Political Science Commons^™

Comment By Connie Lamb, Connie Lamb

Comparative Civilizations Review

The Coronavirus pandemic put a halt to many normal activities. One of the institutions heavily impacted by the virus is libraries.

Comment By Rosemary Gillett-Karam, Rosemary Gillett-Karam

Comparative Civilizations Review

The Department of Homeland Security, with its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVIS) arms, announced unexpectedly on July 6 of this year that international students studying in the United States at universities and colleges which were converting to all-online instruction because of the pandemic would become immediately ineligible to continue their enrollment in their college or university courses if their own countries had similar programs available.

Political Power Of Iranian Hierocracies, János Jany

Comparative Civilizations Review

The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that the current Iranian regime is no novelty in Iranian history and political thinking, but has two antecedents: the rule of the Sasanians in late Antiquity (3rd–7th centuries) and that of the Safavids (16th–18th centuries) in modern times. After a brief outline of relevant historical events the paper scrutinizes the common features of these three regimes. The comparison includes the analyses of foreign policy, its scope, aim and direction, cultural policy and the relevance of political ideologies, socio-economic policy, religious policy, political structure and mechanisms of decision-making. The results of the comparison …

The Psychology Department, Brandeis University In The 1960s: A Comment On Feigenbaum’S Memoir, David Lester

Comparative Civilizations Review

Kenneth Feigenbaum has written a colorful account of his time as a faculty member of the Department of Psychology at Brandeis University from 1962-1965 and his interactions with Abraham Maslow (Comparative Civilizations Review: No. 82. 63-73, 2020). This view, from the perspective of the graduate students, supplements Feigenbaum’s account.

Response To Prof. Ernest B. Hook’S Comments On “So-Called Euroasianism”, Dimitry Shlapentokh

Comparative Civilizations Review

I was quite pleased by the fact that a professor, a full professor from the prestigious University of California Berkeley, not only read my article, but commented on it. (Comparative Civilizations Review: No. 82. 129, 2020) Indeed, millions of articles are published every year, and the vast majority are absolutely ignored.

Philipp Ammon. Georgia Zwischen Eigenstaatlichkeit Und Russische Okkupation (Georgia Between Nationhood And Russian Occupation), Andrew Andersen

Comparative Civilizations Review

The book provides detailed analysis of political, historical, religious and cultural roots of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Georgia, which started more than 200 years ago in what is now a strategically important area of the world – the South Caucasus. That region, which includes Georgia alongside Armenia and Azerbaijan, serves as a natural corridor through which Western countries can get access to the vital hydrocarbon resources of Central Asia, bypassing Russia. At the same time, after the disintegration of the USSR, the South Caucasus turned into one of the “hot zones” where polar ideologies and economic interests of …

John Vincent Bellezza. The Dawn Of Tibet: The Ancient Civilization On The Roof Of The World, Constance Wilkinson

Comparative Civilizations Review

The Dawn of Tibet: the Ancient Civilization on the Roof of the World by John Vincent Bellezza is a unique work by an intrepid explorer-scholar who, purely from his own inspiration, spent decades doggedly tracking down traces of the prehistoric Zhang Zhung civilization, a Metal Age culture (famed for making iron weapons of war) and a polity that dominated the remote northwestern plateau of Upper Tibet until the 7th century CE.

End Matter

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Organizing Twenty-First-Century Activism: From Structure To Strategy In Latin American Social Movements, Jessica Rich

Political Science Faculty Research and Publications

This article examines how the organizational structure of a social movement affects the tactics it is likely to adopt. Hybrid movements gained prominence at the start of the twenty-first century. Like movements of the past, they protested on the streets; but unlike the movements of the past, they also acted like interest groups by lobbying government over policy. Considered through the lens of traditional scholarship, this phenomenon presents a puzzle. Loose networks of activists are thought to be good at contentious politics but incapable of negotiating with government. By contrast, federations of interest groups are seen to be good at …

William Of Rubruck: Cosmopolitan Curiosity And Restraint In An Age Of Conquest And Mission, Duncan Weaver

Comparative Civilizations Review

William of Rubruck’s account of journeying to Mongolia (1253-55) remained relatively elusive in scholarly and popular discourses. A Franciscan friar, his mission helped tentatively acquaint two (literally/figuratively) distant civilizations, Latin Christendom and the Mongol Empire. We may assess the extent to which a critical reading of Rubruck can propel knowledge of a Christian Eastward mission. Rubruck’s account was found to evince a degree of restraint and cosmopolitan curiosity that not only went against the grain of Christendom’s exceptionalism and expansionism, but also enabled the pursuit of a rudimentary inter-civilizational dialogue.

Justice, Ideology, And Struggle, Megan Murray

Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas

Marx’s approach to questions of justice and morality are captured by this metaphilosophical position, whereby Marx rejects an understanding of philosophical inquiry as the pursuit of foundations and universality. Philosophical justifications are, in the last instance, products of a particular form of society and production. Rather than abandoning the basic idea of human moral equality, the radical historicist approach allows the philosopher to make the Marxist progression from merely understanding the world toward changing it and moving it closer toward a moral horizon.

Author information: Megan graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 2018 started a PhD in political theory at …

Alexander Hamilton’S Vision Of An American Monarchy, Madeline Clarke

Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas

Alexander Hamilton’s underlying arguments in The Federalist Papers and the Pacificus-Helvidius Debates of 1793-1794 expand the power of the presidency and display Hamilton’s desire for a king-like president of the United States, much like Great Britain’s monarch.

