Political Theory Commons^™

Making Human Rights A Reality, Debra L. Delaet

International Dialogue

Emilie Hafner-Burton’s Making Human Rights a Reality offers an accessible and informed analysis of the significant gap between the normative universalism of international human rights law and its limited effects in practice. The book’s primary purpose is to offer a pragmatic, strategic alternative to global legalism for promoting the progressive realization of fundamental human rights. In Hafner-Burton’s view, the cause of human rights promotion would be better-served by relying on states with strong human rights records (both in terms of respecting rights at home and commitment to promoting them abroad) to use foreign policy as a tool for changing the …

Africa In World Politics: Engaging A Changing Global Order, Manfred Wogugu

International Dialogue

The issue of central concern for the editors and contributing authors of this book is whether Africa’s emergence on the world political scene will usher in the enabling environment for sustainable broad-spectrum development in the political, socio-economic, cultural and environmental spheres. The authors also make an attempt to address the issue of economic growth for the region. The underlying assumption is that the spread of economic growth to all countries in the continent, if it prevails, will reduce poverty and inequality and ultimately improve the quality of life for Africans. Against the backdrop of the global economic and political order …

Absolute Recoil: Towards A New Foundation Of Dialectical Materialism, Robert Sinnerbrink

International Dialogue

Slavoj Žižek continues his idiosyncratic critique of global capitalism, democratic culture, and neoliberal ideology in his latest 400+ page tome, Absolute Recoil: Towards a New Foundation of dialectical Materialism, which promises to provide, much like his Less than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism (Verso, 2012), a resolutely idealist “new foundation” for dialectical materialism. This is a promise that Žižek has made for some years now, since what we might call his “system” turn became manifest in the publication of a series of major books (In Defense of Lost Causes [Verso, 2008]; Living in the End Times, Less …

The Liberal As An Enemy Of Queer Justice, Craig Schamel

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

Abstract

Liberalism as a historical mode of the political is the context in which the movement and ensuing struggle for queer justice emerged in most Western countries. The terminology, practices, tendencies, beliefs, ethics, laws, and patterns of political and social life which have been determined by this mode of the political, it is argued, are inimical to queer justice and render its achievement impossible. Liberalism as a mode of the political is approached from below, from knowledge gained in practical experience in queer groups which considered themselves revolutionary at least to some degree, and from the effects on such groups …

Institutionalizing Freedom As Nondomination: Democracy And The Role Of The State, David Watkins

Political Science Faculty Publications

This article critically examines neo-republican democratic theory, as articulated by Philip Pettit, with respect to its capacity to address some of the pressing challenges of our times. While the neo-republican focus on domination has great promise, it mistakenly commits to the position that democracy—the primary tool with which we fight domination—is limited to state activity. Examining this error helps us make sense of two additional problems with his theory: an overestimation of the capacity of legislative bodies to identify sufficient responses to practices of domination, and the potential conflict between avoiding state domination of the general citizenry and avoiding state …

Mutually Assured Survival: An Analysis Of Globalization’S Influence On Nuclear Disarmament, Ryan Zehner

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Nuclear arms have revolutionized the ways by which human beings are able to harm one another. Omnipresent in the status quo is a nuclear tension, and whether subtly or more overtly, this tension underlies a great many international relationships. While Westphalian paranoia and neorealist power perceptions encourage populations to continue placing their faith in nuclear umbrellas and deterrence strategies, scholars and activists increasingly claim that without the realization of universal disarmament, humanity concedes to the inevitability of future nuclear detonation.

New disarmament initiatives concentrate heavily on the implications of nuclear weaponry in a sense that supersedes the security of only …

Liberating Genocide: An Activist Concept And Historical Understanding, Tony Barta

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

From the outset, historians of genocide have seen themselves as activists. Among historians of colonial societies that is what distinguishes them most in relation to indigenous peoples. An ethnographic sensibility should be visible in any such study, and the more so when a question of genocide is raised. After all, if we do not have a sense of difference between peoples we fail the test of genocide at the first hurdle. And if we do not have an ethnographic sensibility towards our own cultures (including academic cultures) we will fail to make the most of our role in affecting deeply …

Wild-But-Not-Too-Wild Animals: Challenging Goldilocks Standards In Rewilding, Erica Von Essen, Michael P. Allen

Between the Species

Rewilding is positioned as ‘post’-conservation through its emphasis on unleashing the autonomy of natural processes. In this paper, we argue that the autonomy of nature rhetoric in rewilding is challenged by human interventions. Instead of joining critique toward the ‘managed wilderness’ approach of rewilding, however, we examine the injustices this entails for keystone species. Reintroduction case studies demonstrate how arbitrary standards for wildness are imposed on these animals as they do their assigned duty to rehabilitate ecosystems. These ‘Goldilocks’ standards are predicated on aesthetic values that sanction interventions inconsistent with the premise of animal sovereignty. These include culling, relocations and …

Republicanism At Work: Strategies For Supporting Resistance To Domination In The Workplace, David Watkins

Political Science Faculty Publications

Work, as organized in contemporary workplaces and situated in social and political structures, poses a threat to freedom that has been underappreciated in political theory, especially liberal political theory. The recent revival of republicanism offers an intriguing alternative: Can republicanism do any better, with respect to work and freedom?

