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2. How to Stop Jihadist Foreign Fighters
- Author:
- Daniel Byman
- Publication Date:
- 09-2021
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- DANIEL BYMAN argues that the threat volunteers for al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and other jihadist groups pose is potentially grave, but that effective policy can profoundly reduce the danger. He argues that governments can disrupt the recruitment and travel of foreign fighters, hinder their time in war zones, and improve policing and intelligence gathering when they return.
- Topic:
- Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Jihad, and Foreign Fighters
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
3. Conformity: The Power of Social Influences, Cass R. Sunstein
- Author:
- Frank J. Gonzalez
- Publication Date:
- 09-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- In the polarized, post-truth, tribal era of politics that we find ourselves in, a book on conformity—how to understand it and take concrete steps toward diminishing it—should (rightfully) be expected to be of great interest to many. In Conformity: The Power of Social Influences, the prolific Cass R. Sunstein delivers exactly this. This book stands out from Sunstein’s other books in its focus on the broad societal implications of social influence. Sunstein grounds his argument in the principles underlying American democracy, and in doing so, he makes it difficult not to become depressed at how distant our current state of affairs seems from that ideal. However, Sunstein offers optimism in the form of a framework for actionable solutions. Sunstein begins with a model of the two major features of human psychology that he says reinforce conformity: (1) the tendency to believe something is true if others believe it is true (especially “confident” others) and (2) the desire for positive social standing and reputation. In Chapter 1, he explains how conformity is frequently harmful because it encourages individuals to suppress their “private signals” (that is, expressions of what they individually think is right or wrong), which decreases the diversity of ideas in a group and ultimately leads to undesirable outcomes. In Chapter 2, Sunstein advances beyond the framework he has traditionally worked within by considering cascades, or the spread of ideas and practices through conformity pressures, which ultimately give rise to social movements. He acknowledges that cascades are not necessarily “bad”—they are likely what led to the rise of the #MeToo movement—but they were also likely crucial to the propagation of genocide during the Holocaust.
- Topic:
- Book Review, Psychology, Political Science, and Polarization
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
4. Democracy and Prosperity: Reinventing Capitalism through a Turbulent Century, Torben Iversen and David Soskice
- Author:
- Christopher Way
- Publication Date:
- 07-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- In a climate of concern about the future of capitalism and democracy, this book provides a robust defense of both. Capitalism and democracy, Torben Iversen and David Soskice argue, are mutually reinforcing, and the combination has been remarkably successful over the past century. In what will probably be the most discussed part of the book, they anticipate that the symbiotic pair will continue to thrive, overcoming the challenges posed by populism and inequality. Democracy and Prosperity provides a challenge to those who believe that capitalism is increasingly unable to fulfill the needs of broad swaths of society and that democracy is creaking under the strains of populism.
- Topic:
- History, Democracy, Capitalism, and Book Review
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
5. Do Global Publics View Human Rights Organizations as Handmaidens of the United States?
- Author:
- David Crow and James Ron
- Publication Date:
- 03-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- David Crow and James Ron look at how global publics view the relationship between human rights organizations and the U.S. government. They argue that ordinary people across various world regions do not perceive human rights groups as “handmaidens” of U.S. foreign policy.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Government, Human Rights, Non-Governmental Organization, and Public Opinion
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus and United States of America
6. How Democracy Ends, David Runciman
- Author:
- Tom Ginsburg
- Publication Date:
- 01-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- It is hardly a secret that democracy is in trouble around the world, and the phenomenon of backsliding has prompted a small wave of books diagnosing the problem and suggesting solutions. David Runciman’s contribution to this literature is a breezy and readable tour through mechanisms and alternatives. Easily weaving political theory with grounded examples, he has produced a highly accessible analysis focusing more on diagnosis than cure. Runciman’s title is to be distinguished from accounts of how specific democracies are dying or what might be done to save constitutional democracy. Instead, he focuses on the idea that Western democracy is undergoing something of a midlife crisis. Nothing lasts forever, and while democracy has had a pretty good run, it now “looks exhausted in the places it has the deepest roots” (p. 72). Contemplating democracy’s death, the book is organized around a series of mechanisms by which this might come about: coup, environmental catastrophe, technological displacement, and the various alternatives of benevolent and not so benevolent authoritarianism that have been put on offer. His main argument is that while we are attracted to democracy because of its history, the past does not repeat itself, and we are likely to face new challenges not yet contemplated. If democracy dies, the autopsy will be a new one.
