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2. Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution, John Paul Stevens
- Author:
- Geoffrey R. Stone
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- The U.S. Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times. Twenty-five of those amendments were designed in one way or another to improve the text of the Constitution. Only two of those amendments were designed to override what the nation deemed an erroneous interpretation of the Constitution by the Supreme Court. The Eleventh Amendment, adopted in 1798, overrode the Court's decision in Chisolm v. Georgia (1793), which had held that a citizen of South Carolina could sue the State of Georgia. The Sixteenth Amendment, adopted in 1913, overrode the Court's decision in Pollock v. Farmers Loan and Trust Co. (1895), which had held unconstitutional the federal income tax. On average, then, the nation has amended the Constitution in order to override Supreme Court interpretations of the Constitution roughly once every 112 years. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19319#sthash.6zb3UPfi.dpuf
- Political Geography:
- United States
3. More Women Can Run: Gender and Pathways to the State Legislatures, Susan J. Carroll and Kira Sanbonmatsu
- Author:
- Karen Beckwith
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Why are there so few women in legislative office in the United States? Recog¬nizing that electoral politics in the United States is “far from gender-neutral territory” (p. 61), Susan J. Carroll and Kira Sanbonmatsu engage this question by considering major changes in women's election to state legislative office, where women's representation continues to be low, and is declining in the new millennium, with women's legislative numbers driven primarily by the success of Democratic women. At the state legislative level, Republican women are being closed out of office, even where the Republican Party has been increasingly successful overall. Why are men so over-represented in state legislatures? Why is women's representation declining? Why have Republican women been increasingly less successful in winning election to state legislative office than have their Democratic sisters? - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19320#sthash.nhWH74y2.dpuf
- Political Geography:
- United States
4. Financing Medicaid: Federalism and the Growth of America's Health Care Safety Net, Shanna Rose
- Author:
- Frank J. Thompson
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- In a well-written and insightful volume, Shanna Rose has joined a growing number of scholars in assessing the remarkable rise of Medicaid in the American health care system. Thought to be subject to erosion because of the forces of interstate economic competition and because a “program for the poor is a poor program,” Medicaid has instead expanded. The program now insures more than 70 million people and costs federal and state governments well over $400 billion annually. Viewed by many in 1965 as a down-at-the-heels second cousin to Medicare that would fade away with the coming of national health insurance, Medicaid instead became a key plank in Obamacare in 2010. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19321#sthash.ALrrwILZ.dpuf
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States
5. The Pathologies of Power: Fear, Honor, Glory, and Hubris in U.S. Foreign Policy, Christopher J. Fettweis
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Books about improving U.S. foreign policy are a dime a dozen. But in The Pathologies of Power, Christopher Fettweis offers an unusual take on what he sees as the subpar foreign policy performance of the planet's sole superpower. Fettweis claims that U.S. foreign policy is driven by four pathological beliefs—fear, honor, glory, and hubris—that lead to poor policymaking. The book devotes a chapter to each of the beliefs that Fettweis contends account for foreign policy disasters like the Iraq war and the Vietnam war. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19323#sthash.zyK7HBZX.dpuf
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
6. Civil Disobedience: An American Tradition, Lewis Perry
- Author:
- Charles Disalvo
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Lewis Perry offers this intriguing history of civil disobedience in the United States. In it, he argues that a distinct and robust American tradition of civil disobedience has had a repeated and significant influence in forcing our institutions to rectify “the systematic inequality of power.” His sweep is wide. He does not simply examine the great social movements that are familiar to students of civil disobedience—the movements against slavery and conscrip¬tion and for the rights of women and workers—but he also introduces the reader to the unfamiliar—disobedience deployed in the movement against Indian removal and in defense of religious freedom in colonial America. He not only expands our understanding of Henry David Thoreau, Susan B. Anthony, and Martin Luther King, Jr., but also acquaints us for the first time with Angelina Grimke and Albert Gallatin Riddle. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19327#sthash.MylTyXYB.dpuf
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
7. Fictive Kinship, Catherine Lee
- Author:
- Peter J. Spiro
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Almost two thirds of legal immigrants to the United States qualify as relatives of U.S. citizens or existing permanent resident aliens. As Catherine Lee observes in Fictive Kinship, “family appears to be a firmly entrenched, privileged category in American immigration policy” (p. 101). Across the political spectrum, there has been broad agreement for the last half century that family unification is a core objective of immigration policy. This study asks important questions about an understudied but central element of the country's immigration story. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19328#sthash.XhJuN99X.dpuf
