Political Science Commons^™

Former Iscsc President Wayne Bledsoe: An Appreciation, Michael Palencia-Roth

Comparative Civilizations Review

About three weeks before Wayne Bledsoe died on the 2nd of June 2024, at 83, my wife Elaine and I commented to each other that we simply had to get in touch with him and Deb again, for too much time had passed since we had seen each other. We did not know that he was ill, and so the news of his death surprised and distressed us.

Cognosis And The Evolution Of Civilization, Ken Baskin

Comparative Civilizations Review

From the time when the complex states such as Egypt or Sumer emerged roughly 5,000 years ago, the civilizations they represent have generally become more populous, more socially varied, wealthier, and more technologically advanced. As a result, the innovations they produced would begin to change the conditions in which they existed, and their cultures have had to evolve to adapt to this ongoing change. For instance, the cultures of Bronze Age Egypt and the Iron Age Han Dynasty had to be quite different, even though both were agricultural societies. And, of course, the Electronic Age cultures of the United States …

Is Donald Trump A Modern-Day Catiline?, Jamie González-Ocaña

Comparative Civilizations Review

Could the story of a failed Roman politician who organized a plot to seize the Roman republic in 63 BCE be a metaphor for Donald Trump’s political persona — his initial presidential run against the establishment, his rhetorical effort to overthrow the status quo and the natural order of things in national politics, the love affair Trump has always had with the struggling working-class voters (with the “forgotten” Americans), his constant testing the Constitutional limits of our republican system of government? Could both figures be symptoms of times when a republic is in crisis and reminders of the perils that …

Niccolò Longobardo And The Early Modern Encounter Of Europe With China, Yu Liu

Comparative Civilizations Review

Writing in 1962 about the founding fathers of the early modern Jesuit China mission, Jesuit historian George H. Dunne famously called them the generation of giants “who, breaking with the dominant spirit of their times and recalling a distant past, restored the concept of cultural adaptation to a central position in the world mission of Christianity.”

Seventeen Crises In Western Civilization That Have Arisen Since The Dark Ages: A Cognition Science-Oriented Approach, Andrew Targowski

Comparative Civilizations Review

The purpose of this article is to synthesize those crises in the unfolding of Western civilization that are controlled by human knowledge and wisdom. The methodology is transdisciplinary, utilizing a cognitive science-oriented, big-picture view of civilization and main conflicts. The crises are investigated across three time periods; the Dark Ages (from the fifth to the fourteenth century), Modern Times (from the fifteenth to the twentieth century), and the present century. The findings reveal that today Western civilization faces seventeen significant crises. Knowledge is not sufficient to solve these crises; we need to employ knowledge-based wisdom. This approach presents a new …

What Lessons Can Be Learned From The United Nations Preventive Deployment Mission In North Macedonia, On The Border Of Two Civilizations: Nothing Fails Like Success?, Mary Frances Lebamoff

Comparative Civilizations Review

Preventive deployment as a conflict prevention tool has not recurred in the past several decades, despite the broadly acclaimed success of the United Nations Preventive Deployment in Macedonia, UNPREDEP 1995-1999, and of its predecessor missions, UNPROFOR/Macedonia, and UNPROFOR/M 1992-1995.

The United Nations in particular has continued with mainly first- and second-generation peacekeeping, peacemaking and peacebuilding actions even on civilizational borders. What may best explain why there has been no other engagement in preventive deployment missions? There has been much emphasis placed formally and informally on early warning, detection, mitigation, and prevention of conflict. There have also been increasing numbers of …

Book Review: Liberalism, Realism, Or … Integralism? Perusing John J. Mearsheimer’S Book The Great Delusion, Vlad Alalykin-Izvekov

Comparative Civilizations Review

The paper presents an analysis of the scholarly views of prominent American political scholar John J. Mearsheimer as set forth in his book The Great Delusion (Yale University Press, 2019). It also offers analysis of other existing approaches, as well as elaborates on a new Integralistic Paradigm which has a potential to integrate the field of International Relations (IR) Theory.

End Matter

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Felony Disenfranchisement And Voter Turnout: Randomized Trials In Iowa And Washington, Alexander Billy, J.J. Naddeo, Neel U. Sukhatme

Northwestern University Law Review

Prior to the 2022 midterm elections, we conducted large-scale randomized controlled trials in Iowa and Washington aimed at increasing voter turnout among newly enfranchised individuals with past felony convictions. Alongside national and grassroots partners, we designed and implemented experiments to ascertain the effectiveness of alternative outreach mechanisms, including targeted mailers and digital ads. We did not detect statistically significant or economically meaningful effects on voter registration or turnout; most observed effects were precise nulls. The absence of measured impact is likely attributed to low digital engagement with our online ads as well as extensive voter outreach already conducted by our …

Epilogue, Noe Alexander Aguado

Politics, Justice, Law, and Philosophy

This collection intended to update Thomson’s (2002) work in time for the 125^th anniversary of the 1901 Constitution. The essays in A Century of Controversy continue to be enlightening. Alabama’s tumultuous history is fascinating and troubling. The book highlights that the framers of the 1901 Constitution sought to create a form of government that institutionalized white supremacy, undermining democracy in the process. Throughout Alabama’s history, when opportunities arose to right the wrongs of the 1901 Constitutional Convention – to adequately fund education and infrastructure and allow for local-level democracy – Alabama’s lawmakers have consistently chosen not to do so …

Books Of Interest, Stephen T. Satkiewicz

Comparative Civilizations Review

The journal is adding this section since there are books that may be of interest to scholars of the comparative study of civilizations and that may add significantly to the body of scholarship in the civilizational field. The books listed below are also available to be reviewed in the Book Review section of future editions of Comparative Civilizations Review.

