Political Theory Commons^™

The Revival Of Representative Democracy In Nigeria And Its Impact On Sustainable Development, Olanrewaju Ojo Emupenne

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

Nigeria was under military rule for near to 30 years out of her 55 years of existence after independence. During this period, corruption reached peak levels causing societal retrogression. The dawn of the Fourth Republic in 1999 heralded the revival of elections in the country. It is against this background that this study investigates the extent to which democracy has advanced and improved the living standards of citizens and increased per capita income among others. A total of 642 people, 393 males, 236 women and 13 respondents took part in the case study. The study underscores the need for a …

Front Matter, Yaljod 1.1, Prince Ifoh

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

Includes: Excerpts from Dr. Salah Hammad (Senior Human Rights Expert, Department of Political Affairs, African Union Commission: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), Alice Buhinja Mutesi (Post Conflict Reconstruction Officer, Peace and Security Department, African Union Headquarters: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), and Beatrice Khamati Njenga (Head of Education Division, Department of Human Resources, Science adn Technology, African Union Commission: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia); a Foreword from Dr. Patricia Rodney (CEO, The Walter Rodney Foundation: Atlanta, Georgia); Preface from Her Excellency Ambassador Dr. Justina Mutale (Founder and CEO, Justina Mutale Foundation for Leadership: London, UK); and the Table of Contents for this issue.

Why Has “Development” Become A Political Issue In Indian Politics?, Aseema Sinha

CMC Faculty Publications and Research

Most observers of India have an implicit model of how Indians vote. They assume that voters in India act on their primary identities, such as caste or community, and that parties seek votes based on group identities—called vote banks—that can be collated into majorities and coalitions. K.C. Suri articulates the logic of this dominant model:

People of this country vote more on the basis of emotional issues or primordial loyalties, such as caste, religion, language or region and less on the basis of policies. The victory or defeat of a party depends on how a party or leaders marshal support …

Yaljod Full Issue 1.1, Prince Ifoh

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

The Young African Leaders Journal of Development (YALJOD) is a biennial journal and an official publication of the Young African Leaders Forum (YALF). It was established in 2015 to host scholarly analysis and competing viewpoints about the development of Africa; and it’s multidisciplinary approach makes it more formidable. YALJOD accepts papers from varied disciplinary areas — including Social Sciences, Physical Sciences and Humanities — that show direct relevance to the development of Africa. It publishes researches understood as the social, economic, political, cultural and technological processes of change in Africa. The intended audience of the journal remains the entire African …

Civil War Termination, Caroline A. Hartzell

Political Science Faculty Publications

Civil wars typically have been terminated by a variety of means, including military victories, negotiated settlements and ceasefires, and “draws.” Three very different historical trends in the means by which civil wars have ended can be identified for the post–World War II period. A number of explanations have been developed to account for those trends, some of which focus on international factors and others on national or actor-level variables. Efforts to explain why civil wars end as they do are considered important because one of the most contested issues among political scientists who study civil wars is how “best” to …

Book Review: Thieves Of State, Hugh E. Breakey

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Populist Radical Right Parties And The Securitization Of Migration In France, Ashley Middleton

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research paper addresses the interrelationship between the securitization of migration and the influence of the French populist radical right party, Front National (FN), in promoting anti-migrant claims. By analysing how political actors have played a role in applying security terms to migration in Europe, the paper addresses the different types of socio-political factors that have influenced the anti-migrant sentiment in France. The paper also aims to summarize the role of the media in securitizing migration. Furthermore, the analysis continues with an exploration of French security policy with regard to migration to better understand how FN has benefitted from a …

Refractions Through The Secular: Islam, Human Rights And Universality, Zara Khan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Universal human rights (HR) are often theorized as philosophically neutral. Because they do not espouse any particular theory of the human being, it is argued, they can be reasonably appropriated by all. In this thesis, I explore HR’s universality claim, by focusing on the discourse’s secular foundation. In the universal human right to freedom of religion, I find a distinctly modern grammar of ‘religion,’ one that separates ‘religion’ from politics and power, law from morality, and the public and private realms. The modern concept of religion also espouses a secular theory of the human, insofar as the human is defined …

“God Is Near": American Theocracy And The Political Theology Of Joseph Smith, Alan P. Koenig

