Political Theory Commons^™

A Savage Order: How The World’S Deadliest Countries Can Forge A Path To Security, Thomas Manig

International Dialogue

Rachel Kleinfeld studies international conflicts and methods of reducing violence. Previously she published Advancing the Rule of Law Abroad: Next Generation Reform (2012). She is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She has advised government officials on problems of international security. Kleinfeld’s new book, A Savage Order: How the World’s Deadliest Countries Can Forge a Path to Security, is characterized by social scientific methodology rather than abstract theorizing. This book disposes of simplistic generalizations, like the belief that violence is inevitable in certain ethnic groups or localities, or the contrary belief that we can end violence …

Das Emanzipatorische Potenzial Der Performance Art (The Emancipatory Potential Of Peformance Art), Gwyneth Cliver

International Dialogue

Sophia Firgaus Das Emanzipatorische Potenzial der Performance Art ist sowohl eine hilfreiche Einführung in die Performance Art, die im universitären Unterricht didaktisch gut anwendbar wäre, als auch ein überzeugendes wissenschaftliches Argument für die transformative Macht der Performanceästhetik. Firgau definiert die Gattung Performance Art, unterscheidet sie von dem Theater sowie dem öffentlichen Ritual und erklärt ihr Verwandlungspotenzial für Individuen, das Gemeinwesen und die Gesellschaft. Firgau zeigt, wie Performance Art transformierend wirkt, indem sie gebräuchliche formale Begrenzungen überschreitet—zum Beispiel, die, die die Künstlerin vom Publikum oder Kunst vom Alltag trennen—und wie sie daher eine Schwellenerfahrung schafft, die emanzipatorisch wirkt, indem sie den …

When Montezuma Met Cortes: The True History Of The Meetings That Changed History, Maria S. Arbeláez

International Dialogue

November 8 of 1519, Moctezuma II, Mexica Tlatoani, the “one who speaks,” leader and emperor, and Hernan Cortes, head of the invading Spanish military force, met on what currently is downtown Mexico City. A memorial plaque marks the site of the meeting alongside a colonial church and the remnants of a hospital. There is a tile picture with a representation of the event. The Spanish conquest of Mexico and the fall of Tenochtitlan is one of the most studied and controversial episodes in the history of Mexico and the Americas. It is a story never settled. Matthew Restall's book is …

The Morals Of The Market: Human Rights And The Rise Of Neoliberalism, Shane Darcy

International Dialogue

There are no doubt human rights advocates who would baulk at the claim that somehow human rights serves to advance the cause of neoliberalism. An important tool for protecting human dignity, advancing equality and supporting demands for justice cannot surely be complicit in the evident harms of neoliberal economic policies? Such harms are increasingly recognized by human rights practitioners, including non-governmental organizations and United Nations experts. To take a recent example, Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, described on a country visit to Spain in February 2020, how the country’s self-image as “a close family-based …

Trust, Ethnicity, And Political Approval In 21st Century South Africa, Alecia Anderson, Jonathan Bruce Santo

International Dialogue

Trust is a requirement for state legitimacy, however, the relationship between trust and political approval in South Africa is under-investigated, leaving the legitimacy of the South African state questionable. In this study, we use Afrobarometer data from 2004, 2008, and 2012 to investigate citizens’ perspectives on trust and political approval. Using structural equation modeling, we analyze the impact of ethnicity on the relationship between trust and political approval in South Africa. The results are clear that ethnic identity continues to influence the relationship between trust and approval of political offices and policies in South Africa.

For A Left Populism, Emma Murphy

International Dialogue

Chantal Mouffe’s brief work For a Left Populism sets out to tackle the issue of how left politics should respond to the global trend towards populism. While elections in recent years have ushered in populist leaders in states ranging from the Philippines to the United States, Mouffe focuses her analysis on Western European populism specifically. Her argument centres on the importance of recovering democracy in an increasingly “post-democratic” world; to successfully radicalise democracy, Mouffe argues, leftists must first reform existing political institutions. While Mouffe makes an original argument for a reclamation of the term ‘populism’ by a leftist audience, the …

Measuring ‘Closeness’ In 3-Candidate Elections: Methodology And An Application To Strategic Voting, Daniel Kselman, Emerson Niou, Austin Horng-En Wang

Political Science Faculty Research

Past research suggests that voter behavior is influenced by perceptions of electoral competitiveness. For example, when an election is perceived to be close, voters will be more likely to turnout and/or cast strategic votes for their second-most preferred candidate. Operationalizing electoral competitiveness in three-candidate elections presents previously unrecognized methodological challenges. This paper first shows that many past strategies for measuring ‘closeness’ in three-candidate contests have violated at least one of three basic properties that any such measure should satisfy. We then propose a new measurement grounded in probability ratios, and prove formally that ratio-indices satisfy these axiomatic criteria. Empirical analyses …

State Regulation Of Religion: The Effect Of Religious Freedom On Muslims' Religiosity, Hannah M. Ridge

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

Substantial scholarship argues that regulation of religion suppresses religiosity in a community by reducing individuals’ satisfaction with their religious experience. To date this research has assumed that regulations are enforced on and affect religious communities uniformly. It has also focused heavily on Western Christian populations and aggregated national data. We suggest that state regulation of religious communities and behaviours impacts citizens differently based on their affiliation. Using individual-level assessments of freedom and religiosity from Muslim-majority countries, we show that, at the individual level, restricting freedom suppresses religious belief and behaviour. Restrictions on religious minorities, however, can increase religiosity. As such, …