- Political Geography:
- United States
8. Model Immigrants and Undesirable Aliens: The Cost of Immigration Reform in the 1990s, Christina Gerken
- Author:
- Maddalena Marinari
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Christina Gerken makes a critical contribution to our knowledge of the debate over immigration reform in the recent past. Her detailed and richly documented analysis of the content and social implications of the debate that led to critical changes to the American immigration system provides the most¬detailed discussion to date of the immigration reform discourse of the mid-1990s. Through the lens of critical-race theory and neoliberalism, Gerken analyzes how the passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the Personal Responsibility Act, and the Illegal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibility Act during the administration of Bill Clinton profoundly reshaped the rights and responsibilities of immigrants in the United States. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19330#sthash.F2iED60M.dpuf
- Topic:
- Immigration and Reform
- Political Geography:
- United States
9. Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
- Author:
- Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Our America is about turning perspectives upside down. It is about reading self-satisfying narratives of the past irreverently, mockingly, unsparingly. It is about elucidating the political work that History, with a capital H, does. History creates myths that move and inspire, but it also creates myths that silence. Our America is a book about myths: the fountain of youth, the cities of Cibola, the pursuit of King Arthur, the realm of Queen Calafia, the curse of Zorro, the revenge of Moroni, the republic of Hesperus. Our America narrates the history of the United States from the perspective of the South, rather than the East. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19331#sthash.vdZhAyqB.dpuf
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
10. Malcolm X at Oxford Union: Racial Politics in a Global Era, Saladin Ambar
- Author:
- Felix Germain
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- In this well-written book, Saladin Ambar adds substance to the extensive literature on Malcolm X. Retracing the steps of Malcolm X in France and England, where he debated at the Oxford Student Society, Ambar contends that the debate comprises the foundation of Malcolm X's political philosophy, particularly the one he espoused at the end of his life. Indeed, during this important debate, not only did Malcolm X outline a notion of humanity based on a universal principal of equality, but he also described the struggle for equality in the United States, Europe, and Africa as an emancipatory process for both the oppressor and the oppressed. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19336#sthash.O9m49nRo.dpuf
- Topic:
- Politics
- Political Geography:
- Africa, United States, Europe, and England
11. Coming of Political Age: American Schools and the Civic Development of Immigrant Youth, Rebecca M. Callahan and Chandra Muller
- Author:
- Sara Z. Poggio
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- In this insightful study, Rebecca M. Callahan and Chandra Muller show the importance of the national educational system of the United States in the social and civic integration of children of immigrants—one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population. The relevance of education, and public education in particular, has been highlighted, as mentioned by the authors, in the education program “No Child Left Behind,” initiated by President George W. Bush in 2001 and in “Race to the Top.” one of several programs initiated by the administration of Barack Obama. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19338#sthash.ik0TWfYQ.dpuf
- Topic:
- Development, Education, Politics, and Immigration
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
12. How Change Happens—Or Doesn't: The Politics of U.S. Public Policy, Elaine C. Kamarck
- Author:
- Rob A. Deleo
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- From streams theory to the punctuated equilibrium model to the advocacy coalition framework, “policy change” is one of the most heavily theorized topics in the subfield of public policy. Elaine Kamarck's How Change Happens—Or Doesn't: The Politics of US Public Policy provides an insider's view of policy change, forgoing rigid empiricism in lieu of a more applied investigation. How Change Happens is essentially a “how to” guide for policy entrepreneurs, identifying the various political levers, players, norms, and processes that drive or stunt large-scale reform. Kamarck argues that policy change is an inherently complex and unpredictable process—often resulting from sheer luck—that cannot be explained via a single unifying academic model. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19339#sthash.9K9Ebu5z.dpuf
- Topic:
- Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States
13. The Education of an Anti-Imperialist: Robert La Follette and U.S. Expansion, Richard Drake
- Author:
- Edward Rhodes