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Mormon prophet Joseph Smith established the quintessentially “American religion” according to religious critics like Harold Bloom, perhaps the last major religion to emerge in the Western world. Founded during the rise of Jacksonian Democracy, early Mormonism espoused many populist and egalitarian tenets, yet behind Smith’s theology of an ever more exalted path to individual godhood lay an extraordinary politics demanding a new, theocratic hierarchy. This dissertation will discuss how Smith’s apocalypticism and exceptional politics of continual revelation confronted a pluralistic Protestant society with the superseding aim of creating a uniquely American kingdom. As a political theorist, Smith’s apocalyptic theology …

Feeling Political: Affect, Emotion, And Ethics In Western Political Theory, John Mcmahon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What conceptual and methodological resources would it take for political theory to be able to more deeply analyze the emotional and affective dimensions of political life? In this dissertation, I articulate interdisciplinary work on affect and emotion into political theory in order to realize four linked objectives: first, to develop a method of reading and interpreting political theory capable of tracing the theoretical work done by affect and emotion in works of political thought; second, to reassess the boundaries of the political theory canon in terms of the thinkers that ‘count’ as part of that canon as well as the …

Aktor Politik Dan Gagalnya Transisi Demokrasi Mesir Tahun 2011-2013, Amri Mushlih, Hurriyah Hurriyah

Jurnal Politik

This study discusses the role of political actors in Egypt during the transition period leading to the failure of democratic transition in the country. These actors are: 1) the military, (SCAF (Supreme Council of Armed Forces)); 2) the Islamic groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi groups; 3) the elites of the old regime (status quo), that are the remnants of the Mubarak regime either still in the political structure or been eliminated; and 4) the secular groups, including elites and civil society activists emerged since the anti-Mubarak revolution. The interaction of these actors was analyzed by applying the conceptual …

Menghadirkan Kepentingan Perempuan Dalam Representasi Politik Di Indonesia, Dirga Ardiansa

Jurnal Politik

This paper attempts to respond to three major discourse of political representation. First, that the political representation will not bring the representation of interests, classes, and identities completely, only half or partially. Representation is not a mere claim on representations facts. Second, that the democratic political representation happens if those whose interests are affected or touched by a decision have the capacity to (engage) influence the decision-making. Third, that the political representation can be generated from the electoral process (the election) and non-electoral. The electoral process would produce a formal political representation in the realm of the executive and legislative …

How Civility Works, Keith Bybee

Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media at Syracuse University

Is civility dead? Americans ask this question every election season, but their concern is hardly limited to political campaigns. Doubts about civility regularly arise in just about every aspect of American public life. Rudeness runs rampant. Our news media is saturated with aggressive bluster and vitriol. Our digital platforms teem with expressions of disrespect and trolls. Reflecting these conditions, surveys show that a significant majority of Americans believe we are living in an age of unusual anger and discord. Everywhere we look, there seems to be conflict and hostility, with shared respect and consideration nowhere to be found. In a …

Sticky Legacies: Persistence Of State Constitutional Provisions, Nancy Martorano Miller, Maria Aroca, Keith E. Hamm, Ronald D. Hedlund

Political Science Faculty Publications

In this paper, we assess the evolution of 32 state constitutions and the U.S. Constitution over a 100+ year time period (1776-1907). We construct an original sectionlevel dataset containing the text of every section within a constitution for every year between the adoption of the state’s first constitution and 1907. We classify each section by topic and compare the content of each new constitution as well as the impact of amendments. With a subset of these data, we analyze the extent to which sections were added, deleted, modified and remained the same over time using a novel approach that relies …

Losing Values: Illiquidity, Personhood, And The Return Of Authoritarianism In Skopje, Macedonia, Fabio Mattioli

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

On May 17, 2015, over 50,000 people took to the streets of Skopje, the capital of the Republic of Macedonia, protesting against Prime Minister Gruevski and his party, the conservative neoliberal Internal Revolutionary Organization of Macedonia (VMRO). After nine years of authoritarian government, it was the first significant demonstration in which the population demanded accountability for Gruevski's despotic system of rule. This dissertation is the story of how Gruevski's system of power was built and why it lasted for so long. I argue that a series of failing financial processes, which included the use of illiquidity, created the material and …

Virgil In Virginia: Eighteenth-Century Pastoralism And The Novus Ordo Seclorum, Alley Jordan

Theses

This work examines classical reception in early America. Specifically, it addresses the role of classical ideas on pastoralism in the thought of one of America’s founders, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson is best known for his role in the forming of United States government, but he was also influential on developing the idea of “America.” As such, his political theory on agrarian republicanism has strong ties to how the classical poets, such as Virgil and Theocritus, likewise thought about the relationship between land and government.

