Political Science Commons^™

The Duty To Disobey, Megan Baker

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

America is a country founded on revolution. In fact, our founding fathers valued this right to dissent so highly, that they wrote it into our first amendment. In recent years, America has come to fear the very same kind of civil disobedience on which the country was founded. Now, citizens are expected to balance their dissent within the parameters of law, and this is exactly the view of past Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas. He stands for civil disobedience that follows the processes outlined in the Constitution and expects that dissenters accept their punishments when they step out of the …

The Dichotomy Of Justice, Yovana Milosevic

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

The history of disobedience is as lengthy as the history of legislation. For as long as there have been laws, there have been those who oppose them. Civil disobedience, as Howard Zinn defines the term, is the “deliberate violation of law for a vital social purpose” (Zinn 2002) - a definition broader than that of Abe Fortas. Fortas’ definition of civil disobedience is the “peaceful, nonviolent disobedience of laws which are themselves unjust and which the protester challenges as invalid and unconstitutional." (Fortas 1968). The dilemma of which conditions under which dissenters against democratic states are justified lies precisely within …

The Persuasive Brilliance Of Fortas, Ethan Pogge

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

The central question of this piece is how to strike a balance between radical civil disobedience and adherence to the laws put in place by government. Multiple schools of thought on how to obey and protest laws are discussed. Abe Fortas contends that peaceful, non-violent measures must be taken to protest and remedy laws that people support. Howard Zinn argues that more radical measures need to be taken in order to remedy unjust laws. Ultimately, Zinn’s concept of radical disobedience misses its mark because the concept of justice is too subjective. The breaking of laws requires a punishment which lends …

Civil Disobedience: A Necessary Evil, Benjamin Nielsen

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

As Socrates sits awaiting his death, he argues with Crito about the cons of escaping this punishment. Socrates argues that escaping without the consent of Athens would be trying to have two wrongs equal a right, which he explains to Crito only puts Athens in greater danger, even though Socrates admits that this ruling is unjust because it is the popular majority that wishes to see him put to death. “What we ought to worry about is not so much what people in general will say about us but what the expert in justice and injustice says, the single authority …

Dom Pérignon Vs. Miller Lite: Investigating Anti-Elite Sentiment At The Individual Level, Zoe Bouras

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

As right-wing populism has gained a stronger footing globally, so have the ideas that right-wing populists support. Developed democracies are exhibiting high levels of political distrust and anti-elite sentiment, which pose a serious threat to the health of democracy and existing political systems. While there are system-level trends that contribute to anti-elitism, there remain variations in individual anti-elite sentiment. Two broad schools of thought suggest explanations; one contending that the way an individual perceives and responds to their economic situation leads to anti-elite sentiment, and the other, that anti-elite sentiment has risen as a reactionary undercurrent to the “silent revolution” …

Blaming Mr. Taxman Do Regressive State Tax Codes Impact K-12 Education Spending Per Student?, Alex Stogin

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper seeks to understand the impact that state tax code structuring has on a state’s ability to fund K-12 education using a multiple regression model to evaluate the regressivity of a state’s tax code on it’s per student funding for K-12 education. Using empirical data collected and analyzed by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), this paper first utilizes a bivariate correlation matrix and then an ordinary least squares regression model to explain if tax code regressivity, or any other controlled variables, have any impact over spending per student in K-12 education by the state. The findings …

Contesting Early Childhood Professional Identities: A Cross-National Discussion, Sonja Arndt, Mathias Urban, Colette Murray, Kylie Smith, Beth Swadener, Tomas Ellegaard

Articles

In this collective article, the authors explore constructions of early childhood practitioners and how they disconnect and reconnect in a global neo-liberal education policy context. The contributions to the conversation provide windows into shifting professional identities across five national contexts: New Zealand, the USA, Ireland, Australia and Denmark. The authors ask who benefits from the notion of distinct professional identities, linked to early childhood education as locally and culturally embedded practice. They conceptualize teachers’ shifting subjectivities, drawing on Kristeva’s philosophical conception of identity as constantly in construction, open and evolving. Arguments for the urgency to counter the global uniformity machine, …

Taxation For Whom?:A Diachronic Analysis Of Taxation In Ireland And The United Kingdom From 1970-2015., Ewan Macdonald, John Hogan, Brendan O'Rourke

Other

This paper explores the discursive development of taxation within budget speeches in two countries, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, from 1970 to 2015 by means of a corpus-assisted discourse analysis. We ask the following questions; how have discourses of taxation developed diachronically in both countries, what are the similarities and differences in the observable discourses across both countries, and for whom and how are these discourses legitimised? In answering these questions, this paper makes use of Corpus linguistics, a methodological approach which utilises computational analysis of large bodies of text to draw statistically significant conclusions about the …

Today's Environmental Issues: Democrats And Republicans, Rob Tench

Libraries Faculty & Staff Publications

Walker (political science, Elmhurst Coll.) and several contributors provide an accurate, even-handed overview of Democratic and Republican parties’ policy positions on the most important environmental issues and challenges facing the United States.