- Topic:
- Democracy, Book Review, and Political Science
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
7. Cultural Evolution: People’s Motivations are Changing, and Reshaping the World, Ronald F. Inglehart
- Author:
- George E. Marcus
- Publication Date:
- 07-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Consolidating more than four decades of research, Ronald F. Inglehart elaborates on the enlightenment story that reliance on science and technology enables nations to meet the material needs of their populations. To that story he adds that populations, finding their security needs being met, are increasingly abandoning materialist values for post-material values. The meaning of life satisfaction is changing. Inglehart advances this story by converting it into explicit hypotheses and subjecting them to extensive empirical testing. Inglehart marshals considerable evidence chiefly drawing on the World Values and European Values Surveys covering something on the order of 90 percent of the world’s population from 1981 to 2014. Along the way, Inglehart demonstrates the potent role of culture in advancing or retarding the overall trajectory of economic growth and life satisfaction. These shifts occur on a time scale marked in decades through intergenerational change.
- Topic:
- Culture, Book Review, Political Science, State, and Corporations
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
8. Are Politics Local? The Two Dimensions of Party Nationalization around the World, Scott Morgenstern
- Author:
- Arjan H. Schakel
- Publication Date:
- 07-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- The statement that geography matters for politics probably will not be contested by many political scientists. Therefore, it is quite surprising that few studies have systematically explored how the territorial distribution of preferences affects political processes and policy outcomes. This book by Scott Morgenstern is an important landmark study that puts geography high on the research agenda of comparative political science. Three features make this book worthwhile reading for scholars working on the nationalization of elections and parties. First, Morgenstern identifies two dimensions of party nationalization and shows that they are theoretically and empirically unrelated. Static nationalization refers to the extent to which party vote shares are homogeneously distributed across districts at a particular point in time. Dynamic nationalization taps into the consistency in the change of a party’s vote shares across time. The combination of these two dimensions leads to a useful fourfold categorization of nationalized, unstable, unbalanced, and locally focused parties. As Morgenstern shows in Chapters 7, 8, and 9, each type of party has different implications for electoral accountability and bill co-sponsorship among legislators.
- Topic:
- Politics, Book Review, Political Science, Political Parties, and Nationalization
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
9. American Grand Strategy and the Rise of Offensive Realism
- Author:
- Ionut Popescu
- Publication Date:
- 03-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- FOR MOST OF THE POST–COLD WAR ERA, and some say even as far back as the dawn of the Cold War, America’s grand strategy has been portrayed as having had its theoretical underpinnings in a liberal internationalist understanding of world politics. Washington’s role in the world, the dominant narrative goes, was that of a security and economic guarantor of a “liberal world order.” 1 More often than not, this world order was grounded in a set of rules and institutions that helped advance America’s goals but also generally promoted international peace, stability, and prosperity. In G. John Ikenberry’s words, America was a “liberal Leviathan.”
