Political Science Commons^™

How To Test Cultural Theory: Suggestions For Future Research, Marco Verweij, Shenghua Luan, Mark Nowacki

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This symposium highlighted the relevance of the cultural theory (CT) pioneered by anthropologists Mary Douglas, Steve Rayner, and Michael Thompson and political scientists Aaron Wildavsky and Richard Ellis for explaining political phenomena. In this concluding article, we suggest ways in which CT can be further tested and developed. First, we describe how the theory has been applied thus far and some of the achievements of these applications. Then, we examine some of the challenges revealed by this research. Finally, we discuss ways of applying CT that promise to help meet these challenges. These methods include nesting case studies and combining …

The Impact Of Prolonged Nomination Contests On Presidential Candidate Evaluations And General Election Vote Choice: The Case Of 2008, Jeff R. Dewitt, Richard N. Engstrom

Faculty Articles

The fact that political parties hold competitive nomination contests that require voters to choose among multiple candidates leaves open the possibility that the contest itself could damage the prospects of an eventual nominee. In this study, we employ the American National Election Study panel survey data from the 2008 U.S. presidential election to assess the impact of the Democratic Party nomination process on candidate evaluations and general election vote preference. We find evidence that Barack Obama had greater difficulty uniting his party than his Republican counterpart due to the fact that Clinton voters were slow to coalesce around Obama. These …

The Impact Of Prolonged Nomination Contests On Presidential Candidate Evaluations And General Election Vote Choice: The Case Of 2008, Jeff Dewitt, Richard N. Engstrom

Faculty Articles

The fact that political parties hold competitive nomination contests that require voters to choose among multiple candidates leaves open the possibility that the contest itself could damage the prospects of an eventual nominee. In this study, we employ the American National Election Study panel survey data from the 2008 U.S. presidential election to assess the impact of the Democratic Party nomination process on candidate evaluations and general election vote preference. We find evidence that Barack Obama had greater difficulty uniting his party than his Republican counterpart due to the fact that Clinton voters were slow to coalesce around Obama. These …

Islam And Roman Catholicism As Transnational Political Phenomena: Notes For A Comparative Research Agenda, Ted G. Jelen, Mehran Tamadonfar

Political Science Faculty Research

In this paper, we offer some preliminary insights into a comparison of Islam and Roman Catholicism as transnational or “transcivilizational” political phenomena. We note that both traditions are monotheistic, offer universalist theologies, and have played important political roles both historically and in contemporary national and international politics. The comparison provides some additional insights into the role of „the sacred‟ in politics at various levels, and presents the possibility of an intermediate level of analysis in comparative politics.

The Next Swing Region: Reapportionment And Redistricting In The Intermountain West, David F. Damore

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

During the first decade of the 21st century no region in the nation experienced the political and demographic changes that occurred in the Intermountain West region, including the states of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. These states grew at unprecedented levels and are now demographically more diverse and increasingly urbanized. This presentation will explore the status of redistricting and reapportionment efforts, and the implications for state and national politics.

Library Impact Statement For Psc 441 Women And Politics, Michael Vocino

Library Impact Statements

Library Impact Statement submitted in response to new course proposal for PSC 441 Women and Politics. New course was supported with no need for additional resources.

Are Institutions The Answer? Mitigating Sectarian Protest In Divided Nations, Matthew P. Arsenault

The Hilltop Review

Ethnic violence has increased exponentially in the decades following World War II. As such, it is imperative that cures for the unique ills found in divided societies be discovered. This article seeks to quantitatively investigate the efficiency of formal political institutions in curbing ethnically-based violent protest in divided societies. As such, the dependent variable is the level of violent protest, while the independent variables include: a parliamentary system of government, a proportional representation electoral system, and a federated system. It is my contention that such institutions will significantly lessen incidents of ethnically-motivated violent protest. In addition, this article concludes with …

2011-2012 Us Army War College Key Strategic Issues List, Antulio J. Echevarria Ii

Articles & Editorials

No abstract provided.

Global Environmental Change And Human Security – Edited By Richard A. Matthew, Jon Barnett, Bryan Mcdonald, And Karen L. O'Brien, Elizabeth L. Chalecki

Political Science Faculty Publications

Global Environmental Change and Human Security . Cambridge, MA : MIT Press . 327 pages . ISBN 978‐026251308‐1 , $25.00 paperback . Richard A. Matthew, Jon Barnett, Bryan McDonald, and Karen L. O'Brien ( Eds .). 2010 .

Environmental security is no longer a fringe field. It is a research domain “effectively established,” as the editors of this volume admit (p. 307). So it's time to stop turning out these same vague and overly theoretical “concept” books, and get cracking on how to actually solve some of the interrelated problems of global environmental change and human security. The Global Environmental …

Tele-Visioning Terror, Caroline Zekri

Re-visioning Terrorism

This paper is devoted to the relationship between terrorism and media, with a special focus on the theoretical notions of “icon”, “mass” and “distance”. It aims to show how the phenomenon of modern terrorism calls into question the essence of modern democracies and their systems of information, based on the distance between vision and event.