Strategic Consequences: How Executive And Organizational Decision-Making Impacts The Outcome Of Unconventional Warfare, Joseph Osborne

Doctor of International Conflict Management Dissertations

Conventional academic discussion vis-à-vis America’s Special Operations Forces, is largely focused at the tactical and operational level of analysis. This means the emphasis on explaining outcomes is placed on personnel (recruiting, assessing, selecting, and training), cutting edge equipment, innovative tactics, or advanced command and control procedures. Addressing this long-standing trend, I argue that factors well beyond the widely accepted explanations for success or failure are in play. Additionally, these factors are understandable, are manageable, and may have as great or greater an impact on the outcome of a campaign as any tactical consideration. Using the narrowly defined and discrete special …

In Search Of Radical Theology: Expositions, Explorations, Exhortations [Toc], John D. Caputo

Religion

This sparkling collection of essays invites readers to join a seasoned scholar on his journey to catch “radical theology" in action, both in the church and our culture at large.

Capturing a career’s worth of thought and erudition, this rich volume treats readers to creative thought, careful argumentation, and sophisticated analysis transmitted through the lucid, accessible prose that has earned the author a wide readership of academics and non-academics alike. In tackling “radical theology,” John D. Caputo has in mind the deeper stream that courses its way through various historical and confessional theologies, upon which these theologies draw even while …

Political Ideas And Issues, Carlo Invernizzi Accetti

Open Educational Resources

This course aims to provide a broad introduction to some of the main ideas in the history of the Western tradition of political thought. It follows a chronological path and is divided in two parts. In the first part, we look at classical Greek and Christian political thought both in antiquity and during the Middle Ages, focusing in particular on works by Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, Cicero, Augustine and Aquinas, as well as well as some extracts from both the Jewish Bible and the Christian New Testament. In the second part, we look at what is commonly referred to as the …

Introduction To The Dignity Memorial Issue On Kate Millett, Donna M. Hughes

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Key Thinkers Lecture On Kate Millett, Sheila Jeffreys

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This contribution includes a written Introduction to the Key Thinkers lecture on Kate Millett by Sheila Jeffreys and the lecture in two videos.

The Effects Of Economic And Political Globalization On Level Of Democracy, Julianna R. Pestretto

Student Publications

Since the birth of the nation state, we have been undergoing a process called globalization. Simply put, globalization is the process of interaction and integration among the people, companies and governments of different nations. It is a process driven by trade and investment and supported by economic partnerships and institutions. As time goes on, the effects of globalization have become more intense, and are felt disproportionately across nations and socio-economic levels, resulting in a backlash that has been largely characterized by the rise of right-wing populism. It is thus important to study the effects that globalization has on level of …

Examining The Relationship Between Legal Origin And Levels Of Economic Globalization, Maeve B. Dwyer

Student Publications

State institutions that came into being centuries ago have taken on different roles in the post-World War II period of globalization. These institutions may have changed significantly as their roles have become greater to accommodate participation in the global political economy. The theory I develop in this paper indicates that the legal origins of a state continue to have a relationship with its current level of economic globalization. This theory is based on previous research produced by several other scholars. My research focuses on the English common law origin and I hypothesize that countries with this legal origin are more …

The Politics Of Dissent: How Living Within The Truth Threatens Autocracy And Catalyzes Democratic Progress, Carter A. Hanson

Student Publications

This article examines Václav Havel’s The Power of the Powerless in the context of a broader ideation of dissent, primarily using Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism and William Connolly’s The Fragility of Things as supplements. Havel’s argument remains relevant over thirty years after its initial publication, and his ideas regarding dissent as a fundamental challenge to authoritarian untruth are valuable and deserve further exploration. From this conceptualization, a “politics of dissent” is proposed as a means to express dissatisfaction with authoritarian government and to reevaluate democratic social and political discourse.

The Trump Doctrine: America First, Not American Exceptionalism, Katelyn Oglesby

Student Publications

President Donald Trump’s foreign policy has developed out of an “America First” ideology that comprises both isolationism and interventionism depending on the situation. This differs from President Barack Obama’s preference for the ideology of American Exceptionalism, which placed America on an equal playing field with other nations and utilized international organizations, such as the United Nations and trade organizations. Most of the Trump Doctrine has arisen out of an intentional shift from “typical” foreign policy of Obama and previous, even Republican, presidents. While Trump is influenced by his White House advisers, he has sidelined the State Department and tends to …

David Versus Godzilla: Bigger Stones, Jerry Ellig, Richard Williams

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

For four decades, U.S. Presidents have issued executive orders requiring agencies to conduct comprehensive regulatory impact analysis (RIA) for significant regulations to ensure that regulatory decisions solve social problems in a cost-beneficial manner. Yet experience demonstrates that agency RIAs often fail to live up to the standards enunciated in executive orders and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) oversees agency compliance with the executive orders, but OIRA is about half the size it was when it was established in 1980. Regulatory agency staff outnumber OIRA staff by a ratio of 3600 …

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 …

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 …