Pathways To Leadership: Four Women's Journeys To The Peace Negotiation Table In The Fight For Democracy In Burma, Brittany Shelmon

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Imagining Post-Neoliberal Regulatory Subjectivities, Mika Viljanen Dr, Mikko Rajavuori, Tal Kastner

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

To explore these tentative diagnoses and conceptualizations we called for papers engaging different aspects of law's subjectivity turn. A selection of papers that map the possible genealogies for the emergence of post-neoliberal law, address the implications of anthropomorphic corporate regulation, or analyze transformations in sovereign subjectivities is now published in this symposium issue. The papers take up and make salient an array of the big questions of our day.

While overlapping, the papers can be broadly divided into two categories. The first category consists of papers that explore the internal make-up of legal and regulatory subjectivities. Drawing on history, queer …

Facebooking The Tanzanian Elections: Citizen And Party Campaigners In The Social Media Ecosystem, Deodatus P. Shayo

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The 2015 presidential election cycle in Tanzania featured social media networks in electoral campaigning. Citizen and party campaigners emerged and used Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp mobile instant-messaging application to recruit and mobilise voters. This article attempts to examine the most recent explosion of citizen and party election campaigners on Facebook. The analysis focuses on their engagement with Facebook campaigns, and whether the use of this social media platform amplified the promotion of presidential candidates. The findings indicate that some presidential candidates were hardly visible on Facebook and could not get citizen and party campaign-initiated support. Some were actively …

Best Practices For Self-Exclusion Reinstatement And Renewal, Alex Price

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

While many studies have examined self-exclusion few have focused on the processes through which gamblers return at the end of their agreements. In 2014, the RGC Centre for the Advancement of Best Practices examined voluntary self-exclusion reinstatement and renewal in an effort to develop evidence-informed best-practices for both land-based and online gambling operations. The presentation outlines the findings of the study and the recommended best practices for reintegration and ban renewal.

The study examined a range of practices around the world. In the end the study recommended an active reinstatement process in which all participants are required to apply to …

When War Is Peace: Peacebuilding In An Era Of Warfare, Josh Berkenpas

The Hilltop Review

A first step in constituting an international regime of peace is to construct a reliable cross-national map of the global order supporting continuous warfare. I examine the case of the conflict in Syria as a demonstration of the truly global nature of the conflict and the way that a multitude of state, corporate, and non-state actors are profiting from the war. I develop a case study of the war in Syria in order to highlight the nature of “new war” and the complexity of the situation, including the issue of arming rebels by the U.S. and other states. I follow …

Height In Politics: The Role Of Height In Electoral Success In The State Of Washington, Joseph Wayne Rebbe

Honors Projects

Throughout the history of American presidential elections, the height of candidates has proven to be a statistically significant factor relative to success. This analysis examines whether the same trend applied to Washington State elections over the period 1994-2014. Ultimately, the data shows that Washington electoral results are not subject to change on the basis of candidate height – Washington elections do not reflect the presidential election trend.

Claiming Time: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, And Adam Smith On Freedom And Futurity, Jennifer Corby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation engages the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Adam Smith through the lens of time. By first analyzing their earlier works on the nature of self-consciousness, it demonstrates that each offers a theory of subjectivity that, despite important differences, shares a singular point of distinction from those that typified early modern thought. Against the predominant view that human freedom necessitates immaterial agency, each theorizes a materialist agent that is able to overcome the determinism of the material world by way of the temporal nature of subjectivity. Each understands self-consciousness to be constituted by an extension of memory …

Mobilizing For Capitalism: How Islamic Civil Society Makes A Market Economy Possible In Turkey, Dean G. Schafer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis asks how international actors – in this case, the IMF and World Bank – advance their neoliberal projects. Specifically, it looks at the local context. How do economic reforms pass from IMF policy into national law? Who does the IMF cooperate with? What strategies are used, and what makes them effective for enacting and legitimizing policy? It starts by looking at the history of political mobilization in Turkey after WWII, when it took its first IMF loan. Turkish political parties have commonly sought electoral success through populist economic policies built on patron-client relationships. However, economic populism is a …

Revitalizing The Ethnosphere: Global Society, Ethnodiversity, And The Stakes Of Cultural Genocide, Christopher Powell Ph.D.

