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This paper provides evidence that a certain prehistorical event, namely the Neolithic Revolution, has profoundly affected modern institutions through its impact on group cultures. Using a set of carbon dates of initial agricultural adoption from various Neolithic archaeological sites in Europe, and a panel data of institutional performance measures of Europe during the years prior to the Industrial Revolution, the results show a strong inverse relationship between the initial agricultural adoption date and the institutional performance. This relationship suggests that late adopters of agriculture developed culture conducive for establishing better institutions, while early adopters did not. In the empirical analysis, the carbon dates proxy for the degree of cultural divergence among our ancestors. The paper argues that the introduction of settled agriculture caused a cultural divergence between early adopters and late adopters of agriculture; such divergence has persisted and grown over many generations and led to differences in institutions. The paper uses differences in climate patterns at the time of the Neolithic Revolution as a source of exogenous variation in the timing of settled agriculture. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconsiders Jefferson’s critique of constitutionalism in light of recent debates on the paradox of democratic founding. The paradox of a democratic founding suggests that neither the people nor a founding can be ontologically prior to the other, but rather that they are mutually constitutive. This mutual constitution, however, has placed dominant approaches in a position to displace the problems of one, the other or both. But does this displacement result from the conceptual architecture of dominant conceptions of both? In this paper I contend that Jefferson’s writings on the subject, traditionally read as a critique of constitutionalism, provide insightful answers to this question. Against the traditional reading, I suggest that Jefferson offers a distinctive understanding of the problem, one that brings to light what I call the problem of democratic recognition, that of the people’s changing composition in relation to founding authority. Rather than a wholesale critique of constitutional authority, I suggest that Jefferson provides a more nuanced understanding of the process of founding and re-founding from a radically democratic perspective, one which can offer important insights to guide contemporary theory. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides empirical evidence regarding the political belief systems among Muslim elites in Ireland, Portugal, and Spain. The evidence is drawn from in-depth interviews with twenty-three persons of Muslim faith or background who hold or have held elected or appointed office in national, regional, or civic organizations. Muslim elites interviewed during the research endorse belief systems that range from universalist syntheses of Islam and liberalism, to secular anti-clericalism, to anti-modernist political Islamism. These political belief systems bear the imprints of intellectuals working in Europe, national debates regarding the political regulation of religion, and the cultural resources available to Muslim communities. The paper probes in particular the intellectual influences and sources that Muslim elites cite in support of their ideas about the proper relationships between institutions of faith and of politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a theoretical argument for conducting inter-regional comparisons of social mobilisation in Eastern Europe and Latin America within the broader scope of democratization theory. Theoretically, the paper examines how two schools: one of Transitology and the other of Democtratisation or Democratic Development have assigned themselves regional boundaries (the first Post-Soviet Eastern Europe and the second Post Authoritarian Latin America).‘Transitologists’ such as V.Bunce (1995,1997) have fiercely defended the isolation of their study of ‘transition’ in EE from the study of democratic development or democratization in LA basing their theory in the perceived explanatory power of 'legacies' (communist or colonial). More a game of intellectual wordplay then empirical substance, the two schools used different terms and frameworks to discuss the same processes..x000d.Based on initial empirical research, I find that there are similar types, trajectories and developments of social movements in LA and EE, and thus that historical legacies (cultural, political or economic) are not sufficient explanatory variables in predicting participation and mobilization (both understood to be necessary for democracy). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper probes the voting behavior of members of the Congressional Border Caucus, an informal House caucus that highlights issues affecting the U.S.-Mexico border region. This is a comparative study of floor voting by Caucus members (and non-Caucus members from border states) on border and non-border amendments. Have CBC members rallied to support the caucus majority (post-September 11, 2001) on floor amendments involving border security, trade and immigration? Or are factors such as party, ideology and electoral marginality more important than caucus membership when voting on these issues? Using the literature on informal legislative caucuses, this paper tests hypotheses using individual House votes on border amendments before and after 9/11 as the unit of analysis. The dependent variable is a House member's vote for/against a Border Caucus' majority position on a vote of interest to the caucus. Caucus members are compared to non-caucus members to flesh out any differences in their levels of support. Independent variables include caucus membership, party, ideology, and seniority, among others, to measure their influence on a member's support of border caucus positions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes developing a research agenda exploring "scope" as an integral element of grand strategy. Strategists and empiricists alike have made important contributions to studying grand strategy as a great power phenomenon. Such research considers the nature, sources and types of grand strategy as well as how and why grand strategy changes over time. Embedded in such work is a notion of scope, or the geopolitical extent of grand strategy. Policy elites, in formulating grand strategies, inevitably make decisions about which regions demand protection as vital to national security. Unfortunately, research has tended to neglect these choices about scope or subsume them under larger categories like grand strategy type. Consequently, this paper argues that though scope is an essential component of grand strategy, this component remains undertheorized. In turn, the paper calls for a research agenda focused on scope in grand strategy, and it concludes with a proposed theory about the nature of scope in grand strategy. Specifically, it suggests that grand strategic scope rises and declines in a stair-step profile that roughly parallels a state's relative power lifecycle in the international system. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new approach to understanding why some civic associations achieve greater public recognition than others. Previous research has focused primarily on variation in community context and resources as explanatory factors. In contrast, this paper focuses on the relationship of internal organizational practices to public recognition. We use a unique 2003 study of 182 local Groups of the Sierra Club, a leading US environmental organization, to explicate this approach. We show that Groups that deploy resources through a broad program of activities have higher levels of public recognition. Program activity levels are related to the size and skill development of the leadership team, the number of committed activists, and the extent of activities designed to enhance organizational capacity. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the first round of findings from a new dataset, the Blogosphere Authority Index (BAI). Building off of the agenda set out in "Understanding Blogspace" (Karpf 2008b), the paper treats elite political blogs as quasi-interest groups, gathering places for online communities-of-interest and asks how the increased traffic and heightened attention of the 2008 campaign season affected the institutional development of these new internet-mediated organizational forms. Three core questions are explored: (1) how much stability is there in the relative influence of these blogs? Does the #1 blog during offyear elections remain #1 during the heightened attention of the presidential election season? (2) How have conservative community blogs in particular fared during the election cycle? The community blog format is particularly useful for converting blog discussion into collective action, and progressive bloggers have a demonstrated edge in this type of blog. Has the 2008 election cycle led to an increase in conservative community blogs' sphere of influence? (3) Do progressive blogs or conservative blogs gain relatively more traffic during the election season? Previous research (Karpf 2008a) demonstrates a small advantage for the political left. Has this advantage increased, diminished, or remained unchanged?Drawing upon a set of weekly and monthly BAI rankings, the paper demonstrates that the system is indeed quite stable, supporting Hindman's (2008) suggestion about the stability of website rankings. It finds that the gap between the political left and political right has substantially grown since 2007, and also finds that conservative community blogs have entered a surprising downward spiral. The paper ends by discussing avenues for future research on the blogosphere and internet-mediated organizational forms. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a simple model in which electoral uncertainty differentially distorts the incentives of politicians expecting to win and lose that are both risk-neutral. The paper demonstrates that expected winners exhibit a status-quo bias in implementing policies with beneficial but uncertain effects, while expected losers might even implement especially noisy policies that are expected to decrease their support. A second result suggests centralized governments should spend more resources on less supportive regions- a prediction at odds with most existing political science and economics literature. I find empirical support for this last prediction in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a large-scale empirical analysis of interest group influence on EU policy-making across a wide range of issues. The explanation of policy outcomes as well as the democratic legitimacy of the EU crucially depends on how much influence interest groups have and how influence is distributed among them. However, only few studies have addressed the question of influence and most are limited to case studies focusing only on one single issue. Recent literature however suggests that interest group influence varies considerably across issues. It is assumed that influence is not a mere function of interest group characteristics, but strongly shaped by the issue context. The lack of large-N studies controling for issue variables is mainly due to methodological difficulties in measuring influence. Hence, this paper employs a new approach: Drawing on quantitative text analysis performed with Wordfish, policy preferences of interest groups will be compared with the policy output in order to identify the winners and the losers of the decision-making process. While controling for interest group characteristics, the effect of issue-related variables on interest group influence will be tested across 20 policy issues. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is part of a larger project which seeks to understand the politics of justice decision making. The actions of Norwegian judges are widely viewed as exercises in pure legal reasoning. While this may be the case in lower courts, we contend that Supreme Court decisions can be explained by justice ideology..x000d..x000d.Previously, three major dimensions of justice ideology were identified, based upon eleven cases heard in plenary session. However, most cases are not decided by all members of the Supreme Court, but by panels of five justices. Here we propose to focus on a larger set of cases involving “Individual vs. Public Economic Rights,” a dimension highly correlated with whether a justice was appointed by a socialist or nonsocialist government. The cases we examine in this paper are those which were decided by smaller panels of justices..x000d..x000d.We contend that for a nonsocialist justice to side with the individual and a socialist justice to rule on behalf of collective interests makes perfect ideological sense. If the Supreme Court is a political organ, then the invisibility of the court and the secretive judicial appointment process might call for judicial reform. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is part of a larger project in which I investigate what I call the cultivation of responsiveness. In the larger project I ask: How can individuals come to acknowledge practically meaningful connections between their everyday activities and the suffering of distant others? I call such acknowledgement responsiveness. Every day, sweatshop workers labor in anonymous obscurity under fundamentally exploitative and often violent conditions, producing consumer goods for purchase around the world. These workers are often in distant countries, out of sight and (frequently) out of mind. Many scholars and activists claim that we contribute to their suffering when we buy sweatshop merchandise, and that we therefore have a responsibility to do something about such suffering: Protest sweatshops, for example, and take our business elsewhere. And yet many of us continue to buy the merchandise, and the suffering continues unabated. Why is it sometimes so difficult to acknowledge our implication in the suffering of others? Distance alone cannot be the answer; media technologies offer more than enough access to evidence of the suffering of sweatshop workers and others too. In this paper I show how the phenomenon of bad faith impedes the cultivation of responsiveness, and what it might mean to overcome that phenomenon. What emerges is that bad faith and its opposite are sustained by the narratives that structure our apprehension of our condition. These can be diagnostic narratives that uncover instances of bad faith; or they can be self-deceiving narratives, which reinforce bad faith. Attention to the narrative structure of bad faith, and its opposite, calls for more systematic attention to the ways in which narratives structure our experiences of social and political life. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a working version of a dissertation that examines the thesis that war among major powers is in decline. That thesis challenges both our understanding of security dynamics in world politics and many of the assumptions of core international relations theory. This effort builds upon and adds to the work of John Mueller, who has offered a particularly persuasive and generally accepted argument that likens the decline of war to that of the once pervasive institution of slavery. This historical analogy implies both that major state institutions can become obsolete and that such change can come about through changes in ideas, beliefs, and norms. The completed paper will critically assess the historical record of slavery to examine whether it represents an analogous case and process as Mueller and others have implied. By determining if the slavery-major power warfare decline analogy is valid, this effort serves as a foundational piece in a larger research agenda on modern warfare. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether the presence of gender quotas makes political parties likely to ask their female members to run for elective office. Based on an original mail survey of over 1000 local party leaders in Germany, this paper finds that female members in German parties are no less likely than male members to have been asked by their parties to run for elective office. Furthermore, this result is also observed in political parties without gender quotas and in and places where state and local electoral systems are not compatible with the use of quotas, indicating that, in this case, quotas have a contagion effect. They have created a normative expectation that parties nominate female candidates even in instances when there is no official quota in place. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the status of Chinese lawyers in political context. During Cultural Revolution, all the legal personnel were removed. Until reform and opening began, they couldn't be rehabilitated. Since then, marketization, privatization, and globalization has rapidly increased the demand of legal profession in China. On the other hand, deeping globalization after China's admission to WTO will expose Chinese lawyers to dog-eat-dog world legal market. They have no choice but to make themselves more cohesive and competitive, e.g. in form of huge law firms. With political leaders' emphases on the rule of law, lawyers become more necessary for daily life and business in China. Meanwhile, we can lately see lawyers' names more often in the news regarding Chinese popular protests against corruption or suppression. On balance, lawyers become more and more important actors in Chinese society..x000d.Especially with the reduction in the power of technocrats, new actors will appear in Chinese politics. This paper examines if lawyers can become significant actors in Chinese politics by analyzing PRC Lawyers Law amended in 2007, the scope and method of lawyers' political participation, and the types of law firms. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how information affect voting behavior. If some voters are informed and others are not we would expect informed voters to vote for politicians that have preferences closer to their own preferences to a higher degree than uninformed voters would do. This paper tests this hypothesis using unique Swedish survey data on the preferences of both politicians and voters on the municipal level. In support of the hypothesis I find that a standard deviation increase in information increases the probability that the voter votes for the politicians closest to her in tax preference with around 3\% to 4\%. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how different existence of social capital under the socialist system affected different outcomes of democratization and economic growth during the transition period in Poland and Russia which adopted same transition policy. So far, studies on how social capital impacts democracy and economic development has mostly focused on developed or developing countries. Meanwhile, this paper examines how to define and measure social capital in post-communist countries, and seeks to apply theoretical analysis on correlation between social capital and development to transition countries. Distinguishing periods into communist and transition, this paper analyzes how different degree of social capital existed during communist period and how it has affected different process of transition in Poland and Russia. Using data from World Values Survey, this paper estimates the degree of voluntary civic participation and trust of Poland and Russia as operational definition of social capital. It also analyzes the correlation between social capital and economic growth/stability, and democracy respectively, using data from World Bank, IMF, 'Corruption perception index' from Transparency International, and 'Democracy score' from Freedom House. As a result, this paper suggests emphasis on reconstruction of social capital should be accompanied with establishment of formal system in transition countries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to discuss the evolution of the development thinking in a postcolonial context, with India's notorious damming issue of the Sardar Sarovar Project as a case of study. The paper starts by reviewing the theorization of development based on the complexity among the notions of modernity, modernization, and globalization. It is followed by the notorious Narmada damming experience as the example of a postcolonial developing nation which has struggled between the mainstream mentality of development and its domestic social and environmental justices. The bitter consequence led to its grassroots anti-damming social movements. However, the opposition activities have been fruitful in establishing alternatives to the massive centralized project. Through their efforts the development thinking proposed by Amartya Sen seems to be feasible, and a more sophisticated and customized development in postcolonial countries seems also attainable by appropriately drawing on the merits of both the BLAST and GALA modes of understanding to which Sen has much contributed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper first tests whether voters punish incumbent state supreme court judges who are ideologically distant from the state’s citizens. The paper then examines whether ideologically distant incumbent judges are more likely to be punished when facing politically involved citizens. The empirical results show that ideologically distant incumbent judges are more likely to lose an election, but that this effect is conditional on the citizenry’s level of political participation. While this effect appears to be disproportionately stronger in partisan elections, the relationship between incumbent defeat and ideological distance also appears to be present in non-partisan elections. These results have two main implications. First, it provides additional evidence that ideological accountability is a feature in some judicial elections. Second, the results show that judicial elections are very similar to non-judicial elections, in that politically interested voters cast more sophisticated votes. These findings lessen two concerns about judicial elections: that judicial elections are fundamentally different from non-judicial elections and that voters are unable to hold elected judges accountable. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether recent political and economic developments have transformed religious organizations' association with the welfare state. Welfare state development in the West was influenced by the Church. Nevertheless, almost all developed countries have undergone a process of secularization in which the religious attachments of major segments of society, and also certain state institutions, have weakened. In fact, it has been argued that welfare state' expansion has contributed to secularization. This expansion, however, has stalled in recent years and most welfare states have entered an 'age of austerity'. Three of the main developments of this period are a) increased pressure for welfare state retrenchment, b) a growing demand for welfare program restructuring, and c) a significant ideological rightward shift. This paper argues that, in principle, these three developments have created new opportunities for an increased role for religion in welfare funding, delivery, design, and in politics. In practice, however, religious institutions, outside of the U.S., are too weak to make a difference in terms of welfare funding and politics, but there are signs of increased church involvement in welfare delivery and design. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between gendered oppression at the state level and the success of microcredit lending institutions. This paper explores the relationship between human rights and the success of microcredit lending institutions. Microcredit lending emphasizes the socioeconomic empowerment of poor women, yet no study, to our knowledge, has examined whether the existing human rights environment, and/or the rights environment for women specifically, helps or hinders the effectiveness of this grassroots development approach. We test competing hypotheses, including the possibility that the human rights environment affects microfinance success, the possibility of an inverse relationship between levels of women's political, economic and social oppression and microcredit success, and the expectation of no relationship. Our quantitative analysis suggests that the human rights environment in which they operate affects the success of microfinance institutions. However, there is no significant relationship between the human rights environment for women and the levels of success of microcredit lending institutions. This has important implications for microcredit lending policies, prospects, and evidential support for the power and scope of microcredit lending. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the process by which presidential nominees choose their vice presidential nominees. Specifically, this paper focuses on Senator McCain and Governor Palin as a current example in order to explore the process of vice presidential s ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of religious belief and communal religious involvement on political participation among men and women in Africa. The central questions this paper addresses include the following: (1) Do religious belief and practice encourage or discourage political participation by women? (2) Do religious belief and practice have a greater impact on the likelihood that women will be politically engaged than on the likelihood that men will be politically engaged? (3) To what extent does the impact of religious belief and communal practice on women's political participation depend on the type of religion in question or the particular denomination? These questions are addressed using the results of a mass survey of Christians and Muslims conducted in Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda during 2006 and 2007. First, we find that, although Christianity and Islam are more encouraging of men's political participation than women's political participation, neither Christianity nor Islam depresses women's political participation. Second, and to our surprise, the results indicate that religious belief has a more positive impact on political participation than communal religious practice and that this is especially true for women. Third, religious belief has a more powerful and positive effect on political participation among Muslim women than among Christian women. Among other things, the findings suggest that further study should be devoted to discerning which types of religious beliefs are most powerful predictors of political participation and why. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper expands on the theory and research that focuses on innovation in government. In particular, it develops a theory based on models of Borins, Altshuler, Littman, Light and Rogers. The theory suggests that municipal governments need to develop specific managerial and policy structures if they are to create optimum conditions for innovaton. This construct is called Innovation Management Capacity (IMC). To test the theory, survey data has been collected from senior municipal administrators and city council members. We have data on frequency of innovations and their perceived effectinvees, and types of innovatons, ie., technical, managerial, economic, political and so forth. The data is already collected and is currently being analyzed. This paper is also based on a growing literature base. We feel the findings are very interesting and useful to students of local government, public administration, and public policy. Since not much empirical research has been done on governmental innovation, this research is breaking some new ground. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the transformation, and transformative capacity of Islamic movements under the proper democratic rules. Debates about the lack of democratic rule in Muslim countries are dominated by the primordialist approaches. This paper, however, follows a newly emerging process and actor oriented approach. Instead of focusing on the essential differences, it claims the transformative effects of the process of proper democratic rules even on the most radical movements. According to this logic, any radical movement, put under the proper democratic rules, if it desires to apply its political agenda, has to transform itself into a more moderate form. This theoretical framework is applied to the Justice and Development Party (JDP) case in Turkey. By a vertical comparison between the declarations of the party leaders in their early careers and the ones in their last period a strong support for transformation was found. Moreover, a horizontal comparison between the JDP (current governing party) and Felicity Party (the marginal Islamic party) also illustrated the transformation process of Islamic movement in Turkey. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the salience for political parties of 'unusual' issue positions. These are positions where the party's views are more extreme or more centrist than its mean position on other issues. Parties should have an incentive to stress such unusual positions as they reflect a strategic effort to take up a noticeably different political stance. This incentive is not the same for all parties: unusual issue positions should be stressed more by parties that are small, compete in crowded party systems and are right-wing. I test my hypotheses for parties in 23 countries by using two expert surveys (Laver and Hunt, 1992; Benoit and Laver, 2006) for position measurement and the dataset of the Manifesto Research Group for salience measurement. I first consider the effect of positional unusualness on salience in a cross-sectional analysis for 1989 and 2003, respectively. A second analysis looks within parties and tests whether an increase in positional unusualness between 1989 and 2003 also led to an increase in issue salience. This paper contributes to the party literature by linking positional and salience approaches on party competition and by shedding light on parties’ strategic choices in choosing their platforms. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between responsibility and liberalism. It does so by examining Henry David Thoreau’s account of the individual’s responsibility for the impact that her actions have upon others, one of the most inspiring and demanding accounts associated with the liberal tradition. Particular attention will be paid to Thoreau’s travel literature which has only recently attracted the attention of political theorists, and which provides a more complex and nuanced account of the individual’s relationship to society than is found in Thoreau’s more overtly political writings. While Thoreau’s account of responsibility relies upon the liberal assumption that political society is a contract among consenting individuals, it is also influenced by a variety of moral, literary and philosophic resources. As this paper will demonstrate, Thoreau’s attention to history, community, and character-formation, along with his playfulness and rejection of Cartesian subjectivity mean that his account of responsibility is less vulnerable to communitarian and neo- Nietzschean objections than many other prominent liberal accounts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between the state and nonwhite civil society, specifically the connection between social policy regimes and the activities and ideologies that nonwhite organizations adopt. This paper conducts binary-logistic regression analysis of New York City Nonwhite Associational Dataset and the London Nonwhite Associational Dataset. This paper finds a relationship between governmental funding and the lack of a racial ideology in New York City and a relationship between governmental funding and the presence of a racial ideology in London. These findings reveal the influence of the neo-liberal social policy regimes of the United States and the United Kingdom, suggesting that the imperatives of the state more so than socioeconomic exigencies define the organizational tendencies of nonwhite communities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the quality of the literary imagination of Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff as expressed in one of his most popular works, a book-essay entitled The Eagle and the Hen. A Metaphor of the Human Condition. The purpose is to elucidate the imaginative influences behind Liberation Theology and its political implications. Boff, a former Franciscan friar, is an originator and leading representative of Lib. Theology in Latin America. Liberation Theology, beside its theoretical forms, is characterized by a strong imaginative pull which diffusely connects religious faith, an activist attitude, and goals of social justice and peace. As such, it has been influential in many Latin American countries both in theology and politics, especially among religiously-inspired social and political leaders. This paper's approach is based on the work of the American comparative literature professor Irving Babbitt, who makes a distinction between the idyllic and the moral or critical imagination in art and politics, and their respective political implications. By looking at Boff's imaginative effort in this light, the anthropological commitments of his theology are clarified, as well as its political corollaries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the procedural and substantive outcomes emanating from new governance structures for managing livelihood and natural resource conflicts and challenges. Evidence on many fronts indicates that the recent efforts by developing countries to incorporate community groups in natural resource management (NRM) is at best very progressive. Collaborative efforts, at times referred to as co-management, are implemented through decentralized programs. This paper investigates why civil society was suddenly incorporated in these governance programs in Kenya. It argues that the state and civil society can partner effectively to handle resource related conflicts and challenges if they manage to operationalize the twin NRM paradigms of sustainability and good governance. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the legislative abilities of Canadian prime ministers under conditions of minority and majority government. It notes a lack of engagement with this matter from the scholarly literature in Canada and uses insights from American and comparative works to build expectations about minority government's effects on both legislative productivity and executive success. It finds that minority governments do in fact create an impediment to a prime minister's legislative agenda, reducing his level of productivity as well as his rate of success. The paper further raises, but does not answer, questions about why some minority sessions of Parliament have been more successful than some majority sessions. It concludes by posing a broader question about the factors that influence the passage of legislation and suggests some ideas for factors that might be useful in pursuing the question. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the evolution of political communication and the impact of blogs on mass media and national politics. Through the use of blogs, the Internet has enhanced ordinary citizens access to news and opinion, decentralizing the flow of information and challenging the role of mass media as sole arbiters of news. To explore the impact of blogs on the political message, this paper examines the role of technology in the reporting process, focusing on contemporary accounts of key events from 1992 to 2008, such as Rathergate and journalist remarks regarding U.S. Troops. The transformative effects of online research and publishing, the appearance of several major scandals within the traditional press, and the growing ability of bloggers to break major stories have redefined political communication, allowing self-styled maverick journalists to supersede established voices in the national media. A study of these events is critical to better assess reporting by the contemporary media in order to distinguish fact from speculation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the evolution and characteristics of the Polish party system in the period 1991-2007, using the framework of institutionalization. Key moments in the development of the party system are identified by analyzing the results of six consecutive parliamentary elections. At the onset of the development of democratic politics, the party system was characterized by instability and under-institutionalization. By the end of the second decade, it displayed strong signs of structural stabilization and some evidence of the stability of interparty competition and party institutionalization, implying that the Polish party system is quasi-institutionalized. Moreover, the paper attempts to explain the results by focusing on elite behaviour and institutions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of international structure on state motivations. Two variants of structural realism (defensive and offensive) differ on their definitions of state goals, although both claim to derive their definitions from the same set of assumptions. Defensive realists view states as security maximizing actors, while offensive realists view states as power maximizers, although the eventual motivation is survival in both approaches. The reason for their difference lies on two stages of the theorizing process. On the first level, both approaches claim their definitions to be the logical outcome of main assumptions of realist paradigm. On the second level, both approaches explicitly or implicitly inject additional, unit level assumption to the theory at the expense of structural theorizing. This paper argues firstly that defining such directional state motives is at best rootless and secondly that adding a unit-level assumption contributes to structural theorizing less than it takes away from theoretical rigor. Instead of holding directional definitions of state goals (security or power maximizing) this paper, by taking one step back, offers to derive a neutral definition of state motivation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines stability and change in the content of nonwhite political appeals during key congressional elections in New York City from the 1940s until the present time. This chapter focuses on the 15th Congressional District, the 11th Congressional District, and 16th Congressional District, areas with high native black, Caribbean, and Puerto Rican populations. This paper explores how local political institutions, specifically party organizations, and shifting socioeconomic conditions influence the claims native black, Caribbean, and Puerto Rican politicians make on government. This paper finds that the content of nonwhite elite political appeals grew more diverse of over timeâ€"less racially oriented and more economically oriented, less racial and more ethnic. These shifts follow socioeconomic changes and are facilitated by endogenous party structures. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how judicial codes of conduct affect judicial campaigning in the post-White era. In Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, the Supreme Court liberalized judicial campaign speech by striking down a state judicial code. Judicial scholars are still attempting to understand the extent to which White has changed the nature of judicial campaigning. Part of the difficulty stems from the fact that states have interpreted the commands of White differently (Eakins & Swenson 2007; Caufield 2008). Some scholars have found increased negative ads for supreme court races in states offering a broad interpretation of White. In this paper, we look at the current state of local judicial campaigns and ask whether or how judicial codes of conduct affect campaigns in states with partisan or nonpartisan judicial elections. We survey local judicial candidates in the 2008 election in six states (Texas, New York, Washington, Minnesota, Illinois, and North Carolina). The survey asks questions about the themes, issue agendas, and messages of these campaigns, as well as candidates’ levels of familiarity with the White case. We also ask candidates how judicial codes of conduct may have affected their campaign messages. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Antonio Gramsci’s theory of intellectuals. Although contemporary intellectuals readily appropriate many of his ideas, Gramsci’s theory of intellectuals remains curiously unappreciated. This is not because the theory is crude or anachronistic. On the contrary, Gramsci’s understanding of the intellectual is all too perceptive and revealing, particularly in a time of complacency and organic submission to a definite institutional model. I argue that, from the standpoint of the oft-lamented crisis of the contemporary intellectual, Gramsci stands as an indispensable resource for self-awareness and self-criticism. The paper offers an analysis of the historical and sociological nuances of Gramsci’s theory. In addition, his life as an intellectual provides powerful yet unheeded lessons. Today the early Gramsci who operated as a party intellectual devoted to the revolutionary transformation of society is ignored, but the later Gramsci who was imprisoned by fascism and had to submit to eerily familiar routines and constraints is celebrated. This peculiar reception measures a significant degeneration and suggests pressing questions concerning what today passes for the “critical” and “public” engagement of intellectuals ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Alexandre Kojève's Outline of a Phenomenology of Right in light of his 1945 policy paper to De Gaulle, "Outline of a French Foreign Policy." Kojève attempts to give an account of a rational, Federated, Empire along the lines described by Kant's a priori principles of the civil constitution, that is not an a priori concept but rather grounded in existing conditions, customs, mores, and laws and hence would not succumb to what Hegel calls "abstract cosmopolitanism." Kojève makes explicit use of the inheritances and cultural traditions of existing nations in order to build an Empire that would realize "the synthetic justice of the citizen." This principle of justice is realized by bringing aristocratic appreciation of life into democratic equality in the name of preserving “aristocratic sweetness of living” and the "humanization of free time," over and against bourgeois contentment. Kojève is representative of the two faces of cosmopolitanism. Ultimately he is an advocate of a rationalist State based upon cosmopolitan principles, yet at the same time this is with full awareness that such a State would likely lead to a self-satisfied, passive, sterile, and ultimately "reanimalized" existence. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Aristotle's writings about judgment, prudence, and practical wisdom within the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics with a view to judges at law. What makes a good judge? Or perhaps more precisely, who makes a good judge? What character traits and features are particularly important? What is it about law that requires those particular traits? What is the nature and substance of what Aristotle calls 'judgment' and 'practical wisdom'? Both the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics are expressly political works, aimed (at least primarily) at an audience who will be active in politics and political leadership. In addition to addressing prudence straightforwardly in Nicomachean Ethics, there are references to judging, law, and equity scattered throughought it and the Politics. This paper aims to pick up all the pieces, put them together, and see what kind of picture of judging emerges. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the relevance of the study of Tocqueville's classic commentary, Democracy in America. While its status as a classic is generally accepted, it does not necessarily follow that the commentary is relevant to contemporary politics. As a classic piece of literature, it may simply reflect observations of a bygone era. From this point of view, studying Democracy in America would be beneficial for gaining a historical perspective; it would not be relevant to contemporary political discourse. Thus, the question is whether Tocqueville can be read only as a historical narrative or if it can substantively address contemporary political issues. In order to evaluate the relevance of Tocqueville's commentary, the paper examines portions of the commentary relating to the issues of equality, industrialization, religion, freedom, federalism, rights, and other elements germane to contemporary politics. In sum, this paper is not an effort to discern if Tocqueville's commentary should be read, but how it should be read regarding contemporary politics. There are three main challenges to reading Tocqueville as applicable to contemporary politics: selective usage, apparent contradictions, and an appeal to circumstance. Some scholars have selectively used various aspects of the text to attempt to connect Tocqueville's analysis to modernity or, alternatively, have rejected any use of Tocqueville by arguing that his assumptions and projections are fundamentally flawed. Setting aside selective usage issues, Tocqueville's commentary has apparent contradictions and an assumption that much of America's success is due to circumstance and good fortune. By assessing each of these three challenges, this paper evaluates whether or not Tocqueville is relevant to contemporary politics. In the end, the preponderance of evidence suggests that Tocqueville's work is still relevant based upon the questions that it raises. Tocqueville's commentary may be imperfect, but its challenges to our modern assumptions about politics seems to warrant its continued use. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon the writings of 20th century philosophical thinker Michael Polanyi to illuminate aspects of the political thought of Edmund Burke. In the process, an effort is made to make progress toward a new understanding of relationships among politics, culture, and thought. In some of his earliest public and private writings Burke displays an interest in non-rational dimensions of learning and knowledge, and in the role of worldviews in shaping learning and thought; this early interest would inform his later political writings. Michael Polanyi is known both to recognize objective truth and to emphasize the personal nature of knowledge; he also explores the nature of learning and belief much more explicitly than does Burke. By combining Polanyi's more systematic thought with Burke's political-philosophical insights, this paper identifies and highlights aspects of the nature of thought, knowledge, and reason, with special attention to their relationship to politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the traditional concepts of recognition and sovereignty under the laws of the United States as well as the political or popular notions of recognition and sovereignty as it relates to the 'Taiwan' issue. This abbreviated paper examines the myths of recognition and the erroneous role that most believe that international law plays regarding recognition and sovereignty. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper details the design and implementation of an Election Day field study targeting the operation of polling stations. This pilot study represents the first systematic attempt to determine how common lines are on Election Day, at what times of day lines are most likely to form, bottlenecks in the voting process, and how long it takes an average citizen to cast his or her ballot. We collected data during the 2008 presidential primary election in California measuring the efficiency of the operational components of 30 polling stations across three counties. During the Election Day, voter arrivals peaked twice: in the early morning and the early evening. Our data also suggest that experienced poll workers are not more efficient than first-time poll workers, even controlling for age. We also find that voters who used a DRE machine took a full minute longer to cast their ballot than voters marking paper ballots that were subsequently scanned. This study illustrates the need for further and more extensive data collection about the operation of polling stations. The study also shows how better data can help election officials make critical decisions on the allocation of capital, labor and other resources. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes and analyzes three major dimensions of the 2008 election campaign as played out in North Carolina: the Democratic presidential primary, the general election, and the effect of the presidential campaign on the two other major races in the state, Senate and Governor. It links those events to the national situation, and discusses the interaction and symbiosis between national campaign developments and strategy and electoral dynamics at the state level. A major thesis of the paper is that events in North Carolina were very consequential—arguably decisive--in determining that Barack Obama would be the Democratic nominee. I argue that his success in that phase of the campaign laid the groundwork for North Carolina to play a very important role in his overall national strategy, which was to force the McCain campaign to spend precious time and resources defending traditionally Republican turf in states such as North Carolina. I further argue that the cumulative effect of his efforts in North Carolina was not only to win the state himself, but also to exert a powerful influence on the state's other major races, producing a clean sweep for the Democrats. Overall, therefore, North Carolina very much affected and was very much affected by the 2008 campaigns and elections, and thus may be poised to play an even more prominent role in future national contests. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates how Plato's Euthydemus exposes the implications of a fact of language - that is riddled with equivocation. It also demonstrates the limits of Socratic exhortation to virtue when compared with the art of eristic and argues that eristic provides a more accurate portrait of language as it is used by men of action as compared with men of thought. With that in mind, the paper offers a wider understanding of the significance of Socratic irony than has been explored previously. It also argues that the Euthydemus reveals the ironic nature of the Ideas as articulated by Socrates in other of his dialogues. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the 2008 election within the broader context of American electoral and political development. Questions to be addressed will include whether the election outcome represents: 1) the change or consolidation of a political regime; 2) electoral realignment; 3) significant change in the direction of public policy. The paper will also examine future impact of the 2008 election campaign on the nominating process, campaign financing, and the political mobilization of minorities and women. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers some of the factors that determine whether a political party can achieve electoral success. Utlilizing the Manitoba Progressive Conservative Party in the 2007 provincial election as a reference point, this paper will examine the importance of such determinants as leadership and ideas in shaping electoral outcomes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the experiences of economic reforms in China and India. It argues that the developmental state model has more strengths than neoclassical economics in explaining the divergent economic performances of China and India during their economic reforms. The paper emphasizes the critical role played by the state and institutional contexts during China's and India's economic reforms. The analyses provide a serious critique on the one-dimensional logic of neoclassical development, but suggest that China's and India's pro-market policies during economic reforms were selectively formulated and implemented under some specific political and institutional preconditions. It seeks to explain China's rapid economic modernization and India's gradualism with the emphasis on their different institutional contexts, in particular, the changes of party politics, the evolving central-local relations, and bureaucratic and administrative efficiency etc. It argues that the superior economic performance of the Chinese economy is to a large extent the consequence of the strategic governmental interventions for certain systemic developmental objectives at three stages of economic reforms, and the formulation of and implementation of economic policies have been facilitated by special political bases and institutional arrangements such as its party system, the evolving central-local relations, and the bureaucratic and administrative efficiency etc. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper augments existing theoretical treatments of executive compensation by developing a rationale for political factors to influence corporate decision-making. It assess whether either changes in public trust in corporate America or in the SEC’s enforcement activity affect the salaries and benefits awarded to CEOs, while controlling for sociological and management theories. Political science has recently emphasized questions of inequality, and this paper contributes by demonstrating that due to institutional constraints, public forces have a limited ability to check inequality at its root. I analyzed the CEO salaries provided by the S&P 500 from 2001 to 2005 using a panel analysis. The data were gathered from Gallup polling, the SEC’s enforcement division, and firms' statements. The results demonstrate no effect on compensation for shifts in public opinion. This finding is attributed to two institutional roadblocks. In contrast, regulatory threat in the form of increased SEC activity does appear to lead relatively more firms to limit compensation. Nevertheless, the paper concludes with a discussion of how few firms limit the compensation provided to their CEOs (less than one-quarter) and provides reform proscriptions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on the work of scholars who study foreign policy decisions by courts as well as legal scholars who have noted an anecdotal trend of court deference to the political branches of government when deciding cases involving international law. It puts these anecdotal observations to the test by empirically examining if courts faced with cases involving international law follow the attitudinal model or instead defer to the expressed preferences of the political branches, particularly the Executive branch. This will build on a paper I am presenting at the Southern Political Science Association, which examines international law cases in the U.S. Supreme Court. It will study whether the lower courts follow the same patterns of decision-making. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]