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The trajectory of the Chinese nuclear program over the last decades of the twentieth century presents a puzzle that nuclear deterrence theory is ill-equipped to explain: Despite a strong commitment to a deterrent strategy and ample economic and technical abilities to build the necessary forces, China allowed its nuclear program to stagnate dangerously â€" perhaps beyond the point of second-strike survivability with respect to the major nuclear arsenals of the world. To explain the pattern of Chinese nuclear development, a richer understanding of the context â€" both domestic and international â€" is necessary, including improved (though still tense) superpower relationships, a shifted focus toward economic growth (for its own sake and as a source of power), and a reduced voice of military actors in policy-making. While not changing the fundamental implications of deterrence models, this context reduced the willingness of the Chinese leadership to make trade-offs when pursuit of nuclear modernization would have compromised objectives in other arenas. This paper suggests that deterrence theory must be broadened to incorporate a wider range of factors, both to reflect the decision-making process and to accurately predict outcomes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper replicates and updates a study by Chamberlain and Haider-Markel in 2005 on regional policy diffusion. The results of the update show that the original results were incorrect, and diffusion did not occur with the policy issue studied. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the Blackmun papers opened to the public, abortion dominated their press coverage. This missed Blackmun?s marginal role in "saving" the privacy right. I examine how ROE and the privacy right survived the demise of their strongest advocate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legal reforms making judges independent from political pressures and empowering them with judicial review do not necessarily imply an effective judiciary. Something has to fill the gap between institutional design and effectiveness. When the executive and legislative are strong and ready to react to an objectionable judicial decision, the judiciary would tend to be weak and deferent towards those in power. But the reverse is also true. Hence, in this paper we argue that fragmentation of political power is a source for an effective judiciary: one able to rule against the interests of power holders without being systematically challenged or ignored. We test this argument analyzing the decisions of the Mexican Supreme Court against the PRI on constitutional controversies and actions of unconstitutionality from 1994 to 2002. Using a probit model, we show that the probability for the Supreme Court of voting against the PRI increased from .07 to .44 to .52 as the PRI lost the majority in the Chamber of Deputies in 1997, and the Presidency in 2000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social and political success of any municipal service lies within the attitudes and perceptions of its stakeholders. In the New Orleans public service realm, specifically the public transportation system of New Orleans, it could be argued that the stakeholders are riders and non-riders, and additionally, both locals and tourists. With an organization that is responsible for meeting the daily travel needs of many diverse individuals, the satisfaction of its riders should be of paramount concern. In addition, the opinions of non-riders and those who visit the urban area may be an appropriate indicator of expectations of customers and could serve as an index for policy implementation. Studying evaluations has theoretical implications relevant to urban politics literature, as well as yielding findings of importance to administrators of urban transit agencies. The previous research that laid the foundation for this present study of New Orleans’ public transit focused on multiple public services. In the earlier study, analysis showed that race and the composition of the respondent’s neighborhood had a significant effect on that respondent’s evaluation of some city services. The second key finding focused on how citizen’s evaluations differed across various services. This research narrows the focus and will advance the literature on citizen’ evaluations of urban services by examining a specific substantive area—that is, public transportation. The analysis, utilizing OLS regression, focuses on differing levels of customer satisfaction between ethnic groups and differences in levels of usage and satisfaction between males and females. This research of the public transportation system addresses the issue of evaluations of services using data obtained from three key research studies: customer satisfaction of New Orleans public transit, attitudes and attributes of downtown transit, and the University of New Orleans’ Quality of Life surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although I. Bernard Cohen has shown that the American founders were not appropriating the terms of Newtonian physics when using words such as "balance" and "equilibrium" to describe the institutional relationships delineated in the Constitution, it remains unclear why these terms recur throughout their writings. Following Cohen, it is the argument of this paper that the founders drew these and similar expressions from the organismic analogy of the state as a "corpus politicum" or a "body politic." In particular, I argue that James Madison's Federalist 10 relies upon an eighteenth-century medical metaphor that has been overlooked due to the transformation in the science of medicine that occurred between Federalist 10's initial publication and its rediscovery by Charles Beard in 1913. While Madison's invocation of the ancient analogy of the state as a body politic has occasionally been noted, what has thus far gone unnoticed is Madison's use of this analogy as a foundation for a more historically bounded biomedical metaphor integral to his argument. Relying upon an analogous relationship between health and justice traceable to the writings of Plato, Madison contends in Federalist 10 that the democratic analogue to sound bodily health - conceived by Hippocrates as the "krasis," or the proportionate mixture, of the humors - is obtainable only in an extended republic. Just as the krasis of the humors within the corpus humanum is the definition of health, the self-equilibrating balance of factions within the corpus politicum of an extended republic becomes the definition of political justice. Madison's use of the analogy of the state as a corpus politicum, implicit in his efforts to offer his readers a "remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government," is thus highly purposive, providing rhetorical support for his theoretical argument and a carefully chosen rhetorical frame for the ongoing debate over the proposed Constitution. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs on the 80th Annual Conference of the Midwest Political Science Association from April 13 – 16, 2023 at the Palmer House Hilton Chicago, Illinois focusing on topics such as Covid-19 information, and anti-harassment policy.