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- “History,” Winston Churchill is reported to have observed, “is written by the vic¬tors.” The losers, if they are lucky enough to avoid vilification, are airbrushed out. When it comes to our understanding of American foreign policies of the first four decades of the twentieth century, the history-writing victors have, for the most part, been liberal internationalists. Democrats and Republicans alike, in the wake of the Second World War, concluded that the task of making the world safe for America demanded active, global U.S. politico-military engagement. In the name of liberal international institutions, Washington's “Farewell” injunctions against entangling alliances would be consigned to the waste bin of quaint anachronisms.- See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19341#sthash.wG3JMQox.dpuf
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Education, and War
- Political Geography:
- United States and Washington
14. America Inc? Innovation and Enterprise in the National Security State, Linda Weiss
- Author:
- Mark Zachary Taylor
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- This dense, powerful volume offers profound insights into the U.S. innovation system and its driving forces. The driving forces are Americans' twin desires for technology-based military supremacy (which demands government action) and small government (which militates against it). These twin forces have produced a highly successful, ever-evolving, and unique set of federal institutions and policies, which Linda Weiss calls the “national security state” (NSS). The NSS is the secret to American innovation. Since World War II, it has dominated high-risk innovation, revolutionary technological change, and the formation of new S industries. Weiss's book also reveals that the NSS is not static, but changes in response to changes in perceived geopolitical threats and to shifts in popular anti-statist sentiments. The book explains why the NSS came about, how it works, and glimpses its future. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19346#sthash.kIPIPtW6.dpuf
- Topic:
- Security and Government
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
15. No Use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security, Thomas M. Nichols
- Author:
- Todd S. Sechser
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- At around 5,000 total warheads, the U.S. nuclear stockpile today is a fraction of its former self. One therefore might presume that U.S. nuclear doctrine has undergone an equally significant transformation since the end of the Cold War. Thomas M. Nichols disabuses readers of this notion, showing how the machinery of “mutual assured destruction” remains predominant even though the world that spawned this doctrine disappeared with the Soviet Union. But this doctrine is now obsolete, Nichols argues. Deterrence no longer requires—if it ever did—an expansive nuclear inventory with diverse delivery platforms, a launch-on-warning alert posture, and convoluted targeting plans. In Nichols's view, a pocket-sized nuclear deterrent would be adequate. Yet U.S. strategy remains saddled with the costly baggage of an arms competition that ended a quarter-century ago. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19347#sthash.Giq99dtz.dpuf
- Topic:
- Security, Cold War, and Nuclear Weapons
- Political Geography:
- United States and Soviet Union
16. Candidate Emergence Revisited: The Lingering Effects of Recruitment, Ambition, and Successful Prospects among House Candidates
- Author:
- L. Sandy Maisel and Walter Stone
- Publication Date:
- 09-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- IN THE SUMMER OF 2013, MORE THAN A YEAR before the filing deadline for congressional candidates in most states, political commentators were already conceding most races for the U.S. House of Representatives to one party or the other. Only about 10 percent of House races were deemed to be in play by the Cook Political Report and the Rothenberg Political Report, the two sources on which most political analysts rely for district-by-district assessments. Why were so few districts thought to be in play? One reason is because one party–in the vast majority of cases, the party not holding the seat in the 113 Congress–was unable to field a strong candidate. That explanation raises questions about why strong potential candidates who might be able to mount a viable campaign may be reluctant to throw their hats into the ring.
- Political Geography:
- United States
17. Acting White? Rethinking Race in Post-Racial America
- Author:
- Jennifer L. Hochschild
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- The number of publications arguing that the United States is not post-racial despite twice electing Barack Obama to the presidency is many orders of magnitude greater than the number of publications claiming that the United States is post-racial. In fact, it is difficult to find anyone asserting post-raciality beyond one New York Times Magazine article and a few Fox News commentators around the 2008 election. Nevertheless, attacks on the purportedly common assumption continue.
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, and Germany
18. He Runs, She Runs: Why Gender Stereotypes Do Not Harm Women Candidates
- Author:
- Jessica Robinson Preece
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- The conventional wisdom, as understood by campaign strategists and the media, is that being a woman is a liability in electoral politics. Female candidates face an impossible task—they must convey the toughness, competence, and confidence of a politician, while simultaneously conveying the warmth and modesty of a lady. Consequently, it is much more difficult for women to successfully navigate a political campaign. Anecdotal evidence supporting this conventional wisdom is easy to find. However, systematic evidence is scarce. Is it possible that the conventional wisdom is just plain wrong? Deborah Jordan Brooks contends that it is.