2018 Statewide Survey On President Donald Trump Versus Oprah Winfrey, Edward Chervenak, Anthony Licciardi

Survey Research Center Publications

The University of New Orleans Survey Research Center conducted an interactive voice response (IVR) telephone survey on January 11, 2018 on the topic of candidate choice in a hypothetical match-up between President Donald Trump and Oprah Winfrey. Survey respondents were randomly selected from the Louisiana Secretary of State’s registered voter file. The sample of 722 respondents yields a margin of error of 3.7% with 95% confidence.

Midterm 2018 And Targeting Latino Community Through Misinformation And Disinformation Online, Manjul Shrestha

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

How has the Latino community been targeted by digital propaganda during the 2018 midterm elections in the US? How might this affect their involvement in and around the election? This thesis starts to answer these questions through a data analysis on two of the most prominent and popular social media platforms for political discussion: Twitter and Reddit. This study analyzed people’s posting patterns over time, the digital traces of the individuals pushing the majority and most popular content, and Latino candidates’ interaction on Twitter. This research provides evidence that on Twitter there are two main actors discussing Latinos and politics: …

Unequal Influence: The Impact Of Inequality On Trade Policy, Brian William Fitzpatrick

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Trade was a central issue in the 2016 US presidential election, with both major party candidates debating how trade impacts American workers. However, the current literature on trade policy outcomes and inequality has insufficient measures of public opinion on trade. I examine the varying roles the public and interest groups play in the trade policy formation process as inequality changes in democratic societies. I expect, as inequality increases, the public and mass based interest groups will have less resources to expend on influencing policymakers. Also, as inequality increases economic elites’ and business interest groups’ resources will increase, and they will …

The Eu, Democracy And Institutional Structure: Past, Present And Future, Paul Craig

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Genetic Attributions: Sign Of Intolerance Or Acceptance?, Stephen P. Schneider, Kevin B. Smith, John R. Hibbing

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

Many scholars argue that people who attribute human characteristics to genetic causes also tend to hold politically and socially problematic attitudes. More specifically, public acceptance of genetic influences is believed to be associated with intolerance, prejudice, and the legitimation of social inequities and laissez-faire policies. We test these expectations with original data from two nationally representative samples that allow us to identify the American public’s attributional patterns across 18 diverse traits. Key findings are (1) genetic attributions are actually more likely to be made by liberals, not conservatives; (2) genetic attributions are associated with higher, not lower, levels of tolerance …

The Judicialization Of Peace, Courtney Hillebrecht, Alexandra Huneeus, Sandra Borda

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

As international courts gain in influence, many worry that they will impoverish domestic politics— that they will limit democratic deliberation, undermine domestic institutions, or even thwart crucial political initiatives such as efforts to make peace. Indeed, many states are in the midst of withdrawing, or actively considering withdrawal, from international commitments presided over by international courts. The Article focuses on the currently unfolding Colombian peace process, the first to be negotiated under the watch of not one but two international courts, to show that these concerns misconstrue the way international courts actually work.

Throughout four years of peace talks, many …

Limits On The Application Of Motivational Homogeneity In The Work Of Buchanan And The Virginia School, David M. Levy, Sandra J. Peart

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

At its founding, the set of ideas that came to be known as Virginia Political Economy originated from the work of Rutledge Vining, James Buchanan, Warren Nutter, Ronald Coase, and Gordon Tullock. In terms of scholarly stature, that short list comprises two Nobel Prize winners (Buchanan and Coase) and a recipient of the American Economic Association Distinguished Fellow award (Tullock). It also includes an economist (Nutter) who, in the midst of the Cold War, described the Soviet economy more accurately than any of the major experts in that field. Virginia Political Economy was characterized by four foundational principles: the endogeneity …

Contested Commitment: Policing Black Female Juvenile Delinquency At Efland Home, 1919-1939, Lauren Nicole Henley

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

The North Carolina Industrial School for Negro Girls was established in 1925 by the local branch of the National Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs. Also known as Efland Home, this institution, like others across the South, was designed to rehabilitate young black women “destined for pregnancy, prostitution, or prison.” The quasi- private reformatory negotiated its relationship with the state, receiving inconsistent and nominal funding for roughly a decade. By the mid-to-late 1930s, Efland Home functioned as a penal institution as the ideals of its clubwomen founders crumbled under financial and logistical pressures. State-sanctioned investigations and inquiries wrought mixed messages concerning …

Review Of The Mutual Housing Experiment: New Deal Communities For The Urban Middle Class By Kristin M. Szylvian, Philip Rocco

Political Science Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Border Collision: Power Dynamics Of Enforcement And Evasion Across The Us–Mexico Line, Noelle K. Brigden, Peter Andreas

Political Science Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Globalization, Institutions Of Social Solidarity, And Radical Right-Wing Populism In Western Europe, Duane Swank, Hans-Georg Betz

Political Science Faculty Research and Publications

We rejoin the question of whether globalization contributes to the electoral success of the radical populist right in Western Europe. We also advance and test the hypothesis that institutions of social solidarity directly weaken support for the radical right and moderate the electoral impact of globalization. In empirical analysis of national elections in 16 European polities from 1981 to 2015, we find that merchandise imports from developing nations, capital mobility, and, especially, inflows of refugees and asylum seekers are positively associated with the radical right-wing populist party vote. In addition, a universalistic welfare state directly depresses the vote for radical …