Symbolic Violence As Subtle Virulence: The Philosophy Of Terrorism, Jonathan Beever

Re-visioning Terrorism

Jean Baudrillard’s semiotic analysis of violence leads us to understand the form of violence as three-fold: aggressive, historical, and semiotically virulent. Violence of the third form is the violence endemic to terrorism. If violence has been typically understood as of the first two types, terrorism should be understood as the virulence of simulacra. The conflation of these types of violence explains the failure of militaristic responses to terrorism. This paper will explore Baudrillard’s conception of symbolic violence as the virulence of signs and help us come to terms with the semiotic foundation of terrorism.

The Cultural Politics Of Wmd Terrorism In Post-Cold War America, Harold Williford

Re-visioning Terrorism

Terrorism’s definition is hotly debated and notoriously problematic. The resulting instability of counterterrorism and counterterrorist identity, however, is less often explored. This paper analyzes the prehistory of the War on Terror to explore how the meaning and associations attributed to terrorism by counterterrorists in the 1990s reflect the latter’s priorities, agenda, and anxieties. Prevalent ahistorical post-Cold War representations of terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as a “new” threat indicate that WMD-wielding terrorists functioned to justify the continued existence of the American national security state after the Soviet Union collapsed. Close readings of Rainbow Six, a Tom Clancy …

The Privilege Of Ambivalence: Saturday’S Henry Perowne On The ‘War On Terror’, Jax Lee Gardner

Re-visioning Terrorism

This essay considers the relation between personal privilege (class, race, nationality, sex) and political ambivalence toward the Iraq war as it manifests in the protagonist of Ian McEwan’s Saturday. Henry Perowne “feels culpable somehow, but helpless too” in his shifting opinions of the coming invasion. Throughout the text we are shown Henry’s multiple perspectives regarding Iraq. Such ambivalence is, in itself, a form of complicity in war. Henry neither tangibly opposes the actions of the government (as the protesters do), nor does he consider sacrificing any of his creature comforts in support of the war (as the soldiers do). I …

Writing Victims: Post-Terrorist Fiction(S) In The Basque Country And Spain, Roland Vazquez

Re-visioning Terrorism

This paper examines the recent evolution of fiction in and about the Basque Country. I focus on depictions of the victims of ETA’s violence, and literature that documents their plight in the genres of the novel and short story. One trend is the movement away from “terrorist” and toward “victim” as the narrative focus. Another is an art increasingly in service to a political agenda. Although much of this corpus focuses on everyday details richer than those found in the mass media, social-scientific literature, or victim testimony, these forms often blur in their rhetorical styles.

The Invention Of Modern State Terrorism During The French Revolution, Guillaume Ansart

Re-visioning Terrorism

This essay discusses three aspects of the Terror (September 1793–July 1794): (1) The Institutions of the Terror: The Committee of General Security, the Committee of Public Safety, and the Revolutionary Tribunal; (2) the Theory of Terror: The unity and indivisibility of the people, the category of enemy of the people, and the concept of Revolution as a state of war against aristocratic/foreign conspiracies; (3) the Language of Terror: The Terror is also a performative language, a language which embodies terror by aiming to silence all debate. In this sense, the language of Terror is Terror itself.

Knights Of Justice: Blockbuster Terrorism In Code Geass: Lelouch Of The Revolution, Aaron Choo, Wilson Koh

Re-visioning Terrorism

Wall, William Ketchum, 1786-1853 (Sc 2475), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2475. Two letters from William K. Wall, a lawyer and state legislator, written from Frankfort, Kentucky. He writes of domestic matters, his health and churchgoing, and briefly of legislative affairs in Frankfort, Kentucky, including the prevalence of divorce bills and his successful application to obtain a pardon for a former client. He also comments, at times critically, on several individuals who may be his children.

Onyekwuluje, Anne B. (Sc 2473), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2473. Interviews conducted by Anne B. Onyekwuluje with seven individuals about the life and influence of Georgia Montgomery Davis Powers, the first woman elected to the Kentucky state Senate in 1963. They discuss their political relationships with Powers and her influence in politics and the Civil Rights movement.

Immigration To Germany: Past And Present Experiences, Peter O'Brien

Political Science Faculty Research

Germany long stood as the epitome of the ethno-nationalist approach to immigration. However, passage of the new Citizenship Law in 2000, which introduced jus soli, seemed to signal a sea change in the direction of a postnational outlook. This paper warns against seeing in the new legislation an emerging normative consensus around the kind of liberal cosmopolitanism advocated by the likes of Jürgen Habermas, Ulrich Beck or Will Kymlicka. I document the persistent allure and influence of nationalism and point to the growing appeal and sway of proposals and policies informed by a postmodern normative outlook. Germany’s normative landscape, …

Growing Singapore's Funny Bone: Laughing In The Face Of Dangers, Pitfalls And Politicians, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

There was once a time in Singapore when the mocking of authority figures would be regarded as a no-go zone. Leaders and politicians were rarely subjects of comedy for such jokes would be considered too distasteful and disrespectful for mass consumption. Acceptable local comedy, as such, was limited to the physical and sometimes lowbrow variety.