- Political Geography:
- United States
19. Afghanistan from the Cold War through the War on Terror
- Author:
- Paul D. Miller
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- If anyone has earned the right to say "I told you so," it is Barnett Rubin. One of the foremost authorities on Afghanistan, Rubin saw earlier than most the dangers emerging from that blighted land. In his work–as author of The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, an adviser to the United Nations for several years after 2001, a professor at New York University, and an adviser to the U.S. State Department's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan from 200–Rubin worked to warn against, prevent, and mitigate the perennial crises afflicting Afghanistan and South Asia.
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, and South Asia
20. Conceptualizing Containment: The Iranian Threat and the Future of Gulf Security
- Author:
- Zachary K. Goldman and Mira Rapp-Hooper
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- ZACHARY K. GOLDMAN and MIRA RAPP-HOOPER discuss American security interests in the Persian Gulf region and the prospects for effective cooperation among Gulf states to contain Iran. They find that it is unlikely that the United States will be able to establish a containment regime that relies upon the Gulf Cooperation Council and that informal, bilateral ties to states in the region are a preferable policy recourse. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19163#sthash.yMWmTk6Q.dpuf
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- United States and Iran
21. Contesting the U.S. Constitution through State Amendments: The 2011 and 2012 Elections
- Author:
- Sean Beienburg
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- SEAN BEIENBURG examines attempts at amending state constitutions in the 2011 and 2012 elections and finds that they were efforts to influence the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. He argues that some elected state officials see themselves as legitimate challengers of Supreme Court decisions. In addition, he finds that national interest groups use state constitutions as platforms for federal constitutional politics, and that such efforts were predominantly, though not exclusively, conservative in the last two election cycles.
- Topic:
- Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States
22. Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American
- Author:
- H.W. Brands
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Having elsewhere assessed the structural forces that shaped America's rise to global power, Joseph Nye now turns to the personal elements. What role, he asks, did individuals, in particular presidents, play in the twentieth-century emergence of the United States as the arbiter of world affairs? Nye finds wanting the existing literature on presidential leadership as overemphasizing "transformational" presidents and blurring the line between presidential ethics and presidential efficacy.
- Political Geography:
- United States and Germany
23. Early Start: Preschool Politics in the United States
- Author:
- William T. Gormley, Jr.
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- In 1971, Senator Walter Mondale introduced an ambitious Comprehensive Child Development Act that passed both houses of Congress. It was promptly vetoed by President Richard Nixon, who denounced it as an endorsement of "communal approaches to child rearing" (p. 82). Andrew Karch believes that this "watershed" moment had profound, lasting effects on preschool politics in the United States.
- Political Geography:
- United States
24. Faith Based: Religious Neoliberalism and the Politics of Welfare in the United States
- Author:
- David K. Ryden
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- American conservatism has long been challenged by the simmering tensions between its libertarian and socioreligious wings. In Faith Based, Jason Hackworth examines the merging of these two strands of conservatism into what he calls religious neoliberalism, and the consequent policy impact on American social welfare provision. His central thesis is that neoliberalism- with its "overwhelming emphasis on the individual," a quasiâ?religious belief in the market, and the conviction that the state will only impede both-has limited appeal as a standâ?alone ideology, and can only affect policy when attached to other movements that legitimize it and amplify its influence. Since the Reagan era, one such vehicle has been American evangelicalism. Hackworth weaves together a variety of methods-a reading of National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) policy resolutions, content analysis of Christianity Today, and select case studies of faithâ?based welfare provision-to demonstrate how religious rhetoric and theology have been employed to soften the hardâ?edged antiâ?statism of neoliberalism, thus sanctifying neoliberal attacks on our social welfare system. Hackworth's ultimate conclusions are nuanced. While neoliberalism and evangelicalism have been mutually reinforcing, Hackworth finds both to be "partial," and suggests that inherent contradictions will test their longâ?term compatibility and limit the future reach of religious neoliberalism.
