American Politics Commons^™

Presidential Campaign Talk: Question-Answering In ‘Neutral Informational Interviews’, Angela Cora Garcia

Natural & Applied Sciences Faculty Publications

This article is a dual-case analysis of presidential campaign interviews conducted with former President George HW Bush when he was campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, and former President William J. Clinton when he was campaigning for the presidency in 1991. Both interviews were conducted at high schools in New Hampshire and are publicly available on the C-SPAN website. The purpose of this analysis is to investigate how the success or failure of political campaigns may be tied to candidates’ interactional competence and pragmatic skills. This will be done through an examination of the strengths and weaknesses of …

The State Of The Parties 2018 (Eight Edition), John C. Green, Daniel J. Coffey, David B. Cohen

The State of the Parties Eight Edition

The State of the Parties 2018 brings together leading scholars of parties, elections, and interest groups to provide an indispensable overview of American political parties today. The 2016 presidential election was extraordinary, especially the unexpected nomination and election of Donald Trump to the White House. What role did political parties play in these events? How did the party organizations fare? What are the implications for the future? Scholars and practitioners from throughout the United States explore the current state of American party organizations, constituencies and resources at the national, state and local level.

Masterpieces Or Simply Wedding Cakes? Exploring The Boundaries Of Freedom Of Speech Through United States Supreme Court Case Masterpiece Cakeshop V. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Margaret Mclean Quick

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Moving Beyond American Conditional Aid To Haiti, Chang-Dae David Hyun

Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas

A root cause of Haiti’s poverty is the IMF’s structural adjustment plan. A solution based on Chinese aid, unlike neo-liberal policies, allows Haiti to protect its rice and other industries.

Author information: Chang-Dae David Hyun, former sergeant with the Republic of Korea Air Force, earned his Honors B.A (2017) at the University of Toronto specializing political science. He is the winner of the Kathleen & William Davis Scholarship and Saul & Lois Rae Scholarship at University College (U of Toronto), and spent summer 2017 on a full scholarship to Tsinghua University of China.

The Role Of Christianity In Hobbes’S Political Project, David Soper

Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas

For Hobbes, religion is not inherently beneficial for society. Instead, good theology is required in order to make religion useful.

Author information: David Soper is a recent graduate from Carleton College where he studied political science. He hopes to continue his studies in political theory at the Ph.D. level.

What Does “All Men Are Created Equal” Mean?, Morgan Keith

Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas

Some have all too quickly used the term “post-racial” to describe America now that a black president has been elected and re-elected for a second term. It will take much more time than just eight years to reverse the wrongdoings of centuries past.

Author information: Morgan Keith is a junior studying investigative reporting at the University of Missouri. She currently works as a beat reporter at the Columbia Missourian.

Should Pornography That Patently Objectifies Women Be Banned?, Jared Kelly

Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas

The debate around banning pornography that objectifies women fractured the feminist movement. Future attempts to outlaw pornography will follow the precedent set forth in Osbourne v. Ohio and attempt to ban pornography in order to protect public health and safety.

Author information: Jared Kelly is a fourth-year political science and geography student at UC Berkeley. In his free time, he enjoys playing chess, hiking, classic films, and reading historical fiction.

The Problem Of The West[Ern], Kiley Duhn

Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas

Three great Western films—Stagecoach, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and the contemporary No Country for Old Men—delve deep into the American psyche and make a broad claim that the American way of mixing freedom and rule is inherently flawed.

Author information: Kiley Duhn is a Business Economics and Accountancy double major and Political Science minor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. After graduating in the Class of 2019, she plans to pursue a career in tax consulting at a public accounting firm.

A Practical Solution To The Death Of The American Dream, Pamela Larkin

Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas

Has slowing class mobility caused the shift in American culture away from the traditional “American Dream”? Or has this shift in American culture caused slowing class mobility?

Author information: Pamela Larkin is a junior at Smith College majoring in Government and minoring in Mathematics. She is also President of the Smith Republicans, as well as a student-athlete who plays soccer

Constitutional Individualism: The Ninth Amendment And The “Natural Rights Of Man”, Lucas B. Drill

Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas

The Ninth Amendment is not a one-off historical anachronism aimed at protecting nonexistent rights. Instead, it should be construed by the courts as a bulwark against undue governmental interference in people’s private lives.

Author information: Lucas B. Drill is from La Cañada Flintridge, California. He is a rising senior in the Joint Program between Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary, in which he is simultaneously pursuing Bachelor of Arts degrees in Political Science and Jewish History. Lucas is an aspiring lawyer, constitutional scholar, and judge.

Originalism: Reclaiming The American Promise, Ayesh Perera

Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas

Originalism best reflects the Founding Fathers’ faith in self-government and also best preserves the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Author information: Ayesh Perera arrived in the United States from Sri Lanka in 2014. He graduated (2018) from Miami University with majors in Economics and Political Science, and is pursuing his Master’s Degree at Harvard University.

