two countries. She explains how she became involved in anti-Apartheid efforts on her first day of college when she was introduced to the South African Divestment Coalition, …

Interview With Prexy Nesbitt, Erin Mccarthy

Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement

Length: 350 minutes

Oral history interview of Rozell 'Prexy' Nesbitt by Erin McCarthy, PhD in 2009. Transcript created by Katherine Philipson, summer 2017

Prexy Nesbitt recounts his childhood in the Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, living in the family-owned apartment building with eleven flats and multi-racial family and friends. He speaks about his education at Francis Parker school and his first trip to African while a student at Antioch in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where he began his anti-apartheid work in the early 1960s,He recalls his years of activism with governments, organizations, and political groups, including the the six liberation …

Why Urbanists Need Religion, Joshua D. Ambrosius

Political Science Faculty Publications

This essay summarizes a conference paper presented at the October 2008 Society for the Scientific Study of Religion meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. The paper was reviewed by several leading scholars.

Latin American Migrants In The Las Vegas Valley: Civic Engagement And Political Participation, John P. Tuman

Institute for Latin American Studies

Funded by a grant from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (with support from the MacArthur Foundation), this project is part of a broader national study that examines Latin America migrants in selected cities in the United States. The goal of the project is to explore patterns of civic engagement and political participation among Latin American migrants and Latinos in the Las Vegas, Nevada, metropolitan area. A secondary, but not less important, goal is to understand the factors that contribute to or inhibit the ability of individuals from Latin America to acquire U.S. citizenship. The issues addressed by this …

Challenging Diversity: Rethinking Equality And The Value Of Difference (Book Review), Steven Michels

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

Book review by Steven Michels. Cooper, Davina. Challenging Diversity: Rethinking Equality and the Value of Difference. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

ISBN 9780521831833

A Comparative Analysis Of The New York Times [U.S.A.] And The Nation Media Group [Kenya] Presidential Opinion Polls Coverage 90 Days Prior To Election Day, David Okoth

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study seeks to find out whether there exists a relationship between the New York Times (U.S.) and the Nation Media Group (Kenya) coverage of presidential opinion poll results 90 days prior to Election Day. One research hypothesis was identified; (_H1) that there is a relationship – of difference – in how the two publications cover presidential opinion poll stories. The study identified 440 presidential opinion poll stories over a 90- day period prior to Election Day. It analyzed election coverage from October-December 2007 for the Nation and August-November 2008 for the Times. The study established that …

'Wars The Like Of Which One Has Never Seen', Tracy B. Strong

Research Resources

'WARS THE LIKE OF WHICH ONE HAS NEVER SEEN': READING NIETZSCHE AND POLITICS

Tracy B. Strong

The Aesthetics Of Human Rights, Sharon Sliwinski

Data and Test Instruments

This essay situates the 1755 Lisbon earthquake as an alternate origin point for human rights discourse. As one of the most destructive earthquakes in recorded history, the event had a broad effect on both scientific and philosophical thought. The quake also represents one of the first modern mass media events in which subjects throughout Europe became spectators to a distant catastrophe. Both visual and verbal representations of the event circulated throughout Europe with incredible efficiency and helped inaugurate a secular notion of human suffering as well as thoughts about its prevention. The story of the quake shows that the notion …

Exploring The Nature Of Anti-Federalist Thought: Republicanism And Liberalism In The Political Thought Of Cato, Christopher Hallenbrook

Undergraduate Review

Scholarship of the American founding remains divided as to the nature of Anti-Federalist political philosophy. One school of thought contends that the Anti-Federalists were the heirs of the republican tradition, while the other maintains that the Anti-Federalists operated from a liberal worldview. Thus in what manner and to what extent Anti-Federalists draw upon the republican and/or liberal political traditions remains unclear. In answering this question I examine the writings of the Anti-Federalist Cato, analyzing what conceptualizations characterize Anti-Federalist thought and from what traditions of political philosophy these ideas arose. I also analyze texts of the major traditions that my have …

Comparing Single Member District Plurality And Proportional Representation In The Next Eleven Countries, Maggie Mcmahon Stehn

Honors Program Theses

Two of the most popular electoral systems in the world are proportional representation (PR) and single member district plurality (SMDP). While both are employed worldwide, it is unclear which is the most beneficial to constituents. The "Next Eleven" countries (NI I) as defined by Goldman Sachs are the countries of focus, which are predicted to be emerging countries in terms of growing population and percent increase in gross domestic product (GDP). Furthermore, there is a fairly even distribution of PR and SMDP systems among the NI I countries, as well as two single-party dominant countries. The following compares the two …