- Political Geography:
- United States
25. The Role of Villain: Iran and U.S. Foreign Policy
- Author:
- Paul R. Pillar
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN HAS BECOME, in two senses, an extraordinary preoccupation of the United States. One sense is that Iran is the subject of a strikingly large proportion of discourse about U.S. foreign policy. American pundits and politicians repeatedly mention Iran, usually with specific reference to its nuclear program, as among the biggest threats the United States faces. Republican nominee Mitt Romney, when asked in the last presidential debate of the 2012 campaign what was the single greatest future threat to U.S. national security, replied "a nuclear Iran." For politicians of both major U.S. political parties, expressions of concern about Iran and of the need to confront it have become a required catechism. The U.S. Congress has spent much time on such expressions and on imposing with lopsided votes ever broader economic sanctions on Iran. Frequent and evidently serious references are made to launching a military attack against Iran, even though such an attack- an act of aggression-would probably mean a war with heavy costs and damage to U.S. interests and probably would stimulate the very development of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it ostensibly would be designed to preclude.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States and Iran
26. From Cold War to Hot Peace: The Habit of American Force
- Author:
- Richard K. Betts
- Publication Date:
- 09-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- WHEN THE UNITED STATES BECAME MORE SECURE, it became more forceful. Since the Cold War ended, it has spent far more than any other country or coalition to build armed forces; it has sent forces into combat more frequently than it did in the era of much bigger threats to national security; and it has done so much more often than any other country. The United States has been, quite simply, “the most militarily active state in the world.” To many in the mainstream of American politics, this is as it should be, because the United States has the right and responsibility to lead the world—or push it—in the right direction. To others, more alarmed by the pattern, U.S. behavior has evolved into “permanent war.”
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- United States
27. Hegemony in International Society
- Author:
- Carla Norrlof
- Publication Date:
- 09-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Is legitimacy necessary for hegemony? This question was thrown into sharp relief under the George W. Bush administration, when the United States was generally seen as having the capacity, and resolve, to pursue its own agenda in complete disregard of other states' preferences. Controversially, Ian Clark claims that American hegemony was already lost in the 1970s. And because America never regained legitimacy, it could not bring back the hegemony it once had, despite material primacy.
- Political Geography:
- United States and Europe
28. Partisan Balance: Why Political Parties Don't Kill the U.S. Constitutional System
- Author:
- Paul Frymer
- Publication Date:
- 09-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- The Constitution of the United States provides the federal government with 536 elected officials who come from 536 different electoral districts. David Mayhew asks whether this constitutional system is democratically fair. Given the 536 differently constituted and independent electoral bases, there is a real potential for what Mayhew labels both "dissonance" and "skew" in terms of which voters are represented by government activity.
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- United States
29. Selling Fear: Counterterrorism, the Media, and Public Opinion
- Author:
- Montague Kern
- Publication Date:
- 09-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Brigitte L. Nacos, Yaeli Bloch-Elkon, and Robert Y. Shapiro present a new way to link content analysis of terrorism-related news stories to how the U.S. public thinks about terrorism, focusing on television news stories and statements about terrorism developed by major political actors in the United States and abroad.
- Topic:
- Terrorism
- Political Geography:
- Africa and United States
30. U.S. Presidents and Foreign Policy Mistakes, Stephen G. Walker and Akan Malici; Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security
- Author:
- Robert Jervis
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- If perfect policies and complete foresight are beyond us, perhaps we can at least minimize mistakes and reduce uncertainty. These are the objectives of the two books under review. Of course this is not new, and the fact—if it is a fact—that things have not gotten much better might lead us to wonder if even these somewhat-modest objectives can be reached. General Carl Von Clausewitz's comment may still apply: “We know more, but this makes us more, not less uncertain.”
- Political Geography:
- United States
31. The China Card: Playing Politics with Sino-American Relations
- Author:
- Peter Trubowitz and Jungkun Seo
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Perhaps no country will figure more prominently in America's future than China. China's rapid ascent is already an issue on Capitol Hill, and with over 50 percent of Americans worried about the implications of China's rise for the United States, relations with China are a hot-button electoral issue. Indeed, the 2010 midterm election campaign witnessed a flurry of anti-Chinese television ads, linking America's economic troubles to China's emergence as an economic powerhouse. The most memorable of these was the so-called Chinese Professor ad, which depicted a China-dominated future in which confident Chinese intellectuals chuckle over America's relative decline. Alarmed by the spread of "Sinophobia," China responded in early 2011 by launching its own media blitz in the United States, hoping to soften its image among American voters.
