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Even before she came onto the national political screen, Sarah Palin, a former Governor of the State of Alaska and the former 2008 Republican Vice-Presidential nominee, was mentioned in The Washington Post Newspaper as a noteworthy politician. This commentary will attempt to discern why that was and still is the case, considering the fact she often ends actions soon after she starts them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the paper highlighting the role of intra-group fighting in the dynamics of self-determination conflicts. It reflects on the commitment problems among the group which arises due to shifts in relative power. The paper will be presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association to be held in New Orleans, Louisiana from January 5-8, 2011.

The article offers information on a paper highlighting improvements in theconceptualization of general theory of dyadic representation. It reflects on the two lines of theory on the bases of studies conducted to determine representational linkages between elected officials and constituents. The paper will be presented at the annual conference of the Southern Political Science Association to be held in New Orleans, Louisiana from January 5-8, 2011.

How people evaluate their executive offices, both at national or local levels, has been a long term research interest in political science. Some scholars claimed that people's perception of their quality of life should play an important role on affecting executive official's approval. However, others pointed out that race did influence residence's satisfaction to government and officials as well. This paper examines the change of approval rates of Ray Nagin, an African American Major of the city of New Orleans, before and after Hurricane Katrina. In other words, the purpose of this paper is to figure out what factors influenced Nagin's approval and what difference in public opinion had been made after the city experienced the catastrophe. By taking advantage of the 2004 and 2006 Quality of Life Survey conducted by the University of New Orleans Survey Research Center, the findings indicates that some items of residence's perception of quality of life affected the approval to Mayor Nagin and race also play a important role on changing people's evaluation of their mayor drastically. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the 2003 Louisiana gubernatorial election which pitted Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a white Democrat, against Bobby Jindal, an Indian-American Republican. Correlation between the vote for Blanco and that for David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klansman who ran for governor in 1991; Role played by racism in politics.

Increasing powers of governors over the past two centuries has moved them to a position of real influence in state politics. Surprisingly, little systematic research has been done to understand the influence they exert in legislative politics. In this paper using logistic analysis I examine sources of gubernatorial policy influence by evaluating factors affecting Louisiana Governor Mike Foster's policy success in the 2000 Louisiana House special session. Data for this analysis is obtained from individual Louisiana House member's roll call votes for the 2000 Louisiana special session using only roll call votes related to Governor Mike Foster's agenda. This study differs from previous studies in that it seeks to provide an in-depth understanding of gubernatorial influence at the individual state level. It evaluates the influences individual legislator's district characteristics have on gubernatorial success. One limitation of this study is that it uses a biased sample. It only looks at bills matching the governor's agenda items. Not all the bills introduced in the 2000 special house session are based on these items numbers. This paper does not take into account bills the governor publicly supported but where not on his agenda. Even with this weakness I believe this study will find very important results. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there was widespread consensus that governmental response to the catastrophe was inadequate. From the chaos and lawlessness immediately following the storm to the slow pace of recovery efforts, political leaders and government officials were widely seen to have failed in dealing with the crisis. A key question thus presents itself: Who blames whom for the governmental failures, and why?In a series of articles (AJPS 2001, 2006; PRQ 2003; JOP 2006), we have elaborated a "theory of heterogeneous attribution," seeking to explain the cognitive processes underlying citizens' assignment of credit or blame for socio-political phenomena. The theory posits that causal attributions are fundamentally dependent on individuals' levels of political sophistication. Ceteris paribus, less sophisticated individuals will tend to assign credit or blame to fewer and more obvious actors than their more sophisticated counterparts. Clearly, other factors play a role-partisanship certainly shapes attributions, along with race, gender, personal circumstances, etc. Still, taking all of these influences into account, our theory predicts that political sophistication will play a key role in mediating the "blame game" associated with Katrina's aftermath.This paper will explore that proposition, drawing on a survey of Louisiana residents that we designed and that was recently completed by the Survey Research Center at LSU. The survey contains extensive batteries measuring both political knowledge and blame for the poor hurricane response, providing us with an excellent opportunity to explore the dynamics of political sophistication and causal attribution in the wake of this tragedy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]