Republicanism And Crime, Richard Dagger

Political Science Faculty Publications

These are but two of the difficult questions that arise when one examines the claim that crime is a public wrong. I take it, though, that their difficulty is an indication of the importance of thinking through the presuppositions and implications of this conception of crime, not a reason to abandon it. A thorough 'thinking through' is too large and complex a task for this chapter, but it is possible to make a case here for the right way to proceed with such an undertaking. That right way, in my view, is to look to the republican tradition of political …

Democratic Discussion, Kinder R. Donald, Don Herzog

Book Chapters

In this piece one of the country’s most accomplished survey researchers joins forces with a major democratic theorist (they happen to be colleagues at the same institution, the University of Michigan)—and together they try to reconcile what might seem irreconcilable: survey research findings about voter ignorance, on the one hand, with John Stuart Mill’s ideal of government by discussion, on the other. Read them carefully to ascertain the basis of reconciliation, for it is subtle: they extrapolate from John Dewey’s concept of “contingent social practices.” That is undoubtedly a mouthful, but it implies—as you will see—that the relative political sophistication …

Framing The Challenges Of Political Empowerment And Engagement: Ideational Interventions For Democratization Since 2005, Benjamin T. Tolosa Jr

Political Science Department Faculty Publications

This essay explores the possibilities of igniting transformative political action among the youth through the creative exercise of giving meaning to their involvement. At a time when the youth are thought to have fallen to apathy, the author offers a way to effectively invite them to engagement. By showing them how their active citizenship is part of the broader action of building genuine democracy, the youth can truly become a force of hope for the country.

The Politic 2009 Winter, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

Property-Owning Democracy And The Demands Of Justice, Thad Williamson, Martin O'Neill

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

John Rawls is arguably the most important political philosopher of the past century. His theory of justice has set the agenda for debate in mainstream political philosophy for the past forty years, and has had an important influence in economics, law, sociology, and other disciplines. However, despite the importance and popularity of Rawls's work, there is (rather surprisingly) no clear picture of what a society that met Rawls's principles of justice would actually look like.

Tahira Khan On Wives, Widows, Concubines: The Conjugal Family Ideal In Colonial India By Mytheli Sreenivas. Bloomington, In: Indiana University Press, 2008. 169pp., Tahira Khan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Wives, Widows, Concubines: The Conjugal Family Ideal in Colonial India by Mytheli Sreenivas. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008. 169pp.

Of Sweatshops And Human Subsistence: Habermas On Human Rights, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this paper I argue that the discourse theoretic account of human rights defended by Jürgen Habermas contains a fruitful tension that is obscured by its dominant tendency to identify rights with legal claims. This weakness in Habermas’s account becomes manifest when we examine how sweatshops diminish the secure enjoyment of subsistence, which Habermas himself (in recognition of the UDHR) recognizes as a human right. Discourse theories of human rights are unique in tying the legitimacy of human rights to democratic deliberation and consensus. So construed, their specific meaning and force is the outcome of historical political struggle. However, unlike …

Uncooperative Federalism, Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Heather K. Gerken

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay addresses a gap in the federalism literature. Scholars have offered two distinct visions of federal-state relations. The first depicts states as rivals and challengers to the federal government, roles they play by virtue of being autonomous policymakers outside the federal system. A second vision is offered by scholars of cooperative federalism, who argue that in most areas states serve not as autonomous outsiders, but supportive insiders – servants and allies carrying out federal policy. Legal scholarship has not connected these competing visions to consider how the state's status as servant, insider, and ally might enable it to be …

Does Intergenerational Justice Require Rising Standards Of Living?, Lawrence A. Zelenak

Faculty Scholarship

This essay considers whether it would be morally acceptable for a nation to use massive intergenerational borrowing to pursue a no-growth policy, under which the anticipated standard of living of members of future generations would be no higher than the standard of living of members of the present generation. The essay examines whether justification for such a policy can be found in either the political theory of John Rawls or in the application of utilitarian principles to intergenerational ethics. It concludes that under a Rawlsian analysis there is a strong argument that the current generation has no obligation to strive …

Traditions Of Philanthropic Order, Christine Dunn Henderson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Individuals act more or less simultaneously as economic agents, citizens, and participants in civil society. Their interactions and their ways of fulfilling these roles take many forms. Not all of them can be said to be self-organizing, yet in several instances patterns of organization emerge spontaneously without being deliberately designed. Of course, the market economy—or “catallaxy,” as F. A. Hayek called it—remains the best example of such “spontaneous orders.” But there are others. Gus diZerega (2000), for example, has identified science and democracy as being similarly constituted by self-referential, self-organizing (some authors prefer the term autopoietic) processes. In this paper …