Book Review: The Americans: The Democratic Experience And The Creators, Robert Bedeski

Comparative Civilizations Review

Two classics by American historian Daniel Boorstin should be central in the analysis of civilization.

Political Indifference And The Withering Of Democracy In Alabama, Noe Alexander Aguado

Politics, Justice, Law, and Philosophy

Alabama’s 1901 Constitution was drafted to codify white supremacy by removing African Americans from the voter rolls. Alabama did not invent voter suppression, nor does it have a monopoly on policies that deny African Americans, minorities, and poor people the right to vote. This chapter provides examples of how and to what effect disenfranchisement has been used in Alabama and other communities throughout the United States. This chapter also chronicles Alabama’s unique constitutional feature that centralizes policymaking in the capitol – further suppressing democracy at the local level to the advantage of affluent interest groups entrenched in Montgomery. Consolidating policymaking …

China In Global Digital Trade Governance: Towards A Development-Oriented Agenda?, Yujia He, Ka Zeng

Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce Faculty Publications

Existing literature on the behaviour of rising powers in global trade governance has yielded inconclusive evidence about their role and impact. This article contributes to this literature by examining China's role in global digital trade governance, an issue area which so far has not received sufficient scholarly attention. Specifically, it addresses the following question: as a self-proclaimed leader of the developing world in digital development, to what extent do its preferences and negotiation approach align with the interests of other developing countries? Analysing China's participation in three sets of negotiations using process tracing, the article argues that China's dual identity …

Election Reform And Campaign Finance: Did Alaska's Top 4 Nonpartisan Primaries And Ranked-Choice General Elections Affect Political Spending?, Zachary Albert, Robert G. Boatright, Lane Cuthbert, Adam Eichen, Wouter Van Erve, Raymond J. La Raja, Meredith Rolfe

Political Science

Objective: Ranked-choice voting (RCV) is increasingly seen as a way to reduce political polarization and increase voter choice in elections, but little is known about its effect on candidate fundraising. In 2022, Alaska held its first election using a nonpartisan Top 4 primary followed by a ranked-choice general election. We analyze the effect of this new system on campaign financing practices in state legislative elections. There are many reasons to expect RCV to increase campaign spending, broaden the donor pool, and prompt donors to support candidates to whom they would not otherwise contribute. Method: We measure changes in fundraising over …

Civilizations From Toynbee To Coker: The Quest Of Christopher Coker (1953 – 2023) To Reinstate Comparative Civilizational Thinking In Western Scholarship, Greg Lewicki Vice President

Comparative Civilizations Review

In the gentlemen’s heaven, Christopher Coker must surely have his separate suite, one with golden busts of travelers, old-fashioned English furniture, and cold-toned walls resembling those of Athenaeum, a Pall Mall club in London, one of a few clubs where he liked to dine.

The Sociology Of Crisis: Pitirim Sorokin’S Scholarly Legacy And Current Problems, Resilience, And Community, Emiliana Mangone

Comparative Civilizations Review

In his writings on crises, Sorokin highlighted their complexity and their multiple consequences on a personal, cultural, and social level. In this paper, crises in the 21st century are analyzed from Sorokin’s incisive perspective. The significant points include:

1. the study of crises cannot be enclosed within the confines of individual disciplines but rather must incorporate interdisciplinary approaches.
2. the category “crisis” does not encompass only those conditions that are the consequences of specific disastrous events such as natural disasters, wars, and terrorism but also all those phenomena that produce the conjunction of harm to human beings and social disturbances.
3. successive crises …

Front Matter

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Divergence Between The Teachings And Practice Of Islam: A Civilizational Analysis Of Muslims In Indonesia, Hisanori Kato

Comparative Civilizations Review

Indonesia is a country of cultural as well as religious diversity. Even before the advent of Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism were widespread in the region. Some think that Islam in Indonesia spread to the archipelago through interaction with local civilizations. Although Islam has become a majority religion in Indonesia today, long-standing local cultural traditions, ones that have existed throughout its recorded history, are often still maintained and practiced widely in Indonesia. These pre-Islamic traditions have a profound association with nature, and the people tend to appreciate animistic entities.

The Geographic Clash Of Civilizations?, Mojtaba Sadeghi

Comparative Civilizations Review

The Geographic Clash of Civilizations represents a significant geographic-civilizational reality and process, a phenomenon that has occurred and is expected to unfold increasingly in the third millennium. Understanding, analyzing, and forecasting this phenomenon relies solely on the geographic conceptualization of civilization. Through that perspective, the world is undergoing another instance of the geographic clash of civilizations, a clash more profound than the Clash of Civilizations, impacting the survival or collapse of human civilizations. The geographic clash of civilizations epitomizes an inescapable conflict between the soul (das-man) and the body (no-da-sein) of a civilization, stemming from …