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, and America
32. Skeletons in White House Closets: A Discussion of Modern Presidential Scandals
- Author:
- Brandon Rottinghaus and Scott Basinger
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Undoubtedly, we live in a period of media-stoked scandal. Actorsʼ and actressesʼ substance abuse, arrests, affairs, divorces, racially insensitive remarks, and indiscretions dominate entertainment news. Athletesʼ steroid abuse, drunk-driving arrests, extra-marital affairs, and extra-legal enterprises feature prominently in sports news. We should hardly be surprised to also find political news filled with scandals. Countless stories have addressed one governorʼs attempt to sell vacant Senate seats, anotherʼs international trips for extra-marital trysts, and anotherʼs penchant for escorts. Presidential candidates have been caught having affairs, fathering children out of wedlock, and raising “slush funds” of cash for personal expenses. Executive branch and judicial nominees have been exposed for cheating on their taxes, cheating on their spouses, sexually harassing their staffs, and hiring undocumented workers. Members of Congress have been caught accepting bribes, employing escorts, sexually harassing pages and staff members, and engaging in embarrassing communications online.
- Political Geography:
- United States and Washington
33. Identity Politics and Policy Disputes in U.S.–Korea Relations
- Author:
- Gi-Wook Shin
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Anti-American sentiments and slogans swept South Korea during its 2002 presidential campaign. These movements were not new for the country, but for the first time, they had a crucial impact on its alliance with the United States. A second North Korean nuclear stand-off had just occurred, and candidate Roh Moo Hyunʼs vows to continue engagement with the North, despite the crisis, were clearly at odds with the George W. Bush administrationʼs desire to isolate Pyongyang. In the past, such a threat would have led the South to consolidate its alliance with the United States for reasons of national security. Also preceding the 2002 election, a massive wave of anti-American sentiment had erupted in response to the handling of a U.S. military training accident that killed two Korean schoolgirls: Catholic priests went on a hunger strike, and tens of thousands of Koreans—not just activists but middle-class adults—protested against the United States.1 According to a 2003 Pew survey, aside from certain Arab states, France, and Russia, South Korea was identified as one of the most anti-American countries.2 A 2004 RAND report likewise showed that many South Koreansʼ previously positive views of the United States had become increasingly unfavorable.3 As new progressive, nationalist policy elites sought to reassess the U.S. role in inter-Korean relations and unification, the rationale for the alliance was being questioned and became a subject of intense debate within the South.
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, South Korea, North Korea, France, and Korea
34. Islamist Terrorism and Democracy in the Middle East
- Author:
- Elena Mastors
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Democracy will save the Middle East. This perspective was promulgated for eight years by the administration of George W. Bush, and because of it, the United States became embroiled in two long-term conflicts in the Middle East and South Asia, spent billions of dollars on the war on terrorism, restructured the intelligence and homeland security communities, and passed legislation at home that many believe negatively impacted our civil liberties. Because of this, we want to believe that it was worth the lives lost and the flagrant spending that had a significant impact on our economic situation today. In her scholarly book, Islamist Terrorism and Democracy in the Middle East,Katerina Dalacoura asks whether "a convincing case can be made that Islamist terrorism in the Middle East has political causes stemming from non-democratic or authoritarian structures" (p. 23). The author presents a convincing argument that political causes are not the strongest explanation for Islamist terrorism.
- Political Geography:
- United States, South Asia, and Middle East
35. Peace Before Freedom: Diplomacy and Repression in Sadat's Egypt
- Author:
- Jason Brownlee
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- The Egyptian – Israeli Peace Treaty of April 1979 capped four major wars and inaugurated a new U.S. – Egyptian relationship. Henceforth, U.S. presidents would regard the Egyptian – Israeli treaty as a cornerstone of American interests and values in the region. In 2003, President George W. Bush recognized Egypt as a trailblazer of peace and urged the country to “ show the way toward democracy in the Middle East. ” 1 The remark spoke to Washington ʼ s success reconciling historic adversaries and its ostensible hope for political reform in Cairo. Between the U.S. and Egyptian governments, though, peace and democracy had been at odds since the treaty ʼ s drafting. The autocratic prerogatives of President Anwar Sadat (r. 1970 – 1981) were a sine qua non of successful bargaining. Negotiators on all sides presupposed tight policing within Egypt. At this crossroads of diplomacy and domestic poli- tics, Sadat fused international peace and internal repression.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, Middle East, and Egypt
36. How Wars End: Why We Always Fight the Last Battle
- Author:
- Robert Litwak
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- “ Tell me, how does this end? ” General David Petraeus famously asked in 2003 as the rapid toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime by U.S. forces was giving rise to a deadly insurgency in Iraq. In his sweeping study of American wars from World War I to Iraq — an amalgam of history, “ neoclassical ” realist theory, and policy prescription — Gideon Rose elucidates how the country ʼ s leaders have not adequately met “ the Clauswitzian challenge ” of planning for the post-war period even as they are conducting military operations against an adversary.