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This paper uses the concepts of ethnosphere and ethnodiversity to frame the stakes of cultural genocide in the context of the emerging global society. We are in an era of rapid global ethnodiversity loss. Global ethnodiversity is important because different cultures produce different solutions to the subjective and objective problems of human society, and because cultures have an intrinsic value. Rapid ethnodiversity loss is a byproduct of the expansion of the modern world-system, and Lemkin’s invention of the concept of genocide can be understood as a dialectical reaction to this tendency. The current phase of globalization creates pressures towards global …

The New Liberalism Of International Relations In Context: An Analysis Of Andrew Moravcsik's 'Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory Of International Politics', Zachary R. Zellmer

Honors Projects

This paper summarizes the liberal theory of international politics offered by international relations theorist Andrew Moravcsik, and its development in relation to the insights of key liberal thinkers from the republican and commercial traditions. A discussion of the current status of a liberal paradigm of international politics is followed by a summary of the basic structure of Moravcsik’s theory. Moravcsik’s insights and their origins are then explored through the political philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Kant’s impact on the development of the tradition of republican liberalism into a liberal theory of international relations is evaluated and its language is compared to …

On Multiethnic Schools In Consociational Democracies: A Comparative Analysis Of Brčko District And Bosnia-Herzegovina, Jusuf Šarančić

Lawrence University Honors Projects

The 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement both ended the Bosnian War and created the consociational democracy that exists in Bosnia and Herzegovina to this day. The ethnic autonomy created by the Dayton Agreement has resulted in a frozen conflict between ethnic groups that has manifested itself in the country’s monoethnic education system. This study explores the short-term stability under consociationalism and the long-term stability under a multiethnic education system. Additionally, this study explains the importance of the country’s only multiethnic education system in Brčko District and how it came into existence.

Peasant Revolts As Anti-Authoritarian Archetypes For Radical Buddhism In Modern Japan, James Mark Shields

Faculty Journal Articles

The late Meiji period (1868-1912) witnessed the birth of various forms of “progressive” and “radical” Buddhism both within and beyond traditional Japanese Buddhist institutions. This paper examines several historical precedents for “Buddhist revolution” in East Asian—and particularly Japanese—peasant rebellions of the early modern period. I argue that these rebellions, or at least the received narratives of such, provided significant “root paradigms” for the thought and practice of early Buddhist socialists and radical Buddhists of early twentieth century Japan. Even if these narratives ended in “failure”—as, indeed, they often did—they can be understood as examples of what James White calls “expressionistic …

"They Have Sold The Clouds": Queering Indigenous Politics In Colombia, Taylor O. Ramsey

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In a study of Colombian politics, I use a queer theoretical lens to explore the relationship between the state and two specific indigenous groups from Northern Colombia to better understand the state and power relations embedded in it. I look for queer temporalities, spaces, and nonnormative practices that arise out of how the law interrogates and interacts with indigenous people using a queer theoretical lens as a critical methodology. I argue that the Colombian state's interactions with indigenous groups create queer spaces/conceptual borders, particularly with regard to law and the state's ability to biopolitically regulate its citizens. It is within …

Analisis Teori Offense-Defense Pada Reformasi Kebijakan Pertahanan Jepang Dalam Dinamika Keamanan Di Asia Timur, Fadhil Alghifari, Raja Nathania Olga Letticia

Global: Jurnal Politik Internasional

This paper will seek to demonstrate how the use of Offense-Defense Theory can best explain the Japan’s new defense reform legislation that enables the country to play a more comprehensive global security role commensurate with its capabilities, resources, national interests, and international responsibilities. Through this offense-defense lens, it will be argued that Japan’s new defense reform legislation is a response to the growing dominance of ‘offensive’ behaviour by the neighbouring countries in East Asia. This paper will then elaborate more about the elements that are used in the offense-defense theory to analyze the ‘offense’ dominance that prompts East Asian states …