Author information: Madeline Clarke is an honors student from Ashland, Missouri, at the University of Missouri-Columbia studying political science and geography with a minor in American Constitutional Democracy. She is currently a Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy Undergraduate Fellow in addition to serving as president of Gamma Theta Upsilon Geography Honor Society, an executive board member of Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honor …

Hiding Behind Lincoln, Jonathan Fenster

Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas

Abraham Lincoln’s ascent to power was surprising, but after a deep analysis it is clear that it was not at all unique. Just like Queen Esther, Lincoln was able to overcome extreme odds through patience and faith.

Author information: Jonathan Fenster is a Straus Center Scholar at Yeshiva University located in Washington Heights, New York. Jonathan plans on attending law school after he completes his biology major, and hopes to cultivate and develop a deeper understanding of the synthesis between modern law and ancient philosophy.

Grand Old (Tailgate) Party?: Partisan Discrimination In Apolitical Settings, Andrew M. Engelhardt, Stephen M. Utych

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent work in political science demonstrates that the American public is strongly divided on partisan lines. Levels of affective polarization are so great, it seems, that partisanship even shapes behavior in apolitical settings. However, this literature does not account for other salient identity dimensions on which people make decisions in apolitical settings, potentially stacking the deck in favor of partisanship. We address this limitation with a pair of experiments studying price discrimination among college football fans. We find that partisan discrimination exists, even when the decision context explicitly calls attention to another social identity. But, importantly, this appears to function …

The Political Aesthetic Of Hannah Arendt: Modernity, Judgment, And Culture, Quixote R. Vassilakis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The plan of this thesis is, first, to interpret Arendt’s critique of the modern age. Next, this paper outlines Arendt’s reconceptualization of Kant’s theory of judgment as the basis for a novel model of the public sphere in light of the conditions of modernity. Finally, this paper explores Arendt’s poetics as a means of activating the faculty of judgment in order to reconcile with the modern world. In order to address the political crises of modernity, Arendt develops a political aesthetic alive to the role of narrative and culture in reconstituting political communities. I argue that Hannah Arendt develops a …

Searching For Pōhakuloa: A Citizen Scientist’S Journey In Aloha ‘Āina, Drake Logan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation tells a story about the United States (US) military’s land occupation of two Indigenous Hawaiian wahi pana (sacred places), on O’ahu and Hawai’i Island, which have produced widespread health concerns regarding exposure to military toxins. I conducted six months of fieldwork in Hawai’i, in which I partnered with local communities in a Critical Participatory Action research process. Together, we formed and co-led a community-based science pilot study of contamination from Pōhakuloa Training Area, generating new citizen science methods capable of uncovering evidence on confirmed military toxics uses. These methods were developed in critical solidarity with international communities who …

Many Forms Of Black Death: Coal Extraction, Transnational Activism And The Value Of Life In Colombia, Oscar H. Pedraza Vargas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

After the murder of the president and vice president of the coal union by paramilitaries in the department of Cesár, Colombia, the union is left adrift. Its fragility is only heightened when the person who decides to take over, is killed six months later. The union has been vocal on their critique of environmental destruction produced by coal and argues that their criticism is part of the reasons why they were targeted. Not far from there, in the department of Guajira, the conglomerate in charge of Cerrejón, the largest open-pit coal mine of South America, wants to divert a creek …

A Defense And Expansion Of The Theory Of Capitalist Ground Rent: Speculation, Securitization, And Struggles Over Land And Housing, Francesca Manning

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Why are the rents so high? Who is responsible for homelessness, for urban and rural displacement? How can these problems be combatted?

Recent literature addressing these questions has pointed to gentrification and the financialization of land and housing, faulted financialized landlords, hedge funds, and the irredeemable logic of finance, and pointed to the importance of land and housing regulation to prevent displacement.

However, theories of displacement—in both land and housing, on both urban and rural terrain—suffer from a lack of an underlying theory of the logic, tendencies, and limits of ground rent extraction in capitalism.

This dissertation develops a theory …

Legitimizing Violence At The European Border: Gendered Misrepresentations At Sea And The Vulnerable Other, Michela Demelas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis highlights a temporal and spatial gap in the feminist literature about migrants' journeys throughout the Mediterranean, and investigates the gendered dynamics acting upon the encounter between the European border and racialized bodies at sea. The Mediterranean sea’s material features allow Europe to approach migration as a humanitarian crisis coming from outside, which discharges its responsibility for the deaths. Yet, essentialistic views represent the feminized Other as vulnerable and needing to be saved from the male Other and the sea. Such views shape the Western narratives around concrete rescue procedures and border authorities behaviors. The encounter between the border …

Gender And Parliamentary Representation In India: The Case Of Violence Against Women And Children, Sadhvi Kalra, Devin K. Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

To better understand how gender impacts parliamentary representation, we analysed representative claims made by parliamentarians in India, the world's largest democracy. Applying critical frame analysis to plenary debates in the Indian Rajya Sabha, we examined four parliamentary bills addressing violence against women and children under four successive governments between 1999 and 2019. Testing six hypotheses concerning who represents and how, our study found women legislators more active in speaking on behalf of women and children than male legislators. Women parliamentarians focused more on rehabilitating victims and expanding the scope of rights and rights-holders. Women were also more vocal in contesting …