- Political Geography:
- United States and Iraq
37. China, the United States, and Global Order, Rosemary Foot and Andrew Walter
- Author:
- Allen Carlson
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- China's relationship with the rest of the world is increasingly pivotal to the existing international order, and progressively more complex. Yet, academics and policymakers alike have found it exceedingly difficult to come to terms with these trends. In contrast, Rosemary Foot and Andrew Walter's remarkable China, the United States, and Global Order comprehensively elucidates the main dynamics within contemporary Chinese (and American) foreign policy, and does so in a manner that is both conceptually sophisticated and empirically rich. The book weaves together three broad issues: global governance, great-power politics, and international regimes. It asks to what degree China and the United States have contributed to the contemporary global order, how much both actors are constrained by this production (and its attendant international regimes), and to what extent their relationship with each other is both framed by, while at the same time constitutive of, such a construct.
- Political Geography:
- United States and China
38. Why Iowa? How the Caucuses and Sequential Elections Improve the Presidential Nominating Process
- Author:
- Christopher Hull
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- The 2012 presidential race is well under way, and with it comes a groundbreaking study of the Iowa caucuses and the U.S. nomination system. Why Iowa is fascinating, rich in new gems unearthed in its data that will substantially advance the U.S. presidential nomination literature.
- Political Geography:
- United States
39. Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War
- Author:
- Loch K. Johnson
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Anything on intelligence written by Robert Jervis is worth reading. This volume is certainly no exception. In this instance, he takes on the difficult job of trying to understand why the United States, despite spending $80 billion on intelligence each year, still makes mistakes in predicting the trajectory of world affairs.
- Political Geography:
- United States and Iraq
40. Going Local: Presidential Leadership in the Post-Broadcast Age
- Author:
- Martin Johnson
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- This ambitious book focuses on presidential activities in the contemporary political environment that Jeffrey Cohen characterizes as marked by polarized political parties in Congress and fragmented mass media. Building on his own work (for example, the recent The Presidency in the Era of 24-Hour News) and the contextual theory that Samuel Kernell develops in the classic Going Public, Cohen connects presidential behavior to the organization of Congress and the mass media. As the shift from congressional institutional pluralism(which Cohen identifies as prevailing 1953–1969 [p. 43]) to individual pluralism (1970–1988) helps explain presidentsʼ increased emphasis on public activities covered by national media, so more-recent changes in political context have affected presidentsʼ public behavior. Cohen argues that congressional polarization and media fragmentation (1989–present) help explain recent presidential efforts to more narrowly target constituencies via interest groups and local media. As an example of this tactical shift, Cohen notes President George W. Bushʼs schedule of domestic travel to circumvent his “national Pooh-Bahs” (p. 2) and build support for legislative initiatives.
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, Israel, Soviet Union, and Egypt
41. The United States and the Rise of China: Implications for the Long Haul
- Author:
- Robert J. Art
- Publication Date:
- 09-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Today, economically wounded though it is, the United States nonetheless remains the world ʼ s most powerful state when power is measured in terms of economic and military assets. In the future, the U.S. economy will continue to grow, and the United States will remain the most powerful military nation on earth for some time to come. However, America ʼ s economic and military edge relative to the world ʼ s other great powers, will inevitably diminish over the next several decades.
- Topic:
- Economics
- Political Geography:
- United States and China
42. Psychological Reflections on Barack Obama and John McCain: Assessing the Contours of a New Presidential Administration
- Author:
- Stanley A. Renshon
- Publication Date:
- 09-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- On 20 January 2009, either Barack Obama or John McCain will place his hand on a bible, swear to uphold and defend the Constitution, and become the forty-fourth president of the United States. The new president will immediately become responsible for the issues on which he campaigned, those that he ignored but for which he will nonetheless be held accountable, and all those unanticipated issues for which he will also be expected to devise solutions.
- Political Geography:
- United States and Washington