An examination of the workplace through a republican lens does a better job of helping us make sense of the way work threatens freedom — by exposing us to the threat of domination — and it can generate at least three plausible proposals that might render resistance to domination in the …

The Determinants Of Reconstruction: Why Were The 1960-1990 Post-World War Ii Transformations In West Germany And South Korea Successful?, Ithamar Zacharie

Political Analysis

No abstract provided.

Do Demographics Trump Party Loyalty?: A Study Of Legislative Representation, Catherine Soliman

Political Analysis

No abstract provided.

The Sweep Of The Modern Gender Gap: Is Britain Next?, Maxine Lopes

Political Analysis

No abstract provided.

The Aftermath: 9/11 And The War On Privacy, Rights And Humanity, Omid Irani

Political Analysis

No abstract provided.

The Civil Rights Realignment: How Race Dominates Presidential Elections `, Timothy J. Hoffman

Political Analysis

No abstract provided.

Divided Scholarship Over Divided Government: Why Do The President And Congress Seem Unable To Work Together?, Nicholas J. Mcintyre

Politics Summer Fellows

David Mayhew’s book Divided We Govern (1991, 2005) has profoundly affected the way political scientists not only study but also understand “divided government” in American national politics. By analyzing hundreds of congressional statutes enacted during periods of both divided and unified government, Mayhew showed that divided government is not as bad as often thought. The scholarly response to Mayhew’s book has continued to reshape how divided government is perceived and studied by considering the role of other aspects of our political system that Mayhew overlooked, such as the formation of party coalitions in times of divided and unified government, the …

Political Representation In Tanzania: Its Development And Anatomy In Perspective, Edwin Babeiya,

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Since the era of colonialism to date, Tanzania has been practicing representation—a key democratization pillar. Throughout this period, the question of who is representing who and at what cost continues to feature in political discussions in the country. Nevertheless, of all periods that representation has passed through, the represented seem to have always been at a disadvantage. This is particularly so due to an absence of effective accountability mechanisms for ensuring that the representatives remain accountable to the electorate. The represented have been the victims of a control triangle that started during the colonial era when they had limited influence …

Why Terrorist Networks Maintain Viability Within Today’S Modern Society., Cade Resnick Ph.D., Amy Guimond Ph.D, Heather Wellman Ph.D., Shawna Resnick M.S.

Journal of Interdisciplinary Conflict Science

Common concepts of terrorism refer to acts which are intended to create a system of fear. The ideological argument for terrorism relates to a politically and emotionally charged scenario in which terrorism is necessary. The development of a terrorist organization requires an environment that is ripe with social degradation and has idealistic minded people who are able to believe in a cause. The organization utilizes a social system to maintain its own stability and to retain the people who are involved within its self-contained community. Suffering oppression from its own government or an-other nation is a crucial component in fostering …

Religion And National Identity In Borderlands: Greek Catholics And Hungarian Reformed In Transylvania, Beth Admiraal

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Hopeful Losers? A Moral Case For Mixed Electoral Systems, Loren King

Political Science Faculty Publications

Liberal democracies encourage citizen participation and protect our freedoms, yet these regimes elect politicians and decide important issues with electoral and legislative systems that are less inclusive than other arrangements. Some citizens inevitably have more influence than others. Is this a problem? Yes, because similarly just but more inclusive systems are possible. Political theorists and philosophers should be arguing for particular institutional forms, with particular geographies, consistent with justice.

Les démocraties libérales encouragent la participation citoyenne et protègent nos libertés. Pourtant, ces régimes élisent des politiciens et décident de problèmes importants via les systèmes électoral et législatif, qui sont moins …

Compared To What? Judicial Review And Other Veto Points In Contemporary Political Theory, David Watkins, Scott E. Lemieux

Political Science Faculty Publications

Many democratic and jurisprudential theorists have too often uncritically accepted Alexander Bickel’s notion of “the countermajoritarian difficulty” when considering the relationship between judicial review and democracy; this is the case for arguments both for and against judicial review. This framework is both theoretically and empirically unsustainable. Democracy is not wholly synonymous with majoritarianism, and judicial review is not inherently countermajoritarian in the first place.

In modern democratic political systems, judicial review is one of many potential veto points. Since all modern democratic political systems contain veto points, the relevant and unexplored question is what qualities might make a veto point …