Omelas And Bensalem: Liberty And Utopias, Alexandria Putman

Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas

Is it possible for a society to be good without liberty? Bacon’s The New Atlantis and Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas both aid in exploring this important question.

Author information: Alexandria Putman is a Coastal Carolina University student from Tega Cay, S.C. She is a double major in political science and communication. Her research interests include public opinion and utopian political thought, as well as campaigns and elections. She is currently an Edgar Dyer Fellow, an undergraduate research assistant, and the captain of the mock trial team at CCU. Upon graduating, Alexandria hopes to …

Restoring Civic Virtue: The Buckley Model, Moriah Poliakoff

Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas

The political life of William F. Buckley Jr. stands as a model for reinvigorating the civic virtue that the American founders recognized as necessary.

Author information: Moriah Poliakoff is a junior at Christopher Newport University majoring in American Studies and minoring in Philosophy and US National Security Studies. She has a particular interest in political philosophy.

Indefinite Detention, Colonialism, And Settler Prerogative In The United States, Natsu Taylor Saito

Faculty Publications By Year

The primacy accorded individual civil and political rights is often touted as one of the United States' greatest achievements. However, mass incarcerations of indefinite duration have occurred consistently throughout U.S. history and have primarily targeted people of color. The dominant narrative insists that the United States is a political democracy and portrays each instance of indefinite detention in exceptionalist terms. This essay argues that the historical patterns of indefinite detention are better explained by recognizing the United States as a settler colonial state whose claimed prerogative to expand its territorial reach and contain/control populations over which it exercises jurisdiction inevitably …

The United States, Mexico, And The War On Drugs In The Trump Administration, James M. Cooper

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the war on drugs as persecuted by the United States and how it has been exported to Mexico. It also explores the increased efforts in the drugs war that the Trump administration, through the U.S. Department of Justice, is pursuing at a domestic level. Part I of this Article provides an outline of the dynamics in the quickly evolving and highly tense relationship between the United States and Mexico. Part II of this Article details the historical background of the U.S.-Mexico border region and demonstrates that the border has long been a contested site. Part III provides …

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Plsc 2001 (The U.S. In The Age Of Globalization), Anh Tran

Open Educational Resources

How does globalization shape U.S. politics and society today? How does the U.S., in turn, steer the course of globalization throughout the rest of world? In this class, we seek answers to these broader questions through in-depth explorations of the nexus between globalization and security, identity, trade, migration, protest, and other pressing contemporary issues. We will survey mainstream and marginalized debates on globalization and evaluate their logics, assumptions, and empirical merits. We will situate processes of globalization in their national- historical and global-historical contexts, examining how globalization has evolved over time and in different spaces. Most importantly, we will assess …

Access Or Exclusion? An Analysis Of State Reproductive Rights And Comprehensive Sex Education, Sam Gilbert

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In 2009, Colorado successfully decreased their abortion rate among minors and at-risk teenagers through a privately-funded trial. This outcome was realized by offering affordable, accessible, and comprehensive reproductive healthcare options, specifically long-acting reversible contraception, to young women. Reproductive rights is an issue at the forefront of political discussion, often a determining factor for party identification. The controversy of reproductive rights--in particular, abortion--leads to a higher reliance on hear-say, instead of peer-reviewed literature, statistics, and legislation. In order to gain a well-balanced understanding of abortion politics, I compare three Midwestern states--Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota--to determine their respective policy successes and shortcomings. …

St. Louis Currents: The Fifth Edition, Andrew Theising, E. Terrence Jones Ph.D.

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Includes a history of African American entertainment in St. Louis Metro East and a history of Homer G. Phillips Hospital, among the current socio-economic issues facing St. Louis metropolitan area, Missouri and Illinois.

In Media Res, Christopher Andrew Sisk

Theses and Dissertations

We are inundated by a constant feed of media that responds and adapts in real time to the impulses of our psyches and the dimensions of our devices. Beneath the surface, this stream of information is directed by hidden, automated controls and steered by political agendas. The transmission of information has evolved into a spiral of entropy, and the boundaries between author, content, platform, and receiver have blurred. This reductive space of responsive media is a catalyst for immense political and cultural change, causing us to question our notions of authority, truth, and reality.

Fake News: Agenda Setting And Gatekeeping In The Media, Chelsea Sydnor

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This piece will examine the ideas of agenda setting and gatekeeping theories, as well as how they affect modern media coverage. Agenda setting theory is the idea that the media sets the agenda by selecting the topics that it covers. Gatekeeping refers to the idea that too many events occur for the media to cover all of them, so it must therefore choose which ones to specifically cover. It will review multiple studies and events in which the theories have played a part in the outcome. Particularly, it will analyze how campaign coverage has been found to influence voters in …