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The uninterrupted rise of China, concomitant with the progressive erosion of the US unipolar moment, has generated increased interest for the (Power Transition Theory) PTT in the last decade. Observers and scholars have, however, often focused on the possible overtaking of the United States by China, and overlooked the importance of the challenger's ‘satisfaction’ in the PTT. This article fills this gap by providing an assessment of China's satisfaction with the contemporary East Asian ‘status quo’. Contrary to recent assessments depicting China as a ‘status quo’ actor, the use of the main three indicators developed by the PTT suggests that China is a strongly dissatisfied power. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the legal and political implications of the U.S. government's use of drone aircraft in the nation's fight against terrorism, and it mentions violence against America, international law, and the U.S. military's special operations forces. Then-U.S. President George W. Bush's declaration of a war on terror in 2001 is mentioned, along with American security in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. International regulations and sovereignty are examined.

The ability to monitor state behavior has become a critical tool of international governance. Systematic monitoring allows for the creation of numerical indicators that can be used to rank, compare, and essentially censure states. This article argues that the ability to disseminate such numerical indicators widely and instantly constitutes an exercise of social power, with the potential to change important policy outputs. It explores this argument in the context of the United States' efforts to combat trafficking in persons and find evidence that monitoring has important effects: Countries are more likely to criminalize human trafficking when they are included in the U.S. annual Trafficking in Persons Report, and countries that are placed on a 'watch list' are also more likely to criminalize. These findings have broad implications for international governance and the exercise of soft power in the global information age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extended party network (EPN) theory characterizes political parties in the United States as dynamic networks of interest groups that collaboratively support favored candidates for office. Electoral predictions derived from EPN theory have yet to be tested on a large sample of races. We operationalize EPNs in the context of organized interest contributions to U.S. House campaigns. We deduce that support by a partisan community of interests signals the ideological credibility and appeal of a candidate. EPN integration overcomes voter ambiguity surrounding challengers' ideological preferences, and resources provided by these coordinating interest groups promote a consistent message about the candidate. Using data from the 1994-2010 cycles, we apply network analysis to detect EPN support of challengers and find that EPN integration substantially improves the electoral prospects of challengers. The effect of EPN integration is distinct from that of campaign resources. The findings provide support for EPN theory, as applied to congressional elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disagreements over whether polarization exists in the mass public have confounded two separate types of polarization. When social polarization is separated from issue position polarization, both sides of the polarization debate can be simultaneously correct. Social polarization, characterized by increased levels of partisan bias, activism, and anger, is increasing, driven by partisan identity and political identity alignment, and does not require the same magnitude of issue position polarization. The partisan-ideological sorting that has occurred in recent decades has caused the nation as a whole to hold more aligned political identities, which has strengthened partisan identity and the activism, bias, and anger that result from strong identities, even though issue positions have not undergone the same degree of polarization. The result is a nation that agrees on many things but is bitterly divided nonetheless. An examination of ANES data finds strong support for these hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decade, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) became a regional problem in the border area of the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic, involving multiple national and international actors. This article explains why these actors often present diametrically opposed images of the LRA instead of developing a unified vision. More specifically, the article discusses how the Ugandan and Congolese governments and armies, and the US government and advocacy groups, each frame the LRA differently. These various frames are influenced by the actors' interests and by the specific historical development of political relations between them. Politically influential constituencies played a significant role in this endeavour. In the US, lobby groups such as Invisible Children, Enough, and Resolve had an important impact on the way in which the American government framed the LRA. Conversely, the lack of such a powerful constituency in the LRA-affected countries gave these governments ample space to frame the LRA in a variety of ways. The lack of reliable information about the current capacities of the LRA, combined with the LRA's lack of a strong and coherent image, further contributed to this situation. In short, the ways in which the LRA is framed enabled these key actors to pursue goals that may remain distant from the reality of the LRA. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Until World War I, bilateral relations between the United States and Switzerland could be described as rather friendly. Often referred to as 'sister republics,' the two countries shared common democratic values and a sense of uniqueness with respect to their republican governments in a world dominated by autocracy. The first serious rupture between the two countries occurred during and in the immediate aftermath of World War II. The major cause of this rupture was the refusal of Switzerland to participate in the Safehaven program, designed to track down and block German assets in neutral countries and later to use them for post-war reparations. The repercussions of the involvement of Switzerland in the transfer of Nazi gold as well as the safekeeping of German assets had profound consequences for U.S.-Swiss relations in the 1990s, fueling a conflict over the dormant accounts of holocaust victims. All major disagreements between the United States and Switzerland are connected to the concept of Swiss banking secrecy, which is defined in a most rigorous way compared to international legal standards. The implementation of Swiss banking secrecy as defined in Swiss Banking Law facilitates tax misconduct by foreign nationals. Since 2007, the bilateral relations between Switzerland and the U.S. have been determined by ongoing IRS investigations into the involvement of Swiss banks in aiding U.S. citizens in tax evasion and tax fraud, which is facilitated by the enforcement of stringent bank secrecy laws within the Swiss banking system. The U.S. legal actions against Swiss banks proved that the American government is determined to enforce its laws in Switzerland despite it being a sovereign foreign country. The conflicts with the U.S. over banking secrecy, which, among other findings, unveiled the conduct of the Swiss during World War II, have shed light on the true nature of this phenomenon. Switzerland is struggling to defend the values so fundamental to its banking culture, but at the same time it is forced to succumb to international and especially U.S. pressure and implement various internal and international regulations, which impose a constraint on the practice of banking secrecy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on pro bono practices and government agencies in the U.S. in the 21st century. Topics include how these practices can be addressed in the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) Code of Ethics, strategies on how municipalities can lessen the conflicts related to these practices, and regulation governing a private planning firm offering a pro bono service to a government agency.

As the world's two largest economies, the European Union (E.U.) and the United States (U.S.) are dependent on traditional fossil fuels for transportation, and consume more traditional fossil fuels than any other countries, or regions. Hence, for these two regions, dealing with shortages of traditional fossil fuels and battling global climate change are critically important. In recent years, bio-fuel, a much debated and controversial alternative energy source, has been proposed as a solution or a strategic policy tool, in answer to the aforementioned concerns in the transportation sectors of many other countries. The U.S. and the E.U. have developed comprehensive regulations to promote the usage of bio-fuels, such as mandates or direct/indirect subsidies, etc. This article aims to review the history and development of biofuel policies and legislation in U.S. and E.U., such as the "Renewable Energy Directive" and "Renewable Fuel Standard II", and focuses on the sustainable development criteria of biofuel legislation in these regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fundamental right to freedom of religion and belief has been violated throughout the world. Although various American administrations discussed the importance of the right to freedom of religion, this right has often taken a backseat to realism. In addition there is no clear strategy in Washington to promote this right. If Washington developed a long term strategy it would be establishing the foundation so that the right of freedom of religion and belief could develop over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the link between the political influence of the financial industry and financial regulation in the run-up to the global financial crisis. We construct a detailed database documenting the lobbying activities, campaign contributions, and political connections of the financial industry from 1999 to 2006 in the United States. We find evidence that spending on lobbying by the financial industry and network connections between lobbyists and legislators were positively associated with the probability of a legislator changing positions in favor of deregulation. The evidence also suggests that hiring lobbyists who had worked for legislators in the past enhanced this link. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the research on the normalization of European Union ( EU) studies by presenting an analysis and assessment of the EU- US comparative literature. Using an original and comprehensive data set of 104 publications, it shows not only that these comparisons have grown considerably since the early 1990s, but also and more interestingly that EU- US scholarship itself has increasingly conformed to mainstream political science by becoming more diverse, causal in nature and empirically inclusive. Unlike other accounts of normalization, however, it is argued here that these transformations are only partly desirable, and that a better direction for the future is to develop EU- US research as a distinct programme within EU studies, centred on a 'dual mission' - theoretical and empirical - that accepts political science's scope and explanatory objectives, but at the same time sees the two cases as worthy of being studied in isolation owing to their importance and the political value of their comparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

America's race statistics are inadequate to the policy challenges of the twenty-first century, especially for social justice and immigrant incorporation policy. But inertial forces – technical and political – complicate change. Overcome technical barriers by taking advantage of an experiment fielded in 2010. To miss that opportunity would be a huge failure. Political barriers are more difficult. Start with what is familiar – more emphasis on national origin – and add flexibility and granularity, both are politically desirable. Introduce change without disrupting the existing policy practices. Phase in improvements gradually, taking advantage of generational turnover. One generation changes the statistical basis for policy. The next generation, which has grown up with the new statistics, implements the policy changes. An example of how this works is found in the multiple-race option introduced in the 2000 census but probably not put to policy use until after the 2030 census. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses world politics, with a particular focus on attitudes towards and reactions against U.S. power. According to the author, the world is emerging from a unique period of Unipolar Concert, characterized by widespread acceptance of U.S. power and international leadership. Details on increasing counterbalancing and revisionism against U.S. power from countries such as Russia and China are presented. It is suggested that the U.S. must modify its grand strategy in order to adapt to the changing international order. Other topics include the 19th-century political era known as the Concert of Europe, the Cold War, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Political marketing research indicates that brands and branding are a robust aspect of politics. However, little is known of the broader cultural appreciation of political branding. Through a content analysis of major U.S. newspapers over a 40-year period, we provide evidence that the U.S. news media is increasingly aware of political branding. Moreover, we present a typology of media treatment that indicates that the national media in the U.S. increasingly perceive brands and branding in the public sphere as an innate, multifaceted, and effective part of modern politics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite the prominence of the national news media, it is unclear whether elected officials are affected by the national news media in policy-consequential ways because of the difficulty of disentangling the influence of the media on Congress from Congress’s influence on the media. We use a unique opportunity to determine whether position-taking behavior in Congress and the likelihood of reelection is affected by the national news media. Using the fact that the Fox News Channel spread gradually across the United States after being launched in October of 1996 in ways unrelated to the ideology of congressional districts and the incumbent representatives, we show that representatives become less supportive of President Clinton in districts where Fox News begins broadcasting than similar representatives in similar districts where Fox News was not broadcast. Moreover, the effects took a few years to be realized, and the entry of Fox News in a district did not appear to affect which representatives were reelected. Consistent with theories emphasizing the anticipatory actions taken by elected officials to maximize their electoral security in the face of changing electoral conditions, our results suggest that the national media may slightly affect the prospects for policy change by altering representatives’ expectations and the positions that they take. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The quadrennial presidential nominating conventions are the biggest campaign events of the election cycle. Previous studies find that conventions significantly impact national-level candidate preferences; however, scholars have not yet specified the effects that such large campaign events have on residents of the host areas. As fairly uniform and one-sided interventions across years and parties, the conventions offer an opportunity for a cross time, cross-sectional analysis of the local effect of campaign events. We develop a difference-in-difference analysis to show conventions significantly affect the presidential candidates’ county-level vote shares. Individual-level data from panel surveys from before and after the 2000 and 2004 conventions are used to validate the aggregate-level findings. Beyond providing strong evidence of meaningful campaign event effects, the results demonstrate how campaign effects can be conditional on local political characteristics and geography. Overall, we find Democrats are more likely to gain support in convention host communities than Republicans. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Home Box Office's series The Wire (2002-2008) provides an informed critique of the decline of the democratic American ideal of the 'city upon a hill'. From its inception as a police procedural, it expanded its interests across the dystopian city of Baltimore to consider the linkage between drug crimes, policing, the collapse of blue-collar life, social deprivation, institutional compromise, the public school system, media compliance and political self-interest. Therefore, this article will situate The Wire into the debates that have defined the US polity and will discuss how it employs the narrative conventions of a contemporary thriller to offer an alternative view of American democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large partisan congressional 'classes,' once common, have become more the exception than the rule over the past 60 years. Thus, when they come along, as in 1974 and 1994 (and perhaps 2010), they receive a lot of attention. Moreover, they often do help to change the institution of the House in dramatic ways. After a few years, all such classes lose their distinctiveness and meld into the legislative flow of the era. Still, these cohorts may have lasting effects in a host of ways, from movement into House power positions, to successful attempts to run for the Senate in large numbers, to the dispersion of many individuals into the Washington milieu of lobbyists and lawyers, where they can continue to affect policy. This article takes a first cut at how large partisan classes affect the institution of Congress, as well as at the careers of their individual members. Both the 1994 and 1974 cohorts were important as they burst upon the scene. Yet they have had differing impacts as the 'long tail' of these classes continues to make a mark on politics and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Australia's response to the joint Anglo-American effort to expand military facilities on the island of Diego Garcia in early 1970s. The primary emphasis will be on the Whitlam government's rationale behind its diplomatic manoeuvre towards great power rivalries in the Indian Ocean and its supportive position towards the concept of building the Indian Ocean as a peace zone. It argues that the Whitlam government's policy towards the international diplomacy around Diego Garcia contributed to the shaping of a unique Australian foreign policy, one free from attachment to British and American considerations, although still mindful of the need to factor the interests of the UK and the USA into Australia's calculations of its own best interests. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]