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
10. The Government‐Citizen Disconnect. Review
- Author:
- Christopher Wlezien
- Publication Date:
- 03-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Much research posits a “disconnect” between the public and government. This work focuses primarily on the behavior of politicians and the mismatch between their policy actions and citizens’ preferences. Suzanne Mettler’s book concentrates instead on the public and the degree to which people accurately perceive and appreciate what government does. This book complements her earlier work Submerged State, which delineated how many government policies, such as tax expenditures, are not visible to many citizens, which distorts their views. The Government‐Citizen Disconnect, by contrast, examines how experience with government policies influences what people think.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
11. Southern Nation: Congress and White Supremacy after Reconstruction. Book Review
- Author:
- David Bateman
- Publication Date:
- 03-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- In his treatise on southern politics, V.O. Key Jr. wrote that “in state politics the Democratic party is no party at all but a multiplicity of factions struggling for office. In national politics, on the contrary, the party is the Solid South; it is, or at least has been, the instrument for the conduct of the ‘foreign relations’ of the South with the rest of the nation” (Southern Politics in State and Nation [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949], 315). In an early (and laudatory) review of that book, Richard Hofstadter suggested that Key missed an opportunity to fully consider whether the South had affected national politics in more ways than through the reliable delivery of Democrats to Washington, but he noted that this might require another book (p. 7). David Bateman, Ira Katznelson, and John S. Lapinski have written that book. Southern Nation examines how the South influenced public policy, Congress, and the development of the American state from the close of Reconstruction to the beginning of the New Deal. The authors focus on the region’s role in national politics at a critical juncture when industrialization and a rapidly changing economy required new policy solutions. They show that the white South used this opportunity to rebuild its place in the federal government, secure home rule, and shape the national agenda
- Topic:
- Post Colonialism, Race, and International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
12. Welcoming New Americans? Local Governments and Immigrant Incorporation. Book Review
- Author:
- George Hawley
- Publication Date:
- 03-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Survey data consistently show that large swaths of the American electorate favor restrictionist immigration policies. Politicians at the state and national levels regularly campaign on promises to crack down on undocumented immigration and discuss immigrants as a source of crime and a drain on resources. They are often rewarded at the ballot box for doing so. Yet these facts coexist with another trend: relatively few municipal governments pursue restrictionist policies at the local level. In fact, even in places where the GOP dominates, policies that accommodate immigrants are more common than policies designed to drive them away.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
13. Migrants and Political Change in Latin America. Book Review
- Author:
- Clarisa Pérez-Armendáriz
- Publication Date:
- 03-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- How do international migrants affect their origin countries’ politics? Drawing on evidence from the cases of Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, Migrants and Political Change in Latin America argues that migrants gain new attitudes and economic resources as a result of experiences in their receiving countries that they then transmit to their origin countries through economic and social remittances and through return migration. Jiménez claims that by transmitting resources and ideas through these three channels, migrants create changes in the politics of their origin countries that they never intended or envisioned. These effects are mediated by local conditions in origin countries such as levels of education and wealth. Moreover, the social networks in which both types of remittances and return migrants are embedded augment their political effects.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
14. Campaign Finance Complexity: Before Campaigning Retain an Attorney
- Author:
- David L. Wiltse
- Publication Date:
- 03-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- In the study of candidate emergence, the cost term in the utility calculus has been of central concern. In this book, Mary Jo McGowan Shepherd makes a valuable contribution to the study of candidate emergence and campaign finance by considering how legal complexity increases the cost term in the emergence calculus. Grounded in complexity theory, she employs complexity measures of entire sections of state campaign finance laws to test whether candidates are deterred from running for office by the costs incurred in learning and complying with campaign finance law.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
15. Standoff: How America Became Ungovernable. Book Review
- Author:
- Kristen Coopie
- Publication Date:
- 03-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- In this book, former CNN analyst and current George Mason University professor Bill Schneider offers his take on the causes and implications of the growing partisan divide in the United States. Conflict exists between the “New America,” a product of the 1960s that “celebrates diversity in age, race, sexual orientation, and lifestyles” (p. 11), and the “Old America,” consisting of the “mostly white, mostly male, mostly older, mostly conservative, and mostly religious, and mostly nonurban,” (p. 2) which longs for the days when “the country was whiter, men were in charge, government was smaller, and religion was more influential” (p. 117). This rift is reflected in the parties and politics of the nation (it is easy to see how the “New America” is representative of the Democratic coalition and the “Old America” of the Republican Party), ultimately leading to the populist backlash that elected Donald Trump in 2016
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
16. Forecasting Models and the Presidential Vote
- Author:
- Kenneth Wink
- Publication Date:
- 03-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- FOR DECADES NOW, political scientists, journalists, campaign managers, and pundits have sought to predict the outcomes of elections well in advance of the day the votes are cast. As the ultimate office in the U.S. political system, the presidency has been the focus of much of this activity. Since the late twentieth century, a number of prognosticators in the discipline of political science have used forecasting models to predict presidential elections. These models have become visible in pre‐ and post‐ election coverage, and a sort of competition has emerged to produce the most accurate model whose variables offer the greatest amount of forecasting lead time before the election. Once considered “recreational political science,” forecasting presidential elections has become a cottage industry. Furthermore, the attention paid to the accuracy of these models has led to better explanations of election outcomes and allowed interested persons to see patterns in elections that are stable from year to year and to identify outlier elections and the factors that led to unique election outcomes.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
17. Unequal and Unrepresented: Political Inequality and the People’s Voice in the New Gilded Age
- Author:
- Kay Lehman Schlozman and Henry E Brady
- Publication Date:
- 03-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Who participates in American democracy? In particular, is it those with high levels of resources who most often vote, protest, contact elected officials, and discuss politics with friends? How unequal is political participation? Political scientists Kay Lehman Schlozman, Henry E. Brady, and Sidney Verba have contributed important answers to these questions over the past few decades. In their first book, Voice and Equality (1995) these scholars traced associations between resource possession and political participation, finding extensive evidence of inequalities in political voice. In their second book, The Unheavenly Chorus (2012), the authors reiterated and updated the analyses of the first. The authors also extended Voice and Equality in a number of ways, primarily by examining organizational-level as well as individual-level participatory inequalities, and by assessing the likely efficacy of various reform strategies.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
18. Cultural Evolution: People’s Motivations are Changing, and Reshaping the World
- Author:
- F Inglehart
- Publication Date:
- 03-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Consolidating more than four decades of research, Ronald F. Inglehart elaborates on the enlightenment story that reliance on science and technology enables nations to meet the material needs of their populations. To that story he adds that populations, finding their security needs being met, are increasingly abandoning materialist values for post-material values. The meaning of life satisfaction is changing.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
19. Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances. Book Review
- Author:
- Victor Asal
- Publication Date:
- 03-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Over the last 20 years, research in the area of terrorism studies has expanded enormously in many directions, including studies focusing on terrorist events as well as on individual behavior and the behavior and characteristics of organizations. One of the topics that has been of great interest to researchers of terrorist organizations is the nature, impact, and cause of terrorist organizational alliances. From Marc Sageman’s groundbreaking book Understanding Terror Networks and a growing body of articles and books, researchers are trying to understand the impact of such connections on terrorist organizations. There is still a lot of research, though, that needs to be done in this area. For example, Sageman’s book focuses more on internal connections and especially on jihadist organizations. Much of the other literature focuses on organizations allying in the same milieu.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
20. Are Politics Local? The Two Dimensions of Party Nationalization around the World
- Author:
- Arjan H. Schakel
- Publication Date:
- 03-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- The statement that geography matters for politics probably will not be contested by many political scientists. Therefore, it is quite surprising that few studies have systematically explored how the territorial distribution of preferences affects political processes and policy outcomes. This book by Scott Morgenstern is an important landmark study that puts geography high on the research agenda of comparative political science. Three features make this book worthwhile reading for scholars working on the nationalization of elections and parties.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
21. Gendered Vulnerability: How Women Work Harder to Stay in Office
- Author:
- Kelly Dittmar
- Publication Date:
- 03-2019
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- In this book Jeffrey Lazarus and Amy Steigerwalt leverage an impressive data collection to make the case that women legislators are more active and more responsive to their constituents than men. Moreover, they offer a theoretical argument to explain why women appear to work harder to meet constituent needs and demands, suggesting that women legislators’ perceptions of their electoral vulnerability—even as incumbents—motivate them to focus their legislative efforts on proving to their constituents that they are worthy of re-election.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
22. Unstable Majorities: Polarization, Party Sorting, and Political Stalemate
- Author:
- Matt Grossmann
- Publication Date:
- 03-2019
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Everyday claims that the United States is descending into a culture war of two polarized and irreconcilable parties deserve more scrutiny. Morris P. Fiorina has been at the forefront of assessing and pushing back against this view, especially the blame placed on the American public. Unstable Majorities goes beyond this important myth busting to offer an explanation for contemporary paralysis: many Americans have sorted into two minority parties with distinct issue positions, but both sides have empowered their officials to overreach in office, losing the support of independents in subsequent elections and thus having to share and alternate power.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus