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Jubilee 2000 represents a concerted campaign for debt forgiveness of transnational scope and significance. While observers have hailed it a successful transnational movement, few scholars have examined the policy frames that contributed to its agenda-setting and policy success. Furthermore, IR and policy scholars often discount the role of religious actors and discourse in shaping policy agendas. The current research utilizes theories of global social movements (Keck and Sikkink 1998, O’Brien et al. 2003) and policy images (Baumgartner and Jones 1999) to explore 1) the origins of the debt forgiveness movement and 2) the content of the policy images that catapulted the issue onto public agendas. The scriptural basis of Jubilee, not to mention the policy goal of forgiveness, dictates an analysis of its premier religious actor â€" the Catholic Church.Assuming that the religious framing of Jubilee affected the responses of policy venues with agenda-setting power, how did the Catholic Church contribute to movement success? Given the Catholic Church’s theological (centuries-old teachings on social and economic justice) and political (selective forays into governmental issues) resources, did the debt forgiveness movement originate with a religious institution and religious actors?Utilizing content analysis, this project will demonstrate how religious actors provide ready moral frameworks from which to launch global social movements. Analysis is inclusive of primary documents from Jubilee 2000 Coalition UK, the Vatican, G-8 summits, World Bank, IMF, US Congress, and UK Parliament; and of media reports from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Economist, and the BBC. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the electoral capture phenomenon, a group-based heuristic remains the norm in black politics. If cues for black political decision-making are not based in individualistic action frames, but collective ones, we might expect the salience of the civil rights frame to endure in the black political realm. What does the black policy agenda of civic elites and the policy pronouncements of black church pastors reveal about the salience of the civil rights frame? The current project emerges out of a broader study concerning the role of black pastors in black politics. Specifically, the research focuses upon how policy images of the Faith-Based and Community Initiative as crafted by black church and civic elites affect the black policy agenda. Accordingly, the findings and conclusion will consider how the civil rights frame relates to the Faith-Based and Community Initiative. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Presidential power in an era of divided government”. While this may sound paradoxical, the modern governmental context highlights the reality of this statement. Given the modern political environment where public opinion is the currency of individualized pluralism, Samuel Kernell (1997) claims that ‘going public’ represents the most effective strategy for presidential influence. Paul Light (1999) asserts that agenda setting can be a formidable source of presidential influence: “…control of the agenda becomes a primary tool for securing and extending power” (2). Although a rich agenda setting literature exists which is frequently utilized to examine congressional policy making and its subsequent implications for representation writ large (e.g. Cobb and Elder 1983; Kingdon 1984; Baumgartner and Jones 1993), studies of presidential agenda setting are more sparse (Light 1999; Cohen 1995). The presidencies of Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon present a unique opportunity to explore problem definition and agenda setting in the context of the domestic policy arena. Intriguing aspects of the policy process are overlooked when scholars myopically hone in on the legislative branch to the (relative) exclusion of the executive branch. This paper endeavors to illuminate the important role that two presidents played in setting the welfare reform agenda. As such, an exploration of Nixon’s Family Assistance Plan as a case of policy failure and Clinton’s Welfare Reform as a case of policy success will undoubtedly shed new theoretical insight and raise questions for future research in the areas of problem definition and presidential agenda setting. Indeed, these two policy cases amply demonstrate the inseparability of the concepts of problem definition and agenda setting. Finally, a ‘window of opportunity’ exists to test different theories of agenda setting for efficacy with regard to the president. A perusal of presidential rhetoric, in the form of speeches, press releases, and other public statements, will be utilized to determine the extent to which welfare reform permeated Nixon and Clinton’s public strategies. Furthermore, Deborah Stone’s theory of causal stories will serve as an analytical framework whereby an examination of competing efforts to define the problem both within and outside the presidential arena will be conducted. Since the initial framing and definition of a policy problem has a significant impact on the shape and tenor of a policy, presidential agenda setting has real implications for public opinion concerning and congressional estimations about public policies, particularly salient ones like welfare reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most, if not all, candidate quality measures have heretofore been underspecified, lacked empirical justification, or both. In the following article, we aim to correct these problems by presenting a model of electoral outcomes that accounts for the specific influences of the many attributes that compose candidate quality. To test our hypotheses, we explore candidate quality in open seat House elections. Unlike models that misspecify candidate quality by relying upon political experience alone as the key explanatory variable, we assert that candidate quality is a multifaceted variable. Furthermore, we maintain that not all political offices are created equal. Having occupied some offices contributes to electoral success more than having occupied other offices. As scholars have sought to account for this fact by quantifying the weights of various experiences, they have tended to assign arbitrary weights which lack empirical justification. Thus, we posit the necessity of a new model, one that accounts for the versatile nature of candidate quality as well as the relative value of quality characteristics. Our findings reveal that certain attributes of candidate quality are more important than having held prior elective office. This discovery is essential because it repudiates the popular notion that prior elective office is the primary attribute of candidate quality. Some of our findings concerning the relative weights of candidate experience measures are counterintuitive, both to conventional wisdom and to past models of candidate quality. For example, the experience afforded by a previous congressional run is less important than past studies would lead one to believe. Furthermore, and most importantly, we find partisan differences in candidate quality. For instance, the attributes that constitute a quality Democratic candidate are not equivalent to the qualities that constitute a quality Republican candidate. Contrary to most analyses, we find that Republican candidates tend to be of higher quality than Democratic candidates. These findings pose a challenge for extant measures of candidate quality, such as the Jacobson dichotomous variable and the Krasno-Green index, and the studies that employ these measures. By devising and testing a new candidate quality model, we demonstrate that the model is as robust a model as any measure of candidate quality regularly used in the literature. This study is also longitudinal, as it compares open seat elections from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. We find that candidate quality, while still an important factor as it relates to electoral success, has become less important over time. Finally, we explore the emergence of quality candidates. Similar to previous studies on open seat House elections, we find that while national economic tides have little impact on candidate emergence, Republican candidates tend to be more sensitive in their decisions to run for office to shifts in presidential popularity than their Democratic counterparts. However, the most consistent predictor of candidate emergence for candidates of both parties is the partisan history of the district. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religion is a key source of political activism for African-Americans (Verba, Schlozman, Brady 1995; Putnam 2000). Indeed, religion and politics in the black church milieu are inseparable (Lincoln and Mamaya 1990). As such, one might expect to find high levels of black mobilization around a public policy initiative targeted at ameliorating the ills of the African-American community by utilizing one of civil society’s most potent forces, the black church. The Faith-Based and Community Initiative provides an opportunity to explore the nuances of African-American political mobilization and elite agenda setting within the context of the black church. Indeed, this fledgling policy affords the opportunity to explore and test the conventional wisdom with regard to African-American religion and politics (high levels of pastoral influence and extensive intermingling of piety and politics), not to mention the extent of black influence on the political agenda. The current research explores black attitudes toward government funding of faith-based service delivery while keeping in mind the contextual nuances that flavor black politics and black policy mobilization. What factors account for high levels of African-American support for Charitable Choice yet low levels of enthusiasm about the new and improved Faith-Based and Community Initiative? How were black church elite attitudes expressed during the agenda setting phase of the Faith-Based and Community Initiative? How are these attitudes currently expressed? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most, if not all, candidate quality measures have heretofore been underspecified, lacked empirical justification, or both. In the following article, we aim to correct these problems by presenting a model of electoral outcomes that accounts for the specific influences of the many attributes that compose candidate quality. Unlike models which misspecify candidate quality by relying on political experience alone as the key explanatory variable, we assert that candidate quality is a multifaceted variable. Furthermore, we maintain that not all political offices are created equal. Having occupied some offices contributes to electoral success more than having occupied other offices. As scholars have sought to account for this fact by quantifying the weights of various experiences, they have tended to assign arbitrary weights which lack empirical justification. Thus, we posit the necessity of a new model, one which accounts for the versatile nature of candidate quality as well as the relative value of quality characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research focuses on black political churches outside what is traditionally defined as the black church milieu (e.g. black Baptists, AME and COGIC). Political churches deem "political awareness and activity as salient pieces of their identity" (McClerking and McDaniel 2005, 723).The tendency of scholars to focus on historically black denominations in defining black political churches is logical, but leaves black church prophets in non-black denominations in scholarly limbo. First, black political churches in non-black denominations may have different theological motivations for political participation than those in black denominations. Second, given the historical roots of some black political churches in non-black denominations, mobilization strategies may differ from those in black denominations. Third, in large urban areas, a number of black political churches are megachurches affiliated with non-black denominations. Including these churches will help answer whether megachurches represent a countervailing trend in black political activism (Harris et al. 2005).The local environment frames the activities of black political churches. This study examines two black political churches in non-black denominations in Chicago to 1) determine the theological orientation of pastors of black political churches in non-black denominations and 2) explore the types of political activity undertaken by black political churches in non-black denominations. To what extent is black liberation theology evident in black political churches in non-black denominations? Does denominational identity outside the black church ambit shape the political activities of these churches? Methods include participant observation at political churches, content analysis of pastoral messages, interviews with pastors, and a brief survey. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization challenges scholars of domestic religion and politics to think outside of the framework of American institutions. Extant literature on the black church and politics tends to focus upon local, state, and national activism. The tendency in black political studies to delineate the subfield by the Civil Rights movement exacerbates the tendency to look for cues for black political dynamics in the domestic realm. While this can lead scholars to view the black church as an important source of political efficacy in the American political realm, it can deflect our attention from how black religionists engage issues of global import. In their pastoral rhetoric, mission foci, and emphases, do black pastors in the United States link black socioeconomic fortunes at home to the state of affairs in Africa?.x000d.The political participation literature affirms that blacks view their political fortunes as intertwined with those of the larger group. Do black pastors, link black economic fortunes at home to the state of the African brother and sister? The CBC successfully used this strategy to secure sanctions against South Africa. .x000d.The current study will utilize interviews with black pastors to discern economic rhetoric. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research utilizes theories of global social movements and policy images to explore the origins of the debt forgiveness movement and the content of the policy images that catapulted the issue onto public agendas. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The black pastor conveys messages that shape the black policy agenda. The Faith-Based and Community Initiative provides an opportunity to explain the nuances of black agenda setting vis-à-vis the black church. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]