Traditional understandings of policymaking as a state-centric process are being challenged by the appearance of a variety of new private, voluntary governance mechanisms. Institutions such as certification institutions are emerging in which civil society groups interact directly with other non-state actors like corporations to develop new sets of rules—rules which are neither created nor enforced by the state. The emergence of these private regimes raises interesting questions about the power of non-governmental advocacy groups in the policy arena. Without using the power of the state for leverage, how do advocacy groups encourage behavioral change among corporations? To what extent are corporations driven to comply with the demands of civil society groups? This paper addresses these questions by considering the extent to which pressure from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) drives company participation in environmental certification programs. Using the U.S. forest products sector as an example, the paper considers why firm responses to NGO pressures have been variable. Some firms have chosen to participate in the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which is the program preferred by the NGOs. Other firms have joined the American Forest and Paper Association’s Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), the chief competitor program which is not endorsed by NGOs. Examining the evidence from four firm-level case studies, the paper argues that generalized NGO pressure against the sector does prompt firms to participate in some type of certification program. Surprisingly, however, an intense, direct NGO campaign against a particular firm actually drives that firm away from the certification option most preferred by NGOs. Thus instead of complying with NGO demands, directly targeted firms are more likely to resist civil society pressure and adopt the industry-sponsored certification program. Using a process tracing methodology, the paper demonstrates that other important independent variables such as high internal commitment to the environment, low transactions costs, and the presence of stringent and non-discretionary regulations on forest practices may encourage firm compliance with NGO demands; however, the addition of direct campaigns against the firm causes resistance and/or compromise. The paper explores the reasons behind this reaction, arguing that direct targeting by NGOs has critical, negative effects on policy network relations. Moreover, these effects are not confined to targeted firms, but spill over to impact the decisions of other firms in the industry. Thus while NGO campaigns may be effective in encouraging a general behavioral shift among U.S. forest products firms, NGOs will have more difficulty in provoking the particular behavioral response (participation in the FSC) that they most desire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A list is presented of papers and roundtables on topics including economic interests and elite preferences on race, social media use and electoral participation, and racial identity to be presented at the 75th Annual Conference of Midwestern Political Science Association from April 6-9, 2017.

The article presents a list of several papers discussed at the Midwest Political Science Association 74th Annual Conference held from April 7-10, 2016 including Public Radicalization, European Immigration Policy, and Impact of Democracy on Trade Debt and Financial Flows.

pComparative studies using a rational choice approach have successfully explained variation in the degree of institutional parliamentary strength in EU affairs, but they perform less well with regard to explaining both actual parliamentary behaviour and variation thereof. The paper therefore develops an explanation for parliamentary behaviour based on agency theory and the model of delegation. The aim is to enrich rational choice approaches, which have so far focused mainly on the preference of re-election and have therefore - at least implicitly - conceptualised parliamentarians as agents of their voters or parties. In parliamentary systems, however, MPs are not only agents of the voters (or parties), but also principals of the government. The paper is based on Strøm's rational choice institutionalist conception of parliamentary roles as 'routines, driven by reasons (preferences), and constrained by rules' (Strøm 1997: 158), but uses Merton's concept of 'role-sets' (Merton 1957) to analyse parliamentary agent- and principal-relationships as different elements of the role-set 'MP' associated with specific routines driven by specific preferences. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

there has been serious discussion over the vulnerable situation of refugees, even after being resettled in a developed country. This paper explores whether refugees differ in their earnings in comparison to other economic immigrants in the United States. I intend to focus on a cross-section of data on economic performance of refugees and other economic immigrants and explore whether previous research findings still prevail. If there are significant differences between earnings, I intend to explore potential reasons for these outcomes. The role of the region of settlement is speculated as an important determinant of the earnings discrepancy. This paper will use Current Population Survey (CPS) data from the U.S. Census Bureau. I will use the latest 2008 CPS surveys that include information on respondents’ income, education, immigration status, national origins, and other demographic indicators. I intend to analyze this data using basic OLS statistical regression to test relationship between region of settlement and earnings of immigrants. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the modern United States Congress, a member of Congress has several pressures that influence their behavior: party, information, re-election, good policy, and personal characteristics. These factors interact and create a set of incentives for a given member of Congress. Partisanship is generally considered the most predictive quality but a steady and increasingly influential body of literature suggests that female members of Congress have different policy opinions than men and act differently as legislators. This paper aims to measure gender's role in the delicate balancing act that manifests in a given member of Congress. Using a series of multiple linear regressions, this paper finds that Republican women are more likely to vote the party line than Democratic women but female Republicans used to vote in a more liberal manner than their male colleagues. Secondly, this paper finds that ideology used to be the dominant factor in predicting support for women's issues but ideology now shares it's importance with party, suggesting a rise in Congressional polarization. Lastly, this paper investigates the role that gender salience in greater American society plays within the institution of the United States House of Representatives. These three broad inquiries attempt to add to the understanding of what goes into a member of Congress' vote choice and describes the relative significance gender holds in this calculus. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing association between religion and violence, this paper reexamines the works of social psycholgist Eric Fromm: his theory of the psychology of religion, the tension between a productive, humanistic and healthy orientations and a destructive and pahtological orientation. This paper first summarizes and assesses Fromm's view within the context of advances in research on 1) authoritarianism, 2) neuroscience, 3) cognitive theory, and 4) other theories of religious violence. Second, this paper underscores the strengths and weaknesses of Fromm's view. It identifies those aspects of his theory supported by recent research and those parts that require revision. Fromm's concept of authoritarianism was much anarrower than Theodore Adorno's and fits more in line with most recent devlopments by Bob Altemeyer and Karen Sterner. Fromm's concept of humanism corresponds to George Lakoff's concept of the nurturing orientation and neuroscinece's idea of a healthy and fully developed human being. Finally the paper uses a revised presentation of Fromm's theory to develop a framework for understanding and critiquing dangerous trends in contemporary religious politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With renewed emphasis on environmental protection and growing scholarly consensus of the need to move beyond the traditional command and control approach to environmental regulation, the “window” may be opening for significant changes in U.S. environmental policy. Much of the dialogue focuses on “next generation” environmental policies that are cooperative not confrontational, comprehensive rather than fragmented, and flexible instead of rigid. As such change is considered, it is important to examine the potential ramifications at all levels of the policy arena. In particular, front-line workers must be considered â€" namely environmental inspectors. Significant changes to the environmental regulatory system are likely to have profound impacts on inspectors and their jobs. Accordingly, this paper explores the discussion of next generation environmental policies and what their adoption may mean for environmental inspectors. The paper concludes that a transition to next generation policies would have significant impacts on existing inspectors and their duties; accordingly, without considerable retraining, current inspectors may not be the sorts of front-line workers that next generation policies demand. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With recent experimental studies of voting contagion and the usefulness of social pressure, there has been growing attention to the role peer-mobilization plays in turning out the vote. Despite this surge of interest in peer-mobilization and decades of study of party-mobilization, political science has still devoted little study of the role of social network structure in mediating these efforts. In an effort to help close this gap in the literature, this paper examines two questions. First, how do network characteristics shape the probability that actors within that network receive mobilizing appeals? Second, how do network characteristics influence individuals’ probability of turning out to vote when they receive such an appeal? Through the use of social network survey data, this paper examines how real-world networks shape political mobilization, with implications both for scholars of voting behavior and practitioners of GOTV organizing. Moreover, as it examines the political consequences of network characteristics studied more frequently in other fields including local clustering, multiplicity, and foci, this paper seeks to add to the political science toolbox as well as to the literature. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many scholars have recently conducted quantitative and qualitative investigations of the structure and content of “A-list” politically-oriented weblogs, few have focused on the civic involvement of their authors which are often defined as “opinion leaders”. Based on data collected through a Web-based survey conducted in April 2008, this paper proposes a detailed socio-political portrait of 56 “A-list” members of the Quebec political blogosphere. The Internet-savvy population of the Canadian province of Quebec, which is characterized by its linguistic, political and cultural specificity, constitutes a well-defined research environment enabling the production of highly-representative results. The description of Quebec-based bloggers’ involvement in content dispersion and social Web-based networks as well as their participation in offline political activities will help to produce a detailed socio-political behavioral portrayal of the influential players within the Quebec political blogosphere. Additionally, this paper draws sharp contrasts with previous studies of Canadian and U.S.-based bloggers and argues for the production of more detailed analysis considering the specificities of North American political bloggers. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether consciously or not, political theory has traditionally approached Aristotle by way of stark contrasts with his teacher Plato. Whether in terms of a contrast between the particular and the universal, multiple appearances and the singular form, or the empirical and the metaphysical, this distinction has attained the status of presumed truth in much of philosophy and political theory. This paper draws on the work of the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer in order to cast doubt on this categorical distinction between Aristotle on the one hand and Plato on the other. By drawing our attention to the sense in which both Aristotle and Plato concern themselves with the same problem--the idea of the good--Gadamer uncovers convergences and parallels that are potentially fruitful for political theory. This paper concludes by applying this insight to a particularly fraught segment of the contemporary political theoretical landscape--the appropriation of Aristotle in the philosophy of social science. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas it is widely accepted that a decentralized system can enhance policy learning and the spread of best practices, a yet under researched question is where that learning process takes place. What diffusion channels are important? This paper focuses on institutionalized intergovernmental cooperation and the role they play in the process of policy diffusion in federal states. It argues that such institutions provide a place where policy makers exchange their experiences with policy implementation and make up their opinion which policies are considered to be efficient and effective. .x000d.Using data on the diffusion of health care policies in Switzerland, the paper shows how the analysis of institutionalized intergovernemental cooperation contributes to deepen our understanding of the process of policy diffusion in federal states. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When do judges defer and when do they defy? This paper examines the conditions under which individual judges overrule their appointers under conditions of increasing authoritarianism. While studies of judicial decision-making under job insecurity, dictatorship, and transition conditions have been undertaken (Helmke 2002; Moustafa 2007; Herron and Randazzo 2003), there is a need to investigate judicial behavior in hybrid regimes. In this type of political settings, when do courts bless, and when do they bite? The paper develops a theoretical framework to explain the behavior of judges in cases involving the government in hybrid regimes. Those theoretical contentions are then tested, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in the case of the Philippines. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What, if anything, has Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's tenure on the Supreme Court meant for the position of women under the law? Has there been any hint of feminism in O'Connor's jurisprudence? Has her voice been distinctively feminine? This paper considers Justice O'Connor's gender jurisprudence for evidence of the different moral voice identified by Carol Gilligan in her 1981 classic. Some feminist legal theorists who could be identified as "feminine-voice" theorists interpreted and extended Gilligan's theory to argue that caring and relationship characterize a specifically feminine voice in legal theory and practice. This paper concludes that, although O'Connor did bring a different voice and a different perspective to the Court, it was not the caring, relational voice identified by feminine-voice theorists. Rather, it is the perspective of liberal feminist legal theorists, women lawyers of O'Connor's generation who insisted that women don't need special accommodations to achieve equality with men. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What theories, political or otherwise, account for winning or losing in war? Using a form of organizational behavioral theory as a basis (strategic change theory), this paper adopts a statistical model that assesses what military variables explain whether one side or the other succeeds during operations and campaigns in wartime. Using seven independent variables, measured in terms of quality and importance, the model is able to explain success or failure in over seventy (70) percent of the operational cases to which the model is applied. The case studies represent virtually a statistical population of major combat operations of all major nation-states since 1973. The model appears to be reliable and valid, and is consistent with, although with more fidelity, other similar models. The major advantage of the current model is its portability in application and analysis. .x000d.This paper is the final edition of a series of analytic investigations constituting a research program on operational warfare. It includes changes recommended from several audiences in 2007, including the MWPSA conference. As part of the conclusions, the paper will present an expanded program to examine the model’s worth in older operations and campaigns. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What factors explain the unilateral and multilateral uses of force by the United States? That is the research question this paper addresses. In order to answer the question, the paper uses the dual concepts of opportunity to use force and conditions for the use of force (Meernick 1994, Ostrom and Job 1986) to identify a set of factors that lead either to a unilateral uses of force or to multilateral uses of force by the United States. Among those factors are NATO memberhip, which pushes the use of force in Europe towards multilateral options, and direct threats to the homeland, which pushes the United States towards unilateral uses of force. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains why some opposition groups can inspire millions to stand in the cold for days while others generate little popular attention? This issue is not sufficiently understood by scholars of social movements and opposition processes, who tend to focus more on underlying and longer term conditions that promote or inhibit action and less on the moment when protests by small numbers of activists expand into mass popular demonstrations. Understanding this moment may help us see why "electoral revolutions" occurred in some former communist countries but not others. My claim in this paper is that cultural context, particularly the limits and opportunities provided by social understandings of nationalism and remembered history, greatly affects whether activists can convince large numbers of people to act together. I defend this claim by analyzing original interviews with youth activists in Georgia, Ukraine, and Russia. My paper shows that the structure of opportunity that activists face includes dominant cultural values and popular expectations that may constrain the story activists hope to tell. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Walleye management can be contentious on Lake Erie because the fish is valuable economically to both Canada and the U.S. On Lake Erie, five state and provincial jurisdictionsâ€"Ontario, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Yorkâ€"must work together to establish an annual walleye harvest limit known as a “total allowable catch” or TAC. To facilitate cooperation, the jurisdictions formed the Lake Erie Committee, which operates pursuant to a multijurisdictional agreement called A Joint Strategic Plan for Management of Great Lakes Fisheries. Most of the time, members of the Lake Erie Committee can agree on and adhere to the annual walleye TAC. However, the committee failed to maintain consensus on the 2004 TAC after consensus was achieved and announced. The committee could not resolve the dispute on its own and invoked the Joint Strategic Plan’s dispute provisions, a rare occurrence. This paper discusses cross-border walleye management on Lake Erie, describes how the jurisdictions handled the dispute, and reflects on how the Joint Strategic Plan can help jurisdictions overcome conflict. The paper argues that the plan can address distributional issues like TACs, despite being non-binding. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Veto player theory argues that a higher number of veto players lowers the likelihood of change; in turn, policies that do not change help to sustain commitments but may prevent adaptation to changing circumstances. This paper challenges that claim of veto player theory by arguing that policy stability does not necessarily mean lower policy adaptability. If policymaking takes place over time with actors interacting repeatedly, more cooperative polities might be able to achieve both objectives at once, and a higher number of veto players might even favor intertemporal cooperation. The paper presents a simple formalization of the argument and some supportive cross-national empirical evidence. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using quantitative and qualitative approaches, this paper examines the effectiveness of service-learning in an introductory course in the American public policy process. As part of a semester-long discussion of private and public approaches to problem-solving and policymaking, students partnered with two community organizations to deliver meals to people with HIV/AIDS and to learn and practice advocacy skills ranging from writing letters to lobbying state legislators for increased funding for HIV/AIDS education and services. Data include pre- and post-experience surveys of the students, as well as content analysis of the students' structured journal assignments. This paper will be the initial phase of an ongoing research project, and will assess how the service-learning experience reinforces course concepts and impacts student learning. Benefits of this teaching and learning strategy to students, faculty, the university, and the community will also be considered. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what conditions do social movements have an impact on state policy? The literature on social movement outcomes focuses on two variables to explain movement success: government elites and/or public opinion support. This paper tests these hypotheses through the analysis and comparison of the human rights movement in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay from the time of their democratic transition until the year 2007. While the support of government elites is found to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for state policies to reflect movements' demands, public opinion has less of an impact in these cases given that human rights is found not to be a priority for the majority of society. In addition, the paper explores the incidence of other factors such as the occurrence of 'critical events' and crises in the advancement of movements' demands. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey's preservation and maintenance of its secular identity had traditionally been a profound point of tension vis-à-vis the so-called 'threat' of Islamization. The most recent example of this tension was the 'Republic Protests.' These protests aimed to block the election of an 'Islamist' presidency which would place the executive branch entirely under the control of the 'Islamist-leaning' ruling party (i.e. AKP). Secularists won the first round as AKP had to postpone the presidential election to a time after the parliamentary election that would be held in July 2007. Yet, this victory turned out to be short-lived because the movement was unable to sustain its solidarity in the parliamentary election which then marked the first time in 52 years that Turks have voted an incumbent party back into power with even more support than before. This paper seeks to answer how it would be possible to explain the dynamics of the recent 'pro-secular' demonstrations in Turkey and why the movement was unable to sustain participants' commitment. In their responses to the former question, cultural approaches to social movements prove to be more efficient than their rational counterparts. Regarding the second question, this paper proposes an alternative theoretical model explaining changing motivations in social movements. Accordingly, the model borrows both from the rationalist and the culturalist schools and argues that disengagement came about as a result of two conditions: First, ideological frames used for mobilization ended up to be no more valid because the participants realized that the 'Islamization' threat was no more a threat but a 'construction.' Second, inefficiency of framing was further crystallized as individuals' rational calculations required them to quit supporting the movement. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two arguments about theories of congressional parties and organization are made in this paper. First, theory must focus more directly on the often-competing factions within the majority party. Other analyses emphasize the polarization between the parties—the intra-party cohesiveness and inter-party differences—but this paper proposes that factions within the majority party usually compete for control of the party and the House and often produce winners and losers. Second, while other analyses treat negative and positive forms of agenda power as distinguishable and subject to different dynamics, I argue that (1) the two forms of agenda manipulation are essential for agenda control and are likely to develop together and (2) legislators' preferences for the agenda power allocated to their parties are dependent on their factional location. In short, we should reorient the discussion of congressional organization and agenda power. Factional politics within legislative parties should be central to our accounts of the distribution of power in Congress. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the 2008 elections, the majority of Americans have favored “the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza strip.” Reflecting such public opinion, after the “roadmap,” US foreign policy will continue the pursuit of that end, calling for “establishing two independent states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side within secure and recognized borders.” Consequently, the main question asked by this paper is why the US has shifted from an “Israel only” position toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to supporting an “Israel and Palestine” formula for peace. In order to address this question, the pro-Arab lobby was examined for interactions with US decision-making toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before and after the end of the Cold War, specifically from the Camp David period of the late 1970s until the invasion and occupation of Iraq during the mid 2000s. Paper concludes that while international factors such as the end of the Cold War cannot be overlooked, changes in domestic public opinion and lobbying had significant impacts on the US led international community’s efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with two states. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an examination of the book Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, by Richard Rorty, this paper examines the consequences to Western liberalism that must come about after a society-wide acceptance of relativism. These consequences include a disinclination to expand liberalism, due to the inevitable pain that will occur during transitions to democratic government, and the decline of civil society that must transpire when human beings are offered nothing more solid than contingency as an impetus to action. In drawing these conclusions, this paper focuses on critiquing Rorty’s moral philosophy, especially as it relates to his condemnation of cruelty, his disregard of traditional Western understandings of human nature, and his belief that the transient nature of vocabularies necessitates the disregard of philosophical absolutes. Furthermore, the central and inescapable role of reason in uniting humanity and necessitating moral action is closely examined. This paper concludes that philosophical relativism is the ultimate dehumanizing force in the world, because absent philosophical understandings of absolute truth, morality, and the central role of reason, human beings have no real recourse against arbitrary despotism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three types of political participation could currently be distinguished, representative, consumer, and direct participation, and it has been argued that there is considerable variation in the levels of these different forms of participation in different countries. Within this paper, it is aimed to (partly) explain variance in levels of different forms of participation through one institutional character of a system: public administration. The past decades, a wave of administrative reforms has occurred which was aimed to increase access, accountability and transparency through representation or direct participation in administrative affairs. This aim would lead to the expectation that (certain forms of) participation has increased. These administrative reforms, or New Public Management (NPM), imply generally a liberalization of the public sphere. However, these reforms have been implemented to different degrees in different countries. The questions that guide this paper are: Does more liberalization of the public sector lead to higher levels of political participation, and, if so, which form of participation is affected most? Cases that will be included are established democracies, and the analyses are at the country-level. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thomas Aquinas has been largely deemed to concur with Aristotle’s proposition that man is innately a political animal, but recent interpreters have dissented. John Finnis has forcefully argued that Aquinas establishes a distinction between the political and the simply social aspects of human nature and clearly privileges the social above the political. Mary Keys’ important study, Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good (Cambridge 2006), continues in this vein. This paper interrogates this distinction between the social and the political, asking the question, is human flourishing essentially political, or more aptly described as social? To this end, this paper considers Aristotle's view of the relative importance of the family in moral education and then turns to a consideration of how Aquinas' understanding of the metaphysics of part-whole relationships informs his understanding of the importance of sub-political associations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper's purpose is to find robust explanatory variables of regional institutionalization. My unified multivariate model of regional institutionalization has eight explanatory variables and twelve control variables. Using these variables, the Extreme Bounds Analysis (EBA) known as the best method of robustness check is conducted. The results of EBA are based on 96 ordinary least squares (OLS) regression results with panel-corrected standard errors (PCSEs). According to the EBA, the importance of intraregional trade in intraregional economy is the most important and robust explanatory variable in that its sign and statistical significance are always consistent and stable across 96 alternative model specifications. In addition, the level of intraregional alliance commitment and the degree of cultural (ethnic, religious, and linguistic) similarity are comparatively robust explanatory variables in that their signs and statistical significance are consistent and stable across 48 or 64 alternative model specifications, respectively. On the other hand, other explanatory variables are fragile in that their signs and statistical significance are very whimsical and unstable. As a result, this paper concludes that translating international relations (IR) theories into the regional setting can contribute to extending their empirical domain to the regional level. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This papers seeks to examine the role of external actors within the democratization efforts of post-Soviet eastern Europe.Much scholarship has focused on the domestic conditions which can breed democratic norms, however,little is discussed of the role of external actors wtihin democratic transitions. This is becoming an increasingly important question due to the growing interdependence between the consolidated democracies of Europe and North America and the emerging democracies of the former Soviet Union.This paper seeks to explore and analyze the role of the European Union within the democratizating states of eastern Europe.The EU has provided much in the way of technical and financial assistance, however,due to the implementation of competing and divergent policies with regards to democratic promotion this institution has fostered the emergence of 'two worlds' within eastern Europe.The EU has succesfully promoted democratic norms within states such as Poland and the Baltic republics,while stifling democratic promotion within states falling under the auspices of the European Neighbourhood Policy.Due to the institutional and domestic interests of EU member states,the EU can no longer serve as a tool democratic promotion. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will explore the extent to which social inequality has lasting effects on the communities and classes and reflects the lack of sustainability in the built urban environment. Innovative techniques for correction and reversal of this imbalance will be explored, with particular emphasis on the implementation of sustainable practices that emphasizeenvironmentally consciousness decision making. Given the importance of sustainability,reuse and adaptability within the urban environment the proposed paper will identify traditional urban practices as well as new green practices that affect how the urban community reacts to social and economic imbalances. Once these sustainable practices are identified, we can then categorize some of the social, infrastructure, and economic issues and begin to apply them to traditional urban infrastructure. With these changes we can begin to understand how the built urban environment affects economic and social imbalance. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will explore how television comedy shows (Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, the Tonight Show and the Late Show) affected the 2008 Presidential Election Race. Due to the writers strike these shows were dark during the early primary races â€" leaving an intriguing void in the media coverage of the race. After the strike was settled, the coverage of the race seemed to change as did popular perception of the candidates. Saturday Night Live is getting high ratings based on its political skits and candidates seek out any opportunity to be a guest on a nightly show. Studies have shown that younger voters are getting their news more from Jon Stewart than from Brian Williams which means that these sketches and appearances have a great effect on how the public views the candidates and the election. This paper intends to consider these effects in the hopes of determining how much of an impact these shows have on the election and its results ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will examine co-management in the Cape Breton snow crab industry and the Maine lobster industry. I argue that co-management in the Maine lobster industry is superior to Canada's due to Canada's archaic Fisheries Act. Co-management is the sharing of responsibility between two or more parties; one of those parties includes the government, the other party consisting of stakeholders. The concept of co-management dates the Lofoten Act which was implemented by the Norwegian government in 1816. In this paper, I will examine the benefits of co-management, and assess why the co-management regime in Maine has been successful, and why the regime in Cape Breton has failed, with particular emphasis on bureaucratic abuse of power. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will attempt to show that a strategy of flexible integration can be a superior alternative to other forms of statecraftâ€"especially on problems of self-determination which are at the center of many of the threats of terrorism, regional war, economic damage, loss of legitimacy, and nuclear proliferation that the U.S. now faces. Flexible integration refers to a way of making America secure by seeking to partially integrate select territories and/or countries whose real or potential conflicts threaten U.S. vital interests. In the past, the U.S. has helped induce various forms of integration between the territories of Europe; Germany; Bosnia; Northern Ireland; Sudan; and Iraq. In every case however the integration that results through this strategy involves two or more political communities that share and divide powers rather than one community becoming fully subordinate over another, as with the relations between an empire and a colony. This paper will proceed by (1) describing what flexible integration is, (2) deriving categories for comparison between competing forms of statecraft, and (3) explaining why flexible integration is a better alternative for the U.S. as compared to other American foreign policy strategies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper was conceived within the policy context of declining US efficacy and rising Chinese influence in Sub-Saharan Africa at large. China’s interests in Africa and in Sudan are of increasing importance to analysts, human rights advocates and policymakers. While much work is being done in the policy community to assess China’s economic and geopolitical intentions in Africa, it is of equal importance to assess the already-emerging political and humanitarian impacts its economic activities. The goal of this paper is to explore those impacts in Sudan within the scholarly framework of the “veil of anarchy” that, as I will show, is currently being employed in that state with the aid of Chinese investment. The goals of this paper are twofold. I intend outline a theoretical basis for understanding how the costs of state-led anarchy to the regime in power can be met through foreign inputs â€" financial, infrastructural, and diplomatic â€" thus making the normally risky strategy of the ‘veil of anarchy’ more attractive and sustainable to elites. I will then examine the case of Sudan to determine how this theory can be usefully applied to those elites’ manipulation of force and access to foreign resources via investment from China. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses statistical models to examine the relationship between presidential use of religious rhetoric in nationally televised addresses in the post-WWII era and elements of context. For this paper, all nationally televised presidential speeches given from 1945 to 2004 were coded to determine the magnitude of use of religious rhetoric. Elements of context such as the setting of a speech, i.e. State of the Union address, inaugural address, emergency address, were examined. The religious traditions reflected in each president’s electoral coalition were also examined. These groups were aggregated into the categories of: mainline Protestant, evangelical Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Non-traditional, Non-Christian, and Atheist/Agnostic. Beginning in 1992, black Protestant was also a category. The era in which a president served was also examined as well as presidential partisanship. The findings include that there was a statistically significant increase in presidential use of religious rhetoric over the postwar era. Furthermore, only in a few cases did the religious tradition of a president’s electoral supports affect a president’s rhetorical practices. Last, presidential partisanship only mattered after 1980. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses ethnographic research in the diverse Arab communities of New York City to develop an analysis of the new forms and ideas in political discourse that are developed in diaspora. My research, like much theoretical and empirical work on discourse, makes simultaneous use of both the Foucauldian sense of discourse, the set of linguistic signs and practices that are used to create and structure meaning in society, and the processural sense, the act of speaking to and listening to fellow members of a discursive community. I want to use the set of signs and meanings that we use in everyday life to analyze processes of social contestation. In this paper, I isolate a single area of discourse in the second sense, the process of developing, justifying, and legitimating a notion of what constitutes "the Arab community" in New York. From this single topic of debate, I will demonstrate the way different thematic discursive foci, particular democracy, gender, and Middle Eastern politics, are developed in connection with each other in the actual practice of political debate, via an analysis of how these debates are shaped by engagement with multiple hegemonic formations that surround Arabs in New York. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper use the raids on the polygamous communities of Short Creek, Arizona (1953) and Eldorado, Texas (2008) as lenses to establish the inextricability of monogamy and democracy in both historical and contemporary American political tradition. It argues that both government interventions brought to the fore similar questions about religious behavior's acceptable limits as well as the limits of American political culture generally. This paper will examine polygamy's sordid history in the American tradition and argue that liberal feminism has offered an unsatisfying explanation for why polygamous, religious subjects are unintelligible in the American political tradition. Ultimately, the April 2008 raid requires that we revisit some of these old questions. I argue that we must transcend a liberal democratic ethos if we aim to understand polygamy's illegibility in America. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the soft power of American and French universities in the Middle East in the interface between American and French sponsor societies and Middle Eastern host societies. This is studied through looking at the attraction and co-optation exercised by these universities towards diffirent public and private actors in both the West and the Middle East. The study applies a model showing the university bridging the sponsor and host society channeling large amounts of interest, information, resources and individuals between societies. The empirical basis of the paper is on the one hand the older cases of the American University of Beirut (1866), the Universite Saint-Joseph (1875) and the American University in Cairo (1919), and on the other hand the multitude of institutions established in the Gulf States since the mid-1990s and under creation. This study finds that Western, private universities in the Middle East exercise soft power, but often of unintended nature and direction. As mentioned, the religious goals of early universities failed, but the universities had profound impact spreading liberal, individualist norms as intellectual freedom and religious tolerance. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies levels official development aid and pre-accession assistance provided by the European Commission by assessing the economic, political and institutional factors that determine why such assistance varies by recipient countries and years. Using ODA commitments, ODA disbursements, as well as pre-accession aid provided through the Phare and Cards programs as dependent variables, the paper analyses data for 153 countries over the 1970-2006 time period. The analysis reveals that while donors often ignore the receiving country’s needs with respect to political development, the latter’s economic needs significantly affect level of assistance. The analysis also shows ODA recipient countries that are former colonies of the EU member states receive higher levels of assistance simply because of their colonial past as well as when their former colonial power holds the rotating presidency of the European Council. Donor economic interests, expressed in trade relations, however, are among the most consistent and substantively significant explanations of aid variation, i.e. countries with larger share of the EU’s world exports receive higher levels of assistance than recipients that tend to imports less from the EU. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to explore the effect of 'linking institutions'-- political parties, unions, churches and non-governmental organizations-on political participation. Using a unique set of contextual data that measure organizational density by state and/or county, and that links these data to the geocoded responses in the 2006 Latino National Survey, the paper will contribute to our understanding on the link between organizations and individual electoral and non-electoral participation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits Michael Walzer’s neglected argument in Spheres of Justice for thinking about “complex equality” when judging the fairness of social institutions. Walzer argues that we should regard many elements of the social world, including e.g. wealth, citizenship, vacation time, and hard work as separate spheres of value in which the overall goal should be non-domination of any single sphere over the others. (Money, in other words, should not be able to purchase citizenship, but should also not be used to deprive persons of free time or force them into very hard jobs.) In this paper, I argue that Walzer’s conception of equality is superior to that of John Rawls, because it takes better account of the non-exchangeability of many human goods. It also provides more determinate standards for evaluating existing real-world social orders, and takes more seriously the actual difficulties of pursuing social justice among flawed human beings. In its later sections, the article takes up debates about indigenous rights as carried out in the United States, Canada, and Australia to show in detailed ways how Walzer’s account helps us to understand and evaluate these debates in useful ways, while Rawls’s account does not. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reinterprets the origins of US bankruptcy law. Current bankruptcy law has its roots in the Bankruptcy Act of 1898. Existing studies describe that law as the product of conflicts between regional, commercial, and populist interests, or as a legislative reaction to the depression of 1894, or simply as an expression of Congress’ and the public’s pro-business sympathies. This paper departs from those studies and instead identifies the statute as one of Progressivism’s early national successes. Progressive influences on the legislation can be seen in the critical role played by commercial organizations of middle class businessmen in drafting and lobbying for the Act, and in the Acts’ emphasis on professional administration and efficiency. Likewise, focusing on implementation in Southeast Michigan, the paper demonstrates that the 1898 law endured where earlier national insolvency laws failed because it provided key roles for progressive-minded professionals. In short, Progressivism provided the platform for the 1898 Act’s successful enactment and implementation, and set the course for the shape of current bankruptcy law. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reevaluates socioeconomic neighborhood effects on political participation taking account for the effects from sorting. Past literature of political science has identified that poverty and socioeconomic homogeneity are the two major neighborhood-level inhibitors of political participation. Those studies, however, ignore the effects of sorting either theoretically or statistically. Given the magnitude of sorting having occurred after WWII, there is enough room to suspect that neighborhood effects simply represent the difference in the dispositions of residents between neighborhoods. Moreover, randomized social experiment is not necessarily the best method in this case because it tends to pick up the applicants who have high level of voice. Using Social Capital Benchmark Survey matched with tract level census and methodologically relying on the generalization of propensity score by Imai and van Dyk(2004), this paper attempts to elucidate the heterogeneity of neighborhood effects. The results show that consideration of the propensity score makes most statistically significant neighborhood effects under parametric model disappear. Breakdown coefficients also suggest that sorting is not necessarily the inhibitor of political participation